While in Unizik, I stayed in a single room with up to 3 guys! Our rule was simple: garri should not finish. One day, garri finished and we ran into the streets!

Watch out for more...

Our collective sin was laziness! We were relaxing in the hope that once we graduate, life would be sumptous! Life has not been easy especially now that many of us have been in the streets for many days yet no job. You can imagine the burden on families.

Abeg, if you get any job in your organization, call me!

Episode 1: Illegal boyfriend!

There was this transformer I was tapping current from then. Later, Nepa guys decided to checkmate my activities around that area and I was damned! It took the efforts of our local government chairman to rescue me that year.

It wasn't my fault actually, the girl was so beautiful! I discovered her one morning when I went to sell some mango fruits I got from the village at a market gather ing nearby and I noticed her selling pumpkin leaves! Trust me, I bought everything she had on the tray that day and her mother was just smiling. I composed a motivational quote for her instantly and told her I was going to send it to her in the evening and she couldn't hold her smiles. Her mother was a kind woman, she helped me to withdraw the remaining money in my account and I used it to buy food stuff which I knew I would not cook.

It took the help of my roommate to convince me that she was playing me but it was already too late because I was already madly, deeply and helplessly in love with her.

She introduced herself as Chika, I introduced myself as Osakwe! That same evening, I sent her a message saying, "Life is like mango fruits. Pluck one today, another one would ripe tomorrow!" And she was inspired!

There was no ChatGpt then. So, there was no way she would have known whether I copied it from somewhere but I guess her beauty inspired me!

I guess it was love at first sight but the deed had been done and I was ready to give her anything she asked for! The only problem was that she had a boyfriend and she didn't tell me.

This was somebody who had nothing yet I was trying to please her by sharing my monthly pocket money with her instead of buying handouts and my friends laughed at me but the yeye laugh was not too deep.

One day, I swallowed pride and asked my neighbour for one plate of soup to swallow eba but she ended up insulting me! The insult was too large to be summerised here but she closed by saying, "Are you done feeding that useless girl?"

All my life, I have never been insulted like this but Nkechi did it beyond repair! She broke my ego and gave me a bad face in the compound and Agatha supported her!

My roommate warned me never to touch his provisions again but I took an exception to that! His most painful complaint was that I knew that there was nothing in the house yet I was dashing things out! That day I went to sell mango, I didn't come back with our tray and it was another torgue of war!

When I traveled home during the holidays, my people complained that I was growing pale and lean but they didn't understand what I was going through.

While others were reading, I was composing poems for her. Later, she allowed me know her house and I went there every Wednesday! There was this technique I used to draw her attention whenever I was around! I would find a way to cut their nepa supply and she would run out shouting, oooOh. Then, she would see me and start smiling.

That was how I did it for long and their neigbours didn't know I was the one giving them epileptic power supply! One day as we were preparing to go for a long vacation, one of my roommates told me never to return to that room again! When I asked him why, he said that my relationship with Chika was posing a survival threat to other of my companions. I realized it was a big problem but I had no solution to it as I had fallen 6ft below sea level in love with that girl.

As a matter of fact, I was ready to take a bullet for her! Apparently, my friends did not know how deeply committed I was to that relationship. Yes! She used to give me maximum respect and I liked her for that. Later, I came back to that room and nothing happened! We continued living together but they watched every of my move.

One day, I went there in the evening and some hoodlums accosted me because the moment I landed, their power supply cut off and Chika ran out! So, they suspected foul play.

When they were chasing me away, I heard them asking Chika, Was it not just now that Solomon dropped you off? And she couldn't answer and because I was far away, I couldn't go back to ask her who Solomon was but I heard everything!

Three days after, my roommates and I went for a reprisal attack and we ended up making peace because they were more than we! Though, we sustained no injury, we surrendered all our weapons and went home with sober reflections written over all our faces!

That was how we lost our pestle, Iron bucket and electric cooker! That year was terrible and my friends blamed me for it all.

Chika never said sorry and we continued with our relationship like jollof rice and empty take-away plate. Her mother even encouraged me to come to their church and I agreed!

The first day I went there for an evening service, the Minister preached a sermon titled, THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY! And as he was preaching he was looking at me intently. Before I went home, they gave me a song for being welcomed in their midst as a new member.

After that sermon, I went home and froze.

Episode 2: more problems ahead!

Chika later became a member of my reading team because she said she wanted to enter my University and study Theatre Art because she was a Jambite but the problem was that she usually sneaked out to go to Gid-knows-where. After like three hours, she would come back and when I asked her the reason for that, she would say she went for a photoshoot.

Her mother was glad that Her daughter had started attending lessons but she didn't know she saw it as an avenue to go to other places. At times, I go to their shop and pick her up, some other times I went to their house. Soon, street people knew us and they never disturbed me again!

One day, she went on that trip and didn't come back! She had an accident along the way and was rushed to the hospital. That was how I found myself spending much of my time at the hospital premises and at the end of three days, police picked me up to explain her whereabouts since she was under my care in a way. I just went there and was opening mouth and closing it.

Later, they let me go because no evidence was found against me but they were disappointed I couldn't make a coherent statement to serve their purpose! When my roommates were interviewed, they confided in the police officers that they knew nothing about the random girl that must have gotten me into trouble! That was when I knew I was alone in this world!

Of a truth, I went home and decided to think about my life but there was nothing to show for! So, I used excessive chatting on social media to kill boredom throughout the weekend.

When Chika finally left the hospital, her mother seized her phone and I was relieved.

