Happy birthday to moi

Hurraaay! It’s my birthday today as I’m a year older today, and of course, another year closer to my grave, isn’t it? I don’t personally count birthdays or any other anniversaries as overtly special, as I believe every single day calls for celebration for the most wonderful gift of all: waking up to the knowledge that you are still breathing and alive, although whether you or someone else believe you are more useful alive or dead is another topic altogether.

This particular birthday is kind of special in that it was the same date, the same day, the same month, those many years ago that one morning, in some far-flung place amongst the innings of a certain woman, I, after adjusting my initial posture, jumped down into this world, feet first (yes I’m sure I came feet first) through a tiny hole between the woman’s legs. Some nine months or so prior to that, two young people both of Edo extraction, one estrogen-filled, the other testosterone-pumped and both certainly adrenaline-charged, had one hot afternoon (it has to have happened not on a morning or evening), cuddled into each other’s arms and proceeded into a little room where they locked the world out in the heat of canal passion. they had been that determined to display their erotic prowess to each other. A little boy had emerged from that tiny hole about nine months after, as a product of that brazen exercise of biological liberty and conjugal right.

Sometime afterward, someone somewhere had, after what I suspect must have been painstaking consideration, pronounced the new child Jibril. Later on, someone also added another name, calling the boy Oyake, meaning ‘it is a human being we desire’. The little boy later decided that Oyake was somewhat outlandish, even inane, in meaning. Bless you, what else should we expect to result from a pregnancy by a human being, a piece of rock or bamboo? Suffice to say that the boy changed that mundane name, first to Amhanoghena = ‘you can’t decide for God,’ through many others, before finally settling for the potentially tongue-wrenching Atsaguoghena (God’s ways are beyond prediction), a name he has only once ever used in writing and rarely even been called by. However, he pays pecuniary attention to the usage of his other name as he has spent the last one score-plus years protecting it from being bastardised with variants like Zibri, Jubril, Jubrila, Jibrin, Jubrin, Jibiri, etc. It is that boy - Jibril’s -birthday today.

Now, I know that since I am not blowing out any candles on a birthday cake today, then I should at least, make a birthday wish. So, I will make three. And dear God, I know that when earlier this morning I sat down praying to you for what I am about to ask of you again now, I, for whatever reason, shut only one eye while pretending to shut both (as if I even needed to close the eyes), I hope you can all the same overlook that tiny winy indiscretion and consider this particular request as I make it again.

You see, I have been under intense scrutiny lately from friends and relations who feel that I should have some company of the opposite sex each time they see me. They fear that I might not be doing something right, hence the fact that, as they accuse me of, they don’t know my girlfriend and I don’t seem to have any immediate plans to marry. If I must convince them of my desire to marry, they say it must be noticed in my ability to punctuate every of my contribution to a conversation with “my girlfriend,” “my fiancée,” and so on. Even the ones, both male and female, who are geriatrics compared to me and who are as unattached as a baby separated from its umbilical cord, also subject me to this verbal volley. And I am only just one score and some years old o.

Dear giver of wife (girlfriend and fiancée first), please let this be the day you start to direct my girlfriend-cum-fiancee-cum-wife my way. Actually my specifications are not that stringent. Please let her be in the mould of an Agbani Darego, but hey, not quite an Agbani. I mean lips like Angelina Jolie’s should be part of her bucal package, and they should not be quite as large as Jolie’s. Of course, you know Rita Dominic, ehen, just some hybrid of hers and Jolie’s, or preferably Salma Hayek’s. The eyes should be set like Bimbo Akintola’s, half asleep, half awake, but they should also carry as much fire as Regina Askia’s. That is not to say I want her to have exactly Askia’s eyes o, just telling you that they should inculcate an element from hers. In case that is confusing you, how about Ayo Adesanya’s eyes, I’d like those too, OK, maybe not entirely, at least not in exactly the same size, perhaps in the size and with the colour of that Indian woman, what's her name now? Yes, Aishwarya Rai’s own.

As for her legs, dear giver of woman, I’d prefer one with Tina Turner’s legs - strong, straight and without blemish, but they should not be quite as big either. Let them come in a similar package to the ones a sixteen-year-old Whitney Elizabeth Houston had, but maybe not as skinny, close to Beyonce’s, but not really in that size. Mmmmh... ok just let them be somewhere in between Halle Berry’s and Anna Kournikova’s legs (hope you still remember Anna?).

I have told you before that she should be like an Agbani, and I hope you realise that means she should not be an orobo? And you also realize that that does not mean I want a stick figure, abi? Let me summarise that thus: bust: check; hips: double check; breast: check, check, check. Let me remind you that this does not mean I want a Cossy Ojiakor or a Ronke Oshodi Oke, just something between Salma Hayek, JLo, with a tincture of Omowunmi Akinifesi, with the dimples, although in Jenifer Garner’s dimple size and with the wacky appeal of Funmi Iyanda’s own.

Then, giver of wife, let me not bother you too much with details of her intellectual composition, but just know that I would prefer anything in that respect to include the spontaneity of Funmi Iyanda. She must also be able to speak the English language with a hybrid accent from Queen Elizabeth II, Omotayo Omotosho, Bimbo Oloyede and Joke Silva, to start with. It doesn’t matter how she achieves it, she should just manage to do it. Lest I forget, as my standard test, she must also be one who can pronounce water as water instead of worer, wotaah or any such ridiculous modes. This is in addition to pronouncing chair as chair, instead of share, sheer, chei, chear, cheer, etc. And also … ok even I am exhausted now, so I’ll save the rest for now.

Over to request number two, dear mighty One. Please, biko, jowo, dan Allah, abeg, tse, s'il vous plait, when I go to sleep later tonight, I want to wake up tomorrow morning to the knowledge that Chief Dr. Lecturer Mr. Alhaji Mallam Go-slow Umaru, son of Musa Yar’adua, GCON, GCFR, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has finally woken up from what right now, still seems to me like a two-and-half-years-long slumber on duty. Either this, dear God or that he has decided to take a break and has handed in a resignation letter. If you saw the front page of the Guardian newspaper on Thursday, you may be able to understand how urgently he needs to heed to my alternative solution.

Finally, just like Robert Frost, I’d like to take a little holiday, not to Hawaii, not to decadent Las Vegas, not to Obudu Cattle Ranch, not to divine Bahamas, not to sexy Las Palmas and not to Dubai, but to somewhere out of this world, somewhere beyond the clouds above, although not in an aeroplane or space machine. But may no fate willfully misunderstand me and snatch me away forever.

Second finally, God bless Nigeria, starting with me, of course!

Hip! Hip!! Hip!!!