Happy anniversary!

–“Happy anniversary at the time of change,” Mutum said in a voice that was  grating, guttural and full of phlegm. He has this habit of announcing his entrance not with greetings but by using a notion or an idea that is current at the moment- -“Welcome, you sound like you have swallowed a frog, what’s […]

–“Happy anniversary at the time of change,” Mutum said in a voice that was  grating, guttural and full of phlegm. He has this habit of announcing his entrance not with greetings but by using a notion or an idea that is current at the moment-
-“Welcome, you sound like you have swallowed a frog, what’s the matter with your voice?”- I refused to join him on the “anniversary at the time of change” manner of greetings.
–Oh! Nothing, just cold and nausea that’s all-
–Mutum, you’re suffering from cold and nausea, at your age and you dismiss it as nothing? You sound like a croaking frog when you talk and you can hardly breath and you say that is nothing?-
— Now, don’t get worked up for nothing, everything is under control. I’m just coming from the hospital and have been treated and discharged. So relax, all the catarrh, stuffy nose and cracking voice would soon go away, so relax my friend!-
–Suit yourself but shouldn’t you go home to rest rather than perambulating about. A person in your condition should tuck himself in bed snoozing away like a newborn baby-
–And what do you think I’ve been doing all this while? For the past few days, soon as the doctors pumped into me all manner of injections, I do nothing other than sleep. So please let me be-
–Well, Mutum if the doctor says you should go and sleep, go and sleep. It is the only way to get better.-
–And I say I feel better coming here rather than staying at home and being treated like an invalid. It’s just a cold for God’s sake. You see the missus told everyone that I was down with a strange disease, turning the house into a place full of sympathisers as if they have come for a funeral, so let me be, coming here is a way of running away from the hubbub at home. And anyway it’s Nigeria’s anniversary why should I be tucked away for a mere cold.-
–Why do you go on so with this anniversary idea as if it’s different from the others that have passed? As it was before so it‘s now. It’s a good thing that the whole event marking the occasion was low keyed, no march past, at least in Abuja and I did not hear of any grand occasion in any of the state capitals, which is understandable because they have all fallen into parlous day.-
–So the whole thing was low key?-
–Yes, it was. Indeed in Abuja PMB dispensed with any elaborate show, left the Eagle Square, the usual venue for staging national occasions well alone and made do with the grounds of the Villa. Moreover, there were no elaborate speech- making but mere brief comments by a few of the dignitaries gathered around PMB for the cake cutting occasion. One highlight of President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech was that Nigerians would have to do away with their unruly, undisciplined attitudes and begin to behave in a decent manner-
–Really, he did?  
–What sort of question is that? If you couldn’t watch the anniversary ceremony on TV or listened to the broadcast on radio, at least you should have read it from the papers. What‘re you turning to-an educated illiterate?-
–Haba! That is an abuse and you know it. Remember I wasn’t well-
–So ill that you couldn’t take five minutes to read the papers? Anyway to go back to the president’s broadcast, for me, his exhortation on Nigerians to eschew indiscipline was apt and it was about time he did so.-
–So, you think PMB is on to something there. Like he is giving a hint of what he has up his sleeves about indiscipline that has eaten deep into the nation’s fabric?
–Mutum, if by that you mean PMB would launch another campaign against indiscipline in line with his earlier War Against Indiscipline (WAI) which he launched some 33 years ago, my hunch is definitely yes. What’s more, he has already started implementing it without even launching it.–
–Meaning what?-
–Well, if it must be spelt out for coconut heads like yours, all the effort at collecting back looted funds is nothing if not a moral equivalent of war, only it’s being done by other means. In other words, the mere presence of PMB at the helm has struck the fear of the Allah into the rogues who are now returning the loots with the hope that when they’re eventually arraigned before the special courts being fashioned out, the fact that they had returned some loots would count for something in their favour.-
–So you can’t find anything wrong with this surreptitious way of marking Nigeria’s independence anniversary? As if we’re ashamed to put on display what has been achieved so far, afraid to put out more flags, as it were.-
— Mutum, what do you mean by surreptitious way of marking the anniversary? I thought you said it’s cold you’ve? But now you’re talking as if your brain is addled and scrambled too. I’m right all along that you should have gone home to sleep as the doctor ordered you to.-
–Don’t beat about the bush. Answer the question. I say hosting the anniversary on the grounds of the Villa amounts to a diminution of the august occasion. Contradict me if you can. Lapdog journalist.-
—There is no need to resort to name calling Mutum-all I’m saying is that the exigency of the situation called for a low key celebration which explains taking the occasion to some other place other than the Eagle Square. Had it been held at the latter, it would have entailed exorbitant expenditure in this lean times. More importantly, however was the need to ensure nothing untoward happened.-
–Untoward, my friend don’t hide behind meaningless words.-
–Look, Mutum, you think the government tucked away the celebration of our national day in the Villa far from the people who should have partaken in the occasion. Thereby reducing the whole event into an elitist thing; appropriating a national occasion into a private bash for select people of position and influence. And I say that is a misreading of the whole import of the occasion because there are genuine reasons for government taking that line of action. I mentioned cost cutting measures as one. The second is security reasons. Surely, you remember, as well as I do, that the Eagle Square has once been bombed before with so many fatalities. The Boko Haram may have been pummelled into near submission, but other agent provocateurs are all over the place, some out to seek revenge for losing their unearned gravy train and others just for the heck of it. And who says Independence Day must be celebrated only at the Eagle Square anyway?
–Just spare me the drivel. Your two reasons are all hogwash. It’s Nigeria’s Independence Day celebration we’re talking about and not some other trivial, inconsequential occasion. At all times, in good or bad times, the Independence Day (ID) celebration must be held in full view of the Nigerian people. It’s their occasion and nobody should take that from them. At such occasions other countries showcase their achievements by putting on display military hardware- complete with armoured cars and fighter jets flying in formation above. As for the security reason, not publicly holding the ID occasion is a capitulation in the face of threats of violence. It is the duty of those in charge of our security to ensure real or imagined threats to security breach are nipped in the bud even before they happens.         
–Mutum, I give up, suit yourself.