With Alan Kay
Last week was very hectic for me in the office. Auditors were around from Abuja and so, everyone had to tidy up their accounts in order not to collide with barbed wire.”
“Alan Kay, what have you to do with an auditor; after all, you are a journalist, whose brief is to write stories; or do you also join them in hawking the newspaper? Because I know that under excruciating economic pains that have held the masses by the jugular, a dog will be glad to graze.”
“Nah, nah. You know, I served as guarantor for some adverts placed on credit; so I had to go gaga in cajoling the debtors to pay up. Otherwise, my salary would be seized and other punitive measures could come in tow.”
“God forbid. If your salary is embargoed, that could be disastrous to the beer parlour industry in Nigeria, and in fact, the brewery producing your brand will come close to closing shop.”
“Well Charles, I am sure you won’t equate me with Bala, who’s operating pre-paid drinking. Only last weekend, immediately his salary was paid by his chambers, he stormed Iya Shola’s beer parlour in company with two modern-size jezebels; and pronto, he dropped N60, 000 to cover his beer and pepper-soup consumption for one month.”
“Bad boy. That’s an average N2,000 per day. But you know that Bala is a reckless drinker, who would within that month transmute from a creditor to a debtor, after having overshot his ‘runway’.”
“Well, leave Bala alone. One, he is a successful lawyer with clientele in the ranks of corrupt politicians who are being chased around like a cat would a rat, by the EFCC. Again, Iya Shola, remember, is a single mother with an open workshop. But we all know that Bala alone has a ‘certificate of occupancy’, that is, CofO, to ‘her land’. The other men are only appearing occasionally, using their ‘survey plan’.”
“Whao! If I had bugged this statement of yours and played it before your pastor, he would certainly excommunicate you, or if he is lenient a bit, could order you sentenced to a seven-day prayer and fasting session on a bitingly cold mountain in one of these Ekiti or Ondo communities.”
“Well, before it gets to that, let Clara bring us a replacement to these ‘leaking’ bottles, which must also be criminally cold and of mortuary standard….Lest I forget, what is the latest on efforts to rescue Leah Sharibu, the only remaining student yet to be set free among his kidnapped peers from Dapchi School, Yobe, six years after?”
“Is anyone bothered about her again? They said she refused to renounce her Christian faith. After all, Christ said if your entire flock is intact save for one, you must leave the hundeds of cattle and go for the lost one. How many Christians are clamouring for the release of the poor girl any longer?”
“Well, what can the ordinary Christian in the street do? We are talking of Boko Haram, remember. You are not even talking of the government, the military and the rights groups. Assuredly, some in the human rights community have swung into action, raking money from charity groups across the world, ‘to agitate for the release of Leah’. The federal government too, on its part, will keep reiterating its commitment to finding the girl! After all, 99% of the abducted girls were long released. End of story.”
“Exactly the same trajectory that befell the 237 Chibok secondary school girls captured in 2014. That’s how many rights groups held crusades, rallies and seminars that meant nothing to the cranky insurgents, who were far into the woods of Sambisa Forest, where they were enjoying their human booty.”
“Well, let’s drink and forget the sorrows inflicted on all by a society at crossroads. Imagine, the Chibok girls were set free after Boko Haram had received millions of dollars, allegedly from God-knows-where, and also secured the release of their key commanders in the Nigerian prisons’ custody…so, the same thing allegedly took place in the case of Dapchi 109. Sad.”
“And to think that most of the seized girls were reportedly violated by these characters, who put many of them in the family way. Then when some of them returned, they were seen either strapping their babies or dotting protruded tummies, and they were marched to Aso Villa for celebrations, as plates of jollof rice and chicken sauce contested for space on the tables.”
“Really, the culture in Nigeria is to forget the past, once there is a new topic on the scene. What’s trending now is: Nigeria’s football International sensation and Super Eagles’ forward, Ademola Lookman, has won the CAF African Best Player Award, along with the Super Falcon girl, Chiamaka Nnadozie who excelled in the female category.
“Please, let’s vacate all this naughty jazz about the cocktail of Nigerian brouhaha, as you or I risk being called the spouse of Kemi Badenoch, the UK-based politician of Nigerian nativity, who is now our nemesis.”
“Okay o. Just let them give us a place of steaming hot goat-meat pepper soup apiece, and then support it with two sweating bottles of our brand. That is the best way to cool off the tension caused by a country largely composed by rascals.”
“I trust you. You and your radical posturing, which reminds of the departed masses’ hero, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. But that will not fly at this Clara beer parlour o, if not backed up with unrestrained spending.”
“Or better still, if you do not process her ‘certificate of occupancy’!”
“Bad boy!”