#15

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Chapter Six

By the end of the first term, I had become very popular at Eziama High School. Everybody in school knew me as “Jah Rasta.” My popularity came because I spent a lot of money at school, and would occasionally rent a car with a chauffeur to drive me and my friend Ikojeh to school just to show off. All the senior boys and everyone who mattered in the school respected me. I also had musclemen who went out with me and were always ready to beat up anyone who crossed me. No one dared mess with Ikojeh and me. In my little group, Ikojeh’s contribution was his father’s status as police commissioner, and I provided all the money. Though my uncle John was one of the richest people in Aba, I never benefited from his wealth—all my family ever got from my uncle was misery. No one knew how I worked to get the money I spent. The truth was that I had my ways. I also had some funds from selling the soap I scammed from Aunt Comfort’s suppliers. Sometimes my grandmother Nwanyi Burunnu would send me a little savings from her business, and my mother would give me some money occasionally.

I lavished every penny I received just to be popular at school. Sometimes I felt sad about how I wasted my money, especially the savings from my grandmother, who was also trying to finish construction on a four-bedroom house in Owerri Nkworji that Uncle Francis had begun building prior to his death. The house was far enough away from the cursed land where our old house was located—the land that had brought so much death to our family—and once the new house was completed, our family could finally return to our village.

Immediately after my first term at Eziama High School ended, I went back to my Aunt Comfort’s house and continued to help her with the soap business, taking even more boxes of soap from the manufacturers. I made a lot of money this way, and bought myself a motorcycle—my ticket to freedom. Within a short time, the motorcycle started to take its toll on me. I drove around carelessly, had a few accidents, and was almost run over by a truck while I was on an adventure ride with my cousin Brigadier on the back seat. It was nothing short of a miracle that we weren’t crushed. Brigadier told Aunt Comfort and Ike about the accident, insisting that if nothing were done quickly about my motorcycle, I’d end up getting myself killed. From that day on, everyone pressured me to sell it. Ike found a buyer, and though I wasn’t sure I wanted to sell, I finally gave in when he told me what the buyer was willing to pay.

Ike arranged for the exchange to take place at a brothel that also had a casino. There in the brothel, I sold my motorcycle to the buyer, and he handed the money to Ike. I turned to leave, but Ike wanted to gamble with my money, rationalizing that we could double it at the slot machines. Like an idiot, I gave in and we gambled with my money. He even used some of it to sneak into one of the rooms for a quick encounter with a prostitute. I was dumbfounded—I had no idea that my beloved cousin patronized prostitutes. I took advantage of his absence to escape into the bosom of another willing harlot. We both came out of the girls’ rooms at the same time and were shocked when we ran into each other. We stared at each other in silence for a moment. Afterward, we never talked about it, and nothing was ever said about my money.

This awkward incident at the brothel with my cousin was not the first of its kind. On two occasions I had run into two seemingly happily married men who lived in the same building as Aunt Comfort. On both occasions, the men and I stared at each other. They never said a word to me or my aunt, and I said nothing to their wives and children.

With my motorcycle gone, there was nothing much to distract me. I still helped my aunt with the soap business, but I spent most of my time indoors, reading or daydreaming about how I would travel abroad. I did this every day.

Occasionally, my cousin Lois would interrupt my fantasies. She and her beautiful friends would pile into the bedroom that we all shared, and would spend all day talking about girl stuff. Sometimes we’d put on music and dance; other times the girls would ask me to sing country songs for them, and I would delightfully sing away. Most times it was difficult to be around these girls because they often forgot that I was a guy. They would try on my cousin’s clothes in front of me, and whenever this happened, I would struggle to contain my erection.

Though I mostly enjoyed living at Aunt Comfort’s house, I sometimes construed my aunt’s actions toward me as a little discriminatory. A number of times when Aunt Comfort served food, for example, I noticed that she gave Ike a larger portion than she gave me. Since I considered myself her son, too, I wanted her to divide things equally. I became manipulative. Habitually, I would find faults in her good intentions and threaten to leave her house, only for her to beg me not to leave. Sometimes she would even bribe me with money in order to encourage me to stay, which my cousins, especially Lois, saw as unfair. I knew Aunt Comfort loved me and could not bear to see me leave, and I took advantage of her. Though I threatened to leave my aunt’s house many times, in reality I never had any intention of following through.
However, this particular holiday Lois provoked me so much that I couldn’t bear to stay with them anymore. Fortunately, my relationship with Uncle John had improved substantially enough that I reckoned if he accidentally found me living in his house, his wrath wouldn’t be that great. I left my aunt’s house, despite her pleas for me to stay, and moved into my uncle’s house in the exclusive neighborhood. The house had many rooms as well as servants, making it difficult for my uncle to tell if I was in his house on a permanent basis or just visiting. Due to his busy schedule, he hardly saw me, and I tried as much as possible to avoid running into him.

Living with my uncle was perfect for me since my best friend lived next door. Ikojeh and I would get together every day and plan what we would do the next term. Some days we would listen to Ikojeh’s brother, who had studied in Brazil and would tell us stories about the country. Opposite my uncle’s house was a brand-new library, and we would sometimes go there—not to study, but to meet girls.

I met my first real girlfriend near the library. She happened to live on the same street as my uncle. Her father had two wives and was the richest man in Aba. As her father’s favorite daughter, she was overprotected and hardly ever allowed out of the house except to attend boarding school or church; she was a born-again Christian. We spent so much time talking on the phone that I eventually ran up my uncle’s phone bills. But during this period, telephone bills in Nigeria were not itemized, so it was hard for anyone to trace the high cost of the bills to me.

One evening, on one of the rare occasions that my girlfriend was able to get out of her house, she came to visit me. We talked for a long time under a tree and even kissed. She was the sweetest girl I had ever known. After a splendid evening, I walked her home, and as I walking back to my uncle’s house, I saw a man running fast toward me. Chasing him was a group of people shouting, “Thief! Thief!” Without thinking, I immediately rushed to stop the guy. I froze as he pulled out a pistol and fired two shots at me. It was a miracle I wasn’t hit. I stood still while he ran past. I was still shaking as I entered my uncle’s compound. When I recounted the experience to my uncle’s family, everyone agreed that I acted foolishly and was very lucky to be alive. Of cause, I was also admonished not to do such a thing ever again. A dead man could not be a hero, they said.

The second term of high school started, with a greater number of female teachers. Whenever a beautiful female teacher came to my class, the air was full of the wild excitement of young men with unrequited sexual desire for their teacher. It was extremely difficult for us to concentrate in this kind of environment.

The second week at school, school prefects were chosen and I was assigned dorm prefect for my dormitory. My job consisted of accounting for everyone in my dormitory, as well as making sure that lanterns were turned off at the assigned time when both seniors and juniors went to bed at “lights out.” It was also my duty to call for reveille in the mornings and ensure that everyone woke up to prepare for classes the next morning. It was indeed a very good position to hold, but I did not take my responsibilities as seriously as I should have. I rarely slept in the dormitory, since most secondary schools in Aba, as well as in other cities in the eastern region, had their inter-house sports scheduled during the second term, and I wanted to attend as many as possible.

Throughout the second term, Ikojeh and I would rent a car with a driver and travel from one school to another to attend inter-house sports. On one occasion, we ventured outside Imo State to Eziama-Obiato Secondary School. My twin cousins, Uzochi and Chinwe, were in school there, so it was imperative that I attend their inter-house sports. Back in my village, I used to spend a lot of time with the twins, and their mother was always nice to me, feeding me occasionally. Fortunately for Ikojeh and me, the inter-house sport was scheduled on a Friday, meaning we could show our faces in class during the morning hours and then head out for Eziama-Obiato.

When we arrived at Eziama-Obiato, the event was just getting started. Uzochi and Chinwe showed us around. Their school had no dormitory, so they lived in a rented one-bedroom apartment in town. We dropped off our things at their place and went back for the sports competition. By this time, the field was buzzing with spectators and the competition was in full motion—but Ikojeh and I were more interested in hooking up with girls. At the end of the event, we both met some beautiful girls and we all went back to Uzochi’s place, where we partied all night. We ended up spending the weekend there. Our rented car had left us and returned to Aba because we couldn’t afford to pay for it throughout the weekend.
On Monday we were supposed to head back to Aba, but by then we were broke and couldn’t afford our transportation home. We wound up spending the whole week at Eziama-Obiato, having many adventures and misadventures. One fateful day, one of our new acquaintances lent me some money to buy food from a store. I paid for the food, unaware that the money was counterfeit, and when the store owner realized it, he called the police. Fortunately, the officer seemed nice, and when my friend and I pleaded with him and the owner, they were reasonable enough not to rush to judgment and mete out the proverbial jungle justice usually reserved for such occasions. Incredibly, a stranger intervened on my behalf, paid my bill, and convinced the store owner and the policeman to let me go.

During that same week, I had my first fight with a girl. I was going to the river with the boys to fetch some water. It had become a routine to go to the river every day to swim and jump off the bridge into the river. There were other side attractions: beautiful girls from other villages who did laundry at the bank of the river. As we walked to the river that day, we ran into a group of girls returning from the river. There was something that seemed out of place about one of the girls. Like the others, she was carrying a calabash filled with water on her head and had her laundry tied around her waist. But while the others wore regular clothes and no shoes, she wore what looked like church clothes and very high heels. I found this ridiculous and told her so. Before I knew it, she dropped her calabash and rushed toward me like a wounded lion. She pounced on me and I jumped back, trying to practice on her what I had learned from watching karate movies. As I did my moves, she pulled back, grabbed her shoe, and struck me on the forehead. She walked away, leaving me with blood gushing from my head. From that day on, I swore never to fight with a girl.

The next weekend Ikojeh and I were able to raise some money and travel back to Aba. Before we left, I promised my female companion, whom I had met during the inter-house sports, that I would come back to visit her from time to time. We later arrived at Aba late at night, exhausted. Ikojeh went to spend the weekend at his parents’ house, but I decided I would rather stay at the dormitory.

When I arrived in my dormitory, the students were at sleep, except for the few who were up studying with kerosene lanterns; the school had no electricity and students had to use these lanterns at night. I went into my corner and found my mattress gone. I searched for it and was later told that a junior student took it. I got really upset. I went to the junior and woke him, shouting. As I scolded him, his school father, Christian Chukwu, showed up and, without knowing the details, ignored me, telling the junior to return to his bed and pay me no attention. By this time, the rest of the dormitory was awake and a crowd had gathered. Christian was one of the prize athletes at our school. He was also sports prefect and was very arrogant. Neither of us was willing to back down, as both our reputations were at stake. Suddenly, he slapped me and I responded with a punch. We continued to hit each other while no one made any attempt to separate us. The fight continued for about half an hour, until we were both exhausted. I had never been in a fight for that length of time before. We finally stumbled out of the dormitory, still throwing insults at each other. He tried to get me to leave the hostel, but I reminded him that, as dormitory prefect, if anyone had the right to kick somebody out of the dormitory, it was me.

I turned to walk back into the dormitory and he hit me at the back of my neck. At that point, I lost my mind. I walked straight into my corner, searching for something to hit him back with, and found a six-inch kitchen knife that I used to cut bread. I had never used a knife in a fight before and had no idea how to stab a human being without causing severe damage, but that didn’t matter to me at that point. I rushed at Christian with the knife. Not realizing that I had a weapon, he came toward me arrogantly and I stabbed him repeatedly. He tried to run away from me, stumbling to the ground, but I kept stabbing. I was too blinded with rage to realize how much blood he was losing, and didn’t even realize I was attacking everyone else who tried to stop me. The entire dormitory thought that I had gone crazy, and everyone started running away as I continued waving my knife at anyone in sight. Some of the students ran to the principal’s house and I followed them, hiding behind a small bush. I overheard the students telling the principal what had happened. He immediately ordered some of the students to go with him in his car to transport Christian to the hospital. He also ordered the school security to shoot me on sight if they found me anywhere around the school.
As soon as I heard that, my senses came flooding back and I realized what I had done. I snuck out of the bush and ran as fast as I could to my uncle’s house.

Everyone was asleep when I arrived, so I climbed over the fence of the compound, still clutching my knife. I tapped on a guest room window, hoping that whoever was sleeping there would hear me and let me in. Unbeknownst to me, it was one of those weekends that my mother spent at my uncle’s house. She opened the door to the guest room and was stunned to see me there, panting, bloodstains on my clothes. I told her what had happened, and showed her the knife with its bloody blade. As soon as my mother saw it, she fell to the floor and was motionless for several minutes. In the morning, everyone in the house, including my uncle, learned what had happened. At daybreak, I snuck out of the house and returned to school to evaluate the situation.

I truly regretted what had happened. Even though I didn’t think it was completely my fault, I didn’t want to be a murderer, and hoped Christian wouldn’t die. I hadn’t slept the night before, and my mother had prayed and fasted all through the night, asking God to spare Christian’s life.

By the time I arrived at school, word had gotten out about the fight. Ironically, I become more popular for what I had done. Everyone saw me as a hero. The students felt it was about time someone taught Christian a lesson.

I learned that Christian’s condition was serious, but he would survive. The matter had been reported to the police and I had become a wanted man. I returned to my uncle’s house to lie low.

My mother pleaded with my uncle to go and work things out with the police and the school. The next day, my uncle told my mother that everything was fine, but I had to report to the school and see the principal. He asked his manager to accompany me. We went directly into the principal’s office and I apologized sincerely, expressing my remorse and promising never to do something like that again. My uncle’s manager also pleaded on my behalf, but after listening to his pleadings and accepting our apologies, the principal said he would have to expel me anyway to demonstrate that he would not condone similar actions from other students.

After that, the principal called for an impromptu assembly. The whole school, including the staff, was in attendance. I was paraded in front of everyone–the object of shame—but as soon as the crowd saw me, they started shouting, “Jah Rasta!” and yelling their praise. The principal was confused and getting angrier with every chant. How could he make an example of me when the students were hailing me as a hero? It took more than ten minutes for him to get the students to be quiet. My head swelled with pride; I didn’t care that I was about to be thrown out of school. All I could think of was how I needed to enjoy this moment of fame while it lasted. I raised my fists high in the air and shook them in victory. The crowd got wilder the more I shook them. It was the most fantastic moment of my life. Eventually the crowd kept quiet enough for the principal to announce that I was no longer a student of the school and had been suspended indefinitely. It didn’t matter—the crowd continued to scream. The police arrived to take me off to the station. I could hear the crowd shouting as we drove off the premises.

