Cheating On FeBuhari 14

On New Year's Day, I surprised my parents with a family visit in their Lagos home. There was everything nostalgic about being with the parents and celebrating the first day of 2015 together. These grand parents had a specialty in spoiling their grand kids with love. We were enjoying every bit of our stay. Suddenly, my dad walked through the front door with a young man. We exchanged pleasantries and my dad introduced him as a Prophet. If I took a chance with his age, I'd say he was twenty seven years old. He was a Medical Doctor but had gone into full time prophetic ministry soon after graduating from Medical School. Since I found it quite odd, I was quick to judge his decision and I blamed it on the poor unemployment state in the country. He reassured me that it had nothing to do with it but had everything to do with a calling he clearly heard from God. Somehow we got talking and veered into politics as it was usual with my person. We hadn't chatted for about ten minutes when the young prophet got into his element and began to prophesy.

"GEJ will win the forthcoming elections and there will be post-election violence in parts of Nigeria but-," he said, and then paused. Silence overtook the living room. He raised his head to the ceiling probably listening to The Voice and then he continued, "-but Nigeria will not disintegrate.”

I heaved a deep sigh. I wasn't sure if it was one of relief or of fear. I quickly excused myself pretending to need the rest room. I was one who respected the things of God but this particular one didn't augur down well with me. I would confess to being a little upset with the young prophet's predictions about GEJ. I was one on propaganda for Change. I left my parents' home with a bad taste in my mouth.

 I worked in a government establishment and I shared an open office with a colleague.

"What are you doing?" Ibinabo asked.

"Booking flights to the US for my family. They must be out of Nigeria before the elections."

"What about you?"

"I'll join them after the elections," I said. The noise of laughter roared in the air. "Nigeria is not safe at a time like this and I worry about post-election violence. In that instance, I'll just cut out."

            My Twitter handle was @Iamforchange2015 and I enjoyed the attention I got from my 188,673 followers. I spent most of the office time tweeting about campaigns and the forth coming elections. Once I arrived at work, my laptop had Facebook and Twitter web pages open. In the toilet, I switched over to my Smartphone. How could I miss a second off social media in a heated period like this? I tried to convince friends that I was great at multi-tasking so could coordinate official assignments alongside managing my Twitter account all within the space of 8.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. Ibinabo had argued that it was unethical for one to give the establishment divided hours and attention during work hours but I had a different opinion about things. I was all about change. When the Head of Human Resources issued a memo to all staff regarding the new policy of deactivating social media sites from the internet, I stopped. My Samsung S5 was now equal to the task.

On Wednesday morning, two days to Valentine's Day, I escorted my wife, three kids and the nanny to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja. They were en- route Heathrow and headed to Baltimore. As I drove out of the airport, my phone beeped with a text message, Hey babes.  Have they left? Pick me up on your way home. I grinned. It was from Amara my girlfriend. She knew how to show up in the nick of time.

#Votenotfight was now a cliché. #SaiBuhari, #FeBuhari14, #Change and #GMB15 were familiar hashtags on Twitter. I had stirred up quite a number of supporters online for the pro-Buhari campaign. Somewhere in my head I hoped if he won the elections that he would recruit Twitter lords like me to work in his government. Senior Adviser to the President on Social Media sounds like a feasible role to be created. Or maybe something like Reenor's position. The dude earned a living from tweeting effortlessly yet tweeting was what I did as a hobby.

This was going to be my first Valentine away from my wife and I truly was not thankful to INEC for making this possible. As citizens, INEC's message was obvious; Couples were meant to play romance at the polling boots or better still couples should romance their preferred presidential candidates on Valentine's Day. On some days I found myself exhausted from typing 140 characters in frenzy, telling stories of how my beloved Nigeria deteriorated to this point. Sometimes I sent fifty tweets in ten minutes. I was that good and that addicted to Twitter. At Town Park Garden, on Friday evenings guys would meet up after a long day at work. Take note, I said long day. But a long day doing what? Tweeting I hate to say. Okoro said, "Do you know you work harder than the MrFixNaija Twitter handle. The job description is basically to tweet-promote PDP even if the tweets make no sense." I burst into a hysterical laugh. Whatever Okoro meant, truly I didn't understand. So far it was a jab at PDP, it sounded funny and I owed him lots of laughter. As we sat around the table, no matter how I tried, my eyes and right thumb wouldn’t let go of my keypad. My eyes were teary and the tip of my thumb had a flat funny shape. They had begun to hurt but it didn't matter. These were some sacrifices I had to pay for Change. I tweeted, "Corruption and insecurity are two life lines to be fixed to get the country back on track". Instantly, Retweets followed and in a short time span, it earned 297 RETWEETS and 124 FAVOURITES.

I returned to the table from the rest room. I signaled to the waitress to get me roasted fish and another bottle of Star. This was my third bottle since we got there two hours ago.

"Those trains amuse me. If I asked you now what GEJ has done, you’ll pull up the picture of trains," I said. In recent times, my discussion of politics was one-sided. I was fanatical about my new passion but receptive to opposing opinions. Yusuf was the only one in our midst that bore his mind openly about giving GEJ another chance. He would go on and on about the trains. My God! Core PDP fans had an unsold book titled; The electric Train and Other Senseless Stories.

