₦airaland Forum

PART 3

The Showdown


CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Detective Mai-Coins sauntered back and front from the wide window inside his new office at the headquarters’ of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Abuja. The exquisite building known as: IDIAGBON HOUSE hosted the new specially set up office under the Operations Department, which also is the hub of all investigation activities of the Commission. The ‘O’ department as it is fondly called among personnel has the responsibility for investigating all cases that falls within the mandate of the Commission. Such cases includes infractions that are contrary to the provisions of the Commission’s enabling law; the EFCC Act 2004, as well as a posse of other laws, which the Commission has directs responsibility for enforcement. Some of these laws include the Money Laundering Act 2011, the Advance Free Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006, including the Failed Banks (Recovery of Debt). The Department is headed by the Director of Operations, who reports directly to the Executive Chairman while all the Heads of Operation in the Zonal Offices in turn report to the Director of Operations.

This was his first day in the office and he was still trying to comprehend the sudden change that had happened to his life and career in less than forty-eight hours. He was still marveled at the miraculous directive that came in from headquarter directing him and his subordinate Etim to pack their bags and report to headquarter between the next twenty four hours; a move that not only came as a shock, but also ended their three months timorous posting. Everything seemed to be happening so fast like a dream. First, the unexpected letter from headquarters directing him to report to Abuja immediately and the same message had been related to Etim in his own letter, and then the new position. They had both been elevated to their old ranks and assigned back their old case – The Free-Hand’s file; with a serious directive from their new chairman to either crack the case or be ready to head back to their old frustrating posting in the terrorist ravage north-east.

‘’ You have no excuse whatsoever to give me at the end of the day if you failed to crack this case and bring me Smoke and his gang. I want their flame extinguish.’’ Their new proficient looking boss had barked out as they held their first face to face meeting with him inside his posh office, his eyes taking on both of them with a glazed look.

‘’ it’s your duty as reputable officers of this commission and patriotic citizens of this country to safe the nation from the embarrassing burning flames of this criminals and quench their fire. Your duty from now on is to employ all the necessary machineries and whatsoever tools and assistant you require from this commission and the nation to end the activities of this notorious unpatriotic Nigerians. I want you to skip all protocols and report to me directly.’’ With that, he had dismissed them with a caveat ‘’ Get me Smoke or you go back to your last posting’’.

This had been two days ago and every minute and everyday now counted to both of them as they set up office and tried to fashion out the best strategy to deal with this herculean task of tracking down and capturing the most wanted cyber-crime criminals in the history of the commission. He was still brooding thoughtfully by the window when a soft knock sounded on his door and he stared admiringly at a slim female figure dressed in a multi colour Vlisco designer dress made from Africa fabric, stepped confidently into the office. He was quick to notice her poise and her polish manner, including her disarming smile.

‘’ Good afternoon, sir, I am Special Agent, Hadiza Muktar, reporting to duty’’ The female figure announced in a soft husky voice.
Detective Mai-Coins still jolted by the beautiful figure standing before him, finally composed himself and smiled up broodingly from the window to his desk

. ‘’ Okay, Hadiza, welcome on board, hope you are ready for this?’’ He asked settling himself on his swing chair, just as Etim pushed his bulky frame into the office, and paused half way to stared confusingly at the female figure.

Mai-Coins noted his awed look and smiled up at him. ‘’ You are on time to meet special agent Hadiza, or Diza as she likes to be called, right?’’ He asked looking her in the face.

‘’ Positive, sir, you must have heard a lot about me then’’ Diza replied still smiling

‘’ I make it part of my duty to know who I am working with. Here, meet Etim, my second in command’’ Mai-Coins announced, and introduced
Etim who was still enthralled by the beautiful female specie with them.

‘’ Happy to meet you, sir’’ Agent Diza responded with a soft bow of her head. ‘’ I guess, I am under you, the third in command then’’ She added with a smirk.

They both stared at each other and then nodded at her. ‘’ Okay, let’s have our first meeting. Lock the door’’.
Mai-Coins finally instructed, pushed himself up from his seat and led them to a small conference table with three chairs, three Dell laptops and three bottled water and three glasses. He waited for them both to pick a chair and then dropped his slim frame at the end of the table.

‘’ They say you are one of the best Information Technology staff in the commission.’’ He threw the question at Diza who just smiled broadly as her slim fingers caressed the laptop in front of her.

‘’ Hmmm, Maybe, that is what they say, but I know I am good’’ She responded, still caressing the system.

‘’ I like your honesty.’’ Mai-Coins said and noted that Etim was yet to utter a word since he came in. ‘’ so, we are ready, show us how to break into the criminal world of the Free-Hands.

‘’ We call it hacking. Very well then, let’s go’’ She told then with a broad smile.

With that, special agent Diza flipped opened her system and they both did the same. And for the next few hours she manipulated the website of the Free-Hands, hacking into Naija-Phones.com, and sieved out vital information and addresses, including shrouded bank accounts and statements relating to the Free-Hands transactions with their various victims. They all whistled softly when she showed them their transaction with Ken Solomon, including all their correspondence.

‘’ Two hundred and twenty million US dollars-Jesus Christ’’ Etim whistled out with a stunned look.

‘’ I think this is their jackpot’’ Mai-Coins said, taking note of the figures on his jotter.

‘’But we don’t know or have a direction where the money is lodged… There is no record, it’s like secret accounts or something, but there was a transaction, you can see.’ Diza told them as she manipulated her way into the website and sieved out some bank statements.

She was still engrossed on the web five hours later before Mai-Coins called for a break. And they all paused to eat some fried chickens and rice, stepping it down with bottles of Coca Cola and Sprite.

‘’Are you guys ready? Time to return to work; you need to be on the net 24/7 always if you want to catch your prey’’ She told them and was already flipping up her system and logged in as the other scrambled back to their chairs.


www.okadabooks.com
www.amazon.com

PART 3

The Showdown

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Detective Mai-Coins sauntered back and front from the wide window inside his new office at the headquarters’ of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Abuja. The exquisite building known as: IDIAGBON HOUSE hosted the new specially set up office under the Operations Department, which also is the hub of all investigation activities of the Commission. The ‘O’ department as it is fondly called among personnel has the responsibility for investigating all cases that falls within the mandate of the Commission. Such cases includes infractions that are contrary to the provisions of the Commission’s enabling law; the EFCC Act 2004, as well as a posse of other laws, which the Commission has directs responsibility for enforcement. Some of these laws include the Money Laundering Act 2011, the Advance Free Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006, including the Failed Banks (Recovery of Debt). The Department is headed by the Director of Operations, who reports directly to the Executive Chairman while all the Heads of Operation in the Zonal Offices in turn report to the Director of Operations.

This was his first day in the office and he was still trying to comprehend the sudden change that had happened to his life and career in less than forty-eight hours. He was still marveled at the miraculous directive that came in from headquarter directing him and his subordinate Etim to pack their bags and report to headquarter between the next twenty four hours; a move that not only came as a shock, but also ended their three months timorous posting. Everything seemed to be happening so fast like a dream. First, the unexpected letter from headquarters directing him to report to Abuja immediately and the same message had been related to Etim in his own letter, and then the new position. They had both been elevated to their old ranks and assigned back their old case – The Free-Hand’s file; with a serious directive from their new chairman to either crack the case or be ready to head back to their old frustrating posting in the terrorist ravage north-east.

‘’ You have no excuse whatsoever to give me at the end of the day if you failed to crack this case and bring me Smoke and his gang. I want their flame extinguish.’’ Their new proficient looking boss had barked out as they held their first face to face meeting with him inside his posh office, his eyes taking on both of them with a glazed look.

‘’ it’s your duty as reputable officers of this commission and patriotic citizens of this country to safe the nation from the embarrassing burning flames of this criminals and quench their fire. Your duty from now on is to employ all the necessary machineries and whatsoever tools and assistant you require from this commission and the nation to end the activities of this notorious unpatriotic Nigerians. I want you to skip all protocols and report to me directly.’’ With that, he had dismissed them with a caveat ‘’ Get me Smoke or you go back to your last posting’’.

This had been two days ago and every minute and everyday now counted to both of them as they set up office and tried to fashion out the best strategy to deal with this herculean task of tracking down and capturing the most wanted cyber-crime criminals in the history of the commission. He was still brooding thoughtfully by the window when a soft knock sounded on his door and he stared admiringly at a slim female figure dressed in a multi colour Vlisco designer dress made from Africa fabric, stepped confidently into the office. He was quick to notice her poise and her polish manner, including her disarming smile.

‘’ Good afternoon, sir, I am Special Agent, Hadiza Muktar, reporting to duty’’ The female figure announced in a soft husky voice.
Detective Mai-Coins still jolted by the beautiful figure standing before him, finally composed himself and smiled up broodingly from the window to his desk

. ‘’ Okay, Hadiza, welcome on board, hope you are ready for this?’’ He asked settling himself on his swing chair, just as Etim pushed his bulky frame into the office, and paused half way to stared confusingly at the female figure.
Mai-Coins noted his awed look and smiled up at him. ‘’ You are on time to meet special agent Hadiza, or Diza as she likes to be called, right?’’ He asked looking her in the face.

‘’ Positive, sir, you must have heard a lot about me then’’ Diza replied still smiling

‘’ I make it part of my duty to know who I am working with. Here, meet Etim, my second in command’’ Mai-Coins announced, and introduced Etim who was still enthralled by the beautiful female specie with them.

‘’ Happy to meet you, sir’’ Agent Diza responded with a soft bow of her head. ‘’ I guess, I am under you, the third in command then’’ She added with a smirk.

They both stared at each other and then nodded at her. ‘’ Okay, let’s have our first meeting. Lock the door’’.

Mai-Coins finally instructed, pushed himself up from his seat and led them to a small conference table with three chairs, three Dell laptops and three bottled water and three glasses. He waited for them both to pick a chair and then dropped his slim frame at the end of the table.
‘’ They say you are one of the best Information Technology staff in the commission.’’ He threw the question at Diza who just smiled broadly as her slim fingers caressed the laptop in front of her.

‘’ Hmmm, Maybe, that is what they say, but I know I am good’’ She responded, still caressing the system.

‘’ I like your honesty.’’ Mai-Coins said and noted that Etim was yet to utter a word since he came in. ‘’ so, we are ready, show us how to break into the criminal world of the Free-Hands.

‘’ We call it hacking. Very well then, let’s go’’ She told then with a broad smile.

With that, special agent Diza flipped opened her system and they both did the same. And for the next few hours she manipulated the website of the Free-Hands, hacking into NaijaPhones.com, and sieved out vital information and addresses, including shrouded bank accounts and statements relating to the Free-Hands transactions with their various victims. They all whistled softly when she showed them their transaction with Ken Solomon, including all their correspondence.

‘’ Two hundred and twenty million US dollars-Jesus Christ’’ Etim whistled out with a stunned look.

‘’ I think this is their jackpot’’ Mai-Coins said, taking note of the figures on his jotter.

‘’But we don’t know or have a direction where the money is lodged… There is no record, it’s like secret accounts or something, but there was a transaction, you can see.’ Diza told them as she manipulated her way into the website and sieved out some bank statements.

She was still engrossed on the web five hours later before Mai-Coins called for a break. And they all paused to eat some fried chickens and rice, stepping it down with bottles of Coca Cola and Sprite.

‘’Are you guys ready? Time to return to work; you need to be on the net 24/7 always if you want to catch your prey’’ She told them and was already flipping up her system and logged in as the other scrambled back to their chairs.

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www.amazon.com

CHAPTER THIRTY

Skinny had different thoughts on his mind that afternoon as the Free-Hands held their first exclusive meeting at the Tinapa. What was topmost on his shrewd mind was the carefree attitude of their boss. Smoke was freely dishing out hundred of dollar bills around not mindful of the implication of such free gesture in the economic tight situation prevalent across the country. Moreover, very soon, some lousy mouths would start gossiping and before you know it, their sweet world would come crashing down under their heads. Again, it was high time they share the money and everyone takes his or her share. All these thoughts ran through his mind. His scratchy fingers could no longer wait to grab his secret $20 million, an amount only himself knew about at the moment. His dream was to be a billionaire in the country and he was almost getting there. He wished he could get the slight opportunity to transfer the cash into his personal account, but the chance was yet to come as Smoke had always stood over him and monitored him closely after entering his much guarded secret password whenever they do their online money transactions. He reasoned as they all listened to the confident speaking boss of the Free-Hands rolled out his plans that afternoon.

‘’ We should diversify and invest in some banks and oil companies across the country. In addition, we must continue to work as a team if we want to succeed. You will all agree with me that teamwork has brought us this far successfully or what do you all think?’’ He threw the question to them. They all nodded in agreement to his statement.

‘’ Any observation so far’’ He continued, lit a cigarette and sipped his drink and caressed the dog beside him.

They all stared questionably at each other and back at him, then Skinny cleared his throat and reeled out his mind.

‘’ Yes, I have some observation and it’s not good for us as a team.’’ He told the table.

They all stared more questionably at him, their individual mind trying to conjure what the ever smart Skinny was going to say. Smoke paused in his stroking of his dogs and paid more attention to the table.

‘’ Go on, we are listening. What have you observed, my dear Skinny?’’ He asked with a grin.

‘’ Your dollar spray; I think it is dangerous and not good for us right now. People will start noticing, and when people notice, they talk.’’

‘’ So, let them talk. The mouth is meant for talking.’’ Smoke chipped in still grinning.

‘’ It’s dangerous and careless’’ Skinny persisted.

‘’ Careless, what do you mean careless? So giving out charity is now careless in your eyes. No, I will not take that from you. We are not careless. We have never been careless. We are Free-Hands; we are giving back to our society what was long stolen away from it by slavery and colonization. So let them talk or what do you guys think?’’ Smoke rattled out angrily and then threw the question at the table, his eyes glazed dangerously and authoritatively across the setting.

Victor was the first to respond. ‘’ I am with you, boss. I think we should enjoy ourselves to the last. My people deserve to feel this hard currency. That is where the oil wealth of this country is coming from, the South-South. So let’s spray on, while they talk, after all it’s all about talking in this country with no action. Let them talk, jare’’ He added with a jeering grin and lit a weed.

‘’ John Bull?’’ Smoke called out, his eyes on him, but John Bull all along had been staring cynically at Skinny.

‘’ Who cares what they say boss. Let them use their big mouths and talk. We have been hearing their talking for a long time. I am here to relax and enjoy myself. So let them talk. I have no time to listen.’’ John Bull rolled out with a disgusting look on his face.

‘’ Well , Sisi, what’s your view? ‘’ Smoke grinned up at Lizzy who all along had remained quite as she listened and observed the drama at the table. She stared at the group one after the other, and then paused to glare at Skinny.

‘’ What do you mean we should cut down on our spending when money is meant to be spent?’’ She asked, her eyes still glued to him.

‘’ That is not what I say or mean to say. I am talking about spending the dollar recklessly.’’ Skinny rushed into a defense.

‘’ You are still saying the same thing. Well, I am not in support of your idea. I came here to pamper myself and enjoy some of the good things life can offer. Moreover, I like when people talk about it. What else do you want them to talk about, if not money? Please let us spray on; we have one life to live. In addition, no amount of talk –talk will stop me from enjoying my life.’’

Lizzy chimed out in her seductive voice as they all stared admiringly at her. This apart from Skinny who knew he had lost some of their confidence in him from that moment and decreased his statue in her eyes. He instantly lost the gut to bring up the next worry on his mind- the split of the bounty.

‘’ So, my dear Skinny, let them talk. What else have been going on in this country for almost twenty years since these buggy politicians took over if not talking. It’s all talk – talk, with no direction and action. It is as if you have not been listening. Maybe Victor should remind you of that big thief who stole billions of naira meant for old pensioners who had slaved for this country. What did they do to him at the end of the day?’’ Smoke asked with a jeering grin at Skinny.

‘’ Nothing happened Boss, just the usual loud talk and judicial gimmick. That big money could feed my people for the rest of their lives. It’s was all talk-talk after the show. Lets enjoy ourselves boss while they keep doing the talking.’’ Victor announced loudly with a disgusting look.

‘’ At least, we are doing something patriotic. We shall continue giving out freely as Free-Hands.’’ Smoke commanded and the meeting continued smoothly into their next agenda of which lucrative business to invest in.

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www.okadabooks.com

**********

‘’ You people already have everything. I mean, this nation is blessed with everything a people could hope for. Why then do you allowed your country to be tagged a fraudulent country with fraudulent people’’ KS asked in-between some sip of water and a stick of cigarette. They were still isolated in their hideout, hidden in between two large rocks and a shady lime tree.

‘’ Take for instance, this big Neem tree, I noticed it everywhere I go here, another nation and its people could turn it into a national income if they had what you have.’’ He added with a leer, his eyes roving around the environment.

‘’ I agree with you on this, but not on the other one. We are not a fraudulent nation or fraudulent people as you people think.’’ Colour replied with a grin.

‘’ We? -This is my view. I am victim for Christ sake; I think I am entitled to some opinion.’’ KS told him with a serious look

‘’ Yes, you are, but we are not all fraudulent. We are a good people of a great nation with hundreds of great people who will never sell their conscious for all your money. Though, I sympathize with you for ‘falling a Mugu’ in the hands of few of my countrymen. This should not make you judged us as a fraudulent nation with fraudulent people.’’ Colour told him with a smile. ‘’ Are you a murderer? ’’ He suddenly asked looking seriously at KS straight in the eyes.

‘’ What! a murderer, no, I hate seeing blood. What are you driving at? ‘’KS asked him suspiciously

‘’ Oh, so you are not. Will you be happy then to know that some of the views here about your country and its people portrays your society as a murderous nation where people owns guns and carry them about maiming innocent victims and causing serious crimes every day.’’ Colour told him with a jeering smile.

‘’ Really, Good and fine, I agree, I live in a violent society, caused mostly by individual greed and derangement. But we’ve got the law in my country and it works. We deal with you, whoever you think you are, big or small, rich or poor. The laws in America don’t discriminate. We call a thief a thief and a murderer a murder and sentence them accordingly.’’ KS drowned out jeeringly.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him, absolving every sentence into his mind, his brain tried to capture the scenario the Whiteman was trying to paint to him in words.

‘’ What are you trying to say? Why don’t you paint your point clearer? My vision is blurring’’ He finally said unable to respond with a more jeering answer.

‘’ Okay, let me paint it more clearer’’ KS responded with his jeering look. ‘’The laws in your country is discriminate, a cruelty to justice and the rule of law. For God sake! how can your law make sense by convicting a goat thief and sentenced him to harsh and longer years in prison and the same law strikes a deal with a public servant who has stolen millions of naira and at the end favors him with a light sentence of few days or weeks in prison or a mockery plea bargain. Tell me, what kind of edict is that? Kind of George Owell’s animal farm, I guess; with some animals not being equal to others in the eyes of the law.’’ KS rang out and burst into a jeering laughter.

Colour stared at him bewildered at his jeering laugh. He smiled, and then lit a rolled weed. He knew the guy was saying the absolute truth, and the more he listened to him, the more he wanted to hear more.

‘’ Damn it, you guys are the ones colonizing yourselves everyday here’’ Ken Solomon continued amidst laughter. ‘’ Even the internet we introduced to your country of recent has been turned into a battle ground among yourselves, bombarding each other with curses and illogical arguments everyday through the various social media; Instead of using it as a creative tool to enhanced your development and showcased the best of what you are.’’

‘’ It might interest you to know that we have some of the best creative minds in the world,” Colour told him proudly

‘’ Yeah, I know, I have seen and heard about some of them. I have heard about Philip Emeagwali the computer whiz kid; read about the creative Nigerian at General Motors, ’’

‘’ Jelani Aliyu, the senior creative car designer with General Motors,’’ Colour reminded him proudly

‘’ Yeah, him and those great fashion designers, some of your literary minds, your innovative musicians and the rest,’’ KS grinned at him. ‘’ Then my question is why can’t you design your own products and utilized the potentials of your creative minds? I mean if you can create your own beautiful clothes, build your fanciful houses, sing your sweet songs and cook your appetizing foods, then why are you still finding it difficult to create your own automobiles, design your own computers and phones, or manufacture your own generators and motorbikes, instead of flooding your markets with imported substandard goods from China and other western countries. I think your government has always been deep asleep while other awakened nations lured your creative minds and inventors away with enticing offers. Believe me, you have always been the root of your problems.’’ KS told him frankly.

‘’ I don’t agree with you on this’’ Colour manage to say, and then passed the smoke to him.

‘’ Why can’t you see it clearly’’ KS asked as he took some drags and puffed smoke out of his mouth slowly.

