Organ trafficking on the rise… I’m tired of complaining about Tinubu-induced hardship, when there are plenty of business ideas. So, I’m off to the Middle East, since EFCC won't allow me to do “yahoo, yahoo@ - in peace. I heard it’s booming down there! Nobody around me knows that I’ve traveled. The pilot just announced that we’ll soon land. In fact, we just flew past one bus stop, where I saw “Aka Road, Uyo” on the signpost. The air hostess explained that it was very close to the Middle East. Where, exactly, she didn't say. Okay, let me confess. I actually had no transport fare, so took N1,300 from Madam’s bag. I will refund when I sell my kidney for $262,000. The heart is not that expensive, though. Only $119,000. Liver, I heard, is $157, 000, only. I guess that’s why Nigerians value liver above heart. If you are easily emotional, you “no get heart (mind).” But if you take hard decisions like Tinubu, “you get liver”! Selling your organs isn't the solution to economic ...
I got home one evening, ready to unwind with a simple bowl of egusi soup. But my wife had other naughty plans. “We need a living wage inside this soup pot,” she announced, eyes gleaming with mischief.
What the heck is “living wage” inside a soup pot? I ran to the church hymnary, dictionary, encyclopedia and all the cookery books in the decrepit Uyo library. No luck.
The next morning, when I was eating ogbono soup with God, for breakfast, one cocky angel gave me with a ‘bombastic side eye.’ As I went to the wash hand basin, he followed me.
“Oga, do and go back to your house, joor. Don't come and finish our “living wage” soup here o. No be only you dey. Pastor Enoch Adeboye is coming to eat eba and gbegiri soup, soon.”
I was shocked. I had really enjoyed that food with God, but I didn't know they put an ingredient called “living wage” inside. Their eba looked like it’s made from white ijebu garri, though! When I asked what a “living wage soup” was, the angel mockingly told me that it wasn't like my yeye regular pepper soup or ewedu.
“Forget your simple editan soup with crayfish and perewinkle, too. Living wage soup is any soup cooked with an ingredient called ‘living wage.’ In other words, any food cooked with ‘living wage’ becomes ‘living wage food’.” I can't say I understood everything he said, but I wasn’t ready to argue, either.
I asked my wife later what her idea of “living wage food” was.“First off,” she said, stirring the pot with the furry of a canoeman. “We are talking about soup cooked with N500,000. To do that, the ingredients must scream ‘luxury.’ We don't want Tinubu’s proposed N45,000 “austerity soup’.” Before I could protest, madam drew a wish list longer than Etinan traditional marriage requirements.
“Isn’t half a million naira a bit much for a simple pot of soup?”
“A living wage means a living soup,” she said. “This family deserves a living soup - cooked with a living wage. We’re elevating this pot to new heights!”
Next thing I knew, out went the regular vegetables, in came a parade of exotic produce: heirloom tomatoes, baby carrots, and truffle oil. Yes, truffle oil. For soup!
“How on earth can we sustain this?” I asked, eyeing the ingredients that looked like they were meant for a Chinese restaurant. She smiled, shaking her head. “A living wage inside this soup pot means we don’t just eat to survive—we eat to thrive.”
By the time she was done, the soup pot was a masterpiece of flavour and aroma. It was no longer just a meal; it was an experience.
I took a cautious sip and, I swear, —it was spectacular. The living wage inside that soup pot had indeed transformed a simple dish into something extraordinary.
But I still wasn't okay with the bill. How can I ever cope in this Tinubu economy? Not realistic, at all. She wasn't even paying attention. We were still arguing over it, when I woke!
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