I didn’t realize I would be detained at the police station. I had thought my uncle had smoothed things over, but that was not the case. My uncle’s manager went in to speak with the district police commander. When he came out, he explained that the commander had insisted I be detained because Christian’s family wanted to take the case to court.

I was stripped naked and thrown into a 9-by-9-foot cell with twenty hard-core criminals. The police station had about nine of these cells, with twenty to forty men packed into each one. By Nigerian law, the police are allowed to detain people for no more than twenty-four hours before they are charged to court, but the law is often ignored. Ninety percent of the people in jail had been there for more than a year awaiting trial—some longer, forgotten by the system. Many hardened criminals were in these jails.

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As usual continuation is base on popular demand and constructive criticism.

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Chie locked in toilet, pepper in your eyes... You have really suffered!

chinedumo: Chie locked in toilet, pepper in your eyes... You have really suffered!

chinedumo: that was just a tip of the iceberg...it gets worse when the story move on to Liberia, Mali Ghana, Las Palmas, and Spain...hang tight a enjoy the ups and downs..

thx

Jakemond

jake jake jake!!! u are a literary genius. u hv out done yourself again and the story dey sweet me like honey..pardon me though, if this sinful pleasure was at your expense vis avis your sufferings..
I can't wait to find out how u manage leave Naija and enter Europe !! pls don't stop!!!

I hope life is better for you now

Wait first o,bros na u dey write this things wen happen to u,or na someone else experience u dey write,but in all u are good.

chinedumo: I hope life is better for you now

chinedumo: no worries my brother, I'm turned out more than OK.

Ukavwe: Wait first o,bros na u dey write this things wen happen to u,or na someone else experience u dey write,but in all u are good.

Ukavwe: absolutely, it my life story (part 1)..

JAKEMOND1:

Ukavwe: absolutely, it my life story (part 1)..

Remarkable!

I could push to have this thread on the front page but majority of Nigerian youths don't like reading

Ishilove:
Remarkable!

I could push to have this thread on the front page but majority of Nigerian youths don't like reading

Noted, but we don't have to give up trying to revive that reading culture. remember the saying " the mind is a terrible thing to waist" we exercise the mind through reading, and a people who relent in the quest for knowledge will never prosper..we all need to do our share by inspiring each other. hence, the desire to contributed through my pen, I mean my computer. I just hope that readers will be both entertained and inspired by my story.

#16
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In my cell room, we were packed like sardines and there was no room to move around. There were no toilets, so people defecated and urinated on the floor. The place smelled like nothing I had smelled in my life. There was a hierarchy that existed in each cell. The most hardened criminals were usually the leaders, surrounded by lieutenants who did their bidding. The cell had no windows; a metal door with iron bars was the only source of ventilation. Inmates had to bribe the leader of the cell to be allowed to stand in front of the metal door to catch some fresh air passing through the corridor.
Life in the cell room was horrible. There was barely any space to move. One could only sit on one side of one’s buttocks. Legs could not be stretched because doing so would cause one to hit somebody, earning oneself a good beating. There were few entertaining moments when cellmates would tell stories about their crimes and how they had been caught, some of which were fantastic. Sometime, after listening to the stories, the cell leader would set up a mock trial and predict what the outcome would be in court for each of the trials. Sometimes his predictions turned out to be correct.
The cell leader acted like a Mafia kingpin. He was so powerful that he could order anyone to be beaten up in the cell. He also had connections outside the cell and could influence his people outside to do whatever he wanted them to do. Jailhouses in Nigeria usually didn’t have enough money to feed their detainees, so the inmates relied on their relatives for meals. The majority of the men in the jail had no one to bring food to them and therefore relied on other inmates’ goodwill in order to eat. For those who were fortunate enough to receive meals from their relatives, it usually came once in two days, and when the meal was brought to them, they would divide it into two parts, giving half to the cell leader while the rest would be shared among the other inmates.
The experience took a toll on me. I was starved and no one brought food to me. None of the inmates shared theirs with me, either. I had never gone more than twenty-four hours without eating or drinking. At one point, even the horrible food that was brought to other inmates appeared appetizing. I prayed so hard for someone to come to my rescue because I couldn’t stand it anymore.
My first night in the cell, I was beaten up by a huge prisoner just because I accidentally touched him while I was shifting in my corner. As a result, the next morning I had a black eye and my whole body was bruised. The next day no one came to see me, and no one brought food for me. The second evening, the police commissioner, the father of my friend Ikojeh, visited the jail. He was in my cell, but didn’t recognize me. He gave some money to the constable on duty to buy ten loaves of bread for my cell. The cell leader must have felt some pity for me because he gave me a little piece of bread—my first meal in forty-eight hours. That night, before going to sleep, I had a serious talk with God, begging him to get me out of jail. I asked him not to allow me to remain in jail for more than three days—not this time and not ever, because I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time I would wind up in detention.
I was full of anticipation on the morning of the third day. I had a good feeling that my fortune was about to change. Indeed, around 9 a.m., the officer on duty came and got me out of my cell. He returned my belongings and I was free to go. I smelled like I had slept with a corpse for two months, but I didn’t care.
As I walked outside, my uncle’s manager was waiting for me. He told me that they had settled with Christian’s family. Apparently, my uncle had given the family a large sum of money to cover Christian’s medical expenses, and the family had decided not to proceed with the case. As usual, the police were given some money “for their trouble.” The manager drove me back to my uncle’s house and my mother was overjoyed to see me. I went to the servants’ quarters, took a long bath, and borrowed some clothes from the servants, since I had left all my belongings at the dormitory and wasn’t allowed to return to my school to collect them.
There was a turning point in my life after my jail experience. I realized that I couldn’t continue my life the way it was going. My family’s situation was far less than ideal and, being the first son, I was responsible for taking care of my father’s household. It was imperative that I changed my ways. I had to take my destiny into my own hands. I became more determined to leave the shores of Africa for London, where I could potentially get a good education, meet and marry a good woman, and be able to care for my family back in Nigeria.
Once again, everyone had given up on me. No one seemed to care anymore and I was completely on my own. Every day I read books, studied my map, and planned my escape from Africa. Since I was staying at my uncle’s house, Uncle John and his family exploited my situation and turned me into their personal servant. I washed their cars, swept the entire compound, did their laundry, and ironed on a daily basis. I was treated worse than their servants.
One day a relative, Robert, who also lived at my uncle’s house, called me into his room and gave me some very valuable advice: even though everybody had given up on me, the worst thing I could do was to give up on myself. He advised me not to be a dropout. He stressed the importance of education and encouraged me to go back and finish secondary school, even if I had to repeat a class. I took his advice and started making plans to go back to school, even though I had no money and no one to fund my education.
As the days went by, I began falling into a deep depression because my situation wasn’t getting any better. One day my cousin Charles paid me a visit. He told me he was running his own business and that he had bought a Dymo tape machine, which he used to print name stickers that people could paste on their electrical appliances, and he was paid for each printout. He took his Dymo tape business everywhere—to markets, streets, wherever he could. The trick of the trade was to convince people to have their name tags made and placed on their valuable appliances to prevent them from getting stolen. He seemed to be very successful. It sounded like a good idea to me, and I told my mother that I wanted to join my cousin in this business.
Unfortunately, I was unable to raise the money to buy the Dymo tape machine, and my uncle was no help at this point. So I traveled back to Orji Uratta to see if I could raise the funds there. My grandmother had no money to give me, so I grudgingly went to Sydney for help, but he refused. I went back to my grandmother Eunice and told her that I would sell all my mother’s chickens to raise the money. When Sydney heard this, he decided to help me raise the money another way.
Sydney had a lot of checkerboards made for sale. He propositioned me to go and sell them at the market, and whatever profit I made from the sales, I could use to buy the Dymo tape machine. The next day I took a couple of checkerboards and went to sell them. Fortunately, I sold all of them, and when I returned home, I gave all the money to Sydney. He asked me how much I needed for the machine, and he gave me the money. I immediately returned to Aba and bought the machine.
The next day I started the business with Charles. It was tedious at first. We had to walk through the whole market and beg people to get their name tags made, but by the end of the day I had gotten very good at it and ended up making a lot of money. I was thrilled, mostly because it was a legitimate business and solely mine. I could do whatever I wanted with the money I made. On my way back home that day, I stopped at a restaurant and had a nice meal, and also bought some snacks for everyone at my uncle’s house.
I continued with the business and kept outdoing myself every day. At one point I came up with a jingle to attract more customers. Within a short period I had made more money than I ever had in my entire life. I bought two more machines and many more tapes in different colors in order meet my customers’ demands. Business was good. Finally, it seemed like we had printed tags for everyone in all the markets in Aba. I suggested to Charles that we start traveling to other cities, and he agreed.
We went to Port Harcourt, Owerri, Umuahia, and many other cities. We were on the road a lot, making and spending a ton of money. We usually ate at the best restaurants, and from time to time we would stop at brothels to drink, patronize prostitutes, and play the slot machines. I was also putting money aside and was able to save a substantial amount. At the end of each day, I would return to my uncle’s house with snacks for everybody, and my relationship with everyone—except my uncle—became much better.
As the weeks went on, my desire to leave Africa kept getting stronger. It was always on my mind. Even with my busy schedule, I always found time to read my books and study my map. One day I was delightfully surprised by a revelation from a stranger during the course of business in Umuahia. While at the market, I approached two gentlemen in their store and started to explain the importance of having their name tags made. The two men listened to me go on and on about my product, and at the end, one of them said to me, “Young man, who do you think you’re fooling? I know people like you—you’re one of those smart ones. Today you’re doing this hustling, but before long you will travel out of Nigeria to London or America and become someone very important. So please, don’t talk to me about Dymo tape anymore. Go forth and your future awaits you.”
I knew he was right. But I didn’t know what had made him say it. It sure wasn’t because of the way I looked or the way I was dressed. I smiled and begged them to buy my product anyway. They eventually did, and Charles and I went on our way. But I never forgot what that stranger said to me. It seemed like a good omen to me, almost like God had revealed my future through this stranger.
I returned to Aba that evening and decided to go and spend a couple of weeks at my grandmother’s sister’s village, Mbieri. My grandmother’s sister, Beatrice, was delighted to see me, and her family received me well. Most of her children were older than me, except for the youngest, Kingsley. Her first son, Stephen, was living with my uncle in Aba. The second, Clement, lived in the village and taught at a local school. The third had just graduated from university and was teaching in the north for his National Youth Service year, while the fourth son, Udo, was a senior at Iho Comprehensive Secondary School, about five kilometers from their house.
Aunt Beatrice’s husband, known as PapaSitee, was around sixty and suffering from dementia. He was a very religious man and spent all day reading his Bible. Before his sickness took hold of him, he was excommunicated from Faith Tabernacle Congregation because he constantly challenged the presiding elder of the church. PapaSitee had grown up with this man, and they had lived in the same city for a long time and knew each other well. Familiarity bred contempt. PapaSitee was convinced that the presiding elder and some pastors in their church were not true Christians, but members of a secret society. He also accused them of being responsible for the frequent deaths in the church, claiming they were using church members for sacrifices in their secret society. Perhaps it was the onset of dementia that caused his allegations, but he was excommunicated nonetheless.
PapaSitee liked me right away because I listened to all his stories. His mental health had deteriorated to the point that he was sometimes unable to recognize members of his own family. His mood changed from time to time, but I would always sit patiently and listen to him, even when his family told me to ignore him.
I really enjoyed living in the village of Mbieri. Everyone was so nice to me. In the evenings I would go on long walks with Aunt Beatrice’s daughter, Chinma. We were very close; she was my favorite great cousin.
After two weeks of living with them, I did not want to return to Aba. The family inspired me, and I enjoyed their company. They were all educated, and there were plenty of books and maps in their house, which I spent hours reading. I spent even more hours having intellectual conversations with Aunt Beatrice’s sons. Knowing my situation back in Aba, they all encouraged me to stay, and Clement said he would try his best to enroll me in school so I could finish my secondary education. I accepted the offer.
Clement kept his word and looked for a school for me. At first it seemed impossible that he would find one to accept me, until a teacher friend of his also got involved, and finally they were able to get me admitted into Iho Comprehensive Secondary School, where Udo was attending. All was set for me to go back to class four again the next academic year.



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As usual continuation is base on popular demand and constructive criticism.

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Ishilove:
Remarkable!

I could push to have this thread on the front page but majority of Nigerian youths don't like reading

do so immediately ishilove.

Don't u prefer it to mazi's kind of stories?

I hope you now have a nice girl to settle down with

chinedumo: I hope you now have a nice girl to settle down with

chinedumo: pump your brakes my brother, we don't want to jump the gun, do we. patience is a virtue and we need to exercise it on this story but I can guarantee you right now my brother that I made out OK. Don't want ruin the story for everybody cuz we still have 15 more chapters to the end the first book.

Thx

#17
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With the school issue settled, I began to relax and spent time visiting different villages with Clement. We rode around on his motorbike, and I’d watch him practice with his soccer team every night and cheer him on at the matches on Saturdays. I felt close to him after all he had done to get me back on track.
Still waiting for the school year to begin, I returned to Aba to continue my Dymo tape machine business. I more motivated than ever—I knew I had to save money to go back to school. Aunt Comfort welcomed me to stay with her again, and I worked extremely hard for three months. By then, I had saved enough money, and I bought my uniform, books, and everything else I needed. After spending a week in Orji Uratta with my siblings, I traveled back to Mbieri for the new academic year. It was time to make a fresh start.