‘’ I am listening, enlighten me Prof. ‘’ Colour jeered at him.

‘’ Okay, whatever you call me. What I have read, observed and understood so far about your country is your attitudes of discrimination among each other. You have colonized yourselves with your segregated laws, you’ve colonized yourself with your schools and your educational system, including your tribes and religions and you don’t have a standard or what we call indigenous educational and administrative system. You have colonized yourselves with foreign ideas and goods; you are contented and proud to market and sell other people’s ideas and products. You do not even believe or appreciate what you have or who you are.’’ He paused stared thoughtfully at him and then asked.
‘’ In all honestly can you really change your color? I mean your black skin to white or whatever color you desire? Definitely, you can’t do that no matter whatever chemical or cream you used. The same applies to me; I can’t change my skin or who I am to a Black man or an Asian no matter my tricks. So I must accept who I am and what I am. But most of you have failed to comprehend this simple logical reasoning. You don’t appreciate who you are and what you have,’’ He paused and then ruptured into a short laugh. ‘’ I just read yesterday in some of your papers how some parents here are frantically paying huge amount of money to teach their children how to copy and speak in British and American accents. Ha! ha! ha! Ha!…honestly, I really laughed out my guts on the balcony when I read it.’’

‘’ I read it too, my people copy, I agree with you. They worship anything abroad, Tokunboh, as we call it. To be honest, it has always beaten my understanding too? But mind you we still have a large number of Nigerians who won’t give up their culture and tradition for any other under the sun.’’ Colour responded with a broad smile.

‘’ Yeah, I see some of them in their fashionable clothes every day, even you. I noticed you’re proud of your clothes with your colorful shirts and trousers, including some of the shoes I’ve seen on your legs. I love seeing your multi-color African print on many of you in America or Europe whenever I traveled, but the majority of you want to be like us, in ties, coats and hot skirts, Ha!ha!ha!ha!’’ KS chuckled out loudly and Colour joined him too. But the witty white man paused in between laughter and fired his next shot. ‘’ Then why are most of your textiles industries not functional like they used to be? What happened to those once lively big textiles companies I read about? What happened to the various research centres in your country? I mean the great Cocoa research centre? The mighty groundnut pyramids and your agriculture and livestock centres, including your famous rubber plantations? What happened to all these renowned establishments?’’ He cynically demanded.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him, marveled at his historical precision. They were questions he had no answer to and actually did not know what to tell the mocking white man before him. He knew the white man had an edge over him because of his experience in the country and in the hands of the Nigerian criminals who swindled him, unlike him who had never been to America or had a firsthand experience of what the country and its people look like, including their institutions. All he knew so far about the United States of America was what he had heard, read in books, magazines and newspapers, including some of the things he had seen on TV, the internet and movies.

‘’ Those are historical past, we are moving towards another dimension in our development,’’ He finally responded not too convinced with his response.


‘’ No, I don’t think so. What I think and could see is the fact that your government and people don’t encourage creativity. You don’t encourage your creative minds and innovative brains that have been able to create various prototypes of innovative machines and other man-made ideas. You now have a consuming populace, unlike your creative people of the past. Your nation still largely depends on the great institutions and innovations of your past leaders. You now have a generation that depended mainly on imported ideas, services and goods. You have a large poll of youths who have no jobs because of your nepotism and bias reasoning. You have various means of engaging your large workforce but always shrieked away with insubstantial evidence of monetary value to everything you do or think of doing. I have read various stories of young boys and men who have created prototypes of planes, cars, farm machines, choppers and other thought provoking inventions and startups but most of them if not all ended up as pipe dreams. Your nation would rather import same product from your neighbors than begins charity at home.’’

Ken Solomon still livid with his experience in the hands of the Nigerian cyber-crime criminals hit out at Colour. But he was not done yet.

''You are always afraid of spending money, because most of your leaders and people don’t know how to make money genuinely without depending on government budgets and bonds. You have failed to comprehend that people create money, money don’t people. So, I consciously believe that one should earn every dime he spends; I worked hard for that money. I sweated my ass off in the sun, rain and storm to get to where I was before those cheap thieves from your country cunningly pulled the ladder from my feet. How can you be proud to feed your stomach with other people’s money and you think it won’t rumble your stomach?’’ He threw the question at the thoughtfully looking Nigerian before him.

‘’ I don’t know, Hey! I have got nothing to do with your money, remember. I am just a Nigerian who found myself so without my consent, and I am very proud of it,’’ Colour responded with a smile. ‘’ Everyone to his and her conscious, you ripe what you sow,’’ He added.

KS listened to him, thought over what he said and then hit out once again with a frown for the first time.

‘’ Worst, you don’t respect and value the elderly. I have noticed with silent irritation the way and manner some old folks struggled daily in your country to survive, forgetting that you are all going to get old someday, no matter how gorgeous, strong and healthy you are today. Again, it’s sad and pathetic that your nation and its rich people don’t give a damn about the physically challenged people as well. I am yet to see any special provision for them anywhere around here. Instead, I have noticed with exasperation how many of them struggled to board buses, battle for space on your chaotic roads, and pushed around by able bodied men and women, sometimes without a second glance at their feeble conditions. Where are your conscious? ‘’ Ken Solomon demanded and then without waiting for a response, he grinned cynically at him and then added.
‘’I guess these could be the reasons why some cheap thieves from your country had no conscious to conned me out of my sweat, they stole my money, and that is dishonorable; not only to them but to your country as well. The fact is no matter how hard you people try to copy us, the far we get ahead of you. You can never be like us. We are who we are and you are who you are, just be yourself and do things your own way ’’

Colour stared thoughtfully at him, allowed him to drag more weed before collecting it from him.

‘’ I can see that you are angry my friend. Maybe we should concentrate on our mission here’’ He suggested, took a long drag on the weed and smiled up at him.

‘’ No, it’s okay. I guess I needed someone to throw those punches at, especially a Nigerian. I am sorry.’’ KS apologized and pushed himself up from his position. He sauntered to the edge of the big rock and took a panorama view of the area.

‘’ Its’ okay with me, you’ve all along being saying nothing but the truth and I like it.’’ Colour responded, and walked up to him.


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*********
The Blue Water hotel sits close to an artificial tidal lake that feeds from the Calabar River which in turn flows into the Atlantic Ocean. A natural captivating tarn where the management had thought it wise to set up water sport activities, including fishing. It was here, inside the secluded shade of one of the shady mangrove trees that stood boldly a few meters away from the Baboon Bar that the Free-Hands conveyed their first meeting at the Tinapa that Monday afternoon. The group had actually split up into two with Skinny and Lizzy first making the trip on the high cable car that took them and three other curious visitors to the secluded lake. Skinny and Lizzy had posed as two couples in love on their honeymoon and had stared quietly at the three other passengers, an elderly looking man and two ladies, with one of them obviously his wife and the other their daughter. They had all stared quietly at each other, exchanged silent greetings with the nods of their heads and then had all turned their view to the spectacular sight on the ground as the glass covered cable car freighted them along the long lines of strong parallel wires. They all disembarked and made it on a speed boat to the lake where they came ashore and made it on foot towards the well organized bush bar, crafted intelligently with baboon sticks, this including the tables and chairs.

The two high ranking members of the Free-Hands opted for a secluded spot away from the few tourists around and far from the eardrops of the three bar attendants and the two security guards in mobile police uniform. They selected an isolated table, gave their orders to one of the barmen and waited patiently for the others to arrive. Few minutes later, a wide smile on his face, Victor with the towering bulk of John Bull beside him made their way to their table, after spotting them from the bar where they had first made their way casually. They bought two bottles of Carlo Rossi red wine, took few sips while still sitting on the baboon barstools and pretended to be on their own. They chatted, gawked at the few beautiful women around and then finally made their way towards Skinny and Lizzy with their drinks in their hands. Lizzy was the spotlight of most of the men and women around with her spectacular plaited hairstyle and her colorful spaghetti dress made from African print.

“ All eyes on you.” Skinny had earlier told her as they made their way to their table.

“ Dem go look taya!.” Lizzy had responded, cat walked gracefully towards the shade of the big mangrove tree, dropped her slim shape into one of the chairs, and then finally scanned the curious eyes on her with her big brownish sunshade still covering her seductive eyes.

“ Boy –o – boy. Sweet, beautiful setting.” Victor announced on reaching their table, his grin now wider.

“ This place no easy at all. Nice setting.” John Bull also announced, dropped his big frame into one of the baboon chairs, and then measured the strength of the chair with his weight. “Strong- Chair.” He added with a smile.

They noticed two police officers with rifles and noted their occasional curious stares at their table from their position. The four members of the Free- Hands, being the smart criminals that they were suddenly brought up a hot gist and they all concentrated on their funny tale, laughed out happily, sipped their drinks, smoked some cigarettes and temporary ignored the policemen and all the other curious eyes on them as they secretly waited for their boss. None of them knew how he did it, but the familiar shapes of the two dogs as they move towards the bush bar brought out the reality that their boss was around. All eyes, including the two policemen and barmen all paused in what they were doing and stared frightfully at the two beast as they escorted their master to the setting, flanking him by both sides. One of the policemen quickly jumped up from his position and stared surprisingly at the approaching figures of the creatures – man and beasts, as they made their way confidently towards the bar.

The policeman made to confront the rich looking guest, but the occasional snaring looks from the two beasts cautioned him and moreover the guest could be one of the movers and shakers of the Tinapa. He had better tread carefully, he cautioned his mind, and then forced himself to gaped amazingly as every other person around was doing.
Smoke with his two trusted dogs by his side made his way to the bar, ’Plaintain Boy’ by Timaya, filtered out from some hidden speakers at the background. He climbed into one of the bar stools as the dogs took their positions protectively on the floor beside him. He spoke with a grin on his face at the two frightened looking barmen behind the counter. His eyes from his dark shade quietly took on the drinks on display.

“ Too bad you don’t have drinks for my dogs. No wahala. Give me a bottle of Johnny Walker red label and ice.” He requested still grinning.
The two barmen stared at him, make to say something at once, but both paused between the line, stared at the dogs, then back at each other. One of them finally nodded and hurriedly fetched the drink with a smile. He arranged the bottle of Jonny Walker with a bucket of ice and a glass cup in front of the wealthy looking guest with a smile.

“ Good.” Smoke exclaimed, uncorked the bottle of Jonny Walker, filled his glass to the brim, and then took a sip, smirking at the two barmen who stared admiringly at him with a smile. He ignored some of the curious eyes on him, but noted the presence of his gang under the mangrove tree. Then fetched out his loaded wallet, extracted a note of hundred dollar bill, and pushed it towards the barman who had served him.

The two barmen stared amazingly at the note and the one who had served the guest snapped it up hurriedly with a broad smile and the note disappeared fast out of sight.

“ You can both enjoy yourself with the balance.” Smoke grinned at them, picked up his drink and then sauntered towards his gang with his two dogs flanking him side- by- side. He stared at his lieutenants with a grin, pulled the empty seat at the end of the table and then dropped his frame as his two dogs also took a space not far from him. John Bull his eyes on the dogs, adjusted his big frame on his seat and stared warily at the two beasts.

Smoke stared at the two uniformed police men whom he noticed were still staring suspiciously at him and then waved to one of them to come over. And as expected the more curious one among them, a thin constable in faded black uniform swaggered towards their table, and firmly planted himself few inches from the group, his eyes stared at the two dogs and the gang suspiciously.

“ Hello, policeman, please tell the barman to give you what you want, you and your officer.”
Smoke told him with a cynical grin, and stared back boldly at the now smiling policeman while he calmly stroke one of the dogs on the head.

He then dipped his finger into his caftan pocket, extracted a slim gold-case, flipped it open, selected a rolled weed and ritually lit up then blew thick smoke across the table with a wide grin. He then flipped two hundred dollar bills from his pocket to the perplexed looking constable.

“ Tell oga say we want privacy. Make una share this for the weekend.” He continued as noted that the sergeant’s eyes although far away were fixed on what was going on from where he was standing and must have noted the exchange.

The constable did a double take, snapped the bills and hurriedly stuffed them into his trouser pocket, and then turned to his officer to see if he had noticed the exchange and was not too happy when he saw the sergeant smiled broadly at him; his glistering eyes took on all what had transpired between them.

“Okay, sir.” The constable saluted Smoke.” Thank you sir, we are with you. Please you should all feel free. There is no problem. We are in -charge here.” He rolled out hurriedly unable to hide his excitement.

The gang watched him amusingly as he mopped his sweaty face, shifted his rifle from one hand to another, and then sauntered away. His earlier confident swagger was now gone, instead he drifted away like a cast dog.





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CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Bwari Area Council, Abuja, the Federal Capital city of Nigeria holds the record of being the second largest area councils out of the six councils that made up the over coddled capital. Again, the council has to its credit one of the most beautiful topography settings in the whole capital. Surrounded by various shapes of rocks, medieval trees, carpets of green bushy grass and a long road network that connect the area with the city and other neighboring states of Niger, Kaduna and Nasarawa. It was in one of this captivating high mountainous rock that Colour drove Ken Solomon to in his beetle and then led him to an isolated corner by leg, up, away from preying eyes where they finally found a quite sport by a floating stream with frogs and birds being the only other voices that could be heard between them. With their trousers rolled up to their ankles, they found a comfortable spot and settled down to roll some joints of weed, lit up and gave themselves some silent drags.

KS unable to control his silence smiled up at him, took a long drag, stared at his weed and then opened up. “ Boy! Some good grass here. Wow! This could knock out a horse.” He exclaimed, rolling his weed between his fingers.

“ Yeah. Nice smoke. But not the best we have here.” Colour replied, smiling back at him.

“ Really?” KS asked with the raise of his eyebrows.

“ True.” Colour responded taking a drag at his smoke absentmindedly.

“ I believe you. I know your country has some of the best natural resources in the world. I follow history you know.” KS said smiling.

“ I understand.” Colour replied proudly, not expecting what KS would say next.

“But the fucking problem I am failing to really understand is why all the poverty, corruption and fraud synonymous with your country despite all the richness in your land. I think any sensible rich nation like yours should be ashamed of itself for not being able to generate common electricity for its vast populace despite all your raw iron, copper and other natural resources, including your large labour force. It is actually a shame that you people are still battling with electricity, water and road construction in the 21st century or don’t you think so?”

KS challenged boldly, the weed already doing something in his system and he suddenly felt confident with an urge to pour out his frustrated mind freely to the Nigerian next to him. The question actually took Colour by surprise and off balance. He had not expected the now high- looking white man to blow out his mind freely about the opened state of poverty, corruption and the notorious fraud activities of some of his country men and women across the globe while he was still treating him to some good time. But the guy was saying the truth. He reasoned calmly as he smiled up at KS, not exposing the shock on his mind.

“ Yes, I think you are right. But what exactly is the poverty you’ve seen since you came to town?” He finally asked with a smile and dragged his weed.

“ Jesus! Those kids on the road are they not suppose to be in school or at home or playing games at the various parks around? But definitely not carrying plastic bowls around and looking shabby the way they are. God! I almost lost my mind when I saw them.” Ken Solomon responded with a disquiet tone.

“ Oh, you mean the almajiris…child beggars?” Colour asked with lifted eyebrows.

“Whatever the hell you call them. To me, they are nothing but a clear case of child abuse and child slavery. Jesus Christ! How can you people allow this to go on in this 21st century despite your claims of being the giant of Africa, a rich oil nation and amazingly with some of the most intelligent intellectuals and business men and women around the world? I mean it’s crazy to allow little boys to daily beg for food hungrily on your chaotic roads or watch shamelessly everyday as innocent little girls who were supposed to be in school dangerously hawk some cheap water on your cluttered highways.”KS spat out angrily.

Colour stared surprisingly at him, noted his angrily face and then responded, though he knew the white man had hit him hard with some glaring facts. But all the same he felt he must respond to him.

‘’ But the West also contributed to our present malady. Most of our so-called intelligent intellectuals and business men and women around the world are part of the brain drain syndrome now eroding our system. You people entices our professionals everyday with mouth watering monetary and education offer and they in turn take your baits and get hooked to your system and once in your countries, it is always difficult for them to come back home to help develop their people, indigent villages, cities and towns.’’

‘’ That is bullshit, we practice freedom and democracy in my country, unlike here where democracy has been turned upside down with some of your self-centered politicians greedily throwing you cheap baits and your large electorate in turn fall so cheap to their tricks of divide and rule. They daily suckered you with different rhetoric and other outdated political ideologies largely copied from us, but at the end they can’t even carry them out effectively.’’ KS rattled out, paused to grin at Colour who stared thoughtfully at him.

‘’ Honestly, I sometime laughed when I read about some of the bills being deliberated or passed by your legislatures and I laughed more when I see them deliberating and fighting over money and about their self-styled constitutional projects. In all honestly, this is not what we taught you about democracy and in reality not the way we practice it in my country since you are purporting to be copying the American system of government’’ KS told him and ruptured into laugh . ‘’ Take your refineries for instance , they’ve all gone comatose despite the reality that you are one of the richest oil producing nations in the world with the second best refilled crude oil on earth. Yet, you still import oil and queue up regularly across your filling stations to buy petrol and kerosene at outrageous prizes for a nation with crude oil in its backyards.’’ He added and ruptured into laugh again.

Colour thought over his statement and then nodded circumspectly aware that the white man was saying the truth. ‘’ But your government and people still welcome some of these politicians and their looted funds when they come visiting. They buy some of your houses, starched our looted funds in some of your banks and invest millions of dollars in some of your blue chips companies. What do you have to say about this? You welcome the thieves that robbed us dry and give them stimulating shelters across your country in the name of safe haven or whatever you call it,’’ Colour responded and also ruptured into laugh.

Ken Solomon stared thoughtfully at him and then continued laughing. He realized that he liked the confident speaking Nigerian and his bold way of confronting issues. This is the way I like my men, bold and confident, not timid and cowardly. He told himself and then fired his next shot.

‘’ My country was built on freedom; it is a Free land, for free people. Those who greedily stole your money were not forced to come to our country, they did it on their free will to indulge and enjoy some of the good things democracy made possible in our country. Sweet good things like education, an efficient health system, well-organized roads, villages and cities, including an effective energy distribution network and competent security organizations that daily keep watch over us and protect us every day from the various criminal elements rampant in your country and continent as a whole. ‘’ KS said, dragged his smoke and then continued. ‘’No criminal gang can brazenly steal just five American girls for a month and disappeared into thin air. No, Americans will shut down the system. We would rally ourselves around, irrespective of states, political, religion or class differences. We will all match through the thickest forest in the world to find our girls and bring them back home. Where are your Chibok Girls? ‘’ He asked, lit a cigarette and smiled up proudly at his Nigerian partner.

Colour just stared thoughtfully at him, conscious that the weird white man had hit the right button and was actually cognizant with what was going on in the country and most annoying he was actually winning their self indulged debate. ‘’ Our circumstances are different from yours, remember we are two different people, with different problems,’’ He responded mildly.

‘’ Different people, good, but your intelligent and educated men and women still daily trooped to the west in search of greener pasture while they abandoned their villages with only a minority among them ever coming back to add value to their communities. I am sometimes baffled when I see some of your professionals in America living big and right here in their country the public schools they passed through, that made them what they later became in life are left in shambles. The reality is that most of your Diasporas have refused to intelligently give back to their society what they got from it, just like the Chinese and Indian Diasporas are doing. Check it out and you will see what I mean.’’ KS challenged him with a wide grin.

‘’ Okay, I will do that but we are still different people with different culture and mentality.’’ Colours managed to say but in actual sense he had no answer to Ken Solomon’s moral question about the famous kidnapped Chibok Girls, brazenly stolen from their school in Chibok, Borno State. It was something he hated thinking and talking about because of the laxity of the various security organizations across the country and the inept attitudes of the elected politicians and the government in the whole exercise.

Ken Solomon stared at him thoughtfully and then smiled. ‘’ Yes, I agree, we are two people from different continents. Yet, you still try to practice our system of democracy, our policies and a mix of our judiciary system which have all failed you because you have not been sincere to yourselves and patriotic enough to do them for God and your country. Look at your banking system for instance, great looking brands, but some of your banks still have some porous characters in the sector working hand in hand with criminal elements outside the system to steal and defraud innocent people like me of their hard earned money, not only foreigners like me, but innocent old folks and other citizens of your country. They are top stories in your papers and news channels almost every day,’’ KS announced and picked his bottled water.

‘’ You are not blaming our banks for the money you lost to those faceless criminals are you? Because if you are, then you are being unfair to our banks, you are bringing in nepotism into our discussions which is unfair and undemocratic,’’ Colour told him, happy to have a chance to hit back at the white man.

