Brothers are meant to be tough but I wonder what happened to mine. He had lived abroad for over 20 years and didn’t come home once in those 20 years but after much persuasion from my parents, he decided to come visit.

I was more than happy to see him again after such a long time but was more excited for what I knew I was going to get from him. I picked him up at the airport and we hugged, exchange pleasantries and checking each other out we joked about who had gained more weight and all. On our way out I noticed how tightly he clung to his bag, commenting and asking a million and one questions about the guys loitering around in the car park of the international airport.

I assured him not to worry about them, that Nigeria was a lovely place now and very safe as well. Hahahaha. Well, deep down in my heart I knew I had told a major lie but hey all I was interested in was what he brought back and how I was going to make money off him. The poor guy never knew I had my own plans of getting him down to Nigeria to obtain as much as I could from him back then.

Well, he quickly settled down and was behaving like his old usual self, back then when he was in Nigeria , he was a tough cookie .He had this thing about him like he feared no one and he was such a tough macho guy so I guess he just kept up the swag in him. Hours rolled into Days and I kept noticing little anxious reflexes if u know what I mean.

At times just at the sound of people talking aloud, yeah right, I mean like people screaming about pouncing on each other I noticed he would tell us to get out of there so fast. I thought he was being a matured guy, and maybe he didn’t want to be in such an environment. Meanwhile I was the complete opposite, always rooted to the spot when I see such things happening and trying to cheer on and catch a glimpse of the action but most times he just pulled me away from the scene.

He kept asking why police men had machine guns and were parading it with so much ease and all. I just laughed it off and said he would get used to it. It was one of those night and I took him out for a drink and when we finally got home, I was just fagged out, I guess it was due to the traffic or better still too much alcohol in the system.

I went straight to bed. In the middle of the night, I noticed someone trying to wake me up, it was initially quiet taps on my back then all of a sudden it turned out to be proper slaps, I rolled around and couldn’t find my bro, because the room was dark, but noticed I was the only one on the bed, and behold I saw a full grown macho guy lying down face down on the floor, trying to get under the bed. He ushered me to keep quiet and listen.

While trying to open my eyes fully, I heard the drums roll sound of gunshots and my heart beat doubled and what was I suppose to do , the only guy I looked up to back then was lying on the floor, telling me to join him. I busted out laughing and I told him it was mere fireworks by some small time robbers, that it was normal. Hahaha. Small time robber’s, yeah right …..

Did I say small time robbers? To be honest I was more confused but was just trying to put up a brave face. How could I look him in the eyes after assuring Nigeria was so safe now and the police were working round the clock?

Next day, I walked in on him, talking to our dad and my dad asked why my brother was so much interested in moving his ticket to an earlier date .I busted out laughing, recalling what he encountered last night.

What was more surprising was realizing that I had become a part of the system as well .The REAL SMALL TIME ROBBER was actually his own bro, who made money from exchanging his hard earned pounds at a lesser price, buying needed stuffs at double the prices and so on.

Well later, just before he left he actually confessed that he had been scared and worried from day one because of all the stories he heard about Nigeria.

A few days later he returned to London, never to be seen in Nigeria again. I few year later he finally did come home, maybe London was more like a second Nigeria with the crime rate so high as well. Hahahaha …. just joking o

SOURCE : www.iyandasdiary.com