Ssh! Megida Is Resting!!

We are starting Vox POPilogue this week with two reactions to the previous Vox POPilogue. Open the door for Mike Epue and Diana Omars, both of Warri, Delta State. Epue first.

Thank you. Vox POPilogue of June 22, 2009 (Baba Na Boy?) refers. Your versatility cuts across the mundane to the didactic such that it is infectious. Aha, from aboniki to bonga fish bone to dominus vobiscum! Na wah for you!

Et tu Epue? Na wah for you, too. I wonder why you've chosen to join those who tempt me with a swollen head that has the potential of making me fall like Humpty-Dumpty if care is not taken. Well, it's all in a day's job. But those whose palm kernels are cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should never forget to be humble. Please, don't tell Chinua Achebe that I stole his proverb lest you are charged along with being an accessory after the fact of copyright infringement — or, worse still, plagiarism!

Opilogue, I hail o! I hear say somebody talk am say dem fit beat you up because of Opilogue. Nobody fit touch you. Abi dem no know say Opilogue get many followers like me who go go to the court wey dey for The Hague to fight because of you? Abi dem think say Opilogue na Bakassi? Make dem be careful o.

Thanks, Dianna, Princess of Wales, sorry, Warri. I don do my own security research. We get am for incantation for inside Bible, like this: "Nobody dares raise an arm to beat yinmin yinmin (dung beetle - an insect that removes dung by rolling it and in the process covering itself up with faeces)... When a child carries firewood infested with termites and poisonous insects, he hurriedly throws them away. The day an angry Adam sees an Eve in the Garden of Eden, that's the day he will forget all his unromantic, evil machinations". Did you ask whether this holy incantation can be found in the old or new testament? Don't ask me. Ask Brother Ikumapayi, my late Sunday school teacher.

By the way, is comedy one of the criteria for studying journalism? You always make my week after reading Opilogue. Blessing A, Port Harcourt.

No, but a small dose of humour does no harm to the nation's BP (blood pressure).

Some people may be thrilled about the way you displayed and presented the conversation between the creek militant and the expartriate oil worker (re: Waiting for Our Own Moses, TELL, June 8, 2009) but what touched me most was the picture of the wretched house and its occupants. I sincerely share in the grief of the Niger Deltans. Akpa Jude Osita, Enugu.

We all have no choice but to pity the 'overmidwifed' goose that lays the golden eggs that fill our foreign exchange basket to the brim.

I must thank you for showing the world what the Niger Delta really looks like. The bungalow in the picture looks like the palace of the king of my village built 700 years ago. John Iyagbaye, Ayobo, Lagos.

You can keep a photocopy of that picture as a memento of man's inhumanity to man right under his own roof..

Re: Crucifixion of the Faithful, TELL, June 1, 2009. There is what is called epikai in Moral Theology. Abortion is the worst crime against humanity. If Christ said that we should allow little children to come to Him, it can only be done if we allow them to be born and not aborted. This is my own opilogue territory. Don't trespass! Rev. Fr. U S Mbonu, Orlu.

Thou sayest.

Your message in Come and See What Ekiti Did to Mama, TELL, May 11, 2009, brings to the fore the kind of democracy and politicians we have in this country. Owa John Chuks, Port Harcourt.

Thank God, you didn't say more than that. I had thought you were going to say that we are all living in a fools' paradise.

Let me say this: The title for that Opilogue was supposed to be "Come and See What Mama Did to Ekiti" and not "Come and See What Ekiti Did to Mama". In fact, she should be given a Ph.D in Confusion. She was able to confuse even the PDP. Oyinloye Kehinde, Tede, Oyo State.

Ph.D Confusion? The more you look, the less you see. The irony of it all is that while we are all shouting ourselves hoarse here and suffering from political insomnia, Mama is reported to be enjoying her conscience and sleeping cooooolehhh...on Anglofoam (or is it Vitafoam?) mattress in obodo oyibo. Do not say I told you.

Re: Slow Down. Reluctant Leaders at Work, TELL, June 15, 2009. Please tell Megida to proceed to the White House to find out what stuff a born-to-run leader like Obama is made of. Ayo Ademuyiwa, Ode Omu, Osun State.

Please have mercy on Megida. The engine is willing but the chasis is weak. He is just too fragile for the cut-throat, fast-food politics of this country. Yes, he may have the gun but he doesn't have the energy to pull the trigger. So, let him be. Do not kill him with excessive speed.

Indeed, speed kills! No wonder our present leader is yet to declare a state of emergency in the power sector after two years of making such a promise. He has forgotten that he promised to do so in the first 100 days of his administration. Please remind him that God said "let there be light" and there was light. Rev. U Wilson, Sabongida Ora, Edo State.

Eh! Softly, softly. Megida is not God. Moreover, electricity is not something you play with with wet hands. He is already having cold sweat over the myriad of problems confronting the country. So let him take his time until the Second Coming when he must have become a born-again Megida.

No, slow and steady don't win races anymore. Tina Amadi, Lagos.

You may be right. Even the tortoise has changed tactics! The man in question may kuku (just) put the nation's vehicle in reverse gear. Afterall, if he doesn't know where he is taking us, at least he should be able to take us back to the very bus stop where he picked us in 2007. And that may be even great progress from where we are now.

Thanks for the down-to-earth analysis of our problems. It's either reluctant persons or criminals in power. Pastor O. Shingyu (no address).

P-a-a-s-t-o-r! Okay, let's pray. "God, give us men with vision and mission to lead us out of this Babylon to the Promised Land not full of oil and gas but full of great minds who can think of squeezing something out of nothing like the Japanese and the Singaporeans". Pastor, I can't hear you say 'Amen'. Abi you dey vex true, true?

It's proof that we've never had it good in terms of leaders. A disheartening situation, indeed. Kris Omotosho, Abeokuta.

Cry, the beloved country...Shhh, Alan Paton must not hear that in his grave. It has become a "redundant cliche" even in South Africa, the land of Rev. Khumalo.

I must commend your Opilogues. They are addictive. I even looked up your blog. It's great. Carry go. Engr. Obinna, Aba.

Carry go ke? I think it's you who should carry the blog and go spread the gospel like the man below.

I saw your picture on the internet the other day. At least I now know the Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole (Brave hunter in the forest of a thousand demons). Omotayo Taofiq, Ilorin.

The person you saw in that picture cannot kill a dead rat not to talk of a living tiger. Wherein lies his (ogboju) bravery? By the way, are you really sure it's me you saw? I just hope this is not another case of optical illusion, for illusions, optical and all, are the order of the day in Niagara!!