Chapter Seven

School started the Monday after I arrived. At first it was difficult getting there because I had to walk the five kilometers to and from school every day, but after a while, my aunt was kind enough to allow me use one of her bicycles. Iho Comprehensive was a relatively new school; my class was the second graduating set of the school. For the first time I actually took my academics seriously. I was in class all day and paid attention, too. The school was coed, but I didn’t allow any distractions. I enjoyed every subject except mathematics—I couldn’t understand it no matter how hard I tried, probably because I had previously avoided math classes and therefore didn’t even understand the basics.
For the first time, I scored one hundred percent in a subject—economics—and no one else did well in it. The economics teacher summoned me to his office, where he accused me, in front of all the other teachers, of cheating. I was outraged. I told him I hadn’t cheated, but had simply studied very hard to pass. He didn’t believe me. I felt like beating him up, but I didn’t want to get expelled again. I couldn’t afford to get into any more trouble. When he was done, I walked out of his office more determined to do well in all my subjects.
I made a few new friends—and enemies—at school. Most of my friends were city boys, and my rivals were mainly rural-bred. There was a particular group that we called Village Champions, who always tried to challenge my friends and me. They were the most well-known group in school, primarily because they included a few soccer players and student body leaders. We called them Village Champions because of their mannerisms and fashions. They were not sophisticated and knew nothing about pop culture, so they tried to copy the city boys and ended up looking awkward and ridiculous. Nevertheless, they attracted a lot of girls, most of whom were “village” themselves.
There was also a group made up of boys with wealthy parents, and they attracted the beautiful girls in school. Emeka, the leader, was a big spender and showered his female friends with gifts. Even though he had a girlfriend, all the girls at school wanted to be with him, and most guys wanted to be like him. Emeka’s uncle supposedly worked at a big oil company called Elf. Emeka would visit his uncle every weekend and return with large sums of money and more expensive stuff.
I was the leader of my group. Most of the members were from middle-class families and couldn’t compete with the rich guys. But we were city boys and everybody envied us, even though they pretended to hate us. One of my best friends from the group also came from Aba. Like me, he had his own business and supported his family with the money he made. He was called Wintermax, but I called him Winterkpus. Another friend of mine in our group was the gentle giant, Chime—aka Barbarossa. He was from a very poor family. He was tall and muscular and looked intimidating, but was the nicest and most gentle guy I had ever met. He was our principal’s nephew. The most interesting person in my group was a guy who hallucinated a lot and liked to be called Idi Amin, even though that wasn’t his real name. He always tried to speak English with a British accent and claimed he was trained by the British, but no one could understand him when he spoke. He looked very strong and no one dared mess with him, not even the teachers or the principal. Nonetheless, he listened to me and did whatever I asked him to, and as a result I got him to join my group. For the first time, I enjoyed both the academic and social aspects of school.
The first term ended well, and I passed all my subjects except mathematics. Once again, I spent the holidays in Orji Uratta and Aba, running my Dymo tape business and earning enough money for the next school term.
Back at Aunt Beatrice’s, her husband’s health was deteriorating rapidly. He became more delusional and started accusing me of being a bad influence on his family, saying he didn’t want me in his house anymore. As the days went by, he got worse. He accused me of having an affair with his wife, being an armed robber, and sleeping with my great cousin Chinma. His behavior became unbearable, and I got depressed. Even though we all knew he was mentally ill and didn’t know what he was saying, I couldn’t deal with his constant badgering.
Meanwhile, I had started receiving love letters from a girl who lived in one of the beautiful houses on my school route. At first I didn’t know who the girl was. She would write notes and deliver them via her cousin, who was in my class. I never responded, but the letters kept coming. Much later, I found out the reason she didn’t want to meet with me in person. Her father had died a year earlier, publicly executed in his hometown, Mbieri, according to military decree at the time. Her younger brother was arrested for armed robbery, but he merely served time in prison and was subsequently released. She had assumed that since the events were so public, I would know about her family’s history and judge her, and decide to have nothing to do with her. She was right.
By the time we met face-to-face, I had learned all about her, and Clement had warned me to stay away from her. I avoided meeting her at her house, so we met near my school. She seemed like a nice girl, so we struck up a friendship. She later told me that she wanted more than friendship, but I found it difficult to have a relationship with her, given her background. She refused to understand and kept writing letters and sending gifts. I kept ignoring the letters and sending the gifts back to her.
One day she set a trap for me. As I was passing by her house on my way back from school, a group of boys, including her brother, came after me and pushed me off my bicycle. I got up and tried to defend myself, but her younger brother pulled a pistol on me and threatened to shoot. As people started to gather, he hid the weapon and ran off with his friends. I gathered my things, got back on my bicycle, and continued on my way. This was the last straw for me. First, Aunt Beatrice’s husband’s constant badgering, and now people threatening to shoot me…so as soon as I got to the house, I told everyone that I had to move closer to my school.
The next day I went in search of a place to live. Luckily, I found one right away and moved in. I bought a bed, pans, and cooking utensils for my new place. I also went to Owerri Nkworji and took some of my father’s chairs that weren’t being used, and fixed up my room nicely. Best of all, my school was only about five hundred meters away from my new place. I was happy to not have to deal with Aunt Beatrice’s husband and his accusations anymore, and not to worry about getting shot while going to school. At the same time that I moved, one of my best friends in school, Ike, also moved very close to school. Subsequently, all the members of my group moved close to the school, too.
Since I was solely responsible for my food, lodging, and everything else, I had to juggle school and my business. It was very difficult, but I had to keep at it. On weekends I would travel to Aba to run my business. On Sundays, on my way back to Mbieri, I would stop at Orji Uratta and prepare some food to take to school, enough to last me the whole week. On Monday morning I would return to school.
During the second term, we had a new principal, Rev. Dr. Ekemam. Dr. Ekemam was a very interesting man who had recently returned from the United States, where he had studied and lived for more than thirty years, and obtained a doctorate in theology. He was sent back to Nigeria by his ministry to become the West African archbishop for his church, and was subsequently employed by the Imo State governor to become the principal of my school. He accepted the position as a way of giving back to his community, since the school was located near his village.
Dr. Ekemam told us that right after secondary school, he had gained admission to study at a university in America, but his family was very poor and could not sponsor him. Because he was a bright young man, his entire community decided to contribute money and send him to America—and now that he was back, more than three decades later, he was doing his very best to support the community that had supported him when he was in need.
I was completely taken by his eloquence, charisma, and personality. He dressed like an American and his diction was like music to my ears. I wanted him to be my mentor. In order to get on his good side, I would take fresh fruit from my mother garden as a gift to him, and during our school’s practical agriculture period, I would volunteer to tend his garden. He grew to like me as a result, and I did my best not to disappoint him, working hard to improve my academic performance as well as my diction. Having Dr. Ekemam as my principal was a great pleasure and an honor. Unbeknownst to him, he not only motivated me to become educated, but also strengthened my desire to travel to America so I could be like him.
My friend Ike also had dreams of going to America, where his brother and sister lived. Ike was a bit taller than me and much fatter, though he didn’t like to think of himself as fat. He was his mother’s last child—she died while given birth to him—and his father remarried a few months after Ike was born. His father traveled frequently to the United States to visit his two children who lived there, and on each of these occasions he would try to get a U.S. travel visa for Ike as well, but his application was always denied. His father was a nice gentleman, and he liked me because he believed that I was a positive influence on his son. Though Ike’s siblings sent him money from America regularly, Ike was always broke and mooched off me. He wasn’t the brightest kid in school, but his knowledge of pop culture was impressive. He knew all the current songs and artists, the latest styles and fashions. Ike was my pop culture encyclopedia.
After we all went home for the holidays at the end of the second term, I kept working extra hard at my Dymo tape business. I was more determined than ever to stay in school. My ambition to travel abroad was at its highest level yet—especially as it seemed Ike would be going to the United States soon, and I wanted to try and beat him by all means. But the fact remained that I was still poor and had no one to sponsor me. I could barely make ends meet. I was not only putting myself through school, but also paying my siblings’ fees with the money I made from my business.
In the middle of the holidays, while reading a newspaper one day, I saw an advertisement for a missionary-sponsored trip to Canada. I couldn’t believe my eyes. For a small fee, selected individuals would be sponsored to go to Canada to study theology. I gathered all the money I had made up to that point, got on a bus, and went to Lagos for the first time.
A city of ten million people, Lagos was huge. I had never seen such a big city. I had taken a night bus so I could sleep on the twelve-hour drive, arrive in Lagos in the morning, finish my business, and return to Aba on another night bus. That way, I wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel room or show up at my relatives’ houses uninvited.
Upon arrival, I asked around, trying to locate the organization that had placed the ad. I had to take the infamous Molue bus, which is typically packed with people and stops at every bus stop. It seemed like at each bus stop, a hundred people would disembark and another two hundred would come on board. There was no breathing space; people were standing, sitting, and shoving each other. There was even a saying that went: “The total number of passengers that a Molue can carry is equal to there’s always room for one more passenger.” By the time we got to my destination, my pocket had been picked and half of my money was gone, including my wristwatch. To make matters worse, I was slapped around and insulted by a crazy Yoruba woman.
None of these events deterred me, though; I was still highly motivated by the time I arrived at my final destination. The receptionist welcomed me into the agency office, and soon I was ushered into the inner office to meet with Rev. Dr. Kayode. He was a tall, lanky man, very articulate and smart-looking. He was also a sweet-talker. Dr. Kayode immediately told me how his organization was affiliated with another organization in Canada, and that they had been sending people there to embark on religious studies. He told me that he liked me a lot and could guarantee my trip to Canada if I paid him a certain amount of money. Once I paid, he would ensure that I was on the next batch to Canada. I should have been smart enough to realize that it was a scam and that I couldn’t gamble with my hard-earned money. However, my desire to travel abroad clouded my better judgment, and in the end, I handed him all my money. He then promised to call me when it was time to go for the visa.
I left Lagos that same day and took the night bus back to Aba. I continued my business, but never stopped thinking about going to Canada. I hoped and prayed every day that Dr. Kayode would call me, but that call never came. Not after two weeks, as promised, and not ever.
Due to the large sum I had wasted on that scam, at the end of the holiday I hadn’t raised enough money to pay my school fees or buy my books; I had just enough to pay for my siblings’ fees. Two days before returning to school, I visited my grandmother Nwanyi Burunnu. As always, she was delighted to see me. I spent the whole day helping her cultivate her farm, and as soon as we returned to the house, there were a number of people waiting to order her special traditional cake. So we jumped right into it. I didn’t tell her that I was short of money for my school fees. As it was, she had done enough giving me money every year for school. As always, before I left the next day, she dug under her mattress and brought out a bundle of money, telling me to use for school. I was tempted to reject the money, but I desperately needed it. She had never given me such a huge amount before—I would be able to pay my school fees, buy my books, and cover my food for one month. I thanked my grandmother, saying that I would forever be indebted to her.
Third term started without any hitches, except for the new girl in my class. She had just returned from London with an overly high opinion of herself. She talked down to everyone, including the teachers. In my opinion, she was a fashion disaster because of the trashy London ghetto clothes she liked to wear. She immediately aligned herself with Emeka’s group, making her an automatic enemy of mine. It was hard for most of the students to understand her because of her English accent. One day she and I had an altercation, and she immediately went to Dr. Ekemam and whined to him. He summoned me to his office and reprimanded me. I was furious with her after that, and at the same time, very disappointed in Dr. Ekemam. He was usually impartial, but on this occasion he refused to listen to my side of the story. The girl became my number one enemy from that day on.
There were four other girls who were good friends with Emeka’s girlfriend. One of the girls, Grace, at first seemed like a very proud and pretentious person. But much later we learned she was that way because she was hiding the fact that her mother was a quadriplegic. Another girl, Ndidi, was very pretty, unpredictable, and from a rich family. Her outspokenness bordered on vulgarism at times. We found out later that Ndidi was suffering from epilepsy. She had an attack one day while we were in class, falling on the ground like a log and foaming from the mouth. After that incident, her attitude changed and she became a much nicer person because she thought the whole world now knew about her condition.
Then there was Sandra, the beauty queen. She was the most beautiful of the girls, but she had no brains. Whatever shortcomings she had were compensated for by her beauty. I had wanted her from day one, but was afraid to talk to her for fear of rejection, even though she flirted with me and seemed to like me. There was also Joyce, the combination of brains and beauty. She was the smartest girl in our school and was always number one in our class. She was a little shy and unaware of her natural endowments.
Though these girls belonged to a rival group, this term, for some reason, Joyce became my girlfriend, Sandra became Barbarossa’s girlfriend, Ndidi and Idi Amin fell in love, and Winterkpus and Grace became inseparable. Ike did not hook up with anybody; he was too timid to talk to any girl. They all called him Elephant Man because of his size.
Our relationship with the girls was beautiful. We hung out together and even studied and ate together. Joyce was always bringing freshly picked fruit to me at my place. Occasionally, when she visited me, we would play around and kiss, but we never had sex. Joyce was a virgin and had vowed to remain so until she got married, so sex was out of the question. But I got tired of just kissing and romancing. One day she visited with fruit for me as usual. We kissed and I was aroused, but as always, she wouldn’t go any further. I got upset and told her that enough was enough: she should either have sex with me right then and there, or leave immediately. She still wouldn’t give in, so I ordered her to leave. I also asked her to take back all the fruit and food she had brought. She got up and left, leaving her gifts behind. As she walked out of my room, I followed her with the fruit and food, demanding that she take them with her or I would throw them away. She turned around and told me that if I threw them away, it would be over between us. Without hesitation I flung them into the bush, and she turned and walked away without saying a word.
I still regret my actions of that evening to this day. I later pleaded with Joyce to come back to me, but she kept her word and refused to have anything to do with me again. She told all her friends what I had done, and they all hated me for it.
Meanwhile, Winterkpus and Grace maintained their good relationship. She opened up to him, explaining her fear that if people at school knew that her mother was quadriplegic, they would make fun of her. Ironically, when my group learned about it, we liked Grace even more, and she became more relaxed and happy. She later invited us to her house, and we got to meet her mother, who was a sweet lady with big heart. Grace’s mother had never been married; she had been raped as a teenager, and Grace was her only child. Grace meant the whole world to her.
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As usual continuation is base on popular demand and constructive criticism.

