Letter to God: Lord, I think we need a quick weekend retreat

Dear Father:

Hmm, I think we need to conduct some kina retreat this weekend ohh. For ley budget side, I am thinking Uncle Sam’s money 50k na bad ohh. At least we can give our man dem 4k each, 1k for each day. Ehn ley people at ley Upper End of de Traditional Council jus did their own.

Bor my son how will we explain this one na?

Father, lee da thing, in this village, people na hard to fool. When they wan bring their plenty talking we will just say ley money name they calling da na ay.

Bor we will na say how much we spend oo. Becus by ley time we start listing ley thing dem, ley Town Crier dem in this village will start looking inside to see de thing they na lost.

Ehn you know how things work in this village, you eat some, I eat some, de other one there I will take care of it, jus leave it.

You joking!

Oh, Father, you na know da how we can operate in this village ehn. Lay money sitting down there if we na look for something to do, ay will be hard for us to explain how it moves from there.

Bor my son oh, you think we really need da kina money ley way thing hard on our village?

Father, lee da thing, we na ley first people to do it. In fact, da how we roll in this place here. All ley noise we can make outside there when we come to this Traditional Council da different thing. You think how we can pay ley people children school fee dem and pregnant women hospital bills, you think da from our salary dem.

In the last 9 years, no concession agreement na come to us for us to squeeze ley investor dem. Ley play we aye na, na da water dry fish eat fish. So, ley only thing we geh right na, da ley budget and we na stealing da our own allotment.

Look, leh me tell you, inside ley Traditional Council here da different place oo. You na inside you na know. In fact, next month we need to do another retreat, I am thinking outside our village.

You think so my son, de way ley noise on ley other one never fini yet?

Father, da ley reason why we will na do some more in ley village here again. I am thinking, wait a minute. I am thinking we go to Charlie Land, we will say we go learn how people can do Traditional Council work. At least each person can get 10k each. Our staffer dem will have to wait. They will take pay when ley next budget pass in 2025.

They will na be making noise all over ley place?

Bor, da only dem working in ley village, they na see their friend dem from ley other places complaining.

Da jus two days, but we will be there for 5 days and since da different village, each person will geh 2k per day, besides plane ticket money.

Hmmm, huh!

Wait na you scary, ehn ley village people na know how to vote, they go look at somer us who already greedy for money after hustling all over ley place and they come put us here, we will enjoy ley village money-after all they called us honourable.

Hmm, my son, if we continue leh this ley people will na put us back ohh.

Father, lee da thing, da ley people dem you scarlor, before voting time come we will tell dem stories and buy dem few bags of rice, give dem t-shirts and lappa, you will see. Da’s how we roll!