Break a leg! May their cars run into potholes!

Upon approaching the title of this piece, there would be many indulgees who would grin from side to side. The grin would obviously stem from your belief that I must be angry! “Phillip must have had it from someone or something for him to come up with this kind of title.” It won’t be that you are sympathising with me for having had a hard time. It is just that some of you want to know what happened to me so you can either laugh at me, especially those of you who are jealous that I have a licence to use this space to promote my club Liverpool, and especially knowing that, as it now seems, I’ll Never Walk Alone. It wouldn’t bother me, though, what you think or make of my situation. I am still going to sound it loud: Break a leg, all you evil ones in this country.

Now, “break a leg” is something you say endearingly to someone. You don’t ever mean it when you say it. The person would have to be someone close to you to have a laugh on your presumed mean wish for them. If they weren’t close, they wouldn’t really know where you were coming from and they would be right to think that you meant them harm!

A few years ago, at London’s SW19, where the Wimbledon tennis tournament is located, the legendary tennis sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, were looking good to meet in the finals. Venus was interviewed on British Broadcasting Service (BBC) television and asked what she thought of a match-up between her and Serena. She answered by sending a “break a leg” message to her sister. Knowing how close they are, you would immediately have seen that she didn’t mean any harm.

But “break a leg” can really mean “break a leg”. In other words, you can say it and mean it literally and this can be directed at someone many would ordinarily think if you were close to you wouldn’t want to see harm come to them. For instance, if you came from a family where, when you were growing up, you and your siblings ate from one large plate and you found that you were not always full because others were more prolific at cornering much of the food than yourself, surely, when you said “break a leg” to the most prolific of your siblings, you were sure to mean it with all your heart. After all, should they really break a leg, that would be enough to sideline them for some time; a good time for your intake of food to increase in the hot battle of “who eats the most”. Make that survival of the fittest!

It is not only in this unique family setting that this wish is applicable. The other day, driving down some parts of the long, Federal Government-neglected Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, there was no doubt in my mind that certain officials of the Federal Government are very easily deserving of the wish, “break a leg”. And there should be no mistaking this for a joke! In fact, you will so wish that they break both legs, and that the legs even get badly twisted to compensate you for neglecting to give you the service that you deserve as a citizen.

There is really more to it than just the thought of sitting down in your office or at home and wishing that someone breaks a leg, especially government officials who are responsible for not being responsible (that is, not working). In this country called Nigeria, never mind that we have not reached the point yet to make comparison with Libya, indulgees and millions of other people who drive on Nigerian roads must be cursing and swearing daily at whoever was responsible for making their driving experience miserable, instead of pleasurable.

This is the reason why every time Nigerians (excluding those who should do their work but fail to do so – deceptive government officials) get on the road to drive or be driven to work or anywhere for that matter, they not only worry about the traffic that they have to deal with, which contributes to reducing their life expectancy, but they have to also worry about the state of the roads. If you are someone who pays his or her taxes and you look up to these government people to do their jobs, you would probably be stuck in a corner Waiting for Godot, who won’t even appear.

Those who set out to have a good laugh at my expense upon reading the title of this piece need not despair that they have not had their laugh. I will still come to it. You deserve to have your laugh. After all, you come to this square table looking for some self-deprecating story, one that puts me, myself and I to shame before your own very eyes. We will get to that, surely.

But before that happens, let me just say here that there are many people in government who deserve to “break a leg”. But much more, they deserve to have their cars run into every pothole on the road that they drive or are driven on, which they have responsibility to put right (and have failed to do).

“Why? Why? Phillip Isakpa! What did government people do to you?” That’s all you bad belle indulgees asking the wrong questions. If you say you don’t know what government people have done to deserve being asked to break a leg and have their cars run into potholes, then it must be that you are one of them. So your attendance at this square table is suspicious and needs to be investigated!

Whose side are you on? I thought we were in this together and that we would come out of it stronger together. But should you not know, here’s the scenario we are dealing with. You wake up in the morning. You get yourself ready to go to work, choosing to drive yourself. As you drive on the road to your destination, you find that your first real productive work for the day is dodging potholes on the roads. It doesn’t matter where you live in this country, there is always one government or the other failing you on the road.

You will think that if you paid your tax then you should get good service, including good roads to drive on. And if your country has resources such as oil and its leaders choose not to bother with a more efficient and effective tax collection system, but rely instead on money from oil, then you still would ask government and its officials to be more responsive and responsible. That’s the least you can ask of them, right?

Did I hear you say “wrong!”? It is precisely for this reason that as I drive and dodge potholes and run into a few that I cannot dodge, I am laughing out loud (LOL). In fact, I am laughing my head off because I am contriving in my mind a scheme to get those responsible for the mess to pay for their irresponsibility. As it is always the case, even when they do not show their faces, government officials, especially those with a direct responsibility for maintaining the pothole-ridden roads, also drive on the roads. Since they do, I am laughing my head off as I make a prayer that they break a leg on those roads. Not only should they break a leg, they should have their cars unable to dodge the potholes and as such, find that they always run into them. If they run into these potholes, may it happen that they have to change their tyres every time; and that they come out of their tinted-glass cars to do so! In other words, may their tyres always burst when they run into the potholes they have always neglected! That’s one good way we can all be even on this matter.

By: PHILLIP ISAKPA