How my friend’s schock therapy shocked him by Abdulhamid Al-Gazali

BY ABDULHAMIDAL-GAZALI | FRIDAY COLUMN, JUNE 27, 2025, 9:30 AM

My friend who listened to a Channels TV economic analysis on how the federal government is shocking the economy into life, has finally found an economic solution for running his family.

An economist, nay econo-tivator (to mean an economist and motivational speaker)—whose name my friend has forgotten, and he said for good—said what the government is doing is called Shock Therapy. What is shock therapy?

It simply means jolting or triggering something into a given form or state or action through exertion of some sudden unanticipated pressure. It is a medical procedure used to heal certain psychiatric cases through passing of controlled, instant electrical currents to the brain to induce seizure.

In modern economics, it means rapid economic reforms that involve sudden monetary changes, deregulation or liberalization, and termination of subsidies.

A good example of shock therapy for a layman understanding in my head currently is how teenagers are put on the back of a hyena, when they struggle to stop bed wetting. The experiment generally works; it shocks them into instantly stopping to bed wet, even though I know a child, now an adult, whose case unfortunately failed. A failed shock therapy.

So far, he is going through therapy, which I also never knew exists previously. The therapy involves water intake strategy, which is a style of taking water by pretending not to be doing so (using long straws), so that the devil making you bed wet would be misled into thinking there is no water in your system). Then, dream avoidance techniques. In this case, you would record your live conversation and play it while sleeping so that the devil will also be misled into thinking you are still awake. The conversation has to be new everyday so that he doesn't detect the ruse.

The third, which is no less weird, is a laundry exercise. The exercise, which I find amusing but which makes me very sober (and makes me pray to heal him and all of us), is washing his bedsheets immediately he bedweds, everyday, supposing all the initial two efforts fail to dribble the devil.

I only pray that whenever he fails to beat him (the devil), it should come no more than once per night because I feel like they are using another punishment to fight a punishment. Let's be honest, two midnight punishments--bed wetting and bed washing--for an adult will be too much, even for therapy. They say that it would help instill some self-awareness, control, and restraint in him. I never tried any shock therapy, but I have had my reservation since then.

Another experience that has taught me to stay away from it even before knowing about it was when my friend took me against my liking to visit his girlfriend’s house for the first time. At the entrance, he wouldn’t wait to receive any briefing from the gatemen.

‘Open the door, please’, he told one of them. He was shocking them into action. They thought we were regular visitors, so they did.

By the time we were halfway into the house's big premises, we saw two lions roaming about. My friend said they were dogs, but more than two decades now, I am still not convinced because I didn’t wait to examine anything. I told him we should run, but he said no way. ‘Turn your fear into strength,’ he told me.

He then started walking towards them while I fled. My friend tried to apply some shock therapy on them, even though they were minding their business. He visited a good slap (not a pat) on the back of one of them, who happens to be the other’s wife, triggering the male partner's beastly jealousy.

Now, I didn’t know what happened to him after that as he never told me; but that was how the relationship collapsed. To date, more than 20 years now, he would ask me to change our direction whenever we happen to see the girl, now a woman. He would even sweat.

Now, this my friend, named Dakekke, went about implementing his bold, shrewd masterpiece of an economic reform in his house.

Dakakke shut down every subsidy in his house, liberalized control, and other sudden reforms. The goal is to free up money to build some family infrastructure and prevent the family from financial collapse in the future. Specifically, he stopped paying his children's school fees but gave them loans.

He stopped drivers from taking them to school in order to liberalize control and allow FDI—foreign direct influence (sorry, investment) into his house.

In turn, he releases more money to the coffers of the wife so that they go into 'infrastructure' and savings for the future. With extra cash, she now has more money to spend. Interestingly, his wife dutifully invested the money to save the future.

She bought lands and properties. As for the father, he knew that the loans he had been giving out would be repaid by the time he was out of government in the future. Anyway, he is now retired and out of government already.

But you see, my worry is not because they retired him from the government. My question is: why did they NOT wait for the future to come? The wife always requested more money to save the family’s economy and the future of their children from collapsing, but she could not save her husband until the future came to remove him.

He would happily provide everything she asked. He would even borrow it from ‘foreign’ lenders to meet the requests. Dakakke is a kind man. He could do anything for the future of his children.

You know, he did not receive similar support from his dad because when he was enrolled in school as a boy, there was a mix-up in his name, gender, and general identity. And so, in that confusion, he and his father lost ‘each other’. The father is there, but he doesn’t know that the son is there and the son is there but doesn’t know that the father is there.

The school, after mixing up Dakekke and his father’s identity, went on to once again mix up their own identity, too. They also changed their name. Now, Dakakke, his father, and the school, including his school friends, are all there but don’t know that they are there. By the way, this is not the gist.

The foreign lenders—meaning all the friends and family from whom he had borrowed to save the family’s future—started returning to recoup their loans for their own future too. Trust the shock therapist, he didn’t get overwhelmed. He tried once again to shock the family’s economy back to life. He privatized the house—and then settled the loan. Why buy or keep a house when you can rent it, which would also stimulate the private sector?

Given that he had also always promoted private enterprises in the whole, the family had taken heed. So, the newly formed real estate business of the wife and her loan-taking children acquired the property at the ‘local stock market’ through third-party brokers and converted it to a leased one. A good investment for the future.

Okay, this story is long. Let me shorten it. This is Dakekke's seventh day in my boy’s quarters as a retired head of 'housement'.

His two daughters just visited him here with the dividends of his economic prudence and liberalization, which, as deregulated entities, provided them with an easy visa and even enough funds through loans to travel the world to attract businesses into their house. The massive foreign direct influence, nay investment they fetched, especially in biological processes and processing, has also now finally shocked him back to life!

Thank you for your attention to this matter. God bless the father, God bless the mother, God bless the children, God bless the house.