‘’ No, you got it wrong, I am not being bias here. The fact is your porous financial institution made it possible for those thieves to steal my money. It was all a bank transaction from day one, all routed through some bank accounts in your country, I believe with the connivance of some unscrupulous banks officials,’’ KS responded, this time with a frown.

Colour noted his change of expression and guessed the guy was angry over his lost millions. I will do the same if I were in his shoes. He reasoned and then responded calmly. ‘’ But you must equally blame your own banking system to have allowed some smart brains from my small country to siphoned that large amount of money from your account in your ‘well protected’ country in the first place. Where were all the police and financial security operatives in your country when this brazen stealing was going on? Common KS, these criminals are sophisticated and anyone can always fall cheap into their wide network. They are everywhere. The internet gave them the freedom and also make their criminals deals more easier now, just the same way it has made other lawful businesses to provide their products and services now with ease,’’ Colour told him and smiled broadly.

Ken Solomon stared thoughtfully at him with his bottled water still held unopened in his hand. He deliberated over what his confident speaking Nigerian friend had said and nodded at his statement. He knew the guy got it right and it was true that his country banking system was also weak from the current internet criminals across the globe with the secret world of sophisticated cyber-crime criminals in the hidden world of dark web. He reasoned and smiled broadly at Colour. ‘’ Yes, I think you’re right, the criminals are everywhere, I think I should blame my greed for what happened to me,’’ He said, smiled up at him and then opened the bottled water to take a sip.

“I won’t do that if I were you…’ Colour suddenly cautioned him, his eyes on the Eva bottled water.

“ Why? what’s wrong?’” KS asked, the bottled water held half way between his lips with an alarmed look.

Colour ruptured into laugh. “ You will miss the fun and the sweetness of the sugarcane. It is always sweeter to take it after the weed and then water.” He told him and demonstrated with one of the sugarcane with a happy grin.

“Really? Okay, let’s see.” KS replied with a smile, dropped the bottle of water, dragged more on his weed and then took on the sugarcane with a relish look. He piled off the first layer of the cane, took a bite and then chewed it the way he saw Colour doing. “Hmmm… I agree with you…sweet… and very interesting…” He muttered as he chewed the sugarcane with a smile.


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CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Smoke a lighted weed in his hand as usual stared thoughtfully at the flocks of beautiful shapes of women sunbathing at the Olympic size swimming pool from his balcony inside the Blue Water hotel. His bloodshot eyes admired the curves of two slim young ladies who appear to be staring up at him from their position. He smiled, then waved at them and was not too surprise when they returned his wave with a smile. Women, they always can smell a guy with cash from afar. He thought and took a puff at his weed. His mind was preoccupied with his gang and the millions of dollars in their reach. It was few minutes to noon and he was still dressed in a black pajama and a pair of expensive looking multi-color feather slippers. The sun smiled down slightly from the sky giving the atmosphere an excited trilling day. Which appealed to the relaxed looking head of the Free-Hands, but he suddenly felt a wary panic in his stomach; the fear of death with all that money flashing through his mind for a moment. He dismissed it and assured himself that he was safe from their bewildered victim and equally from the arms of the law as long as they remain put in the country. It was all about money and he was certain that he could bribe his way out of any trouble that might come after them. He smiled as the realization of being among one of the top rich Nigerian fraudsters in the country hit him. He realized that he and his gang could now own those big hotels, estates, transport fleets, and some high stakes in some new generation banks, including other lucrative money spilling ventures across the country legally. Yes, there is need to convey an important meeting with the boys to look into some of the lucrative businesses in the country and abroad they could invest in legally. He reasoned thoughtfully.
It was a Monday and what a better day to start work. He told himself and happily dragged down his weed, waved once more at the two girls who had now changed positions and were now openly flirting with him with their curves bodies, their curious sexy eyes and seductive lips. Smoke blew out soft smolder of weed from his nose, smiled at the two ladies and then sauntered confidently back into his presidential lounge, leaving the women to feast more on their curiosity.



********
Calabar, the state where the popular Tinapa resort is located, is regarded by many Nigerians as a livable and likable clean city and equally acknowledged as the leader in the development of eco-friendly tourism in the country. At present no other state in the whole of west and central African sub-region offers similar services to that of the Tinapa, this according to reports on its website which reads. ‘The close proximity of Tinapa to the manufacturing based Calabar Free Trade Zone as well as the Calabar Sea and Air Ports, presents opportunities for Manufacturers, Retailers and Wholesalers to expand their activities due to increased trade. Its location off the Main Highway into the City of Calabar means that visitors from other parts of Nigeria and the neighboring countries, can access Tinapa easily without going through the increasing traffic at the City Center. What more, the Cross River State Government, the initial promoter of the Zone had executed a loan agreement for the construction of a monorail connecting Tinapa to the airport to further improve accessibility,’

But to get a clearer view of the Tinapa, one has to look at some of the facilities available at this 21st century African resort, according to information on its website:
‘’Pre-built retail and wholesale accommodation amounting to an excess of 65,000m2 letting area composed of Four Emporia of 10,000m2 each, several Line Shops, Warehouses, and so on. An open Exhibition Area for Trade Exhibitions and other events, also made up the features of the Tinapa, this including world class entertainment strip that comprised spaces for a Casino, an Eight-Screen digital Cinema, vintage international standard restaurants, a night club and pubs. Also available with the entertainment Centre is a functional Games Arcade and a mini amphitheater. There is also an artificial tidal lake that feeds from the Calabar River which itself flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Water sport activities including fishing, which can be undertaken on the Tinapa Lake, and a man-made beach where leisure events can be held are also part of the pecks of this leisure world. Again it has a Two Hundred and Forty Two (242) Room international three star Hotel christened "Tinapa Lakeside Hotel" being operated by the African Sun Hotels, South Africa, one of Africa’s leading hospitality managers. A movie Production Studio commonly referred to as "Studio Tinapa" or "Nollywood". It is the most modern film production studio in Nigeria. Part of the goodies include a Water Park/ Leisure Land comprising a collection of children and adult size pools, water slides, a wave pool-surfers delight, a lazy river as well as a bar and restaurant, including Parking Space for about Four Thousand Cars, a truck Terminal, a Helipad, an independent power plant that ensures adequate and uninterrupted power supply to the Zone. Also included is over 6 kilometers of perimeter fencing with a good security network, and a dedicated Police post that provides security for the Zone along with a team of private security organizations.
Other facilities includes an efficient Telecommunication facilities, uninterrupted water supply, good internal and external road network that ensures quick access to the adjourning manufacturing based Calabar Free Trade Zone, the Calabar Port, the Margaret Ekpo International Airport as well as the Cross River State major Highway leading to neighboring States within the region. It also has to its credit over 15 kilometers of underground piping for sewage and storm water, including a sewage treatment plant. The Tinapa Shopping Centre itself presents the inspired and sensitive shopper with a bouquet of product offers from her 54 quality retail outlets and four huge emporia each of which is about 10,000 square meters. You will most likely spend a considerable amount of your free time window shopping and taking in the vast array of displays of world class brands ranging from designer labels, perfumes, electronics, fabrics, Jewelry, household furniture and accessories, up to art and craft souvenirs.
And being a Free Trade Zone, no Customs Duties are applied on imports into the Zone. Consequently, the prices of goods sold within the Zone are the lowest in Nigeria. And with the Tinapa Debit Card, shopping there becomes even more exciting as no physical cash is required at most of them.’’

With the exception of cash spenders like the Free-Hands and other showy guests who always had raw cash in their possessions to burn freely and get what they required without following the necessary protocols, the Tinapa indeed is a true leisure world for those with taste and style.


*********
Smoke now fully dressed in a short sleeve blue caftan and black skin sandals, including his trademark dark shade to complete his dressing, sauntered majestically towards the vintage restaurant of the Blue Water hotel where the other members of his syndicate were busy feeding their stomachs with various samples of rich cuisines the place could offered. The restaurant, a big size dining hall with state of the art chairs and tables and a well organized uniformed staff, had a cool lively atmosphere as the head of the notorious Free-Hands wandered towards one of the large tables in the room. The other members sighted him and made room for him at the head of the lavish looking table.
The room was lighted in white transparent boobs and a long bar ran down the decorated wall with illuminated row of glasses and bottles behind it. Two uniformed bar men looked busy behind the glass barricade. The shape of the room was long with large space to sit twenty or more dinners comfortably. A row of bar stools stood against the bar counter with two early drinkers already nursing their glasses in long conversation.

“ He be like say una don begin enjoy una self.” Smoke said with a soft smile and then ignored the few eyes that stared curiously at them from the room.

“ Na so we see am boss” Victor who was about to take a bite on a roasted fish answered with a smile.

“ So how far Sisi, hope you don dey enjoy yourself?” Smoke turned to Lizzy and pulled his shade to stare at the top female member of his team.

‘’ Not bad, I just dey try settle down first.” She drowned out lazily with sleepy eyes and then sipped her glass of red wine.

“ Skinny?” Smoke’s eyes bored into Skinny

“ Yeah, I dey cool. The place no bad at all” Skinny replied with a happy smirk.

“ Bull?” He asked, as they all paused and stared up at John Bull who was still busy munching away at a tick lap of roasted chicken from his spicy plate of chicken soup. He only looked up when he noticed the silence around the table and became aware of the faces staring funnily at him.

“ Well, no need to answer, Jonny dey your side” Smoke continued with a grin

“Hmmm, yes, correct boss” the Bull nodded happily.”

Smoke nodded at all of them and went down to work. “Okay, gentlemen and lady, time to begin work. As you know we must always be ahead of our enemies. So, I suggest we should have a crucial meeting immediately to plan our next move, but not here. We need an isolated place where all the curious eyes won’t be on us. Mind you, the suspicious eyes are bound to be on us very soon and the talk will start flying.’’ He paused to sip a glass of water and then continued. ‘’ Money always attracts much interest, either sweet like sugar and ants or it stink like shit and flies ” Smoke lectured his lieutenants in perfect English as they all gave him their full attention; even John Bull paused in his munching and listened attentively as he wiped his mouth with a white hankie.

“ So where else do we go apart from here?” Lizzy asked a disapproved look showing on her face.

“ We are not leaving here, Sisi. Okay, here is the arrangement…” The boss of the Free-Hands responded with a wide grin and gave out his plan for their next meeting.


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CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

While the new chairman of the EFCC was busy going through the file of the notorious Free-Hand, Colour, a wide grin on his face, drove Ken Solomon around the city of Abuja in his Volkswagen beetle. He maneuvered the green car in-between two speeding Keke NAPEP, the popular tri-cycle mode of transport in the city and grinned at a fascinated looking KS who smiled back at him and nodded his head approvingly. They had met two days after their lunch at the African Kitchen where Colour had listened to him patiently as he narrated his ordeal. He had stared quietly at him at first and then became more interested when he told him the concluding part of how he had lost millions of dollars to a faceless gang in Nigeria through their phony telecommunication deal and on his one man mission to track down the smart syndicate and if lucky recover part of his money.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him with surprise, shook his head sadly and then ruptured into laugh. Ken Solomon not finding it funny at first stared surprisingly at him and then joined him in laughing to the astonishment of other dinners.

‘’Jesus – Christ! You mean you allowed yourself to fall for one of the cheapest 419 deals around here?” Colour remarked amid a comical laugh.

“ Yes, I fell a sucker. God! I wish I could give my head some thorough bashing sometime.” KS replied still laughing.

Colour had paused in his laughter and stared dumbfounded at him and then concluded that the white man was not only careless but a carefree human being, the latter appealed to him and he decided there and then to assist him in whatever way he could. He told himself, but was surprised when he heard the next line from Ken Solomon.

“ I am willing to pay you and retail your service as my guide if you can lead me to them” KS offered now smiling broadly at him.

“ And why do you think I know them?” Colour asked with a smile

“ You are a Nigerian and you look like a smart one to me. I have this strong intuition that you can help me find these people.”

“ Why not go to the police or the relevant agencies in charge of financial crimes like the EFCC you’ve mentioned and the ICPC, the Independent Corrupt Practice Commission or the military, depending on your link. Why- me? I am just a freelance-journalist who is trying to run an NGO, remember? ”

“ The more reason why I want you. You are independent and will have more time for me. And moreover, I am still determine to make this incidence a quite one, this for my reputation and importantly not to stir the suspicious of these faceless criminals and make them go deep underground with my money.” KS told him with a serious look on his face.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him, and pondered silently on his statement and then his offer. He saw reason with his plan and knew deep inside him that the white man was right. Going to the police, the EFCC or the ICPC might not solved his problem; rather they were bound to compound them the more with the normal bureaucratic sluggishness, sudden interest from above and high massive bribery and corruption since a lot of millions was involved and not the Nigerian naira but the mighty dollar. He concluded and made up his mind to join the friendly white man who was willing to pay him to go after some faceless criminals fraudulently destroying his beloved country’s image across the world.

“ But you know it’s not going to be easy.” He finally announced his eyes still in a thoughtful mood.

“ I know, but it is possible?” KS responded confidently.

“ Why not, you won’t have traveled this far if you were not convinced of possibility. Yes, it’s possible, but it’s going to be dangerous, adventurous and expensive. Two hundred and twenty million US dollars is a lot of money. Many countries could go to war for that amount in this part of the continent and also many individuals are ready to sacrifice their lives to own that huge amount.” Colour told him and grinned wryly at him.

“ I am willing to take a chance and see where I stop. Right now, I have little money left, but I have always live on one thing more important than money which is hope and I believe it will see me through this present predicament. All I need is your assistance as a human being like me who could as well be in my shoes irrespective of race or continent. I worked hard for that money, it is my sweat.” KS told him with a thoughtful worried look.

Colour had stared thoughtfully once again at him, saw the brief unhappy look on his face, noted his sincerity and humility and then extended his hand in a handshake.

“ I am in, you have my full assistance.” He told him proudly with a broad smile.

“Thanks, I won’t forget this. So how much is your fee?” KS asked, still holding his hand.

“ For now nothing. You just need to settle the bills as we move along. Let see where the chase would lead us, then from there we shall agree.” Colour responded looking him straight in the eyes.

Ken Solomon had stared quizzically at him, released his hand slowly and then brooded over what he said.

“Very well then, as you wish, but I thought there should be a price that would motivate you to do this.” He finally asked with his wry grin.

“ Yes, I know, but like you, I have something bigger than money in me which is patriotism. I believe it is the most important price and motivation I need for now.”

Colour had responded confidently with a smile and the two-man pact was sealed with an arrangement to start their first move the next day.

And here they were, riding through the bustling city of Abuja in the midday sun as Nigerians and other foreigners’ alike jostle from one corner of the fast developing expensive city to another on their various quests of the day. The day was breezy with a misty looking sky and a touch of light-yellowish blush amid a blue cloud. Ken Solomon instantly fell in love with the weather. His blue eyes took on the sky and the high paced commuters around him. His eyes also stared at the confident swagging long- city buses with their piles of seated or hanging passengers. He noted the various corporate advertisements on the buses as he loosened up his two top buttons from his brown denim top to feel the breeze and at the same time nodded his head to the Afro-beat tune by Fela playing from the car stereo.He was dressed in blue jeans, a brown-top over a white vest and a pair of blue and white sneakers. He smiled up at Colour who had his concentration on the moving traffic.

“ I like your shirt, beautiful flowering top.” KS told him loudly amid the song.

“ Oh , thank you. You’re not looking bad yourself, nice designer top and a unique pen ”

Colour replied loudly, half glancing at KS’s Mike & Spencer shirt with his distinct silver pen. He was on a sleeveless flowering African print over a black linen trouser and a pair of black skin sandals.

‘’ Thanks, just a writing pen, a birthday gift actually.’’ KS responded with a soft smile.

Colour nodded at him, half glancing at the pen again and then cut through the Central Bank building where KS stared admiringly at the structure and they headed towards CIDI plaza, sliding through the Central Business Area and headed towards the Federal Secretariat.

“ So ,where are we starting from?” KS finally asked as they drove along the fast moving double lanes.

They had actually parted ways on Saturday with an agreement to meet at the Mercury lobby around eleven on Monday being a working day to start their two men adventure. He smiled broadly when Colour led him to the beetle at the car park. He had actually stared in his cynical grin at the impressive looking Volkswagen and then hopped into the passenger seat.

“Sweet old beetle.” He finally complimented as they drove out of the hotel to the surprised of some of the eager looking hired drivers beside their clean looking rental cars. They had eagerly hope that the white man would hire one of them for the day on his way out as usual and swell up their pockets with heavy tips, probably a valuable crispy dollar note.

“We are going somewhere isolated to talk, think, and strategize on the best way to tackle this problem, and we can’t do that with so many eyes on us. Remember, you are still a white man in town and my people are always interested in a white man and his activities.”

Colour told him as he slowed down for traffic close to the Ministry of Finance building where a group of almajiris ( Child beggars) swamped over their car with their trade-mark bowls in their hands and chorused loudly, begging for arms. And close by two little girls with bucket of sachet water on their heads hawk their goods loudly to every passerby.

Ken Solomon stared surprisingly at them with an amazed look, but didn’t say anything.

“ I understand. So how far is this place we are going? And what is the groove there?” He asked instead, his eyes still on the hungry looking youngsters as they dashed after one car and the other on the risky lanes.

“ Just about forty-five kilometers from here. What do you mean by groove? I don’t understand” Colour asked as the traffic light showed green and they joined the moving traffic towards the express.

Ken Solomon suddenly smiled and stared quizzically at him. He deliberated if he should ask him what has been on his mind since stepping into the country. Finally, he decided to take the plunge and rest his desperate mind. “ I need a smoke…” He announced slowly with trance-like look.

Colour stole a short glance at him and at the pack of London cigarette on his dashboard ‘’ Why not , please help yourself.” He replied and returned his eyes to the road.

Ken Solomon stared cynically at the pack and then grinned. “Okay, I need some weed,” He corrected.

Colour glanced at him and suddenly grinned sarcastically. “Okay, now I grab. You mean you need some grass?”

“ Yeah, some good African grass.” KS replied and then chuckled excitedly.

'‘Ask, and yeah shall be given.” Colour responded jokingly and pressed down on the accelerator as the beetle jerked forward and zoomed towards Jabi Park.





********
The beetle made a bend close to Berger junction and headed towards Utako modern market, swept through Eden Garden hotel, took a short-cut that brought them close to a popular church and hit the major high way along Jabi park and then finally slowed down at an intersection that led to a green square. Here, Colour, a smile on his face, gave a secret sign to one of the young men around. The guy in a faded black combat khaki and a sleeveless t-shirt nodded and moved casually to the parked beetle. He shook hands with Colour and stared strangely at Ken Solomon who beamed at him.

“ How far, wetin dey happen?” The guy asked Colors, his eyes still staring at KS.

“Happiness, data me five, hope na correct stuff sha? Colour asked the guy in street language.

The young peddler nodded happily and secretly fetched out five parcels of weed, wrapped in white writing pad and secretly passed them to Colour who dropped them in his pigeon hole and then handed the guy some cash with the car engine still running. He bid farewell to the guy and slowly eased back into the moving traffic. The whole transaction had taken less than three minutes and KS had noted the whole deal with curiosity. Deep inside him, he suddenly felt some tickle of excitement, conscious that he finally now could smoke a grass.

Colour cut through Jabi dam and negotiated a right bend leading to Kado estate where he hit the express leading into Gwarinpa estate, the biggest housing estate in Nigeria and reputed to be the largest in Africa. He drove through the estate and made a stop suddenly at a small roadside market where he bought sliced sugarcane from a young man. He then bought four pieces of roasted corn and some fresh looking sliced coconuts, two bottle of 35cl table water, including five pieces of pure sachet water. This to the amazement of Ken Solomon who stared at the transactions from the passenger seat and on impulse, he brought out his leather wallet and made to count out some notes, but Colour stopped him placing his hand on his white hand.

“Please, allow me. These ones are on me. We welcome strangers with the little we can offer in this part. If I have, I spend, if I don’t have, I look.” Colour told him with a smile.

KS made to protest, but change his mind when he noticed that Colour had hurriedly settled the bills and eased back the car to the moving traffic. Colour grinned and stole a silent glance at him, then hit the six-lane express with Fela Anikulapho’s hit song: Gentleman, blazing from the resilient looking green beetle.



