Ejiofor is my mother’s cousin or my cousin, in the way that all my relatives that I never hear about are my ‘cousins’. But the details of our relationship were left unquestioned under the weight of the story he came with on that morning in August. It was a few days to the New Yam Festival, the memory is clear in my mind. One of those mornings that arouse emotions so strong that they stay with you forever. It was the sound of Ejiofor’s power bike that jolted me up from sleep that morning and when my mother said ‘come and meet your cousin Ejiofor’, all I could see was his dazzling silver suit which I was sure was sewn by the best of tailors in Onitsha or Aba and all I could hear when he responding to my greeting were the layers of emotions in his voice.

That morning, Ejiofor told his story with the fervour of a man that had received life’s blows with fortitude and had quite literally lived to tell his many stories. He told this particular story with feelings that indicated that it came from a not-so-distant part of his memory and with every climax of Ejiofor’s true life story, my mother would call out to me ‘I n’anu kwa ife n’eme n’uwa a’ (Are you hearing what is happening in this world?). And yes! I could hear quite clearly and had convinced myself that I had to retell Ejiofor’s story, so that several other people would hear and hopefully learn, because to hear is one thing and to take home a lesson is another.

‘Yes her name is Princess Nnenna!’ were Ejiofor’s exact words as he looked up her picture on his phone; she was very light skinned, her eyes obscured by dark sunglasses. Princess Nnenna had began by promising to get a Canadian VISA for Ejiofor, but after more than a year of disappointments and failed promises, she miraculously discovered a contract job worth thousands of dollars waiting for Ejiofor in Dubai. A true miracle! Millions of undergraduates were and are still seeking employment in Nigeria, but there was Ejiofor, minding his own business in Ebute Metta and suddenly this job was waiting for him in Dubai whose currency is not even dollars. Surely, it was God’s doing through this Nnenna, not even an ordinary being but a ‘princess’.

Of course, before the job was to be given to Ejiofor formally, he had to transfer 300,000naira into Princess Nnenna’s account, not inclusive of the VISA fee and air fare he had to pay. But what were those compared to the fortune Ejiofor was to going to earn in Dubai? Ejiofor my cousin had definitely made it and he had made it big! Although Ejiofor had his doubts, he was reassured by the fact that this ‘princess’ was also an Evangelist at a Winners’ Chapel Church in Festac Town and who was he to doubt a woman of God? Certainly, he could not risk hindering the flow of his new-found stream of abundance.

Ejiofor spent the eve of his departure at Princess Nnenna’s house and the next morning, his journey was blessed by the same woman he was later to describe as being ‘worse than the devil’. Ejiofor’s morning flight via Etihad Airways landed in Abu Dhabi International Airport at night and the unknown man that should have been at the airport to pick Ejiofor up was nowhere in sight. By midnight, Ejiofor was stranded in the popular Marina Mall, far from the famililar sights of Ikeja-Under-Bridge, Ebute Metta and Festac Town and far from the familiar, discordant medley of Lagos sounds. He was surrounded by enthusiastic shoppers and boisterous children who were all painfully oblivious to his predicament. Ejiofor’s realities were a world apart from the Dubai he had conceived.

After several phone calls to Princess Nnenna, the stranger finally arrived to pick Ejiofor up; it was in this stranger’s house that Ejiofor placed another call to Princess Nnenna to find out the details of his job which up till that moment had remained a mystery. But the reply Ejiofor got reverberated through his being: ‘you are a man, go and find yourself a job’ were Princess Nnenna’s words, in between the insults she spat at him. Ejiofor felt the ground move beneath his feet. At this point, he had spent almost more money than he had made in his lifetime, he had sold properties, those belonging to him and those belonging to his family members. How was he to find a job in a strange country when he could not find a job in his own country? How could his stream of blessings have started to flow backwards so suddenly?

A few days to the date of his return flight and Ejiofor was still in Dubai...

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