I WAS not at the Chinua Achebe colloquium which took place last week in Rhode Island. But while it was going on in Providence, I was myself at a party in the St. Louis home of the economist, Dr. Remi Onwumere with Dr. Sylvester Ugoh, Harvard-trained economist and Nigerian politician.

In the case of sudden death, which can go either way, it could be you or him, everything depends on God. Whatever I have as my personal savings is what I plan to fall back on in case of any accidental eventualities. You need to see what widows go through in some cultures to know just a little of what I am talking about. Once a man dies, it is assumed that the wife must have something to do with it because she has something to gain from his death.

In this essay, I argue that Christmas has become a useless social fad which should be allowed to die out because it has progressively degenerated into a period for indulging and celebrating the grossest attributes of the human species – greed, avarice, licentious living, debauchery and spiritual self-abnegation.

The structures we have would win for us a gold medal if having them was all that was needed to judge them. America does not even have them – huge cars and convoys for public officers and their dependants; full time pay for all cadres of public officers for no jobs done; billions sunk into buying aircraft for use of heads of the organs of government.

For those who enjoy arguments, I am sure they will bring up the argument of one man who was believed to be an heretic when he thought the earth was round while others thought it was flat. I am not discussing basics of science or earth shaking theories in evolution or even technology, what I am concerned with is the fact that a lot of people are depressed and lonely.