Joseph Edgar’s Loud Whispers

It’S not always that you get a book, which keeps you reeling in laughter until the last page. Loud Whispers by Joseph Edgar is one of such. You won’t want to drop the book when you start reading it.

Published by Bookvine, Lagos, with forward written by Bolanle Austen-Peters, founder of Terra Kulture, the book is a collection of satires and comic sequences.

It explores complexity of the Nigerian society and events that shaped the country’s recent narratives.

It also dwells on issues such as, the controversy surrounding infamous statue of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in Ikeja, which he titled, Awolowo Statue: Nothing do am, Aisha Buhari and the Aso Rock clinic and others like, Inflation: A voodoo report, Daisy Danjuma and Nnamdi Kanu: Please don’t do a Mandela.

In Richard Quest and The Case Of The Stolen Jollof Rice, Edgar does not hide his disappointment with the minister’s reaction the assertion that Senegalese cook better jollof rice.

Edgar again is extremely angry about the state of Nigeria’s health sector. He challenges the president’s wife, Aisha, to use her motherly role and nature to help address the sector’s problem.

In page 74, titled, Arthur Nzeribe: No pity here, Edgar dwells on the fall of a once powerful man, Nzeribe.

He writes, “the picture went viral and his people quickly responded. Report was that he was suffering from a stroke and that he was living the last day of his life lonely and in a pitiable state.

“As I look at the picture, I try my very best to think of him in a positive light, but I cannot.

I will keep my thought to myself, but I will dare to talk about how history will treat people like Arthur. You see history does not suffer fools; the report of history can never be biased and does not have emotion.

“For Arthur, I send my very good wishes and really do pray for continued good health and long life, but my lord, you no try.”

In page 76, entitled, Daisy Danjuma, Edgar gushes over the beauty of the wife of Nigeria’s ex-Minister of Defence, TY Danjuma.

He writes, “there comes a time when a man is ready to damn the consequences and stand up to his belief.

That time has come today as I stare at Senator Daisy Danjuma’s picture at 65.

With full apologies to the very respected General, I want to state clearly to the whole world today that I have been nurturing a huge crush on this legendary beauty.

Poverty has not allowed me to launch a bid to snatch her from the very loaded General, but that has not stopped me from admiring her and continually beholding her incandescent beauty.”

Edgar states, “poking a finger at the society is a pastime I have come to revel.

The feedback I get from my regular column in This Day gives me more satisfaction than a bowl of afang soup, which I believe, is the greatest invention by man.

When the people I write about call me to complain, I just sit and laugh at their shallowness. I really don’t care and I’m not in the least bothered.

“My family has been wonderful. They have killed me with bills, thereby pushing the creative juices.

When they dump the school feels in my lap and I see the figures – the budget of small state – I just start writing, producing plays, organising seminars. As a man, I cannot thief what will I do na?”