When does the weekend really start? For me I’d go with Friday 1759 too. Lool. If that is the official time then my weekend got on a very good start. After completing my schedule on the Lagos’ Victoria Island, I was blessed with a relatively free Third Mainland Bridge and pooooof I was at my friend’s. Next thing my friends reminded me about the fact that I had not celebrated my National Youth Service completion with them. National Youth Service! That is in the past! I thought these ones were kidding until it became obvious I was trapped. They needed an excuse to make merry with me and in that one they held on to the only one available yet. So I “dropped” as demanded and the drinks came in.
I ordered for water. When my water came, it came in the form of a very alcoholic wine. I don’t do alcohol, at least not since I went on an orgy after winning a college scholarship award over a decade ago and got home to meet a party for my cousin. I thought I was being set up. How can you get alcohol in place of water? But the happiness and joy in this room was palpable. Should I just take a sip and make my boys happy? I decided for a sip. While at it, I remembered I had to keep vigil to keep up with the announcements of the Nigerian Blog Awards by 1 am Nigerian time (this was because the organizers being based on the American continent chose a convenient 8pm EST to announce the Awards). So I tweeted the fact it would be a long night and looking at the several sips that had found their way through my mouth, I knew it would even be a night to remember.
A part of me thought of the awards. Like everyone in the hat I wanted to win but the last time I was certain of winning a competition, the judge lambasted me for showing too much confidence while presenting. That cost me a win (the same shameless judge later used my exact same lines at a public event in Sheraton two Sundays ago). So for these Awards, I just refused to be confident even though I knew Barak Obama himself would be proud of my campaign. The larger part of me knew I had crossed a boundary by drinking. To avoid troubles, I retired to bed and totally forgot about everything else safe for what my head would feel like the next morning. Of course I missed the announcements. When I came to by 9 am the next morning, I said a very tough and difficult short prayer. I hated the way I felt and I felt even stupid for feeling that way. See, I have never been sick since I have had to leave home, at least not since ‘95 when I left for Secondary school. Surely I wasn’t gonna take ill and suddenly I remembered my indiscretion from the previous night. I immediately remembered I tweeted while I drank. I reached for my phone to cross check my tweets from that period. I saw 35 mentions. I wasn’t even moved. I went straight for my last tweets. I saw that they were classic me and not alcohol induced. I was glad. Then I checked the mentions and everything changed! A blog I spearheaded had been named the Best Nigerian Political Blog. Wow! Wow! So I shouted and suddenly I felt my stomach. The settings of my stomach had been destroyed. 15 years of abstinence was always going to cost me. So for every reply I gave to a congratulatory message, I used the toilet twice. Loooool. Would you believe that I replied most of you from the toilet seat? Looooool. When I received Mallam Elrufai’s call, I was not in the toilet but when I received his text I was on the “hot seat”, when I texted Matt Harrison (President Prometheus Institute) it was from my friend’s room, when I got his reply I was on the toilet seat, when the now legendary Toyosi Akerele (Team Leader RISE Initiative) messaged me to say she was right when she said we would win, I was coming out of the toilet and when I sent Jo Ann Roeter’s mail for garnering the American support I was going back in…for this I have to thank my friend for keeping that place clean all the time… how e for be na?
Someone moved a motion for more drinks and I said “even if I get announced as a Pulitzer prize winner, I’d never drink to it (apart from some regular friendlier wines), at least not today.” So a weekend that ought to have been one of my best of the year turned out a very tough one. I enjoyed every bit of winning and sharing the little glory, I enjoyed the fact that we were breaking new grounds but I learnt an important lesson I always knew but had to relearn: No matter what you do or seek to achieve, the first success is being alive and being healthy. It took an alcohol abuse to relearn that but it was worth it. My stomach is getting better but I’ll be off to the toilet after this piece too. So when you host me at your place and I offer to take water, you’d know it has nothing to do with forming or spirikokoness ( I don’t pretend), my body doesn’t just like alcohol. Two times I have indulged in it, both times I vomited like a fool. The only times I have vomited in two decades. You see!
That did not stop me from having a great weekend. A weekend of the toilet, tweets and BB chats. I have some of the world’s best friends on the BlackBerry and on Twitter and I have some outside of both places I can’t trade for anything. They made each time spent in the toilet a great one. They kept my company each time. They showed that with them there, I can bear the turbulence even in my stomach!!! Loooool. It’s now on to the next one peeps. You have a chance to post articles here too. No one has any special rights. Just write something beautiful and we will post it. Mail mr.omjuwa@gmail.com and don’t forget to follow us. No man wins alone, we win together just as we will do with our country very soon. I love you guys… you are the very best. V is for Victory and you will all win! when they say you can’T, just take the T off… and go for your V!
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