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CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

What the notorious Free-Hands never knew was that the popular Nigerian financial crimes agency, the EFCC, still had committed secret eyes on their activities. While the group was happily enjoying their lives and blowing away part of the millions they had conned off Mr. Richmond and still had Ken Solomon’s cash fixed in their secret accounts in the banks, the agency under the leadership of a new helmsman was busy combining all its intelligence and resources together to nab the syndicate and bring them to book. The new boss of the anti-graft agency on assuming office had requested for the files of all the unsolved notorious financial crimes at the commission from the Director of Operations of the agency and had stared unbelievable at a classified file mark simply in bold letters: THE FREE-HANDS. He went through the file attentively and after reading through the case, his big eyes had stared silently at the Head of Operations and summoned an emergency meeting on a Monday, just two days after Ken Solomon came into the country.

“ So, you mean these criminals got away smoothly and are somewhere here within the country enjoying their felony?’’

He demanded angrily, and eased his bulky frame from his seat at the head of the conference table. He was a tall looking fellow with the toughness of a cop written all over him. Though he was dressed in a brown designer suite, over a white shirt, a brown tie and brown Swede shoes, he still had that look of a security agent. One remarkable feature about him was his broadness, which gave him a look of a prizefighter. He rubbed his thick hands around his shaved head which seem to be a habit and then turned around to glared surprisingly at the Head of Operations who said nothing and then at four other top ranking officials of the commission three men and a woman who all stared quietly into space.

“ No! Criminals are not supposed to go scot-free and have their story ended in a sweet fairy tale.” He suddenly barked across the room to no one in particular and then continued. ‘’Well, let me tell you , this including all the staff here and across the country, that henceforth no fraud case goes scot-free in this place as long as this agency is under my command. We must solve all the unsolved cases here before my tenure expires, if it is the only thing we do every day.”

“ Very well, sir, but the Free-Hands case was something exceptional . Our hands were tied.”

The Head of Operations explained, staring everywhere but at his angry looking boss. His thin lips hide a grin and his eyes rested on the opened file on the table. He restricted his long itching fingers from picking it up not too sure of how the reputable crime buster who was now his boss would react. This was actually his first week as the chairman of the commission and expectedly every staff in the building knew a change had set in and their past few months of idleness were over.

“ What made their case exception?, and who tied your hands?” The chairman threw the question sarcastically at him, his face still wearing his angry look.

“ Actually, as you can see in the report there was a lot of interest at the top at the time and our operatives had no alternative than to drop the case and concentrate on other matters. In fact, those directly involved were hurriedly transferred to other zones across the country.”

“ Really, very well then, get me their names, present locations and have them transfer back here immediately. I have just reopened this particular case. I want it to be the first example of how to end every criminal case in a sad note.”

The chairman announced, walked back to his desk and picked up the Free-Hands file. “ We must quench this flames.” He added, ending the meeting as they all stared quietly at him, nodded their heads and then piled out of the room.

“ And inform every staff under your departments that henceforth each unsolved case would claim some casualty among them. No crime should be unsolved and no criminal goes free under my command.”

With that, he dropped his broad frame back into his seat and gave all his attention to the Free-Hand’s file.


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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The beautiful, mind captivating Tinapa Resort was opened in March 2007, located in Calabar the sparkling capital of Cross-River, in South-South Nigeria. The Tinapa is an excellent business resort, conceptualized by Governor Donald Duke, one of the outstanding young generation visionary governors then in the country. The resort was conceived to offer Nigerians a world class integrated business resort with plans to redirect twenty percent of Nigerians who constantly globe-throat to Dubai and other international cities for shopping back into the country’s economy. The greatest development of its kind in Africa destined to become one of the world’s best trading and tourism destinations, rivaling Dubai and Hong Kong. It has over 800000 square meters of retail emporia and over 60 lines shops and estimated to generate a GDP in excess of US$ 90billion, and also reputed to be the largest untapped consumer market in Africa. The Tinapa Business Resort was projected to unleash pent-up demand with an extensive range of trade and entertainment experiences. Visitors to the place are expected to be spoilt for choice in hotels, restaurants, cinemas, casinos, water world, including world class leisure parks. But the massive corruption among Nigerian politicians and their lukewarm attitudes, including the bureaucratic psychic of government officials over the years had since killed this visionary economic potential. It actually takes a visitor six hours drive from Lagos to get to Tinapa, and more hours from the northern part of the country. Tinapa for any truthful fun seeker, business inclined individuals, or those seeking isolation is a haven and the appropriate place to be.

So it was that Saturday, some few minutes after five in the evening, as the radiant sun was just biding farewell to the day with its yellowish glow when Smoke and his entourage made their grand entry into the exclusive rich setting of the Tinapa and drove straight to the Blue Water Hotel in their expensive rich convoy of cars. Few minutes later, after all the necessary hotel protocols, inquiries and the filling of forms, including the usual generous tips from Smoke to some of the staff on duty, they were finally lodged into one of the most expensive and secluded part of the rich resort.
Apart from a genuine reputation which they lacked because of their dubious source of wealth the Free-Hands actually had all it takes to be guests of this wonderful mini world. They had charisma, intelligence and grace. And since nobody had publicly declared them wanted, the management and staff of the resort fell innocently to their fictitious story of being business men, writers and tourists with some cash to burn. They were welcome like kings, pampered with some of the best royalty treatment and hospitality the place could offered, and they had plenty.

At the moment, the group was busy in their various suites, unpacking and savoring the exclusive beauty of the place. Each of them had a suite with all the five stars gadgets and treatments. Lizzy, wearing an excited happy look, flung off her shoes immediately she was ushered into her room, and securely locked the door. She cat walked to one of the large French windows, inhaled some fresh air, and then stared admiringly at the breath taking landscape embodying the resort. With her sexy eyes captivated by the golden sun, she seductively removed her dress, and then sauntered gracefully into the bathroom.

Victor once alone in his suite, pulled off his jacket, and jumped excitedly into a big bed that could seduce six grown people to sleep. He pulled off his shoes, and sauntered to one of the wide windows; he half pulled the drapes aside and then stared in astonishment at the serene landscape. He lighted a cigarette, inhaled sweetly, and then exclaimed loudly.
“Tinapa, here I am.” He almost screamed with excitement as he stood mesmerized with the glow of the fading golden sun.

John Bull, his hard face wearing an unusual relaxed mood, paused with his broad back backing one of the windows. His coke induced eyes took in the beauty of the room. He was quite impressed with the big organized room, especially the big screen Plasma TV, the refrigerator, and most importantly, the big wide bed. He grinned, then returned his attention to the window and then gawked admiringly at the retreating golden sun. A wide grin greased his face as he pulled back the blinds and picked up the TV remote happily. His mind visualized all the excitement and fun he looked forward to catch at the exclusive resort.

Skinny, a master for good taste, and fine sweet things, took in the mesmerizing topography of Tinapa with an excited fixed smile. He had inspected the big well laid bed, the rich rug, the tasty looking bathroom, including the electronics and communication equipment in the room with relished. He nodded his approval to everything his skeptical eyes noticed in the room something he hardly does in most hotels or resorts in the country given his experience of rich hotels and expensive private resorts across the world. He has seen it all, from the Bahamas, Aspen, Malta, Paris, Dubai, Gambia, Malibu, Miami, Hong Kong, and Jamaica. But ironically, upon all his gallivanting across the globe, Skinny, ever the home boy, still preferred Nigeria and feel more safe and at home anywhere in the part of the country. The Tinapa had actually restored his lost confidence in his rich country and could not hide his excitement has he walked towards one of the opened windows.
He lit a cigarette, inhaled and blew the smoke across his face. His eyes took in the beauty of the golden sun as it slowly faded away. “This is the place!” He exclaimed excitedly and then sauntered to one of the opened windows where he fed his eyes with the mind captivating landscape of the Tinapa.

Smoke, a weed in his hand, dragged slowly and stared thoughtfully at the golden sun from the balcony of his suite. He stood there for some minutes, smoking and stepping it down with a glass of whisky, his mind deep in calculation as he admired the topography and the serene environment. His room was actually one of the biggest and most expensive in the resort. This is the right place, away from prying eyes. He concluded and then stepped back into his room to refill his glass with more whisky and ice.


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CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Colour sauntered into the cosmic lawn of the Mercury Hotel at exactly twelve minutes before his scheduled appointment with Ken Solomon at the popular African Kitchen. It was a breezy Saturday with various commuters mingling around. He took his time window shopping and feeding his eyes with the beauty and shapes of some of the women in gorgeous dresses as they clung into their purchases with excited giggles. He paused by one of the boutique across the lobby and gawked admiringly at some shirts, shoes and jeans, his mind wondering when he could one day afford to come shopping in such a place. He grimaced as his eyes stared dumbfounded at the price tag of one of the shirts on display: N25, 000. He stared thoughtfully at the shirt and concluded after some mental calculation that it would take him roughly five months if he were to save N500 every month to be able to afford the shirt. He grinned at the sales girl from his position and sauntered away to feed his eyes on other items on display in the other shops close by.

He stepped into the African Kitchen precisely at one minutes to two, and scanned the furnished African setting cautiously. He noted that the place was beginning to bubble with various guests, mostly whites, their black girls, and other rich Nigerians who could afford to come for plate of hot African dish like Amala, Tuwo, esi-ewu and other mouthwatering African cuisines. He was actually surprised when Ken Solomon in his witty tone had first suggested the place.

“I believe you will enjoy the food in the African kitchen as an African. I have been inside myself. I like the name, food and setting” He had told him amidst laughter. And Colour was quite surprised when he sighted him on a far table alone, already munching away at a goat head pepe soup.

“Here you are. Please take a seat and join me. Sorry, I have a long habit of waiting at a venue few minutes before the appointed time.” He said, indicating a seat close to him.

“ I can see that. Hope you are enjoying the goat head?” Colour asked, his eyes taking on the spicy meat.

“ Quite interesting. I have always loved to eat pepe. And I tell you, this one is hot.” He said and then sleazed loudly.

“ Take it easy. There is a rule that you don’t talk while you eat pepe.” Colour advised him as a waiter walked up to their table.

“Please, take his order” KS told the waiter as he took a bite.

“Amala, okro soup and dry fish,” Colour told the smiling waiter.

“Okay, sir. What about drink?”

“ Give me a chilled bottle of Amstel Malt.”

“ Okay, sir.” The waiter replied and made to go.

“ Just a minute. Give me the same order, I mean the ama-la, and a bottle of Stout.” Ken Solomon said smiling up at both of them.

“ Very well, sir.” The waiter replied and drifted away with a wide grin on his face.

Thirty minutes later, after a hot meal of amala and few bottles of Amstel Malt, including some couple of Guinness Stout , Ken Solomon and Colour, relaxed back on their seats and both lit a stick of cigarette and then stared silently at each other.

“ Hope you enjoyed your meal. For me it was one of the best experiences so far. I love African food, spicy and oily.” KS admitted with a satisfied smile.

“ Well, not bad. But, wait till you taste the original Mama-Put. All the same, thanks for the lunch.” Colour told him with a grin.

“Really. Mama-Put, is that another Kitchen?”

“ Yes, something like a local kitchen where you line up with your plate in your hand.”

“Wow! That would be fun.” KS responded, his eyes staring admiringly at two ladies who had just finished their meal and were on their way out.

“Beautiful women, or what do you think Colour? He asked addressing the silent looking Colour with his name for the first time.

“Yes, I agree with you, beautiful women. We have them plenty here.” Colour replied, also staring at the two girls in African print.

“So, Mr. Edward, What exactly do you want from me?” He chipped in as the two ladies disappeared out of sight.

Ken Solomon stared thoughtfully at him for some seconds picking his teeth and then finally took a sip at his drink.

“I want to know more about Naija-Phones and those behind it.” He announced slowly with a grin.

“Excuse me?” Colour stared questionably at him.

“Okay, what do you know about a telecommunication company here that goes by the name Naija- Phones?”
KS asked after staring thoughtfully at him and his blue eyes pieced into Colour, whose brown eyes stared back at him without wavering.

“Nothing” Colour replied and also picked his teeth.

“Alright, let me tell you. First, my real name is Kenneth Edward Solomon,” KS continued. He stared once more thoughtfully at him and then finally opened up and clinically narrated everything to him from the beginning.


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CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Colour stepped out of the cozy elevator leading to the sixth floor inside the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) corporate headquarters, along Ademola Adetokunbo way, in the Central Business District of Abuja. He noted that out of the five passengers inside the elevator only he and a white man in blue shirt and blue suit got out on the sixth floor. He also noted that the white guy who appears to be in his early thirties was occasionally stealing some curious glances at him. He had actually caught his scrutinizing eyes inside the elevator. He decided to stare capriciously back at him, and then grinned. To his surprise the white guy grinned back and then looked away.

“Hey! Mister, do you work here?’” The white man suddenly asked as they moved away from the elevator.

They both paused by the empty corridor and stared at each other curiously, each scrutinizing the other.

“No, I am a visitor.” Colour finally replied with a smile, his teeth chewed slowly on the gum in his mouth.

“ Oh, I see. Sorry to bother you then.’ KS apologized and then shuttled towards one of the offices along the rugged corridor. He randomly glanced at the tags on the doors and then finally paused by one of the doors at the far end. He nodded to himself, rapped on the door, pushed the handle and then stepped into the office.

Colour watched him silently, shrugged, and also made his way to the same office. He paused by the door, knocked twice and also stepped into the office shutting the door behind him. Ken Solomon who was in the middle of explaining himself to a chubby looking personal assistant behind a flat screen computer paused and glanced surprisingly at him. Colour nodded at him and dropped himself onto one of the empty leather seats in the tidy looking office. The P.A, a young looking chubby woman in rim glasses stared confusingly at both of them, and then turned her attention back to KS.

“Sorry, the Head of Cooperate Affairs is not on seat today.” she told him with a bird like voice and something that looked like a smile appeared on her chubby looking face.

“ So when can I see him? It ‘s important I see him.” KS told her and gave her one of his best smiles.

“ I understand.. But are you on an appointment, sir?”

“Not really. Something just came up urgently that needs his attention.” KS replied with a smile half glancing at Colour whose head was now buried behind one of the magazines in the office and pretended to be reading. KS had the feeling the guy had ears on their conversations. And true to his thinking Colour suddenly dropped the magazine, and pushed himself up.

“Hello, Anty, you mean we can’t see the HCA today?” He asked her smiling at both of them.

“ No, from where? The lady asked now scrutinizing Colour properly.

“Sorry, I am from One-Naija. I am here to see the Head, Cooperate Affairs, for some business discussion.” He announced proudly with his trade mark smile.

Ken Solomon listened attentively to their conversation and then suddenly became alert. He threw Colour a casual glance and stared more curiously at him. The name ‘ Naija’ swiftly jotted his memory and pricked his brain like a sharp pin. He stared more critically at the young Nigerian with a confident, carefree attitude and many questions raced through his suspicious mind. Could this be his lucky break? Could this confident speaking guy be part of the faceless fraudsters that duped him? Was he part of the clique at Naija-Phones that had suckered him and forced him to run away from his fame and fortune? Part of the same ‘Naija’ cliques siphoning millions of dollars from suckers like him everyday across the globe? Or could this be just a coincidence? These were part of the many questions that raced through his mind as he stared once more at Colour who at that moment glanced at his watch and then slowly pushed himself up from his seat and headed for the door with a confident attitude that fascinated KS with confusion.

“ Well, thank you, Anty. I will check back next week.” He said, smiled at both of them, opened the door and eased himself out of the office.

Ken Solomon did not want to let an opportunity slip out of his hands, so he hurriedly excused himself, grabbed his bag, and then hurried after Colour to the bewilderment of the P.A who stared confusingly at the closed door.

Meanwhile Colour who was still chewing his gum was just about to board one of the elevators when KS rushed out of the office frantically and confronted him by the door.

“ Hey, Mister, Just a minute.” KS called out after him.

Colour was halfway into the elevator already with two other passengers, a young lady, and a slim tall guy in suit. They both stared curiously at him and then made room for him. They then stared amusingly at a fast-breathing Ken Solomon as he rushed into the elevator just on time. The doors shut back and they descended swiftly towards the ground floor.

Colour astonished by the rush, stared quietly at KS who nodded at him with a smile. He nodded back and then smiled away thoughtfully. Many questions begin to build on his mind. But he decided to keep his cool, and play along silently. They both ignored the two other passengers who kept staring at them curiously, especially at Ken Solomon who strengthened his cloth and smiled broadly at them. The elevator finally came to a stop at the ground floor and they all piled out silently. The female passenger once more stared intently at both of them and then followed her companion out of the building the curious look on her painted face trailed after her.

Colour made his way out of the building aware that the white man was still tagging along behind him. He paused abruptly and smiled up at KS with a curious look.

“Yes, what can I do for you White One?” He asked his eyes scrutinizing him.

“Thank you. I am Richard Edward. Mind if I grab few minutes of your time for some discussion?” Ken Solomon requested his smile broader now.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him and then glanced at his watch. “Discussion, about what?” he finally asked with a curious look.

“About your outfit, Naija-Phones” KS responded slowly, his blue eyes closely monitoring his reaction.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him again and then grinned. “Oh, you mean One-Naija.” He responded confidently.

“Yeah, Naija-Phones or is it One-Naija now?” KS persisted innocently.

“No, nothing like that, it has always been One-Naija. It is actually an NGO. Not Naija-Phones. We’ve got nothing to do with phone business.
You want to join us or what?” Colour asked jokingly.

“But, I am already part of you. Remember?” Ken Solomon responded with a smile.

“Really, then how come we never met? I am supposed to be the founder and coordinator anyway.” Colour continued with a mockery grin.

“Maybe your other colleagues refused to put you in the picture.” KS insisted still smiling.

Colour at this stage suddenly stopped smiling and stared more curiously at the white man before him.

“Excuse me. What exactly are you talking about here?” He asked with a serious tone.

Ken Solomon, who was good at reading people, swiftly had the feeling he was speaking with the wrong guy. But, he still had a strong hunch that the guy might somehow give him a clue or lead him to his faceless illicit business partners. So he resolved to stick to him and pressed on his secret interrogation.

“I am talking about Naija-Phones. Are you not part of them? I mean that big mobile telecommunication company in your country. I believe you’re a Nigerian?” He asked with a thin grin his eyes never leaving Colour for a second.

“Of course, I am a full blooded Nigerian and very proud to be a Naija Boy.” Colour responded smiling at two young ladies on their way out.

“Yes, Naija Boy, part of Naija-Phones I guess?” KS responded sarcastically.

“Colour stared strangely at him, noted his remarks, and then burst into laugh.

“ Mr. Richard or Mr. Edward, whatever you say is your name. I don’t really know what you’re talking about. Sorry, you’re speaking with the wrong guy.” He said, glanced at his watch once more, and then moved away from him. “Friday is a short working day in my country, and time is precious to me. I have to catch up with other runs.” He added and continued towards the exit.

Ken Solomon stared quizzically at him, shrugged and then went after him.

*********

Colour, who was still confused with their little confrontation, shook his head, smiled and then headed towards his parked beetle now a bit refurbished after spending almost three weeks with his mechanic. He paused by the car, opened the door and was about to drop his frame into the driver’s seat when he noticed Ken Solomon dashing towards him with his trade mark smile, something Colour had noted about him within the few minutes they met.

“Hey! Excuse me. You forgot to tell me your name.” KS said, as he rested his frame close to the beetle, his blue eyes stared admiringly at the classic car. He ignored his cab driver who was staring strangely at them.

“Oh! Agro. Wetin again?” Colour swore silently in pidgin.

“Nice classic car you’ve got here. I have one myself back in the states, resting peacefully in my car archive. I love cars. Good beautiful cars.” KS continued, his eyes still admiring the newly painted beetle.

“Thank you White one. My name is Colour, so what exactly do you want to know again? I guess you didn’t just follow me here to admire my car?” Colour told him, still holding his door half opened.

Ken Solomon stared thoughtfully at him for some seconds, deliberated over his name and then smiled up broadly at him.
‘’ Color, cool name, so what color are you? I can see you are a black man,’’ He said and then chuckled.

‘’ I am every colour, I blend smoothly like the Chameleon and do my things straight,’’ Colour told him and then laughed.

“Yes, I think you’re right. I guess I was wrong about you. My name is Richard Edward. You see, I am a stranger. I mean, I am just a blind white man in town.” KS confessed, still smiling. “And honestly, I won’t mind having someone like you show me around.” He paused to study
Colour who stared back silently at him and then continued. “I was just wondering if you can spare out of your precious time for a lunch tomorrow.”

Colour stared thoughtfully at him for some seconds and suddenly ruptured into laugh.

