By Frank Tietie
My birthday anniversary is today, the 17th of March. But I prefer to sing the blues this time because I feel blue.
Folks around me know that I don’t spare any moment that calls for gathering friends for a time to enjoy culinary delights, assorted drinks and pleasant music. And on each birthday anniversary since my liberation, I usually use the day to drink the joy of being alive; hence, I live out my fancies. So, I have had several significant birthday anniversary celebrations in recent years.
On my birthday, I once travelled to Stockholm, Sweden, to enjoy singing along at the Abba Museum. It was like a dream come true after Assad Hassan Alvi of blessed memory first played Abba music to my hearing in 1982.
In 2022, Toyin Dawodu and a few friends helped me organise a big event at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, to mark my birthday and launch LawTimes.Ng. The ambience of that evening was electric. The food setting was otherworldly, and the conviviality among friends that night was surreal. The Distinguished Senator Ita Enang and Otunba Gbenga Onayiga led the ‘big boys’ in a show of massive solidarity. And some of the many beautiful women who have supported me so far were there. I was simply creating memories.
In 2023, I got the most significant exposure ever on global television when the dream maker, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, flew me on his private jet to Warri to host the Delta State Governorship debates, which aired live on the Arise News channel. I had to contend in the spirit, the night after successfully co-hosting the debates, whether the prophetic was correct to have declared that I had a brighter future in the media than practising law. I fought principalities and powers so viciously to graduate from UNIBEN and to be called to the Nigerian Bar, I am called to be in the media but law, I must practise. I do appear to be at rest from such kind of spiritual warfare, but I trust the Almighty God to see me through life’s battles, present and coming phases.
After 50 years, it seems life is just about to start because so many things are yet to be done. Hence, I pray that I don’t die before my time. Not because I like this life so much. There isn’t really much in it, after all. But I am fixated on completing my task here on earth. Some legacies must be built, and children must be parented to fulfil their destiny; hence, there is no more time to waste. So the prayer is that our days here on earth be complete before being transported to the other side.
As I mark my birthday anniversary this year today, I will not celebrate as usual because my heart is aching about the state of affairs in our country.
Today, across the country, in Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto and many other parts of the country, there are mourning families whose loved ones are currently in captivity in kidnappers’ dens, yet life appears to be normal as constituency projects of Senators and allegations of budget padding are dominating the headlines. Sadly, the government appears to be at its wits end in tackling Nigeria’s present security and economic crises.
I will not celebrate, yet I am thankful for Paul the Apostle admonished in his letter to the Thessalonians, that we should give thanks in connection with everything (in any situation).
I will not celebrate like I would have wanted. Instead, I will be praying that the Almighty God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, visit our country and deliver us from this present political and economic quagmire
That is why I will not celebrate; rather, I’ll be singing the blues because I feel blue of the situation in Nigeria.
I will sing the blues like African slaves in history working on American slave farms. So anyone who cares for a time of musical contemplation with a bit of cheer can join me this afternoon for some sombre yet cheerful karaoke and sing-a-long sessions. It is my birthday!
● Tietie, a lawyer, executive director of Citizens Advocacy for Social Economic Rights (CASER) and
Arise News (legal) analyst, writes from Abuja.