"Haba Tunde! How can you say that? He has tried in the areas of infrastructure, agriculture and employment. It's just this insecurity messing him up. Corruption sef, he is tackling with IT. Cut him some slack please."

"Please I want Buhari and he's the change Nigeria needs with or without a WASC certificate. It doesn't matter. 70 is the new 30. We pray long life for him and good health," Ibinabo said and puffed balls of smoke from his cigarette stick.

"My guy, PDP can't convince Nigerians anymore about what good lay in store if the present government came back to power," I said looking at Ibinabo.

"Abeg, I am not voting Buhari. He doesn’t look like one who would elect any women into his government," Ibinabo's girlfriend said. She came across as one who would choose the Complete Fashion magazine over a Nigerian newspaper any day. I didn't pay attention to her weightless and uninformed statement. I turned to Amara and stroked her thigh, "You've been quiet. Are you alright babes? "

"Tunde, you've been on your phone tweeting politics and you ask if I'm alright?" she said and shrugged her shoulder.

"Sorry nah. You know how these things can be distracting." I moved my plastic chair closer to hers, emptied the bottle of Maltina into her glass cup and leaned my head on her arm. I used my hand to chase away the mosquito singing in my left ear. The life band was setting up their musical instruments. Everywhere was a bit dark. The roasted peppered fish had just arrived and we began to dig in with forks.

Two of us on the table had shipped our families overseas and were marking time with the girlfriends except Yusuf. Yusuf had a zealous stance on marching his entire household to the polling booth tomorrow. He had ensured his wife, two cousins, a nanny, the gate man and mum-in-law got their PVCs. 

"I can't play with the chances here. This is a very tight contest and every vote counts. My house people know it is GEJ all the way."

My phone buzzed with a text message. While reading it, I patted Amara' s back to calm her down. It was from The Missus.  Just woke up. Only got a sim today. We've been travelling like forever. Still having jet lag tins. Kids are cranky. Talk later Love.  Amara always knew when I read my wife's messages. How these girlfriends could tell, walahi I don't know. Our relationship wasn't an extravagant one. Yeah, we had done one or two trips to Lagos together. She claimed to be with me because the single Abuja boys had broken her heart to pieces; A story for the gods. I remember her speech to me at the bank, "Being with a married man is more reassuring.  You're married and knowing that doesn't give me a headache because that’s where it stops." Amara wasn't prettier than The Missus. Nothing about her was better yet I found myself stuck with her. Maybe she was using jazz. She worked in one of those banks.

"Guys, the elections are tomorrow. We will party hard tonight because I know it's about Buhari. He has won in advance," I said in excitement.

We hooked up with more friends in another joint and afterwards bar-hopped with the ladies around the city. Of course Yusuf didn't join us. I stared at the numbers on the door. Room 63. They looked like B3. It was about 5 a.m. when Amara and I got to our favorite secluded hotel in Area 11, Garki. The staff had gotten used to us by now.  I opened the fridge for a bottle of water and emptied it into my mouth. I peered into the bathroom mirror and my bloodshot eyes stared at me. I had connected with alcohol well and now high enough to cuddle Amara. But before I jumped into bed, I made sure I texted The Missus, Happy Valentine’s Day Love. Kiss the kids for me. I love you dearly. Call you soon. I littered the text with kiss emoticons.

                                                                  ***

I stretched for my wrist watch on the bedside table. 3 p.m.! How could I have overslept? Today was FeBuhari 14. The long awaited day I was to 'Romance Buhari'. I rolled over my side underneath the duvet. Amara 's large busts nudged me in the face. My foot could tell she was dressed as Eve in the Garden of Eden. I could tell she was not asleep. I thought, last night was something else with the sexcapades. Here were some good tidings beside me and I had to choose between them and Buhari. If caught, I was guilty of cheating on FeBuhari 14^. Firstly, cheating on The Missus and secondly, on Buhari. I rubbed my sleepy eyes with my knuckles. They felt sticky. I needed a towing van to pull me out of bed. In my head, I had begun creating a million excuses why I could dodge the polling booth. I reached for my wallet and gazed at my PVC. The more I looked at it, the more it had a semblance to a Drivers License. I switched on my phone and a barrage of voice mail messages flowed in. Of course Yusuf had called severally. Ibinabo too. My Black Berry Messenger was full of unread messages. I thought aloud, “You know what? I'm just going to stay indoors, watch Channels TV, tweet about the polls and have nonstop sex. After all, Nigeria wasn’t that safe and I won't kill myself for Buhari.” I scrolled down my Timeline on Twitter and typed, “Happy Valentine’s Day folks! Happy FeBuhari 14th! Let’s make history with our votes. Are you at your Polling Stations?” My followers began the Retweet tradition and were tweeting back at me.

My ticket to join The Missus and kids was already booked. The next day, I hopped on the British Airways flight as my annual leave had begun. I wasn't going to stay behind to witness the aftermath of the elections. I planned to be back in a fortnight. The young prophet's prophecy resounded in my head. I had social media at my finger tips. And yes, I continued to tweet like I was in Nigeria; acquiring more followers with my "powerful" political tweets, gaining more grounds on Twitter as a Twitter Celebrity and sometimes a Twitter Tout. Twitter in Nigeria was in its hottest state with the PDP and APC fans having a go at each other and waiting for results to be announced officially.