“No wahala white man, I like your frankness. As they say: ‘ a stranger always has big eyes, but sees nothing’. Okay, where do we eat?” He asked still laughing.


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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Colour stepped out of the cozy elevator leading to the sixth floor inside the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) corporate headquarters, along Ademola Adetokunbo way, in the Central Business District of Abuja. He noted that out of the five passengers inside the elevator only he and a white man in blue shirt and blue suit got out on the sixth floor. He also noted that the white guy who appears to be in his early thirties was occasionally stealing some curious glances at him. He had actually caught his scrutinizing eyes inside the elevator. He decided to stare capriciously back at him, and then grinned. To his surprise the white guy grinned back and then looked away.

“Hey! Mister, do you work here?’” The white man suddenly asked as they moved away from the elevator.

They both paused by the empty corridor and stared at each other curiously, each scrutinizing the other.

“No, I am a visitor.” Colour finally replied with a smile, his teeth chewed slowly on the gum in his mouth.

“ Oh, I see. Sorry to bother you then.’ KS apologized and then shuttled towards one of the offices along the rugged corridor. He randomly glanced at the tags on the doors and then finally paused by one of the doors at the far end. He nodded to himself, rapped on the door, pushed the handle and then stepped into the office.

Colour watched him silently, shrugged, and also made his way to the same office. He paused by the door, knocked twice and also stepped into the office shutting the door behind him. Ken Solomon who was in the middle of explaining himself to a chubby looking personal assistant behind a flat screen computer paused and glanced surprisingly at him. Colour nodded at him and dropped himself onto one of the empty leather seats in the tidy looking office. The P.A, a young looking chubby woman in rim glasses stared confusingly at both of them, and then turned her attention back to KS.

“Sorry, the Head of Cooperate Affairs is not on seat today.” she told him with a bird like voice and something that looked like a smile appeared on her chubby looking face.

“ So when can I see him? It ‘s important I see him.” KS told her and gave her one of his best smiles.

“ I understand.. But are you on an appointment, sir?”

“Not really. Something just came up urgently that needs his attention.” KS replied with a smile half glancing at Colour whose head was now buried behind one of the magazines in the office and pretended to be reading. KS had the feeling the guy had ears on their conversations. And true to his thinking Colour suddenly dropped the magazine, and pushed himself up.

“Hello, Anty, you mean we can’t see the HCA today?” He asked her smiling at both of them.

“ No, from where? The lady asked now scrutinizing Colour properly.

“Sorry, I am from One-Naija. I am here to see the Head, Cooperate Affairs, for some business discussion.” He announced proudly with his trade mark smile.

Ken Solomon listened attentively to their conversation and then suddenly became alert. He threw Colour a casual glance and stared more curiously at him. The name ‘ Naija’ swiftly jotted his memory and pricked his brain like a sharp pin. He stared more critically at the young Nigerian with a confident, carefree attitude and many questions raced through his suspicious mind. Could this be his lucky break? Could this confident speaking guy be part of the faceless fraudsters that duped him? Was he part of the clique at Naija-Phones that had suckered him and forced him to run away from his fame and fortune? Part of the same ‘Naija’ cliques siphoning millions of dollars from suckers like him everyday across the globe? Or could this be just a coincidence? These were part of the many questions that raced through his mind as he stared once more at Colour who at that moment glanced at his watch and then slowly pushed himself up from his seat and headed for the door with a confident attitude that fascinated KS with confusion.

“ Well, thank you, Anty. I will check back next week.” He said, smiled at both of them, opened the door and eased himself out of the office.

Ken Solomon did not want to let an opportunity slip out of his hands, so he hurriedly excused himself, grabbed his bag, and then hurried after Colour to the bewilderment of the P.A who stared confusingly at the closed door.

Meanwhile Colour who was still chewing his gum was just about to board one of the elevators when KS rushed out of the office frantically and confronted him by the door.

“ Hey, Mister, Just a minute.” KS called out after him.

Colour was halfway into the elevator already with two other passengers, a young lady, and a slim tall guy in suit. They both stared curiously at him and then made room for him. They then stared amusingly at a fast-breathing Ken Solomon as he rushed into the elevator just on time. The doors shut back and they descended swiftly towards the ground floor.

Colour astonished by the rush, stared quietly at KS who nodded at him with a smile. He nodded back and then smiled away thoughtfully. Many questions begin to build on his mind. But he decided to keep his cool, and play along silently. They both ignored the two other passengers who kept staring at them curiously, especially at Ken Solomon who strengthened his cloth and smiled broadly at them. The elevator finally came to a stop at the ground floor and they all piled out silently. The female passenger once more stared intently at both of them and then followed her companion out of the building the curious look on her painted face trailed after her.

Colour made his way out of the building aware that the white man was still tagging along behind him. He paused abruptly and smiled up at KS with a curious look.

“Yes, what can I do for you White One?” He asked his eyes scrutinizing him.

“Thank you. I am Richard Edward. Mind if I grab few minutes of your time for some discussion?” Ken Solomon requested his smile broader now.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him and then glanced at his watch. “Discussion, about what?” he finally asked with a curious look.

“About your outfit, Naija-Phones” KS responded slowly, his blue eyes closely monitoring his reaction.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him again and then grinned. “Oh, you mean One-Naija.” He responded confidently.

“Yeah, Naija-Phones or is it One-Naija now?” KS persisted innocently.

“No, nothing like that, it has always been One-Naija. It is actually an NGO. Not Naija-Phones. We’ve got nothing to do with phone business. You want to join us or what?” Colour asked jokingly.

“But, I am already part of you. Remember?” Ken Solomon responded with a smile.

“Really, then how come we never met? I am supposed to be the founder and coordinator anyway.” Colour continued with a mockery grin.

“Maybe your other colleagues refused to put you in the picture.” KS insisted still smiling.

Colour at this stage suddenly stopped smiling and stared more curiously at the white man before him.

“Excuse me. What exactly are you talking about here?” He asked with a serious tone.

Ken Solomon, who was good at reading people, swiftly had the feeling he was speaking with the wrong guy. But, he still had a strong hunch that the guy might somehow give him a clue or lead him to his faceless illicit business partners. So he resolved to stick to him and pressed on his secret interrogation.

“I am talking about Naija-Phones. Are you not part of them? I mean that big mobile telecommunication company in your country. I believe you’re a Nigerian?” He asked with a thin grin his eyes never leaving Colour for a second.

“Of course, I am a full blooded Nigerian and very proud to be a Naija Boy.” Colour responded smiling at two young ladies on their way out.

“Yes, Naija Boy, part of Naija-Phones I guess?” KS responded sarcastically.

“Colour stared strangely at him, noted his remarks, and then burst into laugh.

“ Mr. Richard or Mr. Edward, whatever you say is your name. I don’t really know what you’re talking about. Sorry, you’re speaking with the wrong guy.” He said, glanced at his watch once more, and then moved away from him. “Friday is a short working day in my country, and time is precious to me. I have to catch up with other runs.” He added and continued towards the exit.

Ken Solomon stared quizzically at him, shrugged and then went after him.

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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Ken Solomon who was just about to board his chartered Green Cab also sighted the captivating drama. What actually attracted his keen interest at first were the flamboyant entourage, and the appealing shape of the woman among them. The attractive designer dress worn by Lizzy, alias Franca was eye catching to any sensitive eye around. KS had paused halfway into the cab parked few distance from the entourage’s cars. He stood puzzled at first as the shabby looking Chambers sneaked out from his hiding and confronted the group as they made their way towards the car park. His curiosity further made him to stare curiously at the drama as one of the guys in expensive blue brocade suddenly paused in their grandiose trail and to the surprised of all around hugged the shabby looking guy happily in a lost- but -found embrace. KS curiosity became more aroused when the shabby guy suddenly turned around and gyrated excitedly after what appeared to be a tip from the guy in blue brocade.

His cab driver a young guy in his early thirties on jeans and an African print shirt who had also been watching the drama suddenly grinned up at him.

“The guy don hammer.” He told the puzzled looking KS, and opened the back door for him.

“Hammer, what is that?? Who is the guy?” KS asked taking the front seat with a polite declined of the back seat.

“ Hammer money. I never saw him before. May be one of Chamber’s rich suckers” The driver replied in perfect English, and took the driver seat.

“So you advice I stay clear away from Chambers?” KS asked his eyes still glue to the drama.

He watched as the entourage continued towards their cars, noted the happy look on the faces of the porters after their tips, and equally watched with keen interest as the flambouyant group finally entered their cars and drove out of the Nicon in a grand style, led by the guy in blue brocade, who appears to be the leader of the glitzy departing guests.

The cab driver stared quizzically at him and then grin. “It depends on what you want. Everybody has his value. Just like Chambers.” He told him his eyes staring straight ahead of him.

“So who is he? I mean what’s going on?’’ KS enquired after digesting his remarks.

“ That is Chambers for you. May be he has just hit another of his jackpots” The driver stated grinning.

“ What about the other guys , I mean the flamboyant looking guests? KS asked, his eyes never leaving Chambers who was still gyrating happily around, occasionally raising his two hands into heaven in prayers.

“I don’t know the others. But Chambers is a popular figure here. He is known as a man who goes after the rich and their purse, including having the knowledge of the good, the bad and the ugly around here. He is also known as a drunk, but has the single reputation of being the only man with wide eyes and ears around and within the Mercury. But, I will advise you to stay away from him unless if you have some ready cash to sacrifice for a good meal and some bottle of beers.’’ The Driver who gave his name as Segun advised him and burst into laugh.

“ Oyinbo, where do we go from here?” He finally asked seriously. “ Time no wait for no man.” He added with a grin, and then slotted in a disk and an old tune ‘ Taxi Driver’ by Bobby Benson, filtered from the car. He smiled and glanced at KS from his rear view and then concentrated on the road, and nodded his head to the old tune from his car stereo.

“ Yes, My friend, time wait for nobody. Alright, time for business,” KS responded and glanced at his watch. “Take me to the NCC.”
He told the driver, and relaxed back on his seat amidst the popular old Nigerian tune his mind absolved with his next move, among many moves he planned to unleash along the turbulent search for his faceless fraudsters.



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CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Among the various characters that hang out around the Mercury Hotel, was a frail looking middle aged man in his early fifties. Everyone around knew him simply as Chambers. A drunk and shrewd looking chap always dressed in his trademark tattered old coat and old pairs of brown sandals. He had a long neck and the face of a weather beaten struggler who had since gave up hope of ever making any real money on his own. So, instead, had resolved to occasionally hang around the Mercury, and search for any sucker who might take pity or likeness on his frail shape and kindly part with anything to help satisfy his insatiable wet appetite for alcohol. Chambers had been hanging around the Mercury as long as any old staff or lodger could remember. He was part of the Mercury, and the Mercury was part of him.
It is said that any news or happening that is worth knowing around and within the Mercury, if not known by Chambers, then is not worth knowing. Though, years of hard drinking had mimed him and bloated his hitherto good look, slim frame and any other handsomeness he once floated, but this notwithstanding, the old drunk still had his usefulness to those who knows his worth and occasionally needed his encyclopedic memory.

And on this particular Friday, after few days of not been around the popular hotel, just few minutes before twelve, the usual check-out time of most guests at the hotel, Chambers as usual was seated in his regular position at the car park, waiting patiently for his next prey. His drunk eyes searched prudently for a easy sucker to bounce on when he suddenly noticed a large entourage of porters rolling out some rich looking luggage and other expensive items towards the three posh cars he had secretly been laying siege on, not wanting to arouse the suspicious of the two guys behind the wheels of two of the cars, a brown infinity FX 35, and a black Range Rover. He had actually noticed that the third car, a navy blue Avalanche was empty, or so he had first assumed, before he curiously ventured towards the stylish car. But the bloodshot eyes of the two fierce looking dogs behind the backseat had sent down a cold shiver through his frail body.
Chambers almost banged his head on the concrete slap nearby when he stumbled backward frightfully and landed on his back. The two guys behind the wheels of the other cars noticed what happened and both busted into long hysterical laugh. Chambers had quickly collected himself and darted away faster than his two old legs could transmit him. He finally paused beside one of the big trees around, far from the dogs, but visible enough for him to mount his one man sentry, certain that whoever owns the car and the two beasts behind the seats must be a rich man. This could actually be his lunch ticket, and probably with extra cash to enjoy some chilled bottle of beer. He calculated silently as is hungry eyes scanned through the luggage and the porters, then he patiently waited for his prey, and luckily for him his rich looking prey reflexively walked into his trap.

Chambers wore a pathetic display on his face and then slipped out quietly from his hiding place and confidently confronted the rich looking entourage. His sharp eyes quickly noted four richly dressed men and a glamorous looking woman behind the group of porters as they headed grandly towards the three posh cars. He noted with satisfaction as the two guys behind the wheels of the Infinity and Touareg hurriedly stepped out of their respective cars and held the doors wide opened for the entourage as they approached. His drunken eyes roved around the approaching group and quickly picked out the lead figure of one of the men in expensive blue brocade who seem to be the leader of the group. He was busy making a call on his mobile phone. Long years of experience had thought Chambers how to sieve out a rich visitor among a bunch of guests. The man in blue brocade had that graceful walk of a confident self-made man. A familiar figure, Chambers could not immediately place where he had seen him before. However, his doubt was confirmed when the man suddenly paused on his strides and stared surprisingly at the approaching Chambers, and then their eyes locked. There was a sudden break in their movement as the group all paused to watch the unfolding drama. The two drivers besides the cars rushed forward to fend off the perplexed looking Chambers, but to their surprised the man in blue brocade known in the underworld as ‘Smoke’ waved them away with a wide smile.

“Leave him.” He commanded, and then turned back to Chambers with a smile. “Chamberlain…” He called out his full name and reach out with his hands happily.

Chambers still looking dazed stared foolishly at him as spasm of recognition suddenly hit him. He stared unbelievable at the rich looking figure beside him, and then suddenly released a toothless smile, his two lost molars exposing their empty space.

“Owo-blow! The only smoke on fire…” He announced excitedly with a proud tone, and then embraced Smoke with a warm grace. “Ha! Baba re-re! Son of the soil. The only smoke that never dies”
Chambers continued his praise proudly, and gyrated around happily to admire his rich looking old friend.

“Chambers the Chambers- the only man with a thousand ears around; where have you been my old friend? Smoke asked and then pumped his skinny hands as the others gazed surprisingly at them.

“ I have been across and around my good friend. It has not really been easy. But I still dey push on every day,” Chambers responded with his pathetic look. “Honestly, I no believe say na you I dey see with my korokoro eyes after a long time.” He continued excitedly.

“ Yes, e don tey my friend. Since that night wey you safe me from that police wahala, Na only God know wetin for happen if no be you. Thanks a million my friend.” Smoke said still holding to his frail hand.

“That one na past issue. Wetin we be friend for. What about all the good –good things wey you don do for me, make I cry?” Chambers interjected with a wave of his hand.

“ No, not at all, no need for that. But come, true, where you go hide yourself all these days, I don look for you tire since I land town. Everybody I ask, go say them no know where you dey. Some even say you don leave town.” Smoke told him with his charismatic smile.

“ No mind those bad belle people. No be me you dey see so. I dey, only say I no too dey come this place like before. Abuja no easy like before my friend. All these government people and the politicians with their families don take over the city. Dem don drive poor people like us go inside bush. Na only God go fight dem for us.” Chambers told him with an angry laden voice.

“ No worry my friend, God dey always protect and provide for the weak. Take this…” Smoke consoled him and dipped his hand into his pocket. He quietly extracted ten crispy notes, and clapped his palm on Chamber’s outreached hands. “Manage this old friend. I go see you proper when dusts settle down.” He told him with an apologetic voice, and then smiled broadly at him.

Chambers stared at the notes in his hands, and did a double take. His drunken eyes suddenly became sober as he stared unbelievably at what he saw in his hand. The ten crispy notes looked strange to his eyes; but at the same time had a familiar aura. Definitely these were not the normal money he was accustomed to, but the feel of the notes all the same gave him an excited and confident surge. In actual sense, the notes were one thousand dollar bills, in hundred denominations. The ten notes quickly disappeared into one of Chamber’s pockets, and he raised his two hands up in a thankful gesture to heaven before doing a gyrated dance around his friend, his drunken eyes wore one of the happiest looks in his life.

“ May your days be ever long. May your flame keep burning in peace” He chanted loudly with a happy smirk all over his face.
Smoke, a satisfied smile on his face nodded at the gyrating Chambers, then turned and continued towards the car park with his bewildered group trailing after him.

“Stay happy and enjoy yourself, my good friend.” He called out loudly to the excited Chambers as the porters loaded their luggage into their cars.

The smile and excitement on the faces of the porters could be assumed to be one of the most excited smiles on the faces of those at the Mercury that day as Smoke dipped his hand into his caftan pocket, and tipped them each with a hundred dollar note. He then climbed into the Avalanche with Lizzy beside him on the passenger seat and a smiling looking Skinny on the back seat.

“Choose your choice, Bros.” Victor announced indicating the Range Rover and the Tourage to John Bull who was still contemplating which of the cars to join. And to his relief John Bull suddenly smiled up at him and then jumped into the Tourage. Victor gave him a sly grin, and climbed into the Range Rover and fastened his seat belt beside the driver.

“ Big man – Big car.” He announced smiling up at the driver.

“ Yes, Big car, big wahala.” The driver replied, ignited his engine, and then trailed after the other cars towards the gate.

Victor scanned the music box and the music of 9Nice/ 2Face ‘Street Credibility’ filtered out smoothly from the inbuilt Pioneers speakers inside the luxury car. He smiled thoughtfully, lit a cigarette, dragged on the butt and exhaled the smoke happily. He then smiled up broadly at the driver.

“ Wahala no dey kill man…he dey only teach am lesson. Carry go, my friend…Tinapa here we come”



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CHAPTER TWENTY

Ken Solomon prudently scanned through the last of the day’s newspapers besides him. He was presently going through the Guardian of the day. Other papers beside him in a pile include, THisDay, the Sun, Vanguard, Daily Trust, the Nation, Punch, New Nigerian, Leadership, Tribune, City News, the Pilot, Daily Independent, Abuja Enquirer, Business Day, Financial Times, the Talk, See Magazine, Blue Print, People’s Daily, and two other foreign papers, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal; his two most trusted source of information. It was a Friday, the last day of the week and a short working day in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, and in other part of the country. KS was a newspaper freak, and part of his every day morning routine was to ensure that he prudently scanned through the daily papers around him. He sees information as the pivotal of any serious business and one of the most important factors of existence. “Always know what is going on around you, both within and outer. “ Professor Scott, his history lecturer back in the university had always drummed it into their ears everyday in class. So information, KS had since learnt to prudently seek through newspapers, magazines, journals, TV, radio, and the internet, including of course gossips, and any other reliable source of information he could lay his hands on.

This morning, his second day in the country, and what better thing to do than to scan through the various newspapers in Nigeria, in the hope that he might luckily stumble across any vital information that could link him to his tormentors. The faceless and nameless crooks who had smartly conned him of his hard earned millions of dollars. However, to his disappointment, he noticed that most newspapers in the country carried almost the same headlines. They were more political to his liking, and appear to be reporting more on politicians and glorifying their achievements with few of them really giving them the bite as expected of the Fourth Estate of the Realm across the globe. He wondered why most of the papers were so concerned about the country’s top anti-corruption agency – the EFCC, as almost all the publications had one story or write-up on the popular agency and to his dismay he found nothing about his dupers.

Ken Solomon had hoped that he might stumble on a bold screaming headline like: ‘EFCC recovers millions of dollars defrauded from American businessman’, or ‘Millions of dollars conned from American recovered’. So he was disappointed that none of the papers had anything on him. It seemed none of them even knew anything about his problem. He reasoned, as he silently scanned through the foreign page of the Guardian. Most of the stories were on the horrible wars going on in Syria, Mali, and Somalia, including other stories of terrorism and other dehumanized atrocities of man- to- man. Another thing that caught his attention was the celebrated stories of the country’s deadly terrorist group- the Boko Haram. He wandered why the papers were so fast in reporting and analyzing the activities of the group, including the sectarian and sensational reporting.