I later found out it was my local government chairman that called the policemen from home and they had to release me. How he managed to know, I don't know. It was later, I got informed that our President-General had a directory of information pertaining to every student from our hometown and I was relieved.

Later, Chika came to visit me in the company of her sister, Favour and I tried to stay away from her but she wouldn't let me. My heart melted when she let out a drop of tear and I was forced to forget the past despite my resistance.

Favour was busy chatting with an unknown guy on Facebook at one corner of our compound and smiling while Chika held me down with her new method of storytelling and I forgot all my childhood experiences! By the time they left, Chika had succeeded in making me buy her a new phone and I even borrowed from a loan app online to complete the transaction not knowing that I was digging my own grave but in a slow way!

Two days after that visitation, three of my friends came apologizing to me that they didn't know the girl was that beautiful and they were blaming me for falling in love with her! In fact, Ignatius my roommate was happy that the damsel fetched food from our pot. Within 3 months, I exhausted the grace of God upon my life because my mother had been praying for me to be a light to the whole world and I started having a series of bad dreams!

At times, I would see an alligator pursuing me, later its head would turn to Chioma's own! At some other times I would see myself Inside a river singing sangali li sangali li and I would dismiss the whole thing as a sign of malaria. Later I went to the clinic and got treated but Jerry warned me to be careful.

Chioma was our landlord's daughter who was behaving like a fellow man and I never liked her! Whenever our gateman wake us up for morning devotion, she would be disturbing our peace.

I started staying away from her when she went to church and gave a testimony that she lost her mother's money to the sum of N600k and later found N60k! Who does that?

As if that was not enough, she used N20k out of the new found money to do charity.

"I don wash hand comeout for that girl life!" That was what I usually said whenever my team and I were discussing about that girl. I never see food chop, person dey waste N600k. No be juju be that? Whenever I thought about all this, I felt sad but what baffled me was why the leadership of my town had not given me scholarship since they had my data and knew that I was in school. Maybe, my GP was sending them the wrong signal.

I managed to detach myself from Chioma but Chika was too far from being on her own! As the day went buy, she became more beautiful and I was ready to spend my school fees on her but something stopped me!

There was this carnival we went for outside the school and we didn't come back early because our driver missed road as he was using Google Map. When we found ourselves Inside a big bush, we turned the whole experience into a picnic instead of being worried! Our departmental DOS ie Director of Social even came with a camera and took record of every of our activities! For three days, I didn't see Chika yet I didn't die. Then one question came into my mind and scared the living daylight out of me, it was the question of, What next after school?

That experience was traumatizing but yet intriguing because I found out that if I had been asked that during a job interview, I would have failed woefully! We were in 300l then. So, there was no excuse.

When I got home, I started saving small small and my roommates saw some changes in me!

Solomon later stopped dating her and I took over from where he stopped but the damage had been done! He had her nu.de pictures and was threatening to release them online if she doesn't run around to get N300k for him. The way he was mentioning the money got me angry and I decided to take over the matter by myself.

One day, I invited him to a bar ať Aroma junction for an evening chat so that we could solve the problem amicably but he abandoned the topic and was discussing something else and I got infuriated and landed one bottle of Heneiken on his head and Blood started oozing out.

"Osakwe, what have you done?" Ignatius and Jerry were asking me but we had to leave the scene immediately as I had taken my pound of flesh! Unknown to us, his men were planted around that area and the gave us a hot chase but stopped when when we got to our neighbourhood!

Them no born am well make him enter Kiliku hostel. Somewhere that looks like a barrack with military urchins on patrol 247. So, they went back.

After that incident, I went home and relaxed for 3 months not knowing what was happening in school. He later didn't carry put the threat because he feared that something worse might happen to him should he do so.

Chioma continued sending me text messages of how some strange faces were seen around the neighbourhood but I wasn't bothered. My mother asked me what was wrong but I told her I was given a special leave for performing excellently in one of our assignments but she didn't believe me. That was a significant stage in my life because I reasoned that if my mother could fail to believe me, who else will?

So, I started toeing the right path gradually but I fornade myself from developing feelings for Chioma despite her help both online and offline through phone calls! That her father - our landlord was another mad man was another madman you can't deal with. Somebody that divorced his wife, married her again and chased her out one night! Who does that?

Within 3 weeks at home, I started learning how to build drones from locally sourced materials.

I promised myself that I would never act stupidly it but Billy always made me to break that promise! His name is Obinna but we call him Billy for short and he had a shop around our area. He sold all the things I needed. So, I never had to go to the market except when I have a ulterior motive of which I always do! One problem with Obinna was that he always made somebody angry and would almost immediately make the person happy again with humourous comments.

One funny thing about him was that he had this blog which he regularly updated with things that happened in Zimbabwe! In actually fact, none of those stories happened and government officials had been warning him about it. One day, he told me a story about how a monkey climbed a mango tree and plucked orange and I was struck with awe.

One day, I was laughing out loud as I was reading through my phone screen and my mummy noticed that it was not normal and came to calm me down. When we settled down for talks, she asked me to tell her how I was faring in school and I opened up to her on everything.

That was when she understood the depth of my folly and made me promise her that I would amend my ways! Whenever I saw Chika or Favour, I would nearly break that promise. It was not easy but I managed to graduate without further issues with anybody and my result was good according to my own standard!

Today, when I remember how that on that day my mother spoke to be calmly and my brain got a new factory resetting, I wished I had that true friendship from the beginning!