Too Many Jobless Ghosts Around

 

Until October 23, 2005, Lisa was a sleepy community. It slept when civilization started; and even slept through a plane crash. But not anymore. Now, day or night, Lisa has lost sleep. To heavy traffic and noise. By now, every “big man” has visited Lisa, at least, to be on record that he sympathised with General Obasanjo. A chance of political association with the president. Well, Lisa people may not mind seeing flashy cars for once, but the noise?

 

Lisa was a quiet village. Not anymore. That makes the peasants feel uneasy. Threatened. The heavy traffic - human and vehicular. So, they start imagining things. Hallucination. Ah! Ghosts!  

 

Lisa’s eyes are now wide open. Somebody either talked “sense” into the people or offered to lead them to “light.” To hell with subsistent farming, the jobless people now want to create jobs. A very unique one that no government has thought of, so far. Fighting ghosts! And with just N2million, too. 

 

Fighting ghosts is such a nice idea. All the 117 of them. My only worry is that many of the Lisa folks may not be able to handle submachine guns. For, if we must fight ghosts, we need sophisticated weapons to blast them to smithereens. I wonder why nobody contacted those folks to fight the stench and fog that enveloped Lagos, recently. 

 

Fighting the crash ghosts may create temporary jobs for Lisa people, but what if the ghosts win? And they might. Okay, America’s George Bush might offer to help the Lisa people with modern bombs. His General died in that crash, didn’t he? But the ghosts could “finish” humans with a swing of the fuselage. Or with the kind of confusion that enveloped search and rescue.

 

Those Lisa people must be pretty simple and frugal. How in hell did they imagine they could use just N2million to fight 117 ghosts? That must be the “under-budgeting” of the century. Fighting ghost is a serious business. Some ghosts are more powerful than others. And you need very sophisticated equipment to know which of the ghosts you are fighting. They should have asked for, at least, N234 billion – N2billion on every ghost. Then, prepare a supplementary budget of N468billion for the burial of the ghosts. That’s how these things are done in civilised places like Abuja.

 

Yes, we must fight some ghosts. Especially, the ghosts of incompetence. Ghosts of playing politics with life. Start with the aviation industry – the minister, NEMA, NCAA and cows, sorry, NAMA. The whole works. The whole cows! Any ghost, with whatever name, linked to the recent crash must not be spared. No sacred ghosts, please. We must also fight ghosts of archaic and malfunctioning equipment.

 

We don’t need to fight the ghosts of victims of the Lisa crash. You don’t fight friendly ghosts, do you? It’s immoral to victimise a victim. Instead, I suggest those Lisa ghosts be employed. For they can only cause problems if they are jobless. Remember what they say about the devil finding work for an idle hand? Yes, if we remove the incompetent “cows” managing our airspace and runways, perhaps, we might get the support of all the plane-crash ghosts. 

 

Lisa people want to fight plane crash ghosts. But aren’t we all living ghosts? How many ghosts can we fight? Too many of them around here – jobless. You see them everyday. Everywhere. In different forms. Ravaged by hunger, insecurity and poverty, they turn “violent ghosts” – area boys, cultists, ethnic-militia, robbers, etc - fighting those they see as “humans.” But aren’t the real humans those in power?

 

I’d always thought there must be a ghost for everything, but I wasn’t sure until Lisa people mentioned it. And there must be ghosts from every disaster – Ikeja bomb blasts, Jalingo Bridge / boat mishaps, etc.  From every road crash. From every air crash - C130, ADC, EAS, Harka, etc. From every political massacre– Odi, Zaki Biam, Bakassi, etc. From every ethno-religious clash – Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Lagos, Ogun, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Osun, Anambra, etc. So, if we fight the Lisa crash ghosts, we must fight the others, too. I guess we need a Minister of Ghost Fighting. Since the idea came from Lisa, the appointment could be zoned there, thank you.

In my village, there are many ghosts. In the bars, you’d meet some drinking their lives away. They call it drowning sorrows. But after they drown themselves in the drinks, the “sorrows” resurface. Like the incompetence in aviation industry. Like the carefree politics our leaders play with lives. One plane crash after another, we call in experts and patronize the nation with doubletalk. Then the reports are left for spiders to spin webs. The suggested changes are never effected.

In my village, there are so many ghosts – especially in the night. Mostly seen by feeble-minded. In dark places, a shrub becomes a ghost. And a reflection of moonlight on banana leave is a ghost, too. Only the advent of electric light “killed” them. So, Hey! Can’t somebody focus a searchlight on the “ghosts” tormenting our aviation?

Don’t fight the Lisa ghosts, yet. Since you have to see them before fighting, somebody should “ask” them what caused the crash. The Baale of Lisa, for instance, should send somebody to “interview” Captain Lambert Imasuen. That way, we won’t have to wait eternally for a black box that isn’t exactly black. I would have volunteered to go for the interview, but I’m a bit busy right now. Besides, I need permission from my wife and that might take too long. You see, she may not be happy that I’m a poor man, but she doesn’t like me traveling. 

Anyway, since the Lisa people might see Imasuen first, they should please tell him his ghost is needed at home. His family is about stripping his wife naked. Imagine! They didn’t even wait for their brother’s ghost to rest before fighting the distraught widow for material things. As if they gave her anything to keep. Or helped the couple to gather wealth.

I may be a village man, but sometimes, I’m an “unbeliever”. When it gets to this junction, I don’t believe in either tradition or ghosts. If there was ghost, Imaseun would not be buried at Lisa while his wife and kids are dispossessed of even the air. By his sister. And mother. Haba! If there was ghost, somebody would have been slapped silly by now. And it wouldn’t be Imasuen’s wife, kids or me.

The other ghosts we need to fight now are inhuman families of the crash victims. Those who insist on enjoying what they didn’t help build. Families taking advantage of the dead. Families insulting and contradicting even their beliefs in ghosts and hereafter.

To hell with pretentious traditions that talk about revering the dead; yet desecrate the deceased’s wife and home. A tradition that welcomes marriage only because of drinks, food and money. But ignores the implications and expectations of the union. To hell with the belief in ghost, translating into nothing for the loved ones left behind. If ghosts exist, would all husband-ghosts merely watch their wives and kids suffer woes from their wicked family members? I doubt. 

Anyway, as a community-conscious person, I’m always thinking of how to help my people. And making money in the process. So, when the Lisa folks finish “killing” all the ghosts, they should label them. Then, I would publish all the names free. After they’ve gathered enough money for one page ad only.

 

• First published in Saturday Sun of  Nov 05, 2005