He glanced at his watch, and then sauntered to the window where he stood for some seconds and thoughtfully stared at the activities going on across the streets. He was presently dressed in a navy blue designer suite, with a sky blue long sleeve shirt without a tie. Black suede shoes by Dolce & Gambala and black silk socks complement his dressing, not missing was his distinctive pen. He glanced once more at his Swiss Chronometer watch, and noticed that it was almost few minutes to twelve. He also noted that the sky was a little misty with a sign of rainfall imminent any moment. However, the weather to him was one of the most beautiful climates he had so far encountered in his entire numerous sojourns outside his country. Picking up his ipad, laptop and a small black leather folder, he turned off the TV with a remote control, locked up his room, and then moved towards one of the elevators without meeting anyone along the long corridor. I hope my cab is waiting downstairs. He thought, as he climbed into one of the waiting empty elevators, and sent it straight down. Time to begin the hunt, he concluded silently, and stared at his image from the reflection inside the elevator. Please help me God. He suddenly found himself praying for the first time in a long while.

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*********
In effect, what the Free Hands did on Ken Solomon was the unique style of conning unsuspecting victims of their money through an efficient networking process known in cyber-crime world as Phishing. According to an elaborate report on the Dark web, the unconventional and rebellious other side of the internet : ‘’ Phishing is defined as the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit details and, indirectly money, often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy person in an electronic communication. The word is a neologism created as a homophone of fishing due to the similarity of using bait in an attempt to catch a victim. According to the 3rd Microsoft Computing Safer Index Report released in February 2014, the annual worldwide impact of phishing could be as high as $5 billion. ‘’
The report further stated that ‘’Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter personal information at a fake website, the look and feel of which are almost identical to the legitimate one. Communications purporting to be from social websites, auction sites, banks, online payment processors or IT administrators are often used to lure victims. Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits weaknesses in current web security’’ Also important in this technological advanced criminal process is Whaling. According to reports: ‘’ several phishing attacks have been directed specifically at senior executives and other high-profile targets within businesses, and the term whaling has been coined for these kinds of attacks. In the case of whaling, the masquerading web page/email will take a more serious executive-level form. The content will be crafted to target an upper manager and the person's role in the company. The content of a whaling attack email is often written as a legal subpoena, customer complaint, or executive issue. Whaling scam emails are designed to masquerade as a critical business email, sent from a legitimate business authority. The content is meant to be tailored for upper management, and usually involves some kind of falsified company-wide concern.
Whaling phishermen have also forged official-looking FBI subpoena emails, and claimed that the manager needs to click a link and install special software to view the subpoena.’’ Also included as part of the corny elements is Spear phishing; as reported on the internet: ‘’Phishing attempts directed at specific individuals or companies have been termed spear phishing. Attackers may gather personal information about their target to increase their probability of success. This technique is, by far, the most successful on the internet today, accounting for 91% of attacks. A Universal Man-in-the-middle (MITM) Phishing Kit, discovered in 2007, provides a simple-to-use interface that allows a phisher to convincingly reproduce websites and capture log-in details entered at the fake site.
The term 'phishing' is said to have been coined by the well known spammer and hacker in the mid-90s, Khan C Smith. The first recorded mention of the term is found in the hacking tool AOHell (according to its creator), which included a function for attempting to steal the passwords or financial details of America. It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the United States suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$929 million. United States businesses lose an estimated US$2 billion per year as their clients become victims. Phishing is recognized as a fully organized part of the black market. Specializations emerged on a global scale that provided phishing software for payment (thereby outsourcing risk), which were assembled and implemented into phishing campaigns by organized gangs Online users.
Almost half of phishing thefts in 2006 were committed by groups operating through the Russian Business Network based in St. Petersburg. According to 3rd Microsoft Computing Safer Index Report released in February 2014, the annual worldwide impact of phishing could be as high as $5 billion.’’
The Phishing idea, plan and strategy had been initiated and clinically carried out by Skinny who was one of the best Phishing cyber crime fraudsters in the world and currently rank the best in Africa. There is this joke in the cyber-crime world that show a Nigerian fraudster a trick today and he will beat you to it tomorrow , even better than you the initiator. So it was, the Free-Hands having one of the best skillful phishermen among them , skillfully lured Ken Solomon to their hook by whaling him with an irresistible offer and he blindly swallowed their glittering bait now painfully stuck in his throat.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

At exactly thirty minutes before the official checkout time at the Mercury Hotel, Skinny, Lizzy and John Bull, three top members of the Free-Hands sat thoughtfully inside one of the executive lounges of the plush hotel, also among them was Victor. Skinny, a glass of Whisky in his left hand and a lighted weed on his manicured fingers, stared disinteresting at the others as they feed their eyes to the Nollywood movie playing on the big plasma TV inside the posh room. He actually look at ease among the rest, his round big eyes occasionally took a glance at the other three who sat thoughtfully away with a bored look at the screen. Lizzy stared thoughtfully at the others and then finally pushed herself up from the multi-colour sofa she was sitting.

“Time dey go.” She suddenly announced in pidgin, and glanced at her expensive Rado wristwatch. The long designer dress on her exposed her beautiful seductive shape. Gone was her former hairstyle, her flawless head now carried a beautiful crafted African hairstyle. In addition, on her slim long legs were a pair of high heel strip buckled designer shoes which added few inches more to her 5-foot posture. A careful look at her cleansed face would actually reveal a beautiful woman with a worried enthusiastic look.

“Cool down and relax your tall shape. We go soon leave.” Skinny responded, grinned and crossed his legs with a care-free attitude. He sipped his drink, and then dragged his weed.

“ Come, me too don dey tire for this place. I think the earlier we move on the safer for all of us.” Victor chipped in, and then retrieved the weed from Skinny.

He was a short guy with thick lips and strong sets of hands. He was presently dressed in flowing caftan and a local skull cap to match. Anyone could have mistaken him for one of those imposed fraudulent politicians in his rich brocade. However, a good observer would have recognized him as Victor, the smart member of the Free-Hands who had outsmarted the EFCC agents and escaped few days ago; a situation that now placed him among one of the most wanted men in the country.

“ One day, this thing wey una dey smoke any how go blow una brain and land una for big wahala.”
John Bull, dressed in an expensive blue Gucci suite suddenly complained his face more thoughtful and alert than the others.

The four were all top members of the Free-Hands and part of the roots that made up the most notorious cyber-crime syndicate in Africa. They were all ‘Flames’ waiting patiently for ‘Smoke’ to come over and give them the go ahead to embark on their long anticipated flee out of the city. The four had all been holed up in the luxury hotel for the past five days since the exciting close encounter of Victor with the EFCC operatives and the other law enforcement agents inside the banquet hall of the Mercury hotel.
What no one knew at the moment apart from the four members of the Free-Hands and their boss was how Victor had slipped through the hands of the law that night inside the Mercury hotel where he had deliberately brought them. The reconstructed exciting brave story he told his gang member was how he had smartly instigated the other security operatives against the EFCC agents that night and slipped away. He told them with a mischievous grin how he had hurried up to any available agent around and whispered to them his concocted story of a group of Niger Delta militants around with plans to kidnap the innocent Senator Bode. He said the news did not only shock most of them, but also catapulted them forward like rockets towards the senator’s table. So seizing the opportunity, he had darted across the confused hall and quickly blended with the panicked guests. He told them jokingly how he slipped through some over fed and panicked faces of some of the guests and then located a secret exit that led to a staircase that in turn brought him to another floor from where he boarded one of the elevators that surprisingly brought him face-to-face with a panicked breathing Mr. Richmond. He excitedly narrated how the panic looking Briton had stared at him with terrified eyes and hurriedly jumped into another elevator, pressed hard on the button and had sent the machine quickly to the ground floor.

Victor had casually paused at this part of his narration and burst into a long hysterical laughter before continuing in his humorous pidgin.

“ Una need to see the fear for the White man face as our eyes jam. He just dey look me with fear like zombie as if he just see devil and then quickly bail down- stairs. I nearly die with laugh, upon say I dey inside wahala myself. The guy just disappear one hand like magic.” He told the gathering and they all ruptured into long hysterical laughs.

“You mean say the guy abandon all that money for the EFCC boys” John Bull asked surprisingly with a bewildered look.

“Everything… The guy man just bail.” Victor replied still laughing. He then told them how he had taken another elevator calmly upstairs and had finally checked into one of their reserved rooms in the highbrow hotel.

“ Come, make una finish this thing and quench all this smelly scent for this room. The thing don dey chock my brain.” John Bull complained again covering his nose.

“Cool down for Jesus, my guy. Which one you dey self? Abi you be winch? na winch no dey like the smell of incense and igbo. At least Igbo still better pass that dangerous powder- cocaine, and drugs wey you dey take every day.” Victor responded with a grin. But John Bull suddenly frowned and stared wickedly at him.

“ No mind am, I beg pass me grass my brother.” Skinny chipped in, smiled as he retrieved the weed from Victor and then addressed the lady.

“Come Lizzy, relax your shape, wetin be the hurry, we go soon leave.”
He told her and smiled up at the female Flame who just stared thoughtfully away out of the window. She turned her slim shape after some seconds, sauntered back to her seat and then lit a cigarette.

“ I don dey warn you say this your big mouth go land you for trouble one day, and I swell say I go brush am well that day” John Bull hissed out angrily at Victor.

“But, true Lizzy, you no easy at all with this your dressing, e be like say you wan show dem for Tinapa.” Victor ignored him, and addressed Elizabeth instead with a mischievous grin.

They all suddenly heard a soft twist on the door handle, a sign they had all been impatiently expecting. John Bull pushed himself up and sauntered to the door. He opened the door halfway, after confirming the secret code, this he did with a returned soft tap on the door and waited for the expected response which came via a triple tap on the door from the outside. He stood aside and gave way to their cheerful looking boss who was in his trademark arm-less caftan, and cleaned shaved as usual. He wore a handmade expensive looking blue brocade material with knighted blue lines across the neck. On his feet were a black leather designer loafers and a black plastic sunshade adorned his face, hiding his bloodshot eyes as usual.
He sauntered casually into the room; his designer perfume trailed him as he moved towards one of the sofas. He smiled broadly at all of them, and then slowly dropped his frame into the sofa. He watched as Skinny dragged on his weed, inhaled, exhaled and then quietly passed it over to him. He collected the weed, dragged softly, smiled and then lit a cigarette before finally passing the half-finished weed to Victor. Because it was part of the rule at the Mercury that dogs and other pets are not allow inside the rooms. He had regretfully left his two protective beasts outside, safely canceled inside his car. Smoke as he was called and famously known across the globe had actually cursed the management silently after once trying to bribe the security guards to allow his dogs upstairs with him. A request the head of security had learnt about and had frowned down upon politely. Since then he had always kept them cancelled inside his car whenever he visited the hotel.
Meanwhile, John Bull still held the door half opened, expecting to see the two beasts sauntered after their master as usual. However, to his relief he saw none of their overfed heads. He glanced through the corridor to be sure. He saw nothing. He grinned happily and then quietly bolted the door. How he hated those dogs, he thought silently and then returned to his seat.

“ Just imagine, this people won’t allow my dogs to pay a visit upstairs . I think it is time we build a five star hotel, something bigger than this where dogs and other protective pets are allowed to lodge in the same room or floors with their owners. It is good for security purpose or what do you think Bull.? Smoke asked jovially, staring at John Bull with a grin.

“ Well, that kind of hotel is not for me, boss. Count me out among the guests.” John Bull replied, chuckling with laughter.

“Hey!Sisi, what is the occasion? You are looking like one of those women I see only in Paris Fashion shows,” Smoke asked, pulled off his dark glasses and silently admired Lizzy with his bloodshot eyes.

“Really? ” She asked and then swaggered some few steps in a catwalk manner.” Tinapa- that is the occasion, Smoke, and I can’t wait to be there.” She announced merrily and cat walked back to her seat.

“ Okay, Tall Woman. But first, I think you need to hear the latest news.” Smoke replied still smiling, and then after a thoughtful pause announced.

“I am happy to inform you that the coast is clear for now this according to our man at the agency. It might interest you to know that those two overzealous EFCC agents have both been demoted and transferred to a rural police post somewhere in the north-east; although the hunt for Victor is still on, but nothing serious to worry about for now. The Whitman’s money is still with them, but no one really have the knowledge of the deal we had with him.”

The boss of the Free-Hands told his lieutenants happily, and dispensed himself a glass of whisky. He took a long sip, paused to light a cigarette and then continued.

“Nobody knows where Mr. Richmond is right now or what happened to him after that night. However, my guess as well as the EFCC is that the guy might have taken the next available flight out of the country. The conclusion was that he had decided to forgo his money than to be arrested and charged with money laundering.”

“ Yes, I think you’re right. The way I saw him that night showed a panicked man that was eager to get out of the hotel forever. I want to believe that the Oyinbo man right now is back home safe and counting his loss.’ Victor chipped in with his mischievous grin.

“ So, we are in the clear on that one for the moment. It was a deal we should have forgone, but we were already on it and it was logical that we followed it to the end. Anyway, it is now a thing of the past. Our next situation is the other white man – Ken Solo or what is that is name again?” Smoke asked and puffed away at his cigarette.

“Kenneth Edward Solomon, CEO- Shares.com.” Skinny informed the gathering loudly with a proud broad smile.

“ Yes, Kenneth Solomon- our big hit. Right now we have his money safely in the banks, but anything could still happen within some couple of days, weeks or months. So we must not take any chances for now.” Smoke told the gathering with a broad smile and then continued.

“The fact that we have not heard from him should be a warning sign to us. We should always anticipate a surprise from a silent enemy. We must always assume that he might be silently planning to do something. No sane man would fold his hands and just cry over the lost of that huge amount of money to some faceless smart guys just like that.”

“How much is the overall hit so far” John Bull asked casually, refining his glass with whisky. Smoke stared thoughtfully at him and then smiled up at Skinny.

“Over to you Skinny, please give us the figure.’ He directed with a grin.
Skinny smiled up proudly, picked his ipad and scanned through the system for some information from various bank statements. A lighted cigarette dangled freely on his lips as he went through the statements through the internet.

“Gentlemen and lady” He finally announced, paused and scanned the faces with a happy smile.

“It is my pleasure to announce to all shareholders present at our Annual General Meeting here…” He paused once again as they all laughed at his joke and then continued.

“Yes, as I was saying. It is my pleasure to inform you that we have so far been able to net the sum of two hundred million US dollars ($200 million). That is roughly N72 billion naira in Naija currency, this from our American business ‘Mugu’ Mr. Kenneth Edward Solomon.”

Skinny announced, smartly omitting the $20 million he had secretly cornered for himself from the group.He then smiled up at John Bull, Lizzy, and Victor who all stared flabbergasted at him, excluding Smoke who already knew the amount first hand. But unaware that $20 million was missing from the actual jackpot.

“Jesus! Two hundred million dollars, - billion naija naira, Wow! “Liz suddenly exclaimed with shock written all over her pretty face.

“Yes, Tall Woman, in crispy American dollars, and resting peacefully in five reputable banks in the country.” Skinny announced proudly as his fingers scrolled the screen of his iPad with ease. ‘’ We are now in the same league with Emmanuel Nwude, his own hit was $242 million,’’

He added proudly and grinned at all and sundry, excited that the gang almost broke the record of Nigerian prominent fraudster, Emmanuel Nwude who successfully defrauded a Brazilian, Nelson Sakaguchi, a Director at Brazil’s Banco Noroeste, of a staggering sum of $242 million. The scam is ranked as one of the biggest scams in the world.

“Give them the hot news” Smoke commanded with a glazed look.

“Yes, the hot news. Lady and gentlemen, the hot and happy news is that we are making an interest rate of 7.75% on every N10 million naira for every 30 days of every month the money remains in the bank on a fix deposit. That is about N775, 000 every month.’’

Again, Skinny being the financial savvy whiz kid of the group, cunningly outsmarted them by removing 10% from the actual percentage of 8.75% for himself. He gave them all the bank terminology just to confuse them the more.
He paused, sipped his drink, smirk his lips, smiled up proudly at the room and then continued. ‘’Never the less, as we continue to wait patiently for the heat to cool down and the money lay more eggs in the banks, I am happy to announce the hottest news of the evening.’’ He paused again to light a cigarette, smiled proudly at all the curious faces and then ride on.

‘’ The hottest good news at the moment is that we still have (N50 million), fifty million naira left in raw cash from our deal with the British gentleman, Mr.Albert Richmond in our hands to burn and Jolly our lives at Tinapa or anywhere else we decide to go within the country,’’

The other gang members, except Smoke, stared happily at him as if he had just announced a ticket to heaven for all of them. Lizzy, Victor and John Bull mesmerized by the large sum of money visualized the stark of crispy American dollars lying abundantly in various bank vaults and regretted that they could not lay their itchy fingers on the bunch of notes immediately. But all the same they all beamed with smiles and listened more attentively to him as he continued.

‘’ But, like I said, the $200 million is sleeping peacefully in our accounts till the heat settles down. But right now we have N50 million naira in fresh dollars to tickle our lives’’ Skinny announced finally, and rise up his glass. “So, I want to propose a toast.”

Lizzy, John Bull, and Victor all gazed at him with shock. They could not hide their joy as they quickly rise up their half filled glasses to his toast.

“ This toast is to happiness, a toast to always remind us that we work hard with our brains for this money, abi no be so? Skinny asked the gathering with an exaggerated look.

“ Na so!!!” They all chorused and toasted happily among each other, clicking their glasses with excitement.

“Again, this toast is for our protection against the forces of progress and any obstacle that might stumble on our paths to success and enjoyment” Skinny continued with a prayerful tone. They all chorused the same after him happily.




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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A KLM passenger plane landed safely at about 10:45pm, Nigerian time, at the Nnamdi Azikwe International airport; situated few kilometers at the outskirt of the Nigerian federal capital territory, Abuja. The plane, an Airbus A3330-200 with a capacity of 243 passengers was a business class built aircraft with an economy comfort zone, economy class and seats with extra legroom, with a cruising speed of 880 km/hIt.
The large plane made its final taxi along the lighted runaway that night and then finally parked at a designated parking space, a convenient place that allow the hundreds of passengers on board to disembark happily into the cool breezy night. Among the curious faces that came out of the flight that night was an athletic built white American citizen who was paying his first visit to the most controversial populous nation on the African continent.

Kenneth Edward Solomon paused briefly by the emerging staircase and surveyed the busy airport. He was in a casual blue jean, white long sleeve sweatshirt, a blue and white matching sandal, and a blue baseball cap. . He had made some little modification to his appearance. He wore a white rimless glass and now carried a low-cut from his usual full brown hair and a distinctive silver pen hung from his shirt. Nobody would have recognized him as the CEO of Shares.com in his simple appearance.
He had deliberately decided to come into the country casually; his plan was not to arouse much curiosity in his appearance. He preferred to look much like a curious tourist/business man that he was supposed to be. He clutched his expensive Apple Laptop on his right shoulder and held his Louis Vuitton bag in his left hand. He surveyed the lighted airport silently and was quick to note the presence of different uniformed security operatives as they mingled freely among the other busy airport porters and passengers. He allowed his lung the pleasure to gulp the free night breeze, grinned and followed the other eager passengers down the remaining stairs towards the arrival terminal.
Few minutes later, he presented himself at the check-in terminal where friendly airport officials smiled up at him, checked his luggage, threw some banters at him, stared suspiciously at his smiling face on his passport and then finally welcomed him to Nigeria; after been satisfied that he was actually the face on the passport. Ken Solomon working on the information he had gathered on the country, smiled and strolled casually out of the terminal and stared suspiciously at the lines of green painted cabs around.

He scrutinized them suspiciously and then finally settled for one with a GLOWORLD branded advertisement. At least this was a brand name he knew and trusted worldwide. He reasoned as he dropped his luggage on the back seat beside him and then directed the young looking driver in a black jean and multi colour African shirt to take him straight to the Mercury Hotel. The driver smiled happily at him, glanced at his luggage and outfit and then finally engaged gears.

“Welcome to Nigeria, sir.” He announced in perfect English and slowly eased out of the airport, along with the ‘Awe’ tune by Asa, filtering mildly from the Green Cab. Ken Solomon’s ears picked out the melodious song as he fed his eyes to the night vista of the Federal Capital City.



*******
An hour and some few minutes later now dressed in a tobacco color Khaki short and a white T-shirt with an inscription of the statue of liberty and a brown sandals, Ken Solomon, a can of Heineken beer in his hand and a pack of Marlboro cigarette by his side on a glass stool, sat thoughtfully on the balcony from where he admired the facilitating night view of Abuja from his tenth floor room at the Mercury. The art –décor style 26m2/280sqft room with the city view known as the guest room, is a bright airy room with original art work and a large opening window. Among its convenience was the comfort at which guests could catch up on work at the desk, check mails with high speed internet collection, recline on a mini chaise lounge and re-energize in the marble bathroom.