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This story is deep

, great read! I see great things for this story. Whenever I start I never want it to end. When will it be availaible on the Amazon Kindle store? These updates are not doing it for me, I just want to read the whole story already.

chinedumo: This story is deep

And will get even deeper! just hang tight and enjoy the ride.

repogirl: , great read! I see great things for this story. Whenever I start I never want it to end. When will it be availaible on the Amazon Kindle store? These updates are not doing it for me, I just want to read the whole story already.

repogirl: you are an excellent story teller yourself and I truly value your opinion.

The book will be available in Amazon this July.

I wasn't going post this afternoon but you have a way of forcing my hands. so I will yield for you my dear.

#18

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While Grace was revealing her life to us, Winterkpus and I were busy hiding the fact that we were doing our own business: street hawking. It would definitely hurt our reputation if anyone from school found out we were hustling. One day Winterkpus ran out of luck—Emeka was returning from a trip and spotted Winterkpus selling his wares in traffic.
When he got to school, Emeka recounted the incident to his girlfriend, who then told the story to her friends. Ndidi, who could never keep her mouth shut, broadcast the news to our whole class. Winterkpus was furious and ashamed. He thought that everyone in the school would come to know about his secret life and make fun of him—and indeed, he was right. Even I made fun of him, since my own secret was still safe at the time.
One evening I called a meeting for my group to discuss Winterkpus’s situation and how we would deal with Emeka. Barbarossa was reluctant to do anything to Emeka because they were from the same village and lived in the same compound outside school, but we overrode all his objections and decided that we would teach Emeka a lesson. We all headed to Emeka’s house. When we arrived at his compound, Emeka didn’t realize how much trouble he was in and continued to be his pompous self. He asked why we were there, and before I could respond, Winterkpus jumped him, lifted him up, and threw him to the ground, raining punches on him. The rest of us simply stood aside and watched. Winterkpus pounded Emeka until he pleaded for mercy. In a brief moment, when Winterkpus was distracted, Emeka saw his chance—he got up and ran like a mad dog. None of us could believe that the arrogant ladies’ man would run away from a fight. Despite his strong build, he was really a coward.
Word spread about the event, and the whole school saw Emeka for the coward he was. For my group, life couldn’t have been better—but there was even more to come. Two days after the incident, Emeka’s uncle showed up at our school with the police. Emeka was handcuffed and taken home to his room, where the police and his uncle recovered a lot of property and some stolen money. Apparently, Emeka’s uncle had been sent on a four- to six-month training in America, and during his absence Emeka had been stealing from him.
My group was delighted with Emeka’s downfall. After he was released from detention, his whole demeanor and behavior changed completely. He became somber and dejected, and he had no more money to throw around. His uncle had renounced him and refused to sponsor his education any further. Once it became clear that Emeka could no longer afford an extravagant lifestyle, his girlfriend left him—we had always known she was a gold digger—and everybody else in Emeka’s group eventually abandoned him as well. He became a lonely, miserable student and all the people who used to hang around him now made fun of him. On the other hand, my group’s popularity shot to the roof and we became the most popular group in the school.
By the end of third term, everyone was working to pass the finals and move up to class five (twelfth grade). I worked extra hard. Failure was not an option after I had labored to put myself through school and knew that my grandmother had given me all her savings that term. Among my group, I happened to perform the best academically. Ike didn’t care too much about school and didn’t study hard. I always wondered how he passed all his courses. I later found out that he bribed the teachers. Barbarossa wasn’t academically inclined, either, but he was a smooth talker, and would charm the smart girls into letting him sit next to them during exams so he could copy the answers from them. As for Winterkpus, it was no secret that he was the dumbest of us all, but he always passed his exams, too. He would also cheat during every exam, stretching his long neck shamelessly and sometimes even asking people to move their answer sheets so he could see better. We all sat for the exams, and were thrilled when the results came out and we had passed.
I went back to Aba and spent the holidays at my Aunt Comfort’s house. Again, I poured my heart and soul into my business the entire time. Fortunately, business was very good; within a month I had raised enough money to pay my fees and sustain myself for an entire semester. Even after I had made enough money, I did not relent. I continued to take my business to other cities. By the end of the holidays, I had made enough money to pay my siblings’ fees and still had enough to give my mother.
I took a short break to visit my aunt and cousins in Mbawsi. They were very pleased to see me, and I was happy to have the chance to relax before returning to school. The family lived quite a privileged life. Their father been a pastor, and they were obligated to live within the church’s compound. There was never a shortage of people to do the chores in their house and around the church, as the members would often volunteer. Some of the church members were the funniest people I had ever met, especially the Choir Master called J who constantly entertained us with his off the chart jokes. Mbawsi was a typical eastern Nigerian rural town and most of the inhabitants were old-fashioned and very traditional. Almost every day church members would invite us to their houses, or come to ours bearing fruit and food. Sometimes I would follow my aunt to the markets in other villages, riding the bicycle on the unpaved, hilly terrain.
My holiday in Mbawsi would have been perfect except for an unfounded rumor about me. Pastor Raymond Ogbunaeke, also of Faith Tabernacle—with whom I had fallen out long ago, and unbeknownst to me, still held a grudge—had apparently seen me in Aba doing my Dymo tape business. He had then come back to Mbawsi and spread the rumor that I had gone mad. He claimed to have seen me roaming about Aba in tatters, begging for food and money, and given that he was a “man of God,” people easily believed him. He hadn’t approached me or tried to talk to me in Aba, so I knew nothing of this supposed sighting. I tried to convince my aunt and her family that it was all a lie—that if truly he had seen me in that state, why did he not, as a pastor, approach me and try to help me? I don’t know for sure if they believed me.
I didn’t have to take my revenge on Pastor Ogbunaeke; circumstances far beyond my control did this for me. He was implicated in a church scandal that got him stripped of his position as pastor and excommunicated. It was discovered that Pastor Igiri, the presiding elder of the church—the highest-ranking pastor, equivalent to the archbishop of Nigeria—was a member of a secret cult. It was said that Pastor Igiri had killed many of the church’s members and used them for ritual sacrifices, and had also killed other pastors who had tried to challenge him. I had always suspected that Pastor Igiri’s powers were not from God, though many had believed otherwise. It was early during his time as presiding elder that the “pay to play” system, where church members were asked to pay to be ordained pastors, was introduced into the selection process for pastors; my father was one of those asked to pay to be ordained, but he refused. It was also revealed that Pastor Igiri had been embezzling church funds.
The scandal rocked the foundation of the church, shaking the faith that had been placed in the church leadership for many decades. The news needed barely any confirmation because Pastor Igiri himself had made the confession while he was on his sick bed. To me, it had come much too late, and it seemed like he was only trying to bribe his way into heaven with it. He revealed the names of the pastors who had been involved in the whole thing—one of whom was Pastor Ogbunaeke.
I was delighted at this turn of events, and I left Mbawsi on a high. As usual I stopped at Orji Uratta on my way to school and left money for my siblings’ school fees, as well as some for my mother and grandmother Eunice. I paid my fees and bought my books, new uniform, and sandals. All was set for a very promising semester.
The first week at school was without incident. We had a new batch of teachers from the National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory program started many years ago in Nigeria where graduates below a certain age would spend a year doing national service in states other than their own. One of its main aims was to promote unity in Nigeria by exposing the nation’s graduates to different cultures and people. Some of these graduates were posted to secondary schools and, instead of salaries, were given small allowances by the government. Most times they could barely make ends meet with their allowances, and many of them relied on aid from their host communities. Often, the students would bring gifts such as food and fruit to the corps members. Unscrupulous students exploited this vulnerability and used their gifts to bribe the corps members so they would get good grades. Some of the corps teachers lived among the students, renting rooms in the same compounds.
Ike and Winterkpus were very excited to see the corps teachers in our class, and were even more elated to find out that some of them were their neighbors. The boys immediately struck up a friendship with them, hoping it would guarantee them good grades without having to study. My own compound was predominantly made up of students; no corps teacher lived there.
Later, I decided to move out of my compound when I felt that the co-tenants were constantly taking advantage of my generosity and good nature. They would always come to me wanting one thing or the other, and most times I would indulge them, not because I was afraid of saying no, but because I wanted to help. Most of them were from poor families. However, I decided to move after what I considered the last straw.
One of the neighbors, a girl called Ngozi, got really close to me and, like the others, would come wanting things from me. One day she walked into my room unannounced and saw me counting a lot of money. This, I believe, was what really sparked her interest in me. She immediately assumed I came from a rich family to have that much money. To save my reputation, I couldn’t tell her just how hard I had worked to make that money. She spent a long time with me that day, and we ended up having sex, after which she concluded that we were in a relationship. Soon enough, she came up with a laundry list of things she wanted. I couldn’t say no when she gave me the list, but as soon as she was gone, I balled it up and threw it in the dustbin.
That was when it dawned on me that she must have planned the seduction just to get things from me, and I concluded that I wouldn’t waste my hard-earned money on her. After a few days, she realized that she wouldn’t get anything from me, and then she stopped talking to me altogether. She turned the other girls in the compound against me, too.
Fortunately, in the second week of that term, I found a larger, more comfortable room in the next compound. The owner of the house lived in another city, but his elderly mother and younger brother lived in the house and collected the rent money. I was their sole tenant. There was little noise in the compound since I was the only student living there. The old lady reminded me so much of my grandmother Nwanyi Burunnu. She would spend the entire day on the farm, and when she returned in the evening, she would cook and do other household chores. Her son would never help her, but he kept demanding food from her. He was about forty years old and didn’t have a job. He seemed mentally challenged, but everyone liked him; he was nice and ran errands for everybody but his own mother. Sometimes his mother would cook and offer me food, which I would politely refuse, but occasionally I would share my food or give them money. At the time I was still suffering from fear of eating certain foods made by people other than me, my mother, or a restaurant that I trusted was clean enough. The old lady was kind, but her knowledge of hygiene was questionable.
My issue with food started when I was little. I was always picky about what I ate. I didn’t eat pork, ducks, snakes, snails, or some other delicacies of my tribe, and I normally wouldn’t eat at other people’s houses. Once, when I was in primary six, I suffered a severe dislocation of my right leg. Since my mother could not take me to the hospital because of our religious beliefs, I was sent to another village to see a member of our church who specialized in healing dislocations without medication. I spent about two weeks at his home, and it was the most difficult time of my life because I refused to eat any cooked meal that was offered to me. The man’s wife didn’t do the cooking—I liked her and wouldn’t have minded eating something she had made—but instead, her two daughters had that task. It wasn’t that anything was wrong with their cooking; I just couldn’t bring myself to eat what they cooked. Fortunately, the man also had a bakery and made the most delicious bread I had ever eaten. The family was kind enough to feed me bread, and rather than eat their meals, I lived on bread for two weeks.
At my new place, I hardly ever entertained visitors—apart from the occasional visit from my friends—and was able to focus on my studies as the term progressed. I found the peace and quiet very pleasing, and my academic performance during the term was highly commendable. My education was my highest priority, since I saw it as the route to my ultimate dream: traveling abroad.
As I was returning from a study group meeting at school late one evening, I met a beautiful girl who happened to live in the next village. It was not my first time seeing her, but that evening we struck up a conversation. I found out she was from Winterkpus’s village and was attending a school a few miles away from mine. Nwaurenma was very light-skinned and had almond-shaped eyes. Sadly, she was not the most articulate girl I had ever met. I also suspected that she was academically challenged, but that didn’t matter to me. So after that evening we became good friends, and she would sometimes stop by to see me on her way back from school. Our friendship grew stronger by the day, but none of my friends were aware of it, and we tried as much as possible to keep it that way.
Just a few days before the end of the term, when I was starting to feel a little love for Nwaurenma, Winterkpus found out about her. He immediately discouraged the relationship and suggested I stay away from her, saying she was a slut. I was confused. I liked Nwaurenma so much and believed she genuinely cared for me, but my friends were putting a lot of pressure on me to end the relationship. I couldn’t make up my mind about what to do. Winterkpus was unrelenting in his quest to separate us. He started to insult her behind my back, and told people that she’d had a child out of wedlock and had undergone several abortions.
As soon as I heard this, I decided to confront him. I went to his house and demanded an explanation. Dissatisfied with what he had to say, I lost my temper and we ended up fighting. I had truly underestimated his strength, thinking I could take him down easily. I was wrong. The fight lasted for a while, and when I left, I was even more determined to continue my relationship with Nwaurenma.
The term ended the next day, and I traveled to Owerri Nkworji to help my grandmother harvest her crops. I needed relief—from school, from the village, and from my friends.


