Bastard money everywhere!

We all dream dreams. While some dreams come to pass, some don’t. In fact, most dreams oftentimes come around to laugh at the dreamers! From my childhood, I had always nursed the desire of becoming one of the richest men in this world, if not the wealthiest. The greatest opportunity to actualise my ambition came banging on my door when I was hovering around 10. But my old man aborted it without knowing it, making my dreams to mock me later in life.
This was how it happened. One afternoon, the old man sent me on an errand. He spat on the ground and warned that the saliva must not dry up before I returned. It was a way of telling errand boys to be fast.

Midway on the errand, I sighted a motley crowd that formed a ring round a magician from a distance. I was to race past the crowd but for the chorus that was ringing out of their throats, thus: “Come and see America wonda, come and see America wonda, come and see America wondaaaa, America wonda!”
So, I veered off the errand route to see the America wonda… just to satisfy my curiosity after which I would race on. Imagine an America wonda in faraway Kumasi, Ghana where I was growing up. I elbowed my way through the ring formed by the crowd and eventually found my way to the front row. Fascinated, I joined the choristers, praying that my dad’s saliva would not dry up. At the centre of the America wonda was a young, bearded man. He wore a tight-fitting jacket with a piece of cloth hanging from his shoulders down to his heels; he cut a picture of superman. With him were three acolytes.

After singing our throats hoarse, the magician waved his finial, indicating that we should shut up so that the America wonda could begin. First, he waved an empty bowl. Then he covered it with a piece of red cloth. After encircling the bowl with the finial for a couple of minutes, what did we see? We saw a bowl of rice and stew submerged under fattened chicken. I resisted the urge to partake in the feast.
Next, he swallowed one raw egg and after some invocation, he began to lay eggs like a hen but through his mouth. He must have disgorged more than two crates.

Then, came the one that fascinated me most! He brought out pieces of paper and chewed them up. After a short while, he began to pull out the local currency notes from his mouth, enough to fill a huge Ghana Must Go. And as if that was not enough, he asked for a volunteer among us. One man stepped forward. He told us he was going to play God by killing the volunteer and bringing him back to life. My eyes popped out of the sockets. He lay the man on the floor and spread a piece of white cloth over him. A dagger was driven through his navel and we saw blood. I backpedaled in fright and stepped on some toes. After removing the cloth, he uttered some abracadabra and asked someone in the crowd to play the doctor.

A man stepped out, rested his ear on the chest. No heartbeats! The “physician” certified the volunteer dead! The magician then covered the cadaver back, encircled it with his finial and muttered some mumbo jumbo in a thundering voice. The corpse then sneezed back to life!

W-o-n-d-a-f-u-u-u-ul! We chorused in unison. Then, my lower jaw dropped and saliva cascaded down my chest in sheer bewilderment. After the wondaful session, I sought audience with the magician and begged him to suck me in as one of his acolytes. At first, he dissolved into a guffaw. To shorten a long story, he told me the process I had to go through to acquire the magical powers. It included spending a week or so in the graveyard where I was supposed to wrestle with death in order to seize power from it to enable me raise the dead. He wondered if I was not too young for the epic battle with the ultimate terminator, warning me of the consequences of getting frightened at its sight, which was lunacy. I told him not to underrate me and reminded him of the biblical account of how a minor named David conquered the gigantic Goliath. On that note, he agreed to give me a chance and an appointment was fixed.

On my way home, I hymned praises to God for the early commencement of my multi-millionaire journey. All I would need were reels of bond paper to be chewed like a rodent and crisp notes would be minted in millions. While people work with their hands, I would be making money with my teeth and tongue! Combined with working the ultimate miracle of raising people, especially wealthy folks, from the dead, there would have been nothing standing on my way of becoming a multi-trillionaire by now.

I would have also been in a position to create multi-billionaires by recruiting and training acolytes. No one would have needed to loot the nation’s treasury and conceal the bastard monies in septic tanks, overhead tanks, basements, ceilings, forests, farms and graveyards all in a desperate attempt to escape whistle blowers. And I would have saved President Muhammadu Buhari the trouble of channeling his failing energy to fighting the most ruthless of monsters called corruption.

There would have been no need for the creation of anti-graft bodies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Nobody would have been losing his or her sleep for fear of Ibrahim Magu, Ibrahim Lamorde, Farida Waziri or Nuhu Ribadu before him.
But sadly enough, my old man got to know about my encounter with the magic man. A neighbour had spotted me chatting with the magic man and spilt the beans. Eventually, I confessed everything to my mum. She panicked and told my dad who saw to it that the perilous ambition was crushed in its planning stage.
Can I ever forgive my old man? After all, it was my life. Today, he is not alive to see how bastard rogues have aligned with corruption to deny my pockets of the well-deserved national cake.

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