Ken Solomon, a hotel freak, has seen quite a number of hotel rooms in his life, but yet he was still impressed with what he saw at the Mercury Hotel, despite been inside his visualized ‘African jungle’. But was he really in a jungle as they were always meant to see and believe? He reasoned silently. Fine the continent was nothing compared to Europe or other more developed continent he had visited, but definitely he was certain that he was not really in a jungle with what he has seen so far within the past forty six hours or so since his secret escape from America. He sipped his drink, dragged his cigarette and instinctively wished he had some weed close by. But right now, he knew that was impossible being a stranger, but all the same, he promised himself to go out the next day and hunt secretly for some sweet African grass. He had heard much about the portent of weed from this continent, so he looked forward to lay his fingers on some good one very soon. He assured himself.

He had always had this strong notion that marijuana was simply the most popular and available grass in the world. Just know your way and the right language, before you know it, the controversial green grass could be yours within the shortest possible time. This he had learned from experience during some of his numerous trips to Europe, and Asia. But this was still Africa, so he must be extremely careful, he cautioned himself. The fact was that he knew there has been a long war of propaganda and hypocrisy against the grass by the west, especially his dear country America. Again, he still told himself to be careful. But wondered why all the lies and deceits when many farmers in his country still secretly and knowingly cultivate the rich grass on a large scale. He was appalled that his country could donate millions of dollars each year to help fight against the grass in Africa and at the same time encouraged what it called Medical Marijuana in its own states. He remembered that a Federal Judge in Sacramento had recently given one of its citizens; pot grower, Michael Lombardo the permission to use medical marijuana. He also remembered reading an article recently titled: Local Pot Tax Hurried onto Sac Ballot, which stated that Sacramento, California, is hotbed for cannabis and that dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries operated in the city. It further stated that a local ordinance regulating dispensaries is being drafted, and it is expected to be voted upon by the city council with an expected vote on proposition 19, a state initiative that allow localities to tax and regulate cannabis revenues to potentially help reduce the city’s debt.

Ken Solomon was long aware that despite the continue denials by the U.S Federal Government and its ridiculous and erroneous classification of marijuana as a ‘schedule 1’ substance, meaning a high potential for abuse and not accepted medical use, but the feds themselves have been giving out free marijuana to a selected group of patients for more than 30 years. He reasoned. If it could do that to its citizens why not in Africa where there appears to be a lot of poverty and disease? He questioned himself, silently sipped his drink and dragged his cigarette. He wondered how many people in this part of the world knew, especially farmers that Hemp was so important in England in the 16th century which prompted King Henry VIII to pass a law in 1553 which fined farmers who failed to grow at least one quarter acre of hemp for every 60 acres of arable land they owned. Or do they know that there was even a time in history for over 200 years when you could pay your taxes in America with hemp? And that it is on record that in 1850 there were more than 8,300 hemp farms in the United States. How many people in this part of the world have the knowledge that it is estimated that hemp has approximately 25,000 uses? These uses include food, paint and fuel, to clothing and construction materials. Furthermore, that several cars made today contained hemp. Were they aware that the oldest relic of human industry is a piece of hemp fabric (canvas) found in ancient Mesopotamia dating back to approximately 8000 B.C.? In addition, that the oldest surviving piece of paper made over 2000 years ago in China was made from hemp fibre?

So many questions raced through his mind as he sipped his drink, dragged his cigarette and kept wondering about the hypocrisy on weed and its importance. He wondered if the people in this country knew the efficacy of the controversial grass. Hemp to him was truly a "perfect balance" food source. Just know how to use it and just like any other eatable and drinkable, don’t abuse it. He told himself and then grinned thoughtfully into the night.
Again, were they knowledgeable that the first diesel engine was designed to run on vegetable oils, one of which was hemp oil? In addition, that the great American automobile designer Henry Ford in the 1930s produced an automobile composed of 70 percent hemp plastic that also ran on hemp based fuel and oil. In 2001, the "Hempcar" circled the North American continent powered by hemp oil.
What about the use of Hemp by great artists like Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh, and Thomas Gainsborough whose great paintings were painted primarily on hemp canvas, often with hemp oil based paint? Ken Solomon being an addictive hemp smoker had long done a research on all these. He was aware of the hypocrisy and always marveled at the uneducated manner some third world countries, including some of the so called developed ones were handling the issue and felt sorry for those whose eyes were still masked from the reality. Well, presently this was not his major problem, his big dilemma right now was how to trace and locate the smart criminals who conned him off his millions and right now have turned him into a fugitive. Where the hell could they or would they be hiding now? He thought silently, as his eyes stared blankly at the beautiful lights across the city. Who were these faceless thieves and how exactly do they look like? Where exactly should he begin his search? Or who the hell should he take his complains to? All these questions raced through his troubled mind as he sipped his drink, lit another cigarette and crossed his legs thoughtfully.

The jazz track playing from his laptop skipped a bit and then continued. He suddenly grinned, and remembered how he had smartly slipped out of his apartment in Baltimore and took a flight straight to Washington, unnoticed by the various curious eyes and then quietly made arrangement for his lifetime journey to Nigeria. Only two people knew exactly where he was at the moment. The amiable Pamela Evans and his trusted Mexican chauffeur Mario. Not even his curious and suspicious looking butler, Patrick, knew of his trip, including Thompson, his womanizing Bank Manager, and he had wisely decided not to tell Adams as well, as he was not too certain of his loyalty on this matter.

So far, things were moving smoothly according to plans with only one fear on his mind, money. He knew he needed some available cash handy to enables him carry out his one-man mission effectively and presently he knew the money left with him was fast running out. He had wisely opened a secret account with a Nigerian bank in Baltimore that has a global connection, but all the same, right now, he had less than twenty thousand dollars left in this account, this after settling his travelling expenses which included bribing his way for a quick visa, flight and ticket, this he had all paid for in cash. He also paid for a reserved room at the Mercury Hotel for two weeks. Thank God for the internet, travelling was now easier. He reasoned. He had actually browsed the internet, found the Mercury Hotel website, and after a prudent research and convinced that the site was real; he had booked and reserved a room under a false name, using fake travelling documents. All these expenses dug hole in his account and also set him back in hundreds of dollars. But Ken Solomon was someone who believed in possibility and thinks nothing in settling his way or spending a fortune to get what he wanted.

He had actually wanted to stay in one of the executive lounges at the Mercury which has the convenience of a top floor and advantage of a private check-in and check-out, including a free continental breakfast. However, his instinct had cautioned him and warned him about his dwindling fortune and most importantly he wanted to maintain a low profile as much as possible.
He sipped his drink slowly and dwell on his situation. The earlier he starts his search the better for him. He must not allow himself to be in a desperate situation in a foreign, unfamiliar ground. That would be dangerous and frustrating to his mission. He told himself. But where exactly should he begin from? Who should he talk to about his predicament; certainly not the American consulate here or straight to the police? He had this strong conviction that the faceless smart thieves where somewhere down here, blowing away his money and enjoying their lives in one of the secluded rich mansions or hotels in this city, but where? This was the million dollar question he must find an answer to in the next couple of hours.

He fetched out one of his favourite books from his bag ‘Sun Tzu’s ART OF WAR FOR EXECUTIVES - by Donald G. Krause and quietly flipped through the pages and then went through Sun Tzu 10 most vital Principles: (1) Learn to fight (2) Show the way (3) Do the right ((4) Know the facts (5) Expect the worst (6) Seize the day (7) Burn the bridges ( Do it better (9) Pull together (10) Keep them guessing

He read through the sentences and deliberated on all the ten, breaking them down to his present situation and then analyzed his strength and weakness. Going through the book re-energized him and he smiled thoughtfully. Yes, better he keep the criminals guessing. He told himself gladly as he reflected on the tenth principles. He suddenly wished he had someone trustful he could unburden his heart to. He lit another cigarette, picked up the Nokia mobile phone he had bought in one of the shops down stairs, and then stared thoughtfully at the GLO registered network. He had been assured that the network had a large coverage and subscriber base in the country by the slim charming shop assistant who proudly told him this as she handed him the package. He scanned through his brown leather diary, and found what he was looking for. He calculated what time it was right then in New-York as he slowly dialed Pamela Evans number.


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PART TWO


The Journey

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A short glance at the country popular known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria by a curious sightseer would revealed a nation with an area measuring 924,000sqm with a controversial census figure that gave the population an approximately 145, million people, 250 ethnic tribes and a three language structure, namely Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba, with English the queen’s language accredited as the official language. But surprisingly the all dominant pidgin tongue naturally dominated the four officially recognized languages across all the regions of the oil rich country, this as a result of the heterogeneous nature of the nation state. The curious visitor would also realize that the country official currency is the famed naira and kobo, and that the kobo is only used in verbal transactions, but never really seen or accepted by majority of the populace. He or she might also deduce that the kobo in actual sense is valueless and a mere name, since no goods or services in the market these days has any respect or value for the neglected kobo. More information would also revealed that Nigeria natural resources includes among others, oil, tin, columbite, iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, bitumen and zinc. Other rich resources in the country include palm oil, groundnut, cocoa, cotton, rubber, cassava and many others too numerous to mention.
A short inquiry would also reveal that the country has thirty six states and is bordered by Benin Republic on the west side, Republic of Niger on the north, Chad and Cameroun on the east. Religion plays a great part in the lives of the people. Part of the reason the country is stipulated to have about fifty percent Muslims, forty percent Christians with indigenous religions sharing the remaining ten percent among themselves competitively. An average Nigerian is among one of the most religious human beings in the world and takes his religion seriously; though most don’t practice what they preach nor abide by the true teaching of their religion. All the same, they are good at going to church and praying five times daily in the mosque or anywhere the call for prayer beckons. Again, part of the reasons why the country’s rulers have been able to continue to oppress and take due advantage of the citizenry was the easy manipulation of religion doctrines which they use to curtained their opinions and suppressed their quests for a better and just society.
Though Nigeria emerged as one of the world’s leading oil exporters in the seventies, but much of the huge revenue derived from oil sales over the decades have been squandered through massive corruption and mismanagement by the flambouyant politicians and their equally flambouyant military counterparts in power. A prudent research by the curious visitor would further enlighten the visitor that corruption in the country was actually institutionalized during one of the military regime headed by a gap toothed general now retired and enjoying his handwork from his palatial view on top a hilltop villa. The visitor would also learned that corruption was finally privatized into public liability during the second coming of a famous chicken general, who not only gave corruption a new face but made it into one of the most popular negative political brand of the country. And more information would also revealed the bitter truth that despite all the vast rich resources, Nigerian has remained one of the most corrupt, undeveloped nations in the world.

Presently the country was back to democracy after long years of uninterrupted military rule, but the various elections over the years since its return to civilian rule is nothing to be proud about due to the various fraudulent elections across the local, states and federal arms of government. The country’s hitherto vibrant idealistic political class have long gone, ushering in mediocre politicians whose first interest is to make money by all means through their positions, built gigantic mansions , marry beautiful wives and keep as many girlfriends, mistress and concubines as possible. Perhaps no other country in the world has some of the most flamboyant and expensive lawmakers and other government office holders like Nigeria. If the Nigerian nation were to be a human being with a voice, the cry from this looted and oppressed nation would have been heard from a distance of one thousand kilometers away. But despite all the looting, stealing and bad governance, the citizenry are still some of the happiest people on earth, daily enduring their suffering and smiling at their tribulation; Suffering and smiling, as rightly described by Fela Anikulapho Kuti, the country’s revered and most controversial music prodigy.
But one thing that might baffled the curious visitor would be how on earth did the country still able to remain one indivisible nation, despite all the political, economy and social conflicts that has continue to bedevil the rich nation over the decades. Again, the answer might be provided, if the curious visitor luckily understands the setting and the popular Nigerian syndrome, including the die-hard attitude of an average Nigerian.


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Chapter TWO

We both stood back and surveyed our handwork prudently few hours later inside my vast bedroom. A wide satisfactory grin finally appeared on my face, and I nodded at my accomplice who returned a sadistic grin with his eyes still admiring my large expensive bedroom and the king size bed that could take in five grown up people conveniently, but presently only accommodating a corpse. Crazy rich men and their crazy ideas, I thought silently.
While the man named Corner was use to different weird requests from various clients this one so far was the craziest and weirdest of them all. But who cares, he had told himself, as long as the pay was good and strangely I had told him that I needed the corpse just for a day, and for a hundred thousand naira he was ready to give out even the corpse of his father not just for a day but forever if the situation had warranted. I thought, stealing a glance at the greedy looking hospital morgue attendant who was still staring admiringly at the corpse on my family bed.
The whole crazy request had started last week when I walked up to him just when he was about to lock up the morgue for the night after admitting a new accident victim and had watched as he locked up the dead body inside one of the empty vaults in the stench filled morgue. He had stared surprisingly at my lone figure at first thinking I was a relative of the deceased. But I had smiled up to him and enquired if he was the morgue attendant.

“Yes - what do you want?” he demanded after staring suspiciously at me, and making sure I was not one of those lunatics he was used to seeing around or one of those organ dealers working for ritual merchants that sometimes try to break into the morgue for body parts without consulting him. Something he was always willing to do for them if they had the right money. But some of them were always so stupid and greedy to consult him first before attempting to steal a corpse from the partially secured mortuary, a job only few men like him have the nerve to do, and he has the guts and has been doing this job for almost six years, enduring all the daily scary happenings inside and around the morgue; creepy events that could send any sane man into insanity. He had told me after we got to know each other.

“I am happy to see you. I am here for a business discussion that could fetch you some good money.”

I told him and had gone ahead to explain why I was there and what I wanted. The man, whom everyone called Corner, had listened attentively to me with suspicion which increased further when I explained to him that I only needed a dead body for a day and gave him my description and also offered to pay one hundred thousand naira if he was ready to assist. Fifty thousand in cash as part payment and the other fifty thousand when the corpse is return safely to the morgue.

Corner, I noted was shock with disbelieve on the amount I was offering just to rent a dead body for one day, but when I counted out fifty thousand naira, in one thousand naira crispy notes and offered them to him as down payment, he hurriedly pushed the doubt out of his mind and snatched the irresistible notes quickly and pocketed the money without even bothering to count or look at the genuineness of the bank notes. Finally we agreed and he happily took me into the morgue to inspect the bodies and take a pick from the various abandoned and unclaimed corpses inside the stench filled morgue.

“I want a body that look like me in size and physique, ‘’

I specifically requested, and together we went through different bodies one after the other. I noticed I was initially scared, but later brazen up and continued with the inspection, and in the end accepted one of the fresh corpses; a middle-aged man who had died not quite long in his sleep and the family had deposited the body at the morgue while they go about organizing the usual expensive funeral that could take months. I promised coming back the next week for the body, and instructed him to keep the corpse fresh, assuring him that I only needed it for a day to complete a plan I had in mind. I refused to disclose my strange plan, but promised to tell him when I come for the body.

“Don’t worry; nothing will happen to the body. You will be around to see what I have in mind.”

I assured him, grinned up at his square face and then quietly fizzled away like a ghost, leaving him fifty thousand naira richer; it was a huge money he had never held in his life, this including the pay from all the illegal selling of body parts he had one way or the other been involved in, in the past.
Now at the moment, still inside my bedroom, Corner stared at me. I had still refused to tell him my real name, although, he now knew part of my plan. He nodded in agreement at my observation about the corpse on my bed and grinned sadistically at me his eyes still admiring the affluent quite room where both of us stood staring at the dead body; now perfectly dressed in a fake face that resembles me and decked in my favourite pyjamas.

“So this is it, I am going to drop you back at the hospital, just make sure you are around to monitor the corpse tomorrow.” I finally said and led him out of the room after making sure to switch off the lights. “My family should be back tomorrow, so the plan starts working tomorrow.” I continued as I led us down the rugged staircase and coming to pause before the main entrance to my expensive sitting room. I stared thoughtfully at Corner, and then frown.

“I must tell you that no one apart from both of us knows about this plan – so I assume you can keep it strictly in your mind. I demanded softly and then continued with a wry grin. ‘’ As you can see, I am a very rich influential man with lots of connection everywhere. So, if I hear it from a third party, I will not only deny it, but I will make sure you don’t enjoy the money and the rest of your days…” I told him, grinned, and then parted him on the shoulder before continuing in my low tone, “But – I assume you can be trusted, and I have my ways of rewarding trusted people, especially those who know how to guard their mouth. Hope you’re with me?”

“Yes – I keep to my words and hope you will keep to yours, especially about my balance?” Corner replied tartly, living beings no longer scares him, not after six years of scary nights as a guard in a morgue.

“No problem – your fifty thousand or more would be ready tomorrow,” With that, I led us outside into the large compound with various posh cars parked in a secluded carport. The house was large and far from the massive gate where Baba, my old security guard lies half awake in a guard room, and had not even noticed us when we had secretly carried the corpse into the house from my black Siena Bus.

We climbed into another of my posh car, a blue Range Rover jeep and drove to the gate as the sleepy looking old guard rushed out again and open the gate with a yawn. Corner glance at the dashboard and noticed the time was almost 2:13am, and he was suddenly eager to leave the affluent house and back to his post at the hospital. Although he was sure none of the other hospital staffs would dare towards his post at the morgue at this hour, but all the same other body thieves and ritualists might be lurking around and take advantage. He concluded as I address the guard.

“Baba – I won’t stay long, I just want to drop my friend at home and I will be back soon,” I lied to the sleepy looking guard who just yawn and nodded

“Okay – Chief ” He answered locking back the gate after us as we once again drove into the night with Corner sitting quietly in a thoughtful mood.

I returned home alone about an hour later, bade good night to my old guard, parked my car and then went into the large house. I tiptoed quietly out of the house one hour later, carrying with me a small travelling back containing all the important and necessary things I felt I needed and after assuring myself that the guard at the gate was fast asleep, I nodded with a grin. And moving quietly like a ghost I made my way to a secret door at the back yard. Then using a spare key in my hand, I unlocked the metal door quietly, sneaked out of the house and then vanished into the early morning leaving behind a strange corpse in my pyjamas with a perfect replica of my face inside my rich bedroom.

Chapter ONE

I actually planned the whole thing myself, including my own death; a meticulous phony plot that took me two months eight days to perfect before finally putting things in motion. The first plan that day was to claim the most vital element in my plot. So Strolling quietly along a deserted hospital driveway that night with an alert mind, I made my way towards the mortuary where my contact was waiting for me.
This is it - I thought as I approached the eerie looking section of the hospital. I almost changed my mind to retreat on nearing the partially dark morgue with only one source of light from a white fluorescent bulb which cast a dark shadow on the scary structure where I guessed hundreds of dead bodies were lying helplessly waiting for their claimers. A scream almost escaped my mouth with fear as a tall slim figure in white sauntered out silently from the shadow his face invisible in the dark.

“I am here” I heard a deep voice whispered from the dark.

“God! – you scared the shit out of me –is that Corner?” I whispered, pausing halfway from the morgue.

“Yes... come close, someone might be watching... are you here with the car?” The voice asked, half moving forward. The light from the fluorescent revealed the face of a middle-aged man whose eyes darted suspiciously around.

“Yes – are you ready with the body?” I inquired, staring more frightfully and curiously at the figure and wondered if I was not actually speaking with one of the dead bodies in the morgue.

“Yes – do you have the bag?” I heard him replied

“Yes – but let’s see the body first,” I brazed up my nerve and told him ready to bolt immediately I spot anything suspicious. God - this place gives me the creep. I thought as the figure finally stepped out fully from the shadow and I noticed my contact was actually the same man whose face was always suspicious but never scared.

“Okay – come this way,” the man said turning back to lead the way into the morgue.

Dedication: To all who must die.


Prologue
Our paths crossed each other one breezy evening at my favourite relaxing spot close to the river where I always go most weekends to relax, think and pen some poetry and imaginary fictions from my restless mind.
I essentially noticed the strange looking man for the third term that month, all alone, richly dressed and always busy with a voluminous book and a bottle of drink in a flask. My curiosity of who he might be aroused on his third visit as I watch him arrived in a navy blue BMW jeep with a Federal Capital plate number.
He was a tall slightly built man in his early fifties with a rich tan skin and a conspicuous grin on his well fed face. Today, he had on a multi colour African print shirt over a brown Chinos combat trouser and a brown leather sandal. And seated perfectly on his bold shining head was a brown hand weaved hat, the one commonly used by Fulani herdsmen and fishermen around here.
I became more curious as he suddenly stepped away from his glittering car and made his way towards where I was pretending to write something on my notebook, but in actual sense my mind and senses were both alert to his approaching figure.

“Hello there – young man, you always seems busy.” I heard him said aloud in a clear rich voice few distance from me his trademark grin never leaving his face.

