“You look chirpy today; is it in the spirit of your town union’s election, where you emerged as public relations officer? And assuredly, yours is a double take. As you are here to ‘wash’ your electoral victory, your new catch, Esther, has also fixed an appointment to meet you here.”
“Hmmm, how best can one be lucky? Esther coming to meet me for celebration at a time of recession rebound. That, I am sure, will be capital intensive and I can only wish myself ‘a happy self-dispossession’.”
“Are you also aware that Bola is coming to meet Bala, who himself, is yet to arrive? So you should cast the headline this way: Esther coming in recession and Bola coming for Bala. Can’t you see the alliteration and romantic tintinnabulation?”
“You and your grammar, all deliberately coined to make the babes fall for you. Really, Esther had proposed to meet me here; that she will come is another thing entirely, as she has a profile of failed promises and dashed hopes.”
“Aren’t you lucky? If she fails to turn up under this harsh economic situation, it would only mean she has found a better ‘Ronaldo’ with deep pocket, not a countryside journalist like you, who would go mathematical, before ‘shelling’ a babe with bottles of beer and at least two plates of pepper soup. It is Bala that I sympathise with. He would part with at least 30k, because the bird-eyed lady is likely to come with a friend, being the first outing.”
“Can you imagine that? You’ll foot the bill of a shadowy friend along with that of your girlfriend; where does it add up?
“Please, let’s vacate that topic until we see the projected babes. Let’s look at current affairs, especially the parlous state of the Nigerian economy. Remember, since we arrived here, we have been sipping rather slowly, from our lone bottle of beer each, with no one sure of who will supply the next round.”
“You are right. The standard of living is receding rather dangerously. Before, they said people were feeding from the refuse dump. But now, people live right on the dump, not wanting to miss any fresh waste meant for disposal.”
“Scary, Kay, scary. But I read in the newspapers sometimes ago, that Nigeria was out of recession and that soon, the economy would witness a rebound.”
“Yes, we were out of recession but now, we are witnessing what some experts call ‘recession rebound’, that is, recession has relapsed with vigour. But such a line of thought is not recognised in official quarters.”
“Well, the truth is that, the government is broke, being a fall-out of the huge sums spent to fund the last general elections. So, before their programmes of action on diversifying the economy reach maturity, there is the need for palliatives.”
“I guess you are scheming for a political appointment. If not, how can you talk about palliative when a serving minister in the last tenure of the Buhari government told us that there is no free lunch in London, that no government anywhere in the world gives freebies to its citizens? So any expectation of palliative is expecting the literary Alice’s Wonderland.
“Certainly I need one. Now we have been told that, to brighten your chances of securing a political appointment, you must never criticise the government. You must praise our top politicians in the APC to high heavens, even if they are thrashing us with horsewhips. See what befell Festus Adedayo, who was made media aide to the Senate President, and the appointment was withdrawn with the speed of light, when Senate President Lawan heard that he had been using his newspaper columns to criticise the Buhari government…Ummmm, well, I can perceive the tantalising aroma of goat-meat at Juliet’s kitchen. That reminds me of the importance of goat-meat in the body. I read a magazine recently which quoted a research work as saying those who eat goat-meat regularly won’t suffer heart attack.”
“Thanks for that information Charles. Please mandate Juliet, the voluptuous owner of this dynamic beer parlour, to quickly arrange for us to eat goat-meat, as we will jubilantly wash it down with beer, criminally cold, mortuary standard.”
“That’s no problem. Juliet will hastily do that for us, more so as we have yet to sight Esther, who can make her become hotly jealous…yes, do you also know that another research says no dedicated drinker of beer can ever suffer Cholera?”
“Why Cholera? Please don’t go there. Don’t you know that simple hygiene alone will prevent Cholera? All the same, it is consoling to hear that beer is a preventive drug for Cholera disease. When I get back to my office, I am going to tell my fellow journalists, that there is one drunk, a university graduate who is selling vehicles’ spare-parts, who has suddenly turned himself to a medic. That he came up with a research of ‘drink beer to avoid cholera’.”
“And here comes the long-anticipated goat-meat broth, our pepper-soup drug that will prevent us from suffering heart attack under this economic quagmire.”
“Juliet, don’t mind Charles joo, he’s a bad guy. He is still dazed by the failure of Esther to arrive, being his proposed coquet for me. He has forgotten that there is a capable Juliet here, who can fill in the gap.
“Please don’t use Juliet as spare tyre o! Let’s go home; tomorrow is another day.”
