By Endiong John
My friend, Sam is a bachelor searching for a wife. It's been almost two years since he first told me how desperately he wants to get married.
"What stops you? ", I inquired eagerly.
"I can't find a wife ", he responded. "You will be handsomely rewarded if you eventually find a wife for me ", he added.
"Your only reward is beer ", I joked, promising to join the search if he lets me know the specifications of his dream woman.
"I don't want so much. I just want a woman that can compliment me ", said Sam to me.
"God is just helping me because of my mother's prayers. Something tells me the woman could die any of these days so my wife has to be a good replacement. I am as good as dead if I can't find a praying wife, a woman that God has a soft spot for. Simply put it, a woman with sound spirituality".
"If that is all, then you don't have a problem. I will recommend as many as you want ", I assured him.
"That can't be all". Sammy said in addition to sound spirituality, he also wants a wife with financial intelligence to cure him of his extravagant and wasteful nature.
Sammy said his wife must be well educated, be someone of the medical profession so that health challenges of the kids won't cause panic for the family. He also wanted a stylish and very loyal woman. Six compulsory attributes, in all.
Arguing with Sammy is never always a good idea. He has his ways of winning every argument and making everyone else feel like a loser. So we just agree with him always as we agreed with him on that day that it was better to be single forever than to marry a wife bereft of his six specifications. We nicknamed the dream wife "six factor wife ".
There is a surprise for you.
I met with Sammy only last weekend at a popular Uyo relaxation spot. Sammy has changed his mind. He no longer wants a "six factor wife ". He now wants a "one factor wife ".
What happened to Sammy?
Fear. Yes, fear. He was scared to hell the other day on realizing that we had allowed ourselves to be carried away by enjoyment only to find ourselves when it was as late as 12am.
Sammy doesn't stay in Uyo. Where he stays, nobody stays outside after 6pm. By 7pm in Sammy's city, a graveyard is a more busy place. And to think that he lives in a major Nigerian City, a City that once used to know life. A city that made Sammy look at those of us who live in Uyo as villagers. That's the city that even birds now sleep before 6pm.
We hear unknown gunmen happened to Sammy's City. Since unknown gunmen happened, nothing else is working there. Night life stopped and businesses lost billions.
In Sammy's City, job opportunities never used to be a problem but it is now a big problem because foreign investors closed down their businesses and fled.
Workers are being retrenched by ailing businesses. Rather than employ, even the State government is considering retrenchment too. Everything has just been on a standstill and nobody is even blaming the government for hunger anymore or for the schools getting shutdown. Everybody have one request and it is the request for the government to bring back peace at all cost.
Children of my mother, everything changed the moment my friend, Sammy could get up from a relaxation spot at 12:30 and still be able to get home without any bad incident on the road. Sammy was surprised that we could see women and children rushing to catch up with Friday tarry night in church at that hour.
Sammy's car ceased on the road at 12:35am and rather than car snatchers, it is youths offering to push the car that showed up for us at such ungodly hour.
After that night, Sammy says peace is everything. He is no longer looking for a wife with six factor specifications. He says a peaceful wife is enough. He thinks that Akwa Ibom people do not thank Governor Udom Emmanuel enough, if not for anything else, for the peace.
There is something everybody, including his opponents agree about Pastor Umo Bassey Eno. It is the fact that he is the only candidate in this election that can sustain the peace.
Pastor Umo Eno will do more than peace but even if sustaining the peace is all he has to do, he would have done more than enough because peace is enough.
Money is a coward, it doesn't go to where it is being threatened. If we don't lose the peace of this State, monies will relocate from other states where they are being threatened to Akwa Ibom State and the average man won't have a money problem anymore. Trust me, only Pastor Umo Eno can guarantee this.
True that peace is not everything but when you lose it, you lose everything because everything else depends on peace. That's what 2023 is about. We are at the risk of losing everything as a people. We are at a crossroad, we can't afford to miss our way to steady progress. Please, help keep Akwa Ibom State on the path of steady progress by voting the only man that can guarantee her peace.
- Endiong John is based in Akwa Ibom State
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