About this Commissioner for Happiness, I doubt if she is capable of providing any such happiness to anybody.

In 2014, Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State invited me on his entourage to the wedding of the second daughter of Governor Rochas Okorocha in Owerri. After a very riotous ceremony, we wanted to fly back to Abuja in our chartered aircraft but the host governor insisted that Governor Wamakko stayed over and be hosted through the weekend. The simple governor agreed and was quartered at what was physically a good VIP guest house at a well manicured estate near the Government House. Only the governor and his immediate security aides would sleep there, as Wamakko arranged for the rest of us to get good hotel accommodation in town. The arrangement was that we would be having our meals at the guest house before departing to our hotel.

On the evening of that wedding day, we were very famished, having taken nothing since morning when we departed Abuja. So we looked forward to a sumptuous dinner. There was none. The cooks and stewards in their starched uniforms were polite but helpless. They were not provided with the wherewithal to feed the visiting governor and his entourage. The embarrassed stewards would whisper the name of one Mrs Ololo, who was the governor’s sister who was in charge.

To cut a long story short, there was no food and the governor had to make do with some biscuits and soft drinks I went into town to buy for him while we ate in town. That was how a governor that came to wedding feast went to sleep hungry courtesy of the current Commissioner for Happiness.

•Uche Ezechukwu, a veteran journalist and media manager based in Abuja, first published this piece on his Facebook wall.

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