IT'S WORLD LAUGHTER DAY AND IT'S NOT FUNNY AT ALL

Assuming my teeth were white, they would have been wide open, but now it's redness is as thick as clay and the odour so strong that a cow will begin to bark. So, I'm afraid to let it loose. The white corns hidden inside my mouth make all to wonder if I were a direct descendant of homo-habilis; protruding nose with a face pointed as if reaching for a T-junction and panel beated on either side. I can't just laugh. Laughter is far away from me like the missing sun at night.

What is my joy when poverty stares at me and threatens even my fundamental human rights? I'm on the run from Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, who are daily hunting down my people as if we were meant to be roasted as beefs (suya).

Even the elements of nature had ganged up against me, the waters are drying up, the lakes are leaking and the rains have refused to drop, crops are being destroyed by the blazing sun shining angrily with delight. Would I be able to laugh, when in the wake of epileptic power supply mosquitoes came rampaging, partying on my delicate body with their mouth loaded with straw to draw blood despite warnings that my blood is not sweet. Mosquitoes now laugh more than I do.

In the midst of long queues at filling stations, high inflation, unemployment and scarcity in a country blessed with abundance, I sought to find comfort and peace through the oracles of the supernatural. We hailed, we praised and prayed but hey, laughter according to the oracle in trousers will only come if I yielded to the clarion call to drop all that I've got in my pocket and I had to trek home expecting an angel to drop from heaven dollar packs in suit cases, hmmn...A dead man dying again. How is that supposed to be a laughing matter?

When men like cows, pound and graze on my gentle, little feminine emotions leaving their dunks behind without packing it, I simply cannot laugh.

It's a paradox, laughter is cheap but scarce. It's nearer to us than our skin but it has to be searched for because it's missing.

When my youthful delight is threatened by social expectations and cultural values, I've had to substitute my joy for theirs and I'm really annoyed at my folly. The relationships that make us laugh are the same ones which make us cry, for who on earth would not have to mourn the death of a beloved? On days like that we simply cannot laugh. Yes they make us sad.

To those on the sick bed who wallow in pains and suffer from the torment of ward rounds as if they were research instruments, Doctors with syringe, searching for veins yet not making gains, under surgical baptism with a 50-50 chance of survival, who will find this funny? Not even a monkey even with all its sense of humor at the sight of a banana. Monkeys also cry.

To those on death row, folks awaiting trial and such under the watchful eyes of uniformed men and women who hold the keys of torture, and unleash the wrath of the state. Like a lion in the cage, awaiting supplies rather than fending for it, some deservedly, some unfortunately, laughter is far from such for the bars of iron and the chains of metals are under lock and key. Laughter is not free when freedom is expensive.

What about the Syrian child, and my Afghan brothers and sisters in Kabul and Kandahar? People terrified each day by ISIS and the Taliban and have become comically disabled and impotent. Even if they tried to smile, you would want to sympathize with them thinking they were crying. Are we going to forget Refugees searching for a new home but held back by wired fences?

Depression, bitterness and sorrow are not brothers to romance and foreplay. When they gather, laughter shatters. When our heart is in our mouth and our knees shake in horror as if dancing to Olamide's hit track 'shakiti bobo', not even basketmouth could force our teeth to proclaim its celebrity status.

Laughter is not determined by the amount of money in the bank, neither does it come by the number of houses, children. It is not peculiar to a culture or time so that we may have to start to measure the relativity, it is the effect of peace experieced by a person or people at any given point in time. It is consequent upon a delightful social experience. When it becomes impulsive and erratic without a significant social link, such a person will have to be examined because at that stage, laughter can be a lunatic display or more politely, a result of mental illness.

Laughter responds to social stimuli. I hope we all find peace in our world to make us laugh and laugh and laugh until we forget to catch the next available flight for a billion dollar contract.

Let's laugh, let's merry live longer and healthier. Common, let the world see your white teeth now. Cheers... It's #worldlaughterday.