I smiled up broadly at him my eyes taking on his bold steps as he made his way towards my direction.

“Good evening, sir” I responded momentary suspending what I was doing and sitting up to give him space.

“Evening - young man, I am sorry to disturb you, but I am a curious man, and I love satisfying my curiosity sometimes, especially if they look interesting. And I want to believe that whatever you’re doing here all alone must be interesting?”

It was more of a question than an observation so I smiled up again and responded calmly.

“Yes, sir, I am a writer and I am writing some vital lines.”

“Really?” he asked now more curious than before. He suddenly stared at my notebook and the few magazines and newspapers I had brought along. “A writer, that is nice.” He added and dropped his big frame beside me. “So, what are you writing?”

“But, sir, I don’t really know you, and in my profession it is dangerous to give out information about your project to strangers.” I replied boldly still smiling.

He stared quizzically at me thoughtfully, and then burst into a chock of laughter. “Yes- yes, yes young man. I agree with you. The world is full with dangerous people; especially strangers.” He finally said after a break from his choking laughter. “ I am sorry, my name is Chief Douglas Odunga, and I am a business man. I love coming to this place to see nature and admire its natural temperament.” He added slowly with a grin.

“My pleasure, sir, my name is Dodo; I am a writer and a Journalist.” I introduced myself warmly with a smile and a bow of my head. “I am addicted to this place. I am devoted to everything around here.” I told him proudly.

“So, what are you writing?’ he asked again unable to contain his curiosity.

“Well, I am strictly penning some poetry for now.” I replied lifting up my notebook.

He stared thoughtfully at the book and stretched out his hand. I noticed the expensive Swiss chronograph watch on his right hand briefly and then silently handed him the notebook. He collected it happily and slowly flipped through the pages, pausing here and there to read through some of my poems. I noticed his sincere concentration and an occasional wide smile on his face as he read through. He paused abruptly between some pages and stared intently at me.

“What do you know or think about death?” he asked his eyes boring into mine.

I stared at the open page in his hand and glanced at the title of the poem he was reading: When I die. I then smiled up at him before responding.

“Death is that uninvited stranger that must visit all of us one day and steal us away” I told him.

“Young man, I like you and I like your poems. They are thought-provoking and inspirational. Can you write a book?” He suddenly threw this question at me with a smile.

“ A book, it all depends on what the book is all about.” I answered not sure where he was heading to.

“ Alright. I am actually talking about a story, a real life story.”

“A real life story about what or who?” I asked rising my eyebrows curiously.

“ Yes, a real life story about death, about me”. He leisurely announced with his grin.

I was shocked at his response and at the same time, I became a little scared and suspicious of his presence and wondered if I was actually discussing with a ghost.

“Don’t be scare young man; I am not what you think.” He suddenly said as if reading my mind. “You don’t have anything to worry or be scared about. At least we are not the only one around here at the moment.’” He tried to reassure me and pointed at the various human activities going on around us.

My eyes silently took on the busy canoe boys with their passengers as they travel to and fro through the river, and the few busy fishermen around us, including some few group of sugarcane sellers and enthusiastic young swimmers around. But, still, I felt not too comfortable with the strange man and his curiosity. And as if still reading my mind he brought out a plastic ID card from his breast pocket and dropped it in my hand.

“That is me. I am a living Nigerian and an easy going business man. I like your writings and I want you to write my story; a real life story that happened to me few months ago. I have always wanted to tell this interesting story to the world, but I am not a writer and only a good writer can help communicate my life experience to the world. I believe you’re that person I have been looking for.” He announced his eyes staring boldly at me and his ID card in my hand.

I stared thoughtfully at him, and then silently scrutinized the ID. Satisfied he was the same person, I smiled up at him. “Why do you think I am the real person you are looking for? You have not seen any of my prose and moreover we are just talking for the first time today.” I complained, not too certain if I was interested in his offer.

“You are the real person I am looking for. Like I earlier told you, I believe in nature and I believe in serendipity. What you call providence. I believe it is part of our destiny that we should meet here and also part of nature that you are the one to write this story and help me tell it to the world. I want to assure you that you will be handsomely rewarded”

I considered what he said silently, especially as he mentioned the word serendipity which I also subscribe to. “What is this story all about?” I finally asked him impatient to quench my long held curiosity.

“The story is all about me. How I died and watched things ‘under the eyes of a dead man’.” He slowly replied with his grin.

I listened to this rich looking and intelligent speaking man as he explained himself to me. The more he verbalized, the more I wanted to listen to him. Here is the spectacular story of Chief Douglas Odunga, one of the richest oil tycoons in Nigeria; a man who knows what it is like to watch things unfold as a dead man.
The reader might be surprise to know that this suspense filled and humorous story was related to me in four weeks as we sat side by side in our cherish and isolated world by the riverside. That unforgettable natural environment where the birds flutter freely, the fishes voyage across the river graciously and the sun rises and set peacefully under our eyes as we chatted freely; the storyteller tells the story, while the writer pen freely away, recording one of the most breath taking stories I have ever written. This is what he told me…
Enjoy.
Dodo

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********
Senator Bode Olori was enjoying one of his finest moments that night as the Presidential Economy Committee dinner progressed smoothly. He was enjoying every second and the attention from the two beautiful women on his table. One was his wife; a beautiful shy looking woman in her early thirties, dressed in a rich lace material with hundred thousands worth of gold necklace adoring her smooth neck and four gold rings on her immaculate polished fingers completed the show of gold. The other woman on his table was the wife of one of his colleagues, another senator who had traveled abroad on one of their various jamborees and had assigned his beautiful wife to represent him at the dinner in company of his colleague and his wife. She too was ‘dressed to kill’ in a rich expensive blue satin dress that sent many male heads swinging curiously at her with lustful eyes. The blue emerald sapphire necklace on her neck unleashed a pang of envy on the minds of some of the women around the hall, among them senator Bode’s wife. She was not comfortable with the attention her randy husband was showering on their guest and his eagerness to impress her with his various legislative jargon and fancy tales of his numerous trips abroad, this including his occasional ‘secret’ meetings with the President and Commander-in-Chief, in Aso Rock Villa.

“ We are in charge. This country is in our hands. We decide what goes on and who should have what in this country.” He was presently boasting proudly to his friend’s wife.

He sipped his expensive wine, smirk his thick lips and relaxed more comfortably on his seat, proud that most eyes were on their table. He secretly wished his wife was at home while he had all the time to catch his fun alone. He had this strong confidence that he has all it takes to seduce any woman he wanted. This beautiful woman in blue satin could be his latest conquest if he dials his card right. He thought silently. Nevertheless, he knew his suspicious wife was reading his entire move now, so he needed to be careful. He cautioned himself.
He suddenly wish that he could send his wife back home to stay with the kids while he try his luck on this lonely beautiful woman whose hubby he was sure was right now inside one of the expensive hotels in Washington, enjoying himself with his latest white girlfriends. He had been part of the conspiracy for long and knew the kind of assignments most of them go to do outside the country on taxpayer’s money. Please enjoy yourself friend, while I try my luck on your beautiful lonely wife. He concluded silently, his dizzy eyes roved around the blue necklace on her neck and her two firm seductive breasts. God, I love beautiful women like this. He visualized silently, and shook his thick fat neck happily to the beat of King Sunny Ade’s ‘Syncro System’.





*******
Victor still wearing his confident look led Etim and Mai-Coins into the capacity filled banquet hall. Mai-Coins had earlier drawn their driver aside and instructed him to keep an alert watch on Colour and Richmond. The chunky looking driver had nodded his head and silently covered both of them with his big frame. This he did without giving any hint to the other security agents around who had the impression they were all part of the dreaded EFCC operatives, including the white man whom they imagine might be an FBI agent or part of the Interpol. Back inside the lively banquet hall, the sweet lyrical voice of King Sunny Ade, seduced the guests happily away as they eat their sumptuous food, sipped their expensive drinks and chatted merrily among each other. Few security operatives in mufti mingled freely around, their alert eyes prudently scanned for any trouble.

Just then, Victor, flanked by detective Mai-Coins and Etim sauntered into the main hall and paused by a corner then quietly inspected the quests. The agreed plan was for Victor to scanned the guests and quietly identify the elusive Smoke by walking up to him and extend his hand for a handshake. “Just shake his hand and leave the rest to us.” Mai-Coins had lectured him on their way in. So, standing by the corner, they all watched with admiration as the guests dined cheerfully, making all the ubiquitous banters known among the rich and powerful people in the society. Victor stared quietly at the crowd with a hidden grin. He suddenly felt a sick revulsion and hatred at the guests, especially his rich country men and women among them. He was a youth from the impoverished Niger Delta region where poverty was almost extinguishing his people and here he was suddenly among the rich overfed crooks that over the decades have been responsible for their suffering. Here they were, some of the country’s corrupt politicians and government officials with their spoilt cronies lavishing their oil money on rich sumptuous foods, pricey drinks and some of the most beautiful women in the country. His mind swiftly traveled far to his village and he imagined his old parents at home probably back from their oil polluted farm, very tired and trying to arrange some cheap soup and garri for dinner.

He suddenly had the urge to walk up to some of the rich tables inside the banquet and turn them over; this including slapping some overfed checks and kick their overstuffed stomachs.

“ Show us Smoke” Mai-Coins suddenly whispered behind him.

But victor was still in his hateful reveries and did not hear him. The only thing on his mind at that moment was the wasteful spending of the country’s wealth that his eyes were witnessing inside the banquet hall. He hated the flamboyant politicians, the government officials, and their cronies the more. He hated their always unfulfilled promises and lies and the daily deceits they over the years been feeding to the public, especially his impoverished people. He wished he could detonate a bomb and send everyone around to hell, this excluding him. He reasoned. Then maybe his region, village and people will finally see development and enjoy their God’s given wealth. But Victor quest for money and the good things in life had actually been the reason why he had not joined any of the various militant groups in his region, preferring to join the fast, exciting world of fraudsters to help dupe some of the corrupt rich politicians in the country, government officials and their cronies, including their foreign collaborators who over the decades have continued to milk his people of their oil wealth and other natural resources. These entire scenarios raced through his mind as he stared thoughtfully at the various tables inside the filled hall.

“Hey! Victor, show us Smoke” Etim hissed out angrily across his ears.

Victor’s angry eyes suddenly picked out the flamboyant cap of senator Bode as he swings his thick neck to the melodious beat of King Sunny Ade. He studied him and his two beautiful women silently for some seconds, and then grinned up at the two EFCC operatives.

“I have sighted him; just give me few minutes to do the identification.” He announced happily to them, turned and sauntered casually towards one of the tables. He walked up confidently to Senator Bode’s table and planted his petite frame happily in front of him, and then smiled up at the two women whose pampered faces stared back blankly at him.

“ Good evening ladies” He greeted them with a slight bow then smiled up at the senator. “Evening Chief” He greeted with a wide smile and extended his hand in a handshake.

Senator Bode who was still shaking his head merrily to the beat and was just in the process of excusing the lady in blue for a dance, paused his thick neck and glared arrogantly with an astonished look at the strange young man in front of him, his eyes stared scornfully at his extended hand as if he had just been offered a dose of poison to kill himself.

“Yes, can I help you? He demanded arrogantly, instantly hating the young man for disrupting his plan.

But Victor retailed his smile and kept his cool, although he was almost tempted to smack his overfed cheeks. He noted how the senator had ignored his hand with contempt. All the same, he went ahead with his identification plan.

“ Good evening, Chief. I am a Flame; I am here with those two EFCC agents over there to see you.” He announced loudly with a grin.

The senator heard him clearly, so also the two women. They both suddenly sat up surprisingly on their seats; their pampered face followed the direction of Victor’s hand as he pointed towards detective Mai-Coins and Etim who at that moment make their way casually towards their table. Senator Bode stared confusingly at Victor, his women and then at the two detectives as they headed towards them. He felt a sudden hot perspiration across his neck. Victor, a smile on his face, slowly drifted towards two security personnel in uniform.

“ Hello, officers. Please be on the alert, the two guys over there are here to kidnap the senator and his wives. They are Niger Delta militants.”
He hurriedly informed them and darted away as Mai-Coins and Etim finally planted themselves in front of the senator.

The excitement of finally catching their most wanted criminal was just too much for them, they lousily closed their intelligence to all other things going on and prepared themselves for their biggest catch. So they did not noticed Victor as he quietly slipped away into the crowd and disappeared among some of the merry guests who were busy dancing happily on the dance floor. Meanwhile, Etim planted himself arrogantly in front of the senator, and ignored the two panicked looking women who both stared at him as if he was one of those monsters they see every day in one of those Nollywood movies.

“ Hello, Smoke – finally, welcome to our world.” Detective Mai-Coins at last addressed the surprised looking senator who suddenly pushed back his chair angrily just as two police orderly in uniform rushed towards them, their weapons drawn.

“What is going on here?” the tall one among them demanded, his gun covering Mai-Coins and Etim.

“Hey, relax, EFCC.” Etim hissed out, and flashed his ID.

“Gentlemen, I am an Honourable Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I know my fundamental rights. You don’t have a right to come here and intimidate me.” Senator Bode shouted, banged his hands angrily on the table, and knocked down some drinks in the process as many eyes suddenly stared confusingly at their table.

“You guys can’t just storm here, flashed your ID cards and embarrassed me. Who are you? And who sent you here?” The senator continued, his thick neck swung angrily left and right.

“Relax, Smoke and cut off the acting, we know who you are.” Detective Mai-Coins hissed out, and then turned to address the two policemen in uniform.

“ espirit de cop. I am ASP Mai-kudi from the EFCC.” He announced boldly, and flashed his ID.

“This is my colleague DSP Etim.’ He continued, and indicated a stoned faced Etim who glared at the senator and his two panicked women.

“This is our suspect, we are here to arrest him. “ He concluded, indicating the bewildered senator.

“ What, me, suspect. Arrest me, for what?” Senator Bode shouted angrily, making a loud scene that drew more attention to his table.

Suddenly the banquet hall became tensed as some of the rich guests suddenly became scared and the exit door suddenly turned rowdy as many of them excused themselves, and booted for the quickest way out with their overfed wives, mistresses, girlfriends, concubines and other hanger on. They all rushed out in panic from the hall. Gone were the styles, grace, and showoff of jewelries, affluence and pride. Most of them abandoned their companies with dreadfulness, rushed quickly to their cars and then ordered their drivers to quickly drive out of the environment. Colour, Mr. Richmond and the driver stared confusingly at the commotion, and then glanced surprisingly at each other, wondering what was going on.

” What the hell is going on?” the driver demanded from no one in particular and then stared suspiciously at Richmond and Colour.

“ Why don’t you go inside and find out? I am scared right now; just hope the building is not on fire or probably a bomb scare.” Colour complained.

“ Okay, wait, let me see, just wait here and watch the oyinbo, I will soon be back.” The panicked looking driver instructed and then darted into the hall.

Mr. Richmond stared confusingly at Colour as some of the panicked guests dashed out of the hall. “What is going on?” He asked and his eyes darted towards the elevators.

“ I don’t know.” Colour replied, his eyes also on the elevators. “If I were in your shoes right now, I will quickly find my way out.” He suggested, stared at the escape routes, grinned up at Mr. Richmond and then casually made his way into the commotion filled banquet hall.

END OF PART 1

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Mercury Hotel Abuja is a lively place anytime. Located around the ever busy Central Business District of the Federal Capital Territory, the hotel offers visitors a blend of business and pleasure. It has to its credit the ability to provide exquisite African tradition and the highest international standards of hospitality at any given time. The five stars hotel over the years had undergone different re-structuring, both physically and administratively. It is no doubt, one of the biggest hotels in Nigeria and African as a whole. It main competitive edge was its various conference and meeting centers, spread across the imposing structure. A day hardly passes without one form of seminar, conference, or launching taking place inside the ever-busy hotel, with different characters mingling freely in and out of the busy lobbies. Again, the hotel ability to mix business with pleasure over the years placed it as one of the most frequented five stars hotels in Nigeria. Therefore, it was no surprise to regular visitors to the place that evening when the sleek Range Rover Jeep convening Mai-Coins and his group drove into the over filled parking zone of the hotel. It took the driver close to ten minutes before he could finally find an empty space to park, this after another car had decided to leave. This was part of what make-up the Mercury, over filled parking space.

Victor presently had his eyes wide alert and slowly surveyed the busy environment. His eyes picked some uniformed armed mobile police men and other alert security operatives in mufti. He also noticed various men and women, flamboyantly dressed in ceremonious clothing. Most of them were top government officials with their wives, mistresses, concubines’ or girlfriends. Other conspicuous guests he noticed included top diplomats, flamboyant politicians and their returnees of aides, including other hanger on who never missed the opportunity to grace rich functions like the one presently going on inside one of the banquet halls, invited or not. Victor, a hidden grin on his face could not hide his excitement as he quietly surveyed the gathering. This was just the perfect setting, he concluded silently. He had refused to tell Colour his plan, but had confidently assured him that he has everything under control and that everything will be okay.

“Relax your fear, just cool down, I go job this people and you go see. Trust me and leave everything to me. I go show them say I be true Flame…” he assured him boastfully.

Colour stubbornly insisted that he must know his plan, but the equally stubborn Victor refused to let him into his secret, insisting that the plan was top secret and the only way they could free themselves from their captors. He once again assured him confidently that he had everything under control, and the little Colour know about the plan, the safer for him. Therefore, with this final caution of safety, Colour finally closed his curiosity and let him have his way. Right now, the moment was here and Victor was already busy on his plan, fast calculating with his corny brain.

“Alright gentlemen, just as we agreed.” Detective Mai-Coins suddenly announced as if reading their thoughts. “We are to go out slowly and walk down casually as friends and ordinary business associates without arousing any suspicious. Hope you both remember?” He asked, and grinned at both of them.

Colour stared quietly at him, nodded and glanced at Victor who grinned thoughtfully and nodded finally.

“ Good, and let me also inform you that I am a good shoot and believe me, I will not hesitate to shot any one of you who try to escape or run from us.” Mai-Coins added, and then paused to light a cigarette, allowing the flame from his lighter to dance across their faces for some seconds. He lit up and then continued. “Believe me; I am always at my best when aiming at a moving target …” With this, he grinned once more at both of them, dragged his cigarette and then casually stepped out of the car.

“ Okay guys, time to go”

Etim commanded and guarded them out of the backseat, followed by a confused looking Richmond who adjusted his suit and trailed after the group from behind with the driver who smiled at him and nudged him on casually with the barrel of a concealed gun. They moved in three friendly groups with Victor leading the way, and an alert Etim by his side, and Mai-Coins and Colour closely behind them while Mr. Richmond and the driver took up the rear. They made their way casually towards the busy glass entrance with various characters busy going in and out of the crowded lobby. The group finally made their way to the lobby and Victor suddenly paused, turned right and stared attentively at the big digital noticed board close by as it red digital alphabets flash in succession, indicating the various events taking place inside the hotel that evening. The group also paused and stared at the board. They all scanned the writing but failed to understand and see the reason why Victor had paused to scan the board attentively.

“Just move straight to the elevators. We have already cleared with the reception. “Etim commanded him softly with a tough voice.

However, Victor just grinned at him, stared once more at the board and then continued towards one of the elevators.



********
Part of the facilitating features of the Mercury Hotel was its state of the art banquet hall, built to accommodate a large number of dinners and tourists who over the years have come to warmly agreed that the hall was one of the best in sub-Sahara Africa. Tonight, the hall was hosting an international economy dinner. Various guests were seated in orderly formation, scattered around the various spontaneous tables; radiant looking government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, oil moguls, top notch of the banking industry, showy politicians and other top business moguls in company of their wives, mistresses, girlfriends and what have you, these including smart gate-crashers. The banquet hall glowed brightly with its bright shining lights, stimulating an excited atmosphere as quests enjoyed their various rich buffet, chatted gaily and relax amidst the evergreen song of Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade ‘s ‘Welcome to Nigeria’ that filtered from the inbuilt speakers inside the lighted ceiling.

The dinner that night was actually in honor of the new inaugurated Presidential Economy Committee, headed by the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the country minister of finance acting as the secretary and presently the chubby looking minister in his flamboyant cap was reading the vice president address as the top government official delegated to chair the occasion. The hall was filled to capacity with stern looking security men and women in both uniform and mufti closely monitoring the various activities going on. A good observer would quickly deduced the importance of the occasion, this given the caliber of guests that were present.

The elevator conveying the group finally paused at the carpeted floor of the banquet hall, a soft click and the door of the elevator slides aside, and then ushered out Victor and his crew.

“Remember we go in two, two as usual