“You seem to have catarrh, and that is the more reason you shouldn’t’t take cold beer until you are through with the harmless disease. So in the interim, Iya Basira would give you a bottle of beer, of room temperature.”
“Forget it; I will still drink my criminally cold beer, mortuary standard. Catarrh, yes, has come and it will go. Whether you drink cold things or not, it has its tenure and once that tenure expires, it will go and good health will be sworn in.”
“Clown, I wonder why you have not been going around with Ali Baba or AY to be his acolyte in a world where jocosity is moneyspinner. Or don’t you know that all these comedians get mega-bucks for making people laugh? After all, we are in the heat of economic recession and in need of things to make us forget our sorrow.”
“Kay, do you know that Ali Baba once recalled that his son never believed that dad was working anywhere? According to him, the boy would tell anybody who cared to listen that ‘oh, my father doesn’t go to work, he only goes to play!”(Laughter)
“Look o, Iya Basira is yet to bring our catfish, almost one hour after the thing was ordered for. Even though its tantalizing aroma from the kitchen has been whiffing past my nostrils, making me salivate like a caged dog that is barred from reaching a stewed meat.”
“Well, while not ruling out the fact that the fish may not be ready, it is also on record that such delay tactics are common with beer sellers. While your ordered pepper-soup is still bubbling on fire, they will keep ‘shelling’ you with beer and by the time you are set to eat the catfish, for instance, you would have drunk three bottles…and when the pepper soup lands, they will ensure that it is indeed peppery, requiring you to drink no fewer than three additional bottles.”
“Charles, the vigilant drunk! I think you need to gather beer drinkers in Lagos and environs, to a seminar, and lecture them on how to be a successful drunk. Under that circumstance, this Iya Basira’s prank of delaying our catfish to make us drink more beer will come as a special module.”
“I hear you Kay…en en, have you asked for your share of the loot, I think a whooping N13bn, found in an Ikoyi, Lagos residence? Because the common argument among some correct human rights activists is that, if the loot is not shared among Nigerians in this era of recession, two things are likely to happen.”
“Charles, the loot analyst. Well, so long as my bottles of beer are not looted, I’m less concerned.”
“Ooh, please be serious for once…The first thing is that, if the loot stays for too long in government coffers without it being expended on a project early enough, it will surely be re-looted.”
“Okay, your second reason, which is expected to be as funny as the first one.”
“Yah; if the money is distributed to each financially disadvantaged Nigerian at the rate of N10, 000 per head, rest assured that for three months, there will be no suicide incident in the form of anyone rushing to the Third Mainland Bridge to jump into the Lagoon. Or someone going to hang himself inside a church building, so as to enter paradise on sympathetic grounds.”
“Charles, thank God you are a roadside economist. No economics department of a university or polytechnic will give you a good grade…please, our bottles are leaking. Let your Bakassi-shooting Iya Basira replenish our stock.”
“And another funny dimension to this gale of suicide missions to the Third Mainland Bridge was recently complicated by what ordinarily should be a benevolent act from the Lagos State Commissioner of Police.”
“You mean how he helped re-habilitate the woman owing a microfinance bank, who had wanted to take a plunge into the Lagoon?”
“Yes, Kay. We are in Lagos. By bailing her out of the manacles of indebtedness and excruciating poverty, some Lagosians would see the woman as forming the whole drama to make money from sympathetic Lagos administration and police authorities.”
“Hmmm, quite thoughtful of you. Only two weeks after her aborted suicide bid, a man was also captured, holding on to the Lagoon railing and shouting, ‘I want to die o! I want to die o! Anybody there?”
“Yeye man; why not jump first and sustain some injuries; after all, they said the Lagoon is not too deep.”
“Well, no longer in this rainy season. Besides, the sharks, crocodiles and other sea predators are also hit by recession; they need meat and human flesh won’t be a bad idea.”
“You are damn right, guy. Recession is everywhere. For instance, my babe, Joke, who will be here soon, would have appreciated me more if I had got my due share of the Ikoyi loot. She would never be hesitant anytime the idea of a trip to Cloud 9 is mooted.”
“Nonetheless, you are a man. With about N5, 000, you can still ‘execute the project’ satisfactorily, and go home fulfilled.”
“So how do I go about it?” “You would say the Buhari administration has withdrawn a lot of money from circulation. That only in Ikoyi alone, over N13bn was mopped up and taken to the Central Bank, and that’s why everyone is broke.”
“My chief philanderer and executive liar. Soon, you’ll be made Minister of Power to Steal. Kay, download your beer and go; I’m waiting for my recession damsel.”