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#20
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Chapter Eight

The holiday after the first term was usually only three weeks long, but it was always packed with festivities, including the New Yam Festival, an Igbo festival held at the beginning of each harvest year. Traditionally, no one can harvest their crops before the festival; it is considered an abomination to do so, and in the past, punishment for noncompliance could mean death. The ceremony involves giving thanks to the ancestors and gods for a bountiful harvest, followed by a lot of drinking and celebrating; the next day, everyone goes to their farms to start harvesting. Christmas and New Year’s also fell during this holiday. People who lived in the cities would usually travel to their various villages to celebrate the festival and holidays.
Throughout the holidays, I thought about Nwaurenma. After the first week in the village, I was so restless that I decided to visit her. I convinced one of my cousins, Charles, who happened to be in the village at the time, to go with me. When we arrived, Nwaurenma invited one of her girlfriends to join us. While Charles was busy chatting up her friend, Nwaurenma and I were able to talk without interruption, and we stole a few kisses. I was delighted at the opportunity to be reunited with her and paid no attention to the passage of time. Before we knew it, it was midnight and there was no way of getting transportation back to my village. Though I had my rented room, I decided we couldn’t spend the night there—I was supposed to be staying with my grandmother, and despite my independence at that point, I was still afraid of her wrath.
We decided to return to my village that night. We saw the girls back to their houses and walked about five miles to the main road, hoping to catch a ride, but there were virtually no vehicles on the road at that time of night. Silence surrounded us. We walked back home—a thirty-mile stretch, the moon and the crickets as our only companions.
The holidays ended and I went back to school for the second term. Ike and I spent ample time discussing and planning our potential overseas travels. His brothers and sister had already filed an immigrant visa for him in the United States, and he could be called for a visa interview at any time. If his application were approved, he would go to the United States. As for me, it all remained a dream since I had no realistic means of traveling. But I was not discouraged; I knew my determination and hard work would eventually help me realize this dream.
Meanwhile, Winterkpus and I hadn’t talked since our fight, even though we both still hung out with the same group. But something else had changed: I returned to school to learn that Nwaurenma had left. Her neighbors couldn’t tell me where she had gone, only that she wouldn’t be back anytime soon. I was sad and disappointed, but it didn’t last long. A few days later, the old lady I lived with invited her niece to the house to spend time with her.
I returned from school to find a tall, beautiful girl cooking in my landlady’s kitchen. Jacinta was a very kind and gentle person, soft-spoken and mild-mannered. We became good friends, and when it was time for her to return home, she changed her mind and continued staying with her aunt. I enjoyed her company very much; she was like a sister to me. She told me that she, her mother, and older sister lived alone in their village. Their house was a one-room mud house with a thatched roof. Her mother was suffering from cancer, and her older sister died in her sleep a few weeks after I met her. No one could tell the cause of her death. They were the poorest family I had ever known of. They had no significant means of livelihood. Life had dealt her family a bad hand, just as it had to mine—so I was totally drawn to her. Sometimes I would accompany her to visit her mother and leave her some money.
While Jacinta stayed at her aunt’s place, our friendship grew so strong that she started doing my laundry and cooking my meals. The old lady wasn’t pleased about this. She found it ironic that Jacinta was supposed to be spending time with her, but she spent most of her time with me. She insisted that her niece return home to her mother, but Jacinta refused and stayed at the house for the entire term.
She became my best buddy. Even after I graduated from high school I would occasionally go to her village and spend time with her and her mother. On those occasions I would take provisions and money for them. They prayed for my well-being all the time. I suspected that they had both thought I would marry Jacinta. In truth, I had thought about it, but it would have amounted to giving up my lifelong ambition. At the same time, I didn’t want to sever my relationship with her and her mother. During one of my visits to her village years later, her mother told me they had gotten tired of waiting for me and had married Jacinta off to an older man who lived in Rivers State. She had gotten pregnant and had given birth to twins. I was pleased that she had moved on, but I never stopped visiting her mother and giving her money.
The second term was coming to an end and things were looking good for me academically. One day, a nice man stopped me on my way back from school, asking me how classes were going and giving me advice. Arusi was young, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He said he was a philanthropist and cared very much for students, especially those from families who were struggling financially. He represented himself as a businessman who ran a taxi company, and asked me to visit him at his house when I had the chance. I was impressed by him and thought he was kindhearted, so I promised to visit one day.
Just before we started second-term exams, I ran out of money. I hadn’t set aside part of my budget that term to pay for my West African School Certificate Examinations (WASCE) and University Matriculations Examinations (UME). These were crucial exams that we had to take during the third term of class five; they would qualify a secondary school graduate to enroll in a university, and the fees had to be paid during the second term. After paying the exam fees, I was left with no money, and we still had a week of school left. The final week was set aside for our exams, so I couldn’t leave to do my Dymo tape business and earn money. I needed help, so the weekend before exams started, I decided to visit Arusi, the philanthropist.
When I got to his house, the first thing I noticed was the unusual nature of his compound. There was a small, ominous-looking building at one corner of the compound that looked like a dedicated ritual or sacrifice house, with a bold sign advertising the services of a native doctor. I was welcomed by a woman I later learned was the philanthropist’s mother, and accompanying her was another woman who was introduced to me as his wife. When Arusi got home, he was pleased to see me. He was jovial and childlike, and I had no reason to suspect any malicious intent on his part. I asked him about the suspicious-looking house, and he explained that he was a native doctor—that he had magic powers that could cure all sorts of ailments. He also said he could talk to spirits. It was hard for me to imagine this young man as a native doctor. The ones I knew of were old men who dressed in traditional clothes and wore funny makeup and jewelry. I didn’t like native doctors and had never visited one before. There was a general belief that they were connected to witchcraft, and it went completely against my faith to associate with them.
Nevertheless, I stayed at the philanthropist’s house and was invited to eat fufu (a thick paste of starchy vegetable ate with soup), which they had just prepared. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the food, so I politely declined, telling them I had eaten before coming. The family asked me to spend the night at their house, and I accepted with the hope that before leaving the next morning, the philanthropist would give me some money. After all, he had promised to help me if I ever needed it.
When it was time for bed, I thought they would have a room for me, or if not, then let me sleep in their living room. Since Arusi was married, I expected that he would sleep in his room with his wife, but to my surprise, he insisted that I sleep in his room—in the same bed with him. He argued that I was his guest and I should be comfortable; his wife would sleep in a different room. Innocently, I accepted. I was shocked later that night when Arusi started touching me all over. At first I thought it was an accident and he was dreaming, but then I realized he was wide awake and knew exactly what he was doing.
At this time in my life, I knew very little about homosexuality. My knowledge of it was limited to what I had read in the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah, which God had destroyed for their sins, and I had always found the idea repulsive. When Arusi started to touch me, I was absolutely disgusted with him—and angry with myself for getting into the situation in the first place. He disturbed me the whole night, begging me to have sex with him, and since it was late at night, I could not go home. There was a horrible stench from his mouth from the fufu he had eaten earlier, and he kept breathing down on me, trying to force me to kiss him. I fought his mouth off with all my strength, but the more I struggled, the more he kept coming at me. He was much heavier and stronger than I was.
At some point I grew tired from all the struggling—and also realized my life could be in danger. There was nothing stopping him from killing me. But I simply could not allow him to violate me. My survival instincts kicked in, and I lay unmoving on the bed, with my backside firmly protected by the mattress. I used one hand to cover my mouth so he couldn’t kiss me, and the other to shield my groin from his penis. He jumped on me, and before I could push him off, he had ejaculated on my lap. I was repulsed and had never felt so dirty in my life. This man who pretended to be a philanthropist was, in reality, a pedophile who preyed on innocent schoolboys, luring them into his house and raping them with the help of his mother and his wife.
I jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom, where I spent hours scrubbing myself, trying in vain to also scrub away the image of this monster now ingrained in my brain. As soon as day broke, I tore out of the house.
When I arrived at school, I recounted my ordeal to my friends, leaving out the really humiliating bits. I hated telling the story, but I had to because Arusi was already working on some of my friends, including Winterkpus and Barbarossa, and I had to protect them. They had been planning to go to his house that weekend. The news spread quickly, and so whenever Arusi was seen riding his motorcycle around our school, students would chant, “Homo! Go away!” I never told anyone in my family about the incident.
I managed to get through the last week of the term without any problems. I passed all my subjects except for math, which I hadn’t expected to pass, since I had barely attended math classes that term. Immediately after we got our results, I left for Aba to continue with my business. Sales were unusually slow, probably because I had already printed name tags for most of the people in the markets there. As a result, I had to work much harder and become a little more creative. I came up with new lyrics and jingles, and things picked up a bit. I was able to raise sufficient money, but not as much as I used to. As usual, a week before the end of the holidays, I returned to Orji Uratta to leave money for my siblings’ school fees and pick up everything I needed, including my home cooked meals.
My final term in secondary school kicked off with a flurry of excitement. Life was good, but the reality was that we all had a lot of work to do, too. We had two major exams to take—the UME and the WASCE—and this meant we had to study three times harder than we usually did. I didn’t want to repeat class five, so I poured my heart and soul into my studies, while Ike went from school to school looking for copies of the actual exam questions, usually sold by unscrupulous staff of the examining bodies. Most times these copies were faked, and students who relied on them usually regretted it in the end. Unfortunately, they would only find out after the results had come out.
We all took the exams, and secondary school ended on a high note. There was no need to wait around for the results because they were not administered by individual schools. The results would be announced on the radio months later, and also posted on notice boards in the offices of the examination bodies. I returned to my uncle’s house in Aba…and waited.
A few weeks after our graduation, Ike visited me in Aba with the good news that his immigrant visa to the United States had been approved, and he would be joining his brothers and sister there in a few months. I was happy for him, but deeply saddened by the fact that he would get to travel abroad before me. The news made me even more determined to travel by any means necessary, and I swore to do whatever it would take. I decided to be extra humble and nice to my uncle, hoping that my change of behavior would convince him to send me abroad sooner than later.
Meanwhile, my uncle’s business continued to flourish. He had started receiving contracts worth huge sums of money from oil companies, mainly for the rehabilitation of access roads that led to drilling stations. My uncle had an inside connection in the oil companies—a friend of his who was a Shell executive responsible for awarding contracts. He would approve my uncle’s contracts in exchange for substantial amounts of money. Since my uncle was a building contractor and had no experience whatsoever in road construction, he would rent the required equipment and hire professionals in the field to handle the job for him. He liked to micromanage; he didn’t trust his managers or engineers, and felt that even his suppliers who brought chippings (gravel) for the road were shortchanging him. He asked his manager to assign someone to go with the trucks whenever they offloaded the chippings at the work site. As I had just graduated from secondary school at the time and was idle, I was excited when the manager asked me if I would go with the trucks.
As my uncle had suspected, the men were not offloading all the chippings from their trucks. When I asked them about it, they told me not to be stupid. They obviously didn’t realize I was related to their boss, so they explained their whole scheme to me. Apparently, it was the normal procedure for most truck drivers: They would offload nine-tenths of the material, resell the rest, and keep the money. They asked me if I was in or out. I thought about it for few seconds. The temptation was great, and it didn’t help matters that I was broke at the time. My uncle wasn’t paying me anything and my Dymo tape business was barely moving, so making some money at the expense of my rich uncle wouldn’t hurt. I told the driver I was in on the scheme.
I followed them to the location where they resold the rest of the gravel, and got my share of the money. It was the first real money I had touched since graduating from secondary school. Fortunately, I was sent on the same mission a few times and was able to make more money.
The last trip we made was to a place called Obigbo, where the company had an ongoing major road rehabilitation job. Suddenly, I had a change of heart and didn’t want to be part of the scheme anymore. If anyone was going to rip off my uncle, it should be me alone, not a group of strangers. I made the drivers offload all the chippings that time. Instead of returning to Aba with them, I pleaded with the site manager to employ me as a laborer. He did—and my experience as a construction worker began.
The vast oil reserves of Nigeria are in the Niger Delta region, where Obigbo is located, and so are the oil fields. Most oil fields are located in underdeveloped, sparely populated rural areas with virtually no basic amenities. During this time, most of the residents in these communities lived in mud houses with thatched roofs. The construction workers lived among the residents and rented a couple of mud houses for the duration of the job. I had to live with seven other guys in a single-room mud house. Although I had no money, no cooking utensils, and no clothes except the ones I had on, I was desperate to make a better life for myself. I had to depend on other people for food while I waited for my first pay at the end of the week. By mid-week I must have borrowed money from every single guy I worked with.
The road rehabilitation work was supposed to last two months, and I wasn’t sure if I could endure it. On my first day I thought I would die; we had worked all day in the blazing heat without a break. First, the grater would prepare and smooth the surface of the road, then another heavy machine would compact the soil. After that, the bitumen truck would drive slowly over the one or two miles of road as the operator released the hot coal tar. After a few minutes, when the tar was set, the dump truck would follow along in reverse with the bucket tip, slowly moving over the coal tar, and I would operate the sand release at the back of the truck, rapidly releasing the sand as the truck rolled over the coal tar. This process would continue until the stretch of road was completed. After the sand was released on the coal tar, some people would move to the next mile or two to do the same thing over again, while others would sweep off sand from the stretch that was already done. Once the sand was completely removed from the road, another truck with the gravel would drive backward with the bucket tip and slowly roll through the one-mile stretch, and once again I would operate the gravel release manually. It was the toughest job I ever had, but I didn’t mind because I was making an honest living.
Sometimes, when we had a few minutes’ break, a couple of the workers would buy fresh fish pepper soup from the locals and share some with me. Occasionally, the locals would stop by to chat with us and show their appreciation for the work we were doing. Though the road was meant to provide access to the oil drilling fields, it indirectly benefited the local communities, linking them to other towns.
I survived my first week and was very excited to receive my pay. On payday, I had expected that one of my uncle’s managers would come to make the payment to the workers, but instead my uncle showed up with his entourage, riding in one of his Mercedes-Benzes. The workers were delighted to see him, thinking they would not only get paid, but would possibly get some bonuses from my uncle. But that would not be the case. My uncle told the site manager that we wouldn’t be getting paid that week; rather, we would be getting two weeks’ pay the next week. When my uncle saw me, he did not acknowledge me in any way. I was ashamed to tell my co-workers that he was related to me—not that they would have believed me anyway.
We continued toiling for the next two weeks, but no one came to pay our wages. I don’t know how I was able to survive those weeks. I was physically drained, my weight dropped dramatically, and I felt very sick. But I didn’t give up. Quitting was not an option for me, as my number one principle at the time was never to start anything that I couldn’t finish. Eventually, at the end of the fourth week, Robert, one of my relatives who lived at my uncle’s house, showed up....

