The Underutilization of Ibiene: Prose

I sit in my mother’s large bedroom, home from a long battle – and by ‘long battle’ I mean job hunting. I told my friend I was ‘resting my feet in Warri’ and he told me, “Rest well. Just don’t get too lazy.”

 

For a while now I have been feeling underutilized; I should be a film maker or a photographer or an actress or a renowned poet or a criminologist or a psychologist or a loyal PA to some big shot… or all of the above wrapped into one joyous, workaholic ball. I cannot for the life of me figure out what I am still doing bouncing around in this field of unemployment.

I get preoccupied with thoughts like, “Why can’t I find a job I love with a company that isn’t bent on driving me insane?” or “Why didn’t I just go against my father’s fatherly advice and move to New York?” or “Why didn’t I study something awesome like Classical Civilization in college or Political Science in university…” And on and on. Literally. The thoughts rummage and rummage so that, instead of simply being broke, unemployed and underutilized, I add ‘on the verge of a nervous breakdown’ to the list.

Yesterday was Independence Day. I heard the President say – and I am sure he had a very upright motive – “a new committee has been set up to aid national communication.” Those are the kinds of words I personally believe sooth our ears and waste our time because our gutters are still open, our children are still hawking pure water and La Casera on the highways and – you guessed it – we still have power cuts.

I have always known Nigeria to be the utmost of oxymorons. The same country that generates world renowned danceable music and spirited entertainment has, for over two years now, had an epidemic called Boko Haram. And don’t we all know the theories behind Boko Haram; how maybe it is an inside job and maybe when Buhari said in 2011, “Nigeria will be made ungovernable” this is what he meant.

And then you get the very rich – rumour has it, people rich enough to rent out a suite at the Hilton in Abuja for a whole year (“Should in case I have a meeting in Abuja at some point during the year”) – and the extremely poor who live on about a hundred naira a day. 

So I thought I should be a consultant. Maybe I have harnessed enough experience, exposure and education to charge someone for an hour of my time. Maybe I can rent a nice looking office building in Lekki, Lagos – Ibiene Consulting – and buy myself a neat MacBook Pro. Those houses in Lekki are so nice. I remember going to Lekki to see someone and on the way back I was looking at all the houses as I walked by – or at least at the pretty fences and gates harbouring them – and I thought, All this wealth.

So maybe I could have a consulting firm in Ikeja instead and consult on. On. Literally… I have stopped typing and now I am seriously thinking… On poems. Maybe I could be a Poetry Consultant. Ibiene Consulting – Specialist in Poetry Consulting.

Sounds good.