Copyright 2015
Eureka123

"Cunny man die, Cunny man bury am." My father would sometimes say. I was barely fourteen years old when my father told my brother and I the story about how he taught a certain young man the lesson of a lifetime.


In his own words, he had narrated to us how he made it to Lagos for the first time. He had an uncle who worked with one of the prominent companies in the city at that time.

"I will be given a hero's welcome", he thought. But the reverse turned out to be the case. Uncle Bayo made father sleep under the staircase of his One-storey house.
Father had endured for two months living like a cast-away in his own Uncle's place. So much for having an uncle to rely on.
His peers had forseen a smooth time in Lagos for him. They said it wouldn't take so long for him to find a good paying job with the connections Uncle Bayo had in Lagos.


Father told us he did odd jobs like brick laying, washing dishes and petty trading just to survive. It may not be an understatement to say that the IM method employed in job applications, had its roots planted from time immemorial in Nigeria. If you didn't have the necessary connections, you were simply on your own.


"My uncle was a wicked man. I would do so many things at home to get his approval, but he never agreed with me on anything." Father said.


"He tells everyone who cares to listen that he was badly mistreated by his own uncle. Why do people do to others same things that were done to them?" I asked inquisitively.


"Some human beings can never learn, my dear. But that's beside the point. We will discuss that after my story." he replied. We both cast a tired stare at my brother who was half asleep and awake.


Uncle Bayo owned a small retail shop back then in Lagos and had apprentices under his watch. Even now, I would sometimes pity the poor boys who worked their butts off for little "change". He had the facial expression of a terrible man, Uncle Bayo. His nose was often scrunched up and lips folded.


My father had labored for close to three years, but Uncle Bayo never felt the urge to connect my father to the people who would help him secure a good work with his university degree.


The next year, father had made some money for a tiny shabby apartment of his own. With the only money he had in his pocket, he had gone for a job-hunt. He had noticed one peculiar advert on the papers about a firm that was hiring young engineers.


Putting on his best formal attire, he proceeded to see the hiring manager in his office with his dusted certificate. Before he could make it to the corridor leading to the office of destination, a strange guy beckoned on him to come. He did.
"To see the hiring manager, you must pay the entrance fee." He told father.
"Ahh -- but nobody mentioned such thing as an entrance fee?" Father retorted.
"It's just N500 -- you cannot go to see the hiring manager without it."
"All right. I will give you the money." Father replied, reluctantly handing over to him the N1000 note he had with him.
At that, he got a balance of N500 back. Smiling like a sharp guy, Father went along to see the manager. What our task master didn't know was that he had been given a counterfeit, and had lost N500 out of greed to Father.

Father got the job and forever earned the respect of the task master, who later became a co-worker within the same engineering firm.
"I am not telling you these to intentionally give fake money to people you meet. Someone had played me with that same money, which was the last I had on me. I figured I could pay the greedy fellow with it and teach him some valuable lessons." Father said to us.

It has been over 25 years since the incidence. Today, Uncle Bayo had no influence to boast over anymore. He had a few shops that raked in little money, and couldn't even help his only son, who was years younger than my father get a job.


"Uncle Bayo had asked me to give him some money for forms at his workplace, he never got me that job. Subsequently, I heard one of his sales boys was given a few bundles of fake N1000 notes."
Good measures shake up and run over indeed.