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#21
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with the workers’ pay. Everyone on the payroll got paid except for me. I didn’t know the reason for it, but it didn’t matter anymore; I had already given up hope of getting paid, and I had actually started to enjoy the work. Before Robert left that day, he was kind enough to give me some money out of his own pocket, and I continued working.
One day, during the last week of the job, some of the workers and I visited a nearby town to buy food. There, I saw someone I recognized: Eric “Ricky” Ukachukwu.
Ricky was my childhood friend from my village; we had attended the same primary school. We were excited to run into each other in the most unexpected of places. He said he lived with his uncle in the town, and was returning from the police station where his uncle was being detained. His uncle was involved in illegal oil bunkering and was constantly getting into trouble with the law. In these bunkering operations, typically conducted in the bush, dealers would illegally cut open oil pipelines, siphoning barrels of oil and selling them on the black market. Ricky told me that this wasn’t the first time his uncle had been caught and detained. On many occasions he would bribe the police and be released. To them, giving bribes, being arrested, and getting detained was just the cost of doing business.
Ricky told me that he had also been detained on many occasions as he worked with his uncle. He was fed up with the whole business and wanted to quit, but if he did, he would have nowhere to go and no one to help him. He was desperate to start making an honest living. I told him I was working for my uncle, and the manager was always hiring people at the construction site. He said he would think about joining me.
Two days later Ricky showed up at our rented house. He could no longer tolerate his uncle’s ways and was willing to tough it out with us in construction. I spoke to the manager, and Ricky was hired.
Three days later, our work in that location was completed, and we were relocated to another state in a more austere environment. We spent about three months in the new location. The work was still tough, but it had become relatively easier for me with Ricky around. After the day’s work we would sit together, talking about the past and where we wanted to be in future. All this time, I still wasn’t getting paid. I only hoped that my uncle appreciated what I was doing and maybe, if I impressed him enough, he would send me abroad.
After six months doing construction work, I returned to Aba to sit for the General Certificate Exams, which I had applied for during my last term in class five. After the exams, I decided not to return to the construction site; instead, I remained at my uncle’s house. Once again, I was determined to do my best to impress my uncle. If he saw me every day, maybe he would realize that something had to be done about me.
From then on, I sold myself into servitude at my uncle’s house. I did everything, including the work of the maids and servants. I would wake up before everyone else and sweep the entire compound, and iron my uncle’s clothes as well as those of his wife and kids. I would polish their shoes and set the breakfast table. During this time, I still lived in the boys’ quarters, where all the servants lived. It was a three-bedroom building with a toilet and a bathroom. Robert and Stephen stayed in one room, while four other male servants and I stayed in another. The third room was used as storage space.
My uncle’s wife exploited my situation. Seeing that I had humbled myself and was willing to do everything, she kept piling up extra work for me. She made me do the laundry for her, her husband, and their seven children. It didn’t help that I had to do it all by hand, as washing machines weren’t common in Nigeria then. Nevertheless, I felt I had to endure all of this—even washing my uncle’s stained underwear—in order to realize my ambition of being sent abroad. Many times I wondered if my uncle was really related to my mother; it was hard to imagine that an uncle could be so cruel to his own nephew. While other people in the house, including the servants, watched television, I was running errands, mowing the lawn, or clearing the grass in the compound.
I began washing the cars in the mornings as well. My uncle had several cars and the drivers would usually come in early to wash them before driving him to work and his wife and children to school. Washing the cars meant that I had to drive them out of the garage first, and I did this with the hope that my uncle would notice me and realize that I knew how to drive. Maybe then he would start sending me on errands with the car or, if I was lucky, ask me to be his personal driver. Having stopped my Dymo tape business, I needed something to take me out of the house apart from the errands I ran.
So far, no one knew that I could drive. During one of the holidays, when I was in primary six, I went every day to a park where some guys unofficially taught driving for a fee. Later, when I was in class three, I had wanted to get my learner’s driving permit, so while I helped my Aunt Comfort with her soap business, I also enrolled at a driving school. This was the fastest way to get a learner’s permit; besides, I also needed to learn driving rules and regulations. It was a brilliant idea because I learned how to drive a medium-size trucks as well as sedans.
Before I washed the cars every morning, I would crank up the engines and move them around a bit, not knowing whether my uncle was observing. Just when I was starting to think he would never notice me, I got lucky. One day, one of the drivers didn’t show up for work and my uncle’s wife and kids were running late for school. To my astonishment, my uncle ordered me to drive them to school. I did a quick victory dance in my head. That day I drove them to school and also picked the children up afterward.
Driving on Nigerian roads was—and, in most cases, still is—very challenging. Defensive driving was absolutely critical. Though there were road signs and all sorts of traffic rules, most Nigerian drivers didn’t care about them. There was no punishment for disobeying the rules, since there was nobody to enforce them. The traffic police, like the regular police, were so concerned with extorting money from drivers that they completely forgot what their job was in the first place. Knowing that the roads were like a jungle, I did my very best to avoid getting into an accident.
Having successfully driven that day, it became my responsibility to drive the kids to school and back. I was still taking care of my other duties in the house, but I didn’t mind. The most difficult thing—other than washing the stinky underwear—was that when everybody went to bed, I would have to stay awake in the living room, waiting for my uncle to return so I could lock the gate. My uncle always returned home late, usually between 11 p.m. and midnight. I could understand why he came home late sometimes. He often traveled from city to city, and sometimes his flights would be delayed, in which case he would return home even later. But most times he would return late because he was out drinking with his friends or visiting his numerous girlfriends. My uncle hadn’t changed his old ways. In my opinion, he was a nymphomaniac. His wife must have known or long suspected that he was cheating. My cousins and I all knew about his adventures, but none of his other relatives did.
After a while, when I felt my relationship with my uncle had become relatively normal, I approached him to discuss my future. He asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him I would like to go to England to study. He wasn’t surprised; everyone knew I had always wanted to travel abroad, and he had even promised when I was little that he would send me to England. He consented—and I was elated! I left even more determined to please him so he would keep his word.
In the meantime I started corresponding with pen pals. I bought an old magazine and searched the classified pages for young girls from different parts of the world, including the United Kingdom and America. This was before the era of the Internet and email, so people only had access to local newspapers or old foreign magazines that were sold on the street. I picked a few addresses of girls my age who had specified in their ads that they were seeking pen pals from anywhere in the world.
I maintained correspondence with three girls. There was Jenny from the Netherlands; Tracy McNeily from Edinburgh, Scotland; and Ann Jane Langland from the United States. I explained to them that I needed someone to invite me over because my uncle wanted to send me abroad, and an invitation from someone living abroad would motivate him to do it even sooner.
Of all three girls, I was closest to Tracy. She was very sweet and kindhearted. Going by the pictures she sent me, she was blonde with blue eyes, about five feet seven inches tall, and very cute. We sent each other letters often, but it usually took a few weeks to receive each one due to the inefficient Nigerian postal system. Months went by and I kept working hard for my uncle, but he didn’t seem to be making any effort to send me anywhere.
By this time, my uncle was no longer getting so many road construction contracts from the oil companies, but he had a new line of business. He had become involved with Eze Abey, a wealthy traditional ruler in Mbaise Town who had lived and studied in England. Eze Abey was very well connected in the federal government and knew a lot of influential people. He returned to Nigeria after his father, the former ruler of Mbaise, passed on. As the first son, he was first in line for his father’s throne. Eze Abey had a few wives, one of whom was a lady called Ngozi Onyejiaka. The Onyejiaka family was one of the richest and most influential in Aba at the time. One of the Onyejiakas was a traditional ruler in Nkwerre Town.
Eze Abey, Ngozi, my uncle, and some others started dealing in abandoned property. During the Nigerian civil war, the Igbos who had been living in cities outside of the east had fled, abandoning their properties, which were either confiscated by the government or taken over by non-Igbos. A few years after the war, the Nigerian government started a program designed to return those properties to their rightful owners, and where this was not possible, compensate them financially. My uncle and his group started a scheme and teamed up with a bank manager in Port Harcourt, as well as some government officials in Lagos and Abuja, to defraud the Nigerian government. They would present themselves as legitimate property owners, armed with faked documents, and apply for compensation for abandoned properties. Their inside man would accept their documents and, without following due process or investigating anything, would approve their claims. The money would be paid into my uncle’s bank account in Port Harcourt. Since the bank manager was in on the scheme, there would be no questions asked when my uncle and his group went to make withdrawals. On the average, each withdrawal was more than the naira equivalent of one million United States dollars.
On these occasions, when they would go to get the money from Port Harcourt, I would be their personal chauffeur. Once the money was withdrawn, it would be loaded into cartons or paper bags and put into my uncle’s Mercedes. I would drive them back to his house in Aba, where they would throw a party and celebrate before sharing their loot. Most times, on the way back to the house, they would make several stops at various five-star hotels and leave me waiting in the car with the money. Sometimes I would be hungry and not have money to buy food, but no one cared. They would emerge from the hotels accompanied by girls who looked drunk and well fed. On many occasions I was tempted to bolt with the money. I couldn’t understand why, with all the money my uncle was making from the government, he wouldn’t send me abroad.
Soon, my fortune turned in a moment of indiscretion on my uncle’s part. One day, I returned to the house to find my uncle having sex with the maid at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as he saw me, he jumped, holding his pants up and running up the stairs; the maid also took off behind him. I went to the boys’ quarters to clear my head and think of how I could exploit the situation.
Later, I walked back into the main house. By this time my uncle had left, so I called the maid. I scolded her and threatened to tell my uncle’s wife what had happened. She pleaded with me, crying, and after a while I told her that the only thing that would stop me was if she started showing a little more respect to me. Up until that time no one in the house respected me. I also told her that she should make sure I was always fed very well. She agreed and I kept the secret.
Things improved right away. A few days later, my uncle called me into the living room and was unusually nice. He told me that he was working hard to send me abroad as soon as possible. He asked me what country I wanted to go to, and I told him: Scotland. Fortunately, I had been able to obtain a passport with money I had made from my Dymo tape business. I told him this, and that I had a good friend in Scotland who had already invited me to visit. Tracy had already sent me an invitation letter, as well as a recorded message in which she had pleaded with my uncle to allow me to visit her and her family. I played the tape for my uncle and he seemed convinced. The next day, he bought a ticket for me and gave me five hundred US dollars for my basic traveling allowance, as required by the British embassy.
A week later I traveled to Lagos to apply for a British visa. I waited in a long line at the British embassy, and when it was my turn, I presented all my documents, including Tracy’s invitation letter. The immigrations officer asked me a series of questions, which I answered to the best of my ability, concluding with my reason for going to Scotland. I said that I was going there to visit my good friend and would only be there through the holidays, after which I would return to Nigeria. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that I had no intention of returning to Nigeria.
He rejected my application.
I felt a huge lump of pain in my stomach. My life had been turned upside down. Somehow I managed to pull myself together and walk out of the embassy.
I wasn’t ready or willing to return to Aba without the visa. At this point it no longer mattered exactly where I would go; I just wanted to get out of Africa. All the countries I had studied on my map flashed through my mind. I thought of all the ones with embassies in Nigeria, and which ones would be easier to obtain a visa from. One that came to mind was Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago and Nigeria were both Commonwealth countries, and I had learned that Commonwealth countries were supposed to grant each other visas easily. I hurried to the Trinidad and Tobago embassy to fill out an application, and was granted a three-month tourist visa.
I was pleased that my trip to Lagos was not a complete waste. I now had the opportunity to leave Africa, but the question remained how I would convince my uncle that it was a good idea to go to Trinidad and Tobago.
Back in Aba the next day, I approached him during breakfast. Before I could start, he asked how my trip to Lagos went. I feigned enthusiasm and told him what had happened, adding that I had heard there were a lot of opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago, and that the island was much closer to the United States—which meant that within a short time, I could possibly migrate there.
My uncle jumped from his chair, screaming at me, asking if I had lost my mind. He demanded to know the reason why I had chosen to go to a slave country, yelling and screaming that Trinidad and Tobago had no prospects for me; it was a country where America had dumped their freed slaves, and Nigeria was much better. He insisted that he would never send me to Trinidad and Tobago. I tried my best to convince him, but he wouldn’t listen. He ordered that I be patient while he found someone who could help me get a United States or British visa.
I was deeply disappointed and became very depressed. I knew it would take a long time before he would ever try again, but I did not give up hope entirely. I remained determined to continue to serve him and his family. Later, I started going to his office regularly, hoping that my daily presence would remind him that something still needed to be done about my future.
Occasionally I would drive him and his friends to different places for their money laundering schemes. As time went on, I realized that he was also sleeping with his secretary, Felicia. I befriended Felicia so she could put in a good word for me from time to time. Of course, she had little choice in the matter. She knew that if she didn’t dance to my tune, I could tell my uncle’s wife about the affair.
Eventually, my uncle called me and advised me to look for a business that I could do while he tried to find a way to send me overseas. I still had the five-hundred-dollar traveling allowance he had given me, as well as the refund from my plane ticket. I told my uncle I wanted to use that money to travel by road to Cameroon, where I would buy some goods to bring home and resell in Nigeria. He thought it was a great idea, and asked me to bring anybody I knew who was already in the business and willing to show me the ropes. With Okey De Boy’s help, I was able to find someone, and I brought him to my uncle to explain how the process worked. The man said that they usually went by road from Aba to Cross River State, at which point they would use a ferry or speedboat and cross over to Cameroon. After purchasing their goods, they would return the same way. He explained the profit margins as well as the frequency of the trips.
As soon as the man left, my uncle told me he would never support a business like that. Once again, I tried my best to convince him that this business seemed like a good idea and would keep me busy while I waited for the opportunity to travel. If he allowed me to do it, I argued, I might just be able to make enough money to pay for the overseas trip by myself.
My uncle refused to listen to me, and the next day ordered me to return all the money that I had with me, claiming that he needed it do something very important and promising to return it later. He had probably sensed that I might run off with it and embark on the Cameroon business without his consent. I immediately gave all the money back to him. He must have realized how angry and disappointed I was, so he came up with a trick. Every few days he would call me and tell me what I wanted to hear: that he was working hard and was almost at the end of the process to send me abroad. Each time he said it, I would be happy for a few days. He continued with this teasing for almost a year, but nothing happened.
My uncle was busy stirring up more drama outside the household. One of his best friends, Dee-Ebere, lived with his wife, three children, and niece on the street adjacent to ours. He specialized in the import-export business and frequently traveled to London to buy his goods. Dee-Ebere was estranged from his wife, who had found out that he had a mistress and a daughter in London. This time, Dee-Ebere was having financial problems in London and didn’t return to Nigeria for more than six months. He had thrown his wife out of his house in Nigeria, so his niece, Uzoamaka, became responsible for taking care of his house and children.....

