Growing up, I used to believe that my dad and mum were at the top of the list of people who abuse drugs in this country. On their different tables, you will always see drugs of different sizes and colours.
One day I asked my mum what the drugs are for, and she said one is sleeping pills, while the other one is High Blood Pressure pills. I left her room so sad and worried that I may have been contributing to the reason for her sleepless nights and High BP.
I examined myself and realised I could not have been the source of their worry. I’m an average student who passed my exams with a mid-class position. So they don’t have to worry about sending me to an expensive school. And because I usually escape repeating classes, they don’t have to pay tuition twice. I don’t smoke, I don’t keep friends, and I eat less.
While I was doing the self-examination, my brother walked by, and I remembered that just last week he had been asked to wash the car. 10 minutes after that, he smashed the car into the wall of our neighbour’s while trying to drive it for the first time. Could that be the reason for our parents’ anxiety?
Fast forward to 2026, I woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was to take my HBP drug. Who among my children is putting me in this mess? I looked at their pictures and that of my wife and could not pinpoint any culprit.
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While I was wearing my shoe, my phone rang, and our tax consultant reminded me that the tax reconciliation meeting with the Federal Inland Revenue for the 2023 & 2024 tax audit has been fixed for next week. I was also reminded that the State Inland Revenue also sent an additional liability for my Personal Income Tax. And what about the VAT and withholding tax review by the same FIRS? She confirmed that they are still ongoing.
The bills are piling up, and the demand notices from federal and state agencies are competing with the obituary posters on our walls.
We have been running our business on generators for several weeks now, and diesel prices keep rising.
I took the BP pills, glanced at the pictures of my children and replaced them with those of my Local Government Chairman, my Governor, the Senate President and the President, so that every morning as I take my HBP drugs, I will make a toast to them.
Don Ebubeogu
