By Odoh Diego Okenyodo
Why I have not died is only left to the Almighty God. I have worked in the Northeast when it was foolhardy to think about it, when everywhere was a boiling porridge of improvised explosive devices. I am like that artist known as Nightbirde (Jane Marczewski) who appeared on America’s Got Talent with terminal stage cancer of the lung, spine and liver, and reported that doctors told her she only had a 2% chance of survival. She retorted, “2% is not zero percent.” Nightbirde had a chance of survival, which was all that mattered. That is all that should matter: any chance.
We need to remember that all we have is a chance – a 2% chance, a 10% chance, 70% or 100%, they are all chances. People have built the most foolproof equipment, whether the Titanic, a self-driving Tesla or Google Car, and they fell into ruins. Late in June 2022, a self-driving car killed two persons in China as they were testing it. Their expertise didn’t matter. The assurances of other experts did not stop them from dying from the equipment they could vouch for. They were experts who knew all the safety specifications. But they are gone now. Having more expert knowledge didn’t stop them from getting killed; and those who had no knowledge at all didn’t die from that crash. Thus, no matter the percentage of chance you have, we all have the same morsels of chance at anything in this life.
But if all we have is likelihood and opportunity, why are our actions and outcomes so different? I would posit that our upbringing and socialisation through school is a big drawback. We are taught to compete, to exert our physical and mental energies to become better than someone else. If only we trained harder or read more and slept less, we were told, we would have seen ourselves in the first position. We burned the midnight oil and soaked our feet in water to make sure we didn’t sleep before the exams. We had more confused students as a result, and more failures in exams, producing more empty and disillusioned youths.
Nothing means anything except what we say it means. That means you have a choice in how you respond to whatever any situation should mean or imply. Nothing in itself is anything. Let me tell you a story. I had to undertake a sudden travel to the Republic of South Africa in 2009 because a colleague that has been scheduled for that trip was unable to make it. I got the notice on a Thursday and my boss believed in me so much he was sure I could get a visa on Friday and travel on Monday. To get a visa out of the South African High Commission in a day! You know those times when getting a visa to South Africa was like participating in the Ultimate Search reality series in terms of the process and cost. But, my boss had reposed a lot of confidence in my network. Fear motivational speakers!
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I made calls to friends in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to South Africa. I waited outside at the South African High Commission in Maitama, in those days when miscreants loved to head south. I didn’t know what the consular officers would be thinking of me; I had no chance. But, many MTN recharge cards later, somehow someone told my village people and they allowed me in on Friday. The Consular Officer told me getting a visa on that same day was impossible. He said even same month was not likely. I whined my calling machine and he received calls. It was like a voodoo manipulation. His phone rang. He told me he would see what he could do on Monday, same day my trip was scheduled for. I had no air ticket or other travel arrangements. No hotel reservations.
On Monday, the Consular Officer gave me an impromptu call. “If you are truly based in Abuja, you can come within 40 minutes and I vill give you a wisa.” His Indian accent didn’t mask his message to me: he was not sure whether I was a Lagosian running to Abuja, which at the time, was an easier location to process a visa than the former capital of Nigeria. The Consular Officer has added that anyone could get to Maitama within 40 minutes from any point in the city. No need to debate about Kwali being closer to Lokoja than Abuja. I sped to Maitama and got what felt like a ticket to heaven: VISA APPROVED. Travel arrangements became the next obstacle.
My company promised to bring my daily subsistence allowance to the airport in Lagos, because monies had to be transferred and withdrawn then used to buy US dollars. The flight to Johannesburg was 10:50pm. I bought an Abuja to Lagos ticket for about 3pm, the earliest I could get. I borrowed a lot of money at the time to be on the safe side in case the US dollars didn’t get to me. The famous Lagos traffic was not something to plan with. And so I arrived in Lagos at about 5pm and headed straight for the international wing of the airport. I called the colleague bringing the DSA. He was stuck in traffic. My heart was racing, not only because of the DSA but because the whole race could have made me forget to pack something I would need. I recalled the previous time I travelled through Johannesburg and a lady was being told, “You kenot inta into South Efrica!” just because she did not have a yellow fever card or proof of vaccination. I could be that person. Those guys were mean.
It was imperative I had money on me, I kept thinking, though I had the comfort of 200,000 naira in my pocket. I had fully checked in when I realised my colleague was not going to make it to the airport and give me my DSA. This was where the story began to take a new turn. I will continue it next week.
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