#21
......
My uncle, being the Casanova he was, exploited the situation. He started frequenting Dee-Ebere’s house under the pretense of helping to take care of his family, but the truth was that he only went there to romance Uzoamaka. No one knew about their relationship, and it went on for a long time. Later on, Uzoamaka became interested in me, and we developed a very good friendship. Whenever my uncle was not visiting their house, I was visiting. Though my relationship with Uzoamaka was purely platonic, I could tell that she wanted more—but I could not bring myself to go where my uncle had been. I found out that my uncle told her everything that went on in his life, and as a good friend, she would tell me whatever they discussed. I immediately saw the benefit. I could use her to learn what my uncle’s real plans were for me, and to pressure him into sending me abroad. The sad thing about Uzoamaka’s relationship with my uncle was that he had no restraint. He sometimes revealed details about his wife and everyone else who lived in his house.
My uncle didn’t realize that I was aware of the relationship. Much later, his wife and some of my cousins grew suspicious, but no one dared to question Uzoamaka because they were afraid that if they did, my uncle would hear about it and get upset. But my uncle’s wife, after realizing that Uzoamaka and I were good friends, saw an opportunity. She started giving me money and being unusually nice to me, and encouraged me to get the details of Uzoamaka and her husband’s relationship. But I couldn’t do it. I liked Uzoamaka and didn’t want to betray her trust in me. I had promised her that I wouldn’t reveal her relationship with my uncle to anyone, especially since she was working in my favor with him. So in my reports to my uncle’s wife, I sometimes told her that my uncle indeed visited Dee-Ebere’s house and bought lots of gifts for his children—but I omitted any detail that would reflect badly on Uzoamaka.
My uncle’s wife kept treating me like her own son, and everyone in the house had started treating me better. I guess her plan worked, because a few months later—I had no idea what had gotten into me—I lost my mind and I spilled all of Uzoamaka’s secrets to my uncle’s wife. Not surprisingly, my uncle’s wife immediately confronted him, after which my uncle went to Uzoamaka and told her what had happened. Uzoamaka knew that such details could only have come from me. When I went to visit her, she was crying bitterly. She couldn’t understand why I had betrayed her. I apologized and tried to console her, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she never wanted to see me ever again, and kicked me out of the house.
Her uncle returned from London a few days later, and she left the house and returned to her parents’ home. I made several attempts in the following weeks to contact her—I even went to her parents’ house—but she wouldn’t see me, and I never saw her again. Before leaving her house, I promised myself that one day I would find her again and persuade her to accept my apology.


Chapter Nine

By February 1989, I had come to the conclusion that my uncle had no genuine intention of sending me abroad or setting me up in any business. None of my other relatives could help me. I thought of my Aunt Comfort, but I knew that if she could have assisted me, she definitely would have. She had always had my best interests at heart. Unfortunately for me, at this time they were saving up money to help my cousin, Ike, get started with his shop. He had graduated from secondary school five years before me and, even though he had performed well, had been unable to gain admission into the university. Before my Uncle Francis died, he had made several attempts to enroll Ike into one of the private universities, but it had never worked out. Eventually, Ike had become an apprentice at a woman’s clothing and accessories boutique that belonged to one of his relatives. He had now reached the end of his apprenticeship and all his parents’ savings would be used to open up a shop for him. Apart from Ike, Lois was preparing to get into the university, and that would require money, too.
The only other person who could help me was Ike’s elder sister, Joy. She had married a rich man six years earlier. Of all her siblings, she was the most brilliant. In secondary school she was awarded a scholarship to attend university, and while at the university, she won another scholarship to spend a year as exchange student in France. During her time in France, she met someone she wanted to marry, and the wedding was to take place right after her university graduation. However, she called off the wedding because her then-fiancé didn’t attend my uncle Francis’s funeral. Fortunately for her, that same year she met and fell in love with another schoolmate of hers and ended up marrying him. A few years later, her husband became a very successful businessman, but I couldn’t ask Joy for support since we weren’t that close at the time.
For several weeks I considered my options. Should I continue serving my uncle with the hope that he would come around and send me abroad, or should I take my destiny into my own hands and leave his house? I chose the latter and made up my mind that I would leave Nigeria come what may. I swore that I would rather die trying than stay home and do nothing. With my newfound determination, I decided to leave Aba.
Since I hadn’t a penny to my name, I had to come up with some money. I got permission from my uncle to visit my grandmother, Nwanyi Burunnu, in the village, and I told her what I had decided. I knew she would offer me all her money, but I wanted to do this my own way. I took the bicycle that was given to my mother by King Ewurum as a wedding gift. It had been in my family since before I was born and held huge sentimental value to my mother and me. For her, it was a precious wedding gift from her grandfather, but for me, it was more than a bicycle—it was my freedom, a fantastic mode of transportation to and from school, my priciest possession. I sold the bicycle, knowing that if the future got better for me, I could replace it with a car. However, the money that I got for the bicycle wasn’t enough to take me anywhere. So I called up some of the teenagers in my village and asked them to help me disassemble our old house. First, I meticulously pulled out all the nails that were holding down the zinc on the roof, and then I removed the zinc. Then we started taking down the house one block at a time. It took us two days to complete the process, and on the third day I was able to sell the blocks and the zinc. In the end I had three thousand naira in my hands. I didn’t know how far it would take me, though, so I consulted my map, searching for a West African country from which to start my journey.
Most of the West African countries that bordered Nigeria were French-speaking, and I couldn’t speak a word of French, so I narrowed the search down to three countries: Ghana, Liberia, and The Gambia, all Anglophone countries. I ruled out Ghana due to its economic crisis. Many Ghanaians had left their country and migrated to Nigeria, and it was really quite sad to see how they were treated in Nigeria then—like lepers. At a point the Ghanaian immigrant pool grew so large that the Nigerian government started to mass-deport them. Since most of the deportees were very poor and couldn’t afford decent bags for their belongings, they resorted to buying locally made nylon bags, which later became known as “Ghana Must Go.”
I also eliminated The Gambia because it was the farther of the two remaining countries, and I wasn’t sure how far I could go with the money I had. That left me with only one option: Liberia. First I had to travel to Lagos, where I would determine by what means to travel to Liberia—road or air. And I’d have to find someone to stay with in Lagos while I planned my trip.
Suddenly, I remembered that a few years back, when I had gone to Chioma’s house in Onitsha, her mother’s brother, David, had mentioned his intention of moving to Lagos. I decided to visit Chioma’s family to find out if he had indeed moved, and if so, get his address. It would also be an opportunity to say goodbye to Chioma. After all these years, my love for her was still strong. I wasn’t sure if I would return home alive from the journey that I was about to embark on, so I wanted to see her at least one more time. I told my uncle that I was going to visit my grandmother in Owerri Nkworji for a few days, but instead I traveled to Onitsha. When I arrived at Chioma’s house, everyone was happy to see me—except Chioma.
Chioma had not spoken to me in seven years. The problem between us had started in my first year in secondary school, when I had gone to spend the holidays at her house. One morning, while I was out on the balcony, I must have gotten bored or something because I decided to spit on people passing by on the street below. Chioma came to join me on the balcony just as a couple below was shouting at me for spitting on them. As soon as Chioma realized what I had done, she turned to me and started screaming at me for behaving like an uncivilized idiot. I had never seen her so angry before. I pleaded with her and promised not to do such a thing ever again, but she ignored me.
A few days later, she removed all my pictures from her photo album and gave them to her brother to give back to me. I was devastated and didn’t know what to do. I became an emotional wreck and spent the entire holiday trying to win her back. When the torment got too much for me, I traveled back to Owerri Nkworji to seek out a street magician I had seen in the market who sold love charms and ointments. I returned later that day with a ring and some scented ointment. The ring, according to the magician, had a magical “touch and go” effect, meaning that if I touched a girl with the ring, she would then follow me without asking questions and would obey all my commands. The scented ointment, when sprinkled on the body and smelled by the desired girl, would eventually cause her to respond with unconditional love.
The next morning I put on the ring, snuck close to Chioma, and touched her with it, but nothing happened; she just rolled her eyes at me and gave me a long, disgusted look. Then I waited until I was alone in the house with Chioma, sprayed myself with the scented ointment, and walked straight into the room where she was. As soon as she smelled it, she became irate, screaming about how horrible it was. For the rest of the holiday she didn’t speak a word to me. I did everything humanly possible to please her and to make her forgive me. Nothing worked. Even after I left her house that holiday, I kept writing letters to her, but she never responded. Occasionally, I would leave school on weekends and visit her house, yet she remained unmoved. One particular weekend when I visited Chioma, I had just spent a huge sum of money on new clothes in order to impress her, and I wore a T-shirt that read “Please Just Love Me.” It didn’t work.
A few years later, during a particular holiday at her house, I went into Chioma’s room and spent three hours on my knees crying, begging, telling her how much I loved her and that I could never live without her. Despite my pleadings, and without the slightest emotion, she told me that she didn’t care and that I could cry all I wanted, but we would never be together. Humiliated, I vowed to stop bothering her—but I could never give up entirely. I still wrote her from time to time, and occasionally visited her house as well as her school, but I was never as persistent as I used to be. On those occasional visits she never spoke a word or even acknowledged me.
Now, here I was at Chioma’s house again, and nothing had changed; she still refused to talk to me. I explained the reason for my visit to her family anyway. They told me that David had indeed moved to Lagos about two years ago, and gave me his address. The next morning, I said my goodbyes and returned to Aba.
On April 1, 1989, I woke up very early. Having packed my bags the night before, I quickly took a bath, got dressed, and left my uncle’s house without looking back. I hadn’t said a word about my trip to anybody in the house. I was ready to face whatever the future held for me.
I boarded a bus to Lagos, and then took a taxi to David’s address. Fortunately he was home when I arrived. He was surprised to see me, but he welcomed me. David was about six years older than me and was full of ambition. He later explained to me that he moved from his sister’s house in Onitsha because her husband had refused to set up a shoe shop for him, as was agreed upon, after David had devotedly served him for seven years. He had grown tired of waiting for his brother-in-law to fulfill the agreement and moved to Lagos to become a taxi driver. Unfortunately, he lost his job on the same day that I arrived in Lagos. He was broke, with no job and no savings. But despite his miserable situation, David invited me to stay with him for as long as I wanted.
I told him what my plans were, and that I was only going to be there for a few days before traveling to Liberia. He was excited and happy for me, and he commended me for my bravery and adventurous spirit. For the next few days, we both went around Lagos in search of people who might have been to Liberia. We couldn’t find anyone, but I was still determined to go. We went to a travel agency, where I purchased a one-way ticket to Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. After buying the ticket, I had no money left, and David had nothing to give me; he hadn’t even paid his rent for the month and had no food in his house. We managed to survive, thanks to his girlfriend, who ran a restaurant in a prime location and made lots of money. Since David lost his job, she had insisted that we eat all our meals at her restaurant. She also gave David money almost every day.
I could sense that David didn’t love her very much and was reluctant to accept her generosity, but she was unrelenting. She did everything possible to win David’s heart, with the hope that he would marry her.
I later found out that she was about four months pregnant when I arrived. When I confronted David about it, he wasn’t straight with me as to whether or not he was responsible for the pregnancy. But he told me he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. He was merely accepting her goodwill because he had no job, income, or savings; she was his only means of sustenance. She was a beautiful girl and very humble, and I couldn’t understand why David didn’t want to be with her.
I spent three weeks with David, after which he accompanied me to the airport. It was my first time seeing the famous Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. As we arrived, he handed me five US dollar bills. I didn’t know where he had gotten the money, but I sure did appreciate it. He knew that I had nothing, so this small gesture was worth a thousand dollars to me at the time. We searched for the Nigerian Airways counter, where I checked in without any problem, and David and I said our goodbyes.
While I waited for my flight, I read as much as I could about Liberia and memorized a few streets names in Monrovia. I knew no one there, and had no other valuable information about my new home. I was excited about my journey, yet I was petrified of the unknown.

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As usual your opinion-constructive criticism, positive as well as negative is highly encouraged.
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Can't wait to see what comes next. Was it me reading too fast or was the last post quite short? Can I do an Oliver twist and ask for more?

Jake, na you biko! Please keep going and stop keeping me in suspense. I suggest u post 5 times a day instead of 2.

^^Seconded!

This is getting too much interesting can't wait 2 read more.

repogirl: Can't wait to see what comes next. Was it me reading too fast or was the last post quite short? Can I do an Oliver twist and ask for more?

repogirl: once again you've managed to twist my arms. it's 0620, Saturday morning in DC and you want me to drag my "you know what" up and post? well, I will do just that!!

Thx for keeping on very short leash....still "love" you though.

ola2006: This is getting too much interesting can't wait 2 read more.

well,I urge then to please buckle up for the ride as we are just getting started... it's going to be a rough ride from here on out..the story just started now....

Please follow me to Liberia and experience the thrill.

benjames: Jake, na you biko! Please keep going and stop keeping me in suspense. I suggest u post 5 times a day instead of 2.

ben my there you've got ways with your words..no worries my brother, I'm here to please and would not disappoint you. but I must warn you the next few chapters are not for the faint in heart. its going to be rough from here on out. It's Saturday and I'm not training today;therefore, will grant you wish as long as there is someone out there to reminded me to post the follow on...

I'm going off tangent here, so lets get on with it..

#22
Coming to Liberia. terrified of the unknown and petrified of what failure could bring.
****************
Chapter Ten

While I waited for my flight, many things fluttered through my mind. I wondered if I would ever see my family again, and wished that I could see them one more time before leaving. They would have no idea of my whereabouts. I hoped that God would guide and protect them while I was gone, and that the future would turn out well for me.
I was brought back to reality by the voice of the announcer on the PA system calling all the passengers on my flight to begin boarding. It was my first time flying, and I tried as much as possible not to look awkward and out of place. I had read a few things about air travel, and I applied everything I could remember. I must have done well because nobody looked at me funny.
Our flight took off smoothly. I wasn’t frightened; instead, I felt right at home. The lady next to me engaged me in conversation. She was a businesswoman who traveled frequently from Liberia to Nigeria to buy her goods, which she supplied to her customers in Monrovia. She asked me if I knew anyone in Liberia, and I lied that I did. I told her that a friend of mine, whose address I didn’t have, would be waiting for me at the airport and that I would be staying with him.
An hour into the flight, the attendants announced that they would be serving meals. I was thrilled. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. But then we started to experience severe turbulence. The pilot immediately asked everyone to fasten their seatbelts and remain seated. I didn’t know what to expect, and the turbulence got worse by the second. I became confused and terrified. I had read about turbulences and plane crashes. I had also read that the flight attendants usually stayed calm and composed—a trade skill and strategy required for putting the passengers at ease during turbulence or emergencies. At the time, according to the pilot, we were cruising at an altitude of 30, 00 feet. The turbulence got so bad that the plane suddenly dropped 10,000 feet—at least that’s what it felt like to me—and minutes later, dropped another 10,000 feet. I realized that we were in serious trouble when the other passengers started to panic, screaming things I could not understand.
Meanwhile I remained calm and observed the composure of the flight attendants, determined to take my cue from their demeanor. I decided that if they panicked, it meant we were in serious trouble, but if they remained calm, it meant everything would be okay. Looking at the two flight attendants sitting close to me, I noticed the fear in their eyes and realized that one of them was panicking. She was shaking uncontrollably. That was when I concluded that we were all going to die.
However, my biggest concern wasn’t that the plane was going to crash and we would all die. I was more concerned that I hadn’t eaten all day and I didn’t want to die on an empty stomach. My grandmother Nwanyi Burunnu had told me that the worst thing that could happen to anybody was to die on an empty stomach. I decided that I wouldn’t sit there and wait for my death.
I unfastened my seatbelt and got out of my seat. No one objected to this since everybody was consumed with fear. Everyone was screaming, and those who were not seemed petrified and lost in their own worlds. As soon as I got into the aisle, I started shouting my mother’s old protective anthem: “The Blood of Jesus! The Blood of Jesus!”
Everybody turned to me, staring with a mixture of fear and admiration. There were a few Muslims on board the airplane, but I guessed religious persuasion became irrelevant in life–or-death situations. Everyone stopped shouting and focused on me, urging me to keep calling Him. I was encouraged by their pleas, so I screamed even louder, and just as suddenly as it had started, the turbulence subsided and everything was calm again.
Everyone started clapping and thanking God in different languages as I sat down again. No meal was served in the end, but I doubted that anyone would have had an appetite—except for me. We landed at Roberts International Airport in Monrovia one hour later.
By the time I got through immigration and picked up my luggage, it was 8 p.m. I went outside to look for transportation into town. While I was waiting for a taxi, the businesswoman who sat next to me on the plane came out. She asked if my friend who was supposed to pick me up had arrived. I feigned a look of disappointment, telling her no, and I didn’t have his address. She asked me if I knew anyone else in Liberia. I said no. She then offered to split a ride with me.
We got into the taxi with a few other people. I pretended to cry, and the businesswoman asked why I was upset. I told her I had no money, except for five US dollars, and that my friend who was supposed to pick me up was also going to take care of my expenses. She felt sorry for me and offered to take me with her to a hotel. I accepted.
The taxi dropped us off at one of the hotels in downtown Monrovia. The businesswoman booked a room for herself and got a separate one for me, paying only for one night. She gave me five Liberian dollars before going to her room. I was unable to sleep that night, afraid of what awaited me the next day. I cried all night—for real this time—and was tempted to go back to Nigeria, but even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I had no money and had come to Liberia with a one-way ticket. By daybreak, I was determined to stay strong and not look back. I got up that morning, ate breakfast, gathered my belongings, and left the hotel.
I roamed downtown Monrovia aimlessly, hoping for a miracle. By 4 p.m. I was really exhausted and hungry. I finally decided to sit down in a corner on Broad Street. After a few minutes, an idea occurred to me: There might be a Nigerian community somewhere in Monrovia. I got up and started to ask around, but nobody had heard of one. However, someone told me that there were two hotels a few miles away, Disco and Star, where most of the Nigerian businesspeople stayed when they came to Liberia.
Since I didn’t want to spend my five US dollars or the balance of the money that the businesswoman had given me the previous night, I decided not to take a taxi there. Instead, I walked the four-mile stretch from Broad Street to the Disco Hotel. When I got there, I changed my US dollars to Liberian dollars at the rate of one US dollar to two Liberian dollars, giving me a total of fourteen Liberian dollars.
The Disco and Star hotels were located side by side. I took a quick tour of both and observed that there were indeed many Nigerians staying there. I inquired about the rate and was told that the daily rate for the Star Hotel was five Liberian dollars a night, whereas Disco was seven, so I got a room at the Star. The plan was to stay there for two nights and use the opportunity to interact with other Nigerians lodged in both hotels. I figured that I had to appear to be on the same affluence level to successfully engage with them. I couldn’t just show up and start to impose myself on people, but if I had a room, then I would appear to be on equal footing with everyone else at the hotel.
I paid for my room and settled in. In no time, I started to interact with the Nigerian boys. When asked, I maintained my story about the friend who had invited me to Liberia, but for some unknown reason had failed to show up at the airport. Some of the guys I met were Igbo, like me. They invited me to dinner that night and we hung out all night long. Most of them had lots of money and dealt mainly in imports and exports between Nigeria and Liberia. While in Liberia, they would lodge at the Star or Disco until they received their payment from their various customers. One of the goods they exported from Liberia to Nigeria was textile material such as brocade, commonly used for making traditional dresses and Muslim clothes called babariga. The price of brocade in Nigeria was three times its price in Liberia. This was considered contraband in Nigeria, which made it lucrative if one was able to smuggle it into the country. Trust the Nigerians—indeed, these guys had their ways of getting it into country.
Later that night, I met a Hausa guy from Kano called Aminu Baba Gidado. Aminu and I spent the entire night talking. After we had gotten comfortable enough with each other, I revealed the truth about my journey to him, and in return, he enlightened me about what went on around the Star and Disco hotels.
First, he told me about himself. His father was a prominent man in Kano City, Nigeria, and his mother was from Sierra Leone. While Aminu was attending the University of Kano, one of his Igbo friends convinced him to travel with him to Liberia on a business trip. At first he didn’t know what kind of business his friend was in, but he later found out that it was drug trafficking. He had initially refused to get involved, but when his friend told him about the kind of money they stood to make, he decided to join in. With the help of corrupt Nigerian customs officers, they were able to carry two hundred kilograms of marijuana on the flight. However, when they got to Liberia, the marijuana was discovered by the Liberian customs. The package had been checked in under his friend’s name, so the friend was arrested and put in jail.
Aminu was not arrested, but had become stranded, as he had no money. Just like me, his search for Nigerians led him to the Star Hotel, where he had been living for the last five months. One of the rich Nigerian guys fed him and allowed him to sleep in his room in exchange for running errands for him and the other rich men. He supplied goods to their customers and received orders from them as well. Aminu also revealed to me that most of the Nigerian businessmen were drug dealers. At the time there was a high rate of drug users in Monrovia, including very prominent people in the government. There was an endless supply of drugs like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in Liberia. Some of the drug dealers, Aminu said, traveled to Brazil, Thailand, and Pakistan to get their drugs. The drugs would arrive in Nigeria and be distributed from there to Liberia and other West African countries. From these transit countries, other groups of Nigerians would transport the drugs to Europe and the United States. Liberia, however, was not a designated consumer country; rather, it was a transit point.
Aminu and I became good friends and we hung out together for the next two days. I heard people call him “Baba Ali,” and I started to call him that, too. At this point I still didn’t have any money for food; Baba Ali paid for all my meals.
By the second day I had met a lot of people and everyone seemed to like me. One of the guys, who believed the story of my friend abandoning me, had felt sorry for me and paid for three more days for me at the hotel. After that, somebody else paid for another week for me. My friendship with Baba Ali became very tight. We were always together and I ran errands with him.
All good things must come to an end, however. The goodwill of my new acquaintances eventually ran out and nobody was willing to pay for my room anymore. Some of the guys started advising me to go back to Nigeria. They insisted that I was still young—I was barely seventeen at the time—and I had my future in front of me. The best thing for me was to go back and enroll into a university, they said. But as far as I was concerned, there was no going back. Fortunately, I ran into another Nigerian, Chinedu, who also lived at the Star Hotel.
Chinedu had recently been released from jail in Monrovia. He was a drug dealer and had been caught trafficking drugs on his way back from Brazil, transiting through Monrovia. He had spent one year in jail and had been released on bond while waiting for his trial to start. He seemed like a very nice guy and was kind enough to allow me stay in his room with him. His only condition was that I leave the room whenever he had to spend time with his lady friends.
I spent the next three weeks sleeping in Chinedu’s room at night and hustling with Baba Ali during the day, running errands for businesspeople who lived at the hotels. When the hotel management ordered Chinedu to leave his room because he owed them a lot of money, I moved into Chidi’s room.
Chidi had spent more than five years studying in Italy. While there, he had somehow gotten into the drug trade and quit school to push drugs. He had just arrived from Nigeria, where he had bought a huge amount of heroin with the intention of transporting it back to Italy. However, his plans felt apart. He found it difficult to smuggle the drugs from Nigeria to Italy, so he brought them to sell in Liberia. Every day, when he wasn’t out selling his drugs, he would tell me fantastic stories about Italy and all the other countries he had visited. On many occasions, he tried to convince me to help distribute his heroin for him, and I would politely refuse. I didn’t want to have anything to do with drugs. Besides, the Liberian Criminal Investigation Division (CID) constantly raided the hotel, though these raids usually amounted to nothing since most of the CID officers were shamelessly corrupt and often were paid off. For a penniless person like me, it would be a whole different story.
There was no shortage of dramas and scandals at the Star Hotel. I met two more Nigerians there, Chime, and his girlfriend, Chichi, who seemed madly in love with each other but were always fighting. From what I heard, they had lived in the hotel for more than three years. Both were heroin addicts and specialized in distributing drugs to people in the Liberian government, including ministers and high-ranking police officers, customs officers, and immigration officers. I heard that the two used to be students in London, but were lured into drug trafficking between West Africa and London. They were caught while transiting through Liberia, and served time in a Liberian jail. After their release, they found themselves stranded in Liberia, and started peddling and distributing drugs for big drug dealers. As time went on, they both became heroin addicts, and most of their fights were a result of Chichi consuming heroin meant for their customers, or the couple getting into trouble for not properly accounting for the heroin they had been given for customers.
After seven weeks at the Star Hotel, I became tired of the life there. The hotel was uninspiring, and it seemed like I was losing focus and drifting from my primary goal: to find a way of traveling abroad. One of the reasons I had chosen Liberia was its history linking the some of the people to the United States. I had learned that Liberia had been established by American freed slaves in 1822, and since had maintained a strong connection with the U.S. Therefore, I had assumed Liberia would look a little like America, and maybe provide easy access for migration there.
But that was not the reality I met. The Liberians were just like other Africans; the only notable difference was in the way they spoke English, with a slight American accent. There were a lot of poor people and slums. Life there was not at all what I had imagined it to be.
One day I decided to take a tour of the Freeport in Monrovia to investigate the possibility of traveling out of Liberia by sea. I managed to get inside the facility, close to the pier where all the ships were docked. As I walked along the pier, I made a mental calculation of where the ships were, observed the security, and was convinced that I could make my move through the ships. I later went to the other side of the port where there were two other piers. The first pier was for fishing boats, most of them belonging to Greek fishermen. There were a lot of boys my age, working on the boats and doing all kinds of menial jobs at the pier. There were people from many other countries working at the pier as well.
On further investigation I found out that the boats were constantly employing deckhands. They employed whoever was willing to work, regardless of their fishing experience. When the boats went out into the ocean, they could stay there up to one month, and the deckhands were paid one hundred Liberian dollars each. Upon return, the fishermen would usually hire young boys to offload the fish from the boat to the cold storage facility, and pay them five Liberian dollars per person.
I was pleased with this information. It seemed to me that I had a good possibility of getting a job at the pier. That same day I ran into George Freeman, who later became my good friend.
Georgie, as we called him, had just returned from a one-month fishing trip. He told me all about his fishing adventures and was kind enough to explain all the possibilities that existed within the ports, as well as his desire to travel abroad. He told me that half the young men at the port also wanted to travel abroad via stowaway. Many had tried; some had been successful, some were deported, and still others were thrown overboard. He concluded that the key was to wait for the right ship and the right opportunity. The fact of being a stowaway was that one had absolutely nothing to lose, as long as one was not thrown overboard. If successful, one could sneak into whichever country one ended up in, and perhaps stay there permanently. But if caught and repatriated, the country had the moral responsibility to dress you up nicely and give you pocket money before sending you back to your point of departure. It was a win-win situation. Once repatriated, the process would begin afresh for the hard-core stowaways.
Georgie later took me to an abandoned pier where an old cruise ship was anchored. The ship was wrecked, but the inside was not completely destroyed; a couple of cabins still had beds. Georgie and a few other guys lived on this ship. In the cabin where Georgie lived was a guy called Papay. Papay wasn’t happy that Georgie had brought me there. Later that evening, after Georgie came to know about my situation, he asked me to move in with him, which I did.
The next day, I started hustling at the fishing pier. At any given time there were more than twenty fishing boats anchored at the pier. There was a lot of hustle and bustle. The boats that returned were offloaded and the fish transported to cold rooms in town. There were other boats preparing to head out to sea, and they were busy getting their supplies and employing new crewmembers. I was able to secure some fish-offloading jobs for a few days. The pay was good, not great, but at least it enabled me to feed myself and not rely on other people to pay for my meals.
While I did the menial jobs at the pier, I kept hoping I would get an employment opportunity at one of the fishing boats that went out to sea for a month so I could make better wages. Fortunately for me, Georgie talked to his Greek captain and he agreed to employ me as a deckhand...
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Next post on demand.

jake: pease don't forget to update ur other postings..ey don tey wey u no update. "call me simple minded" and by the way "Am Afraid" is too short, you need to make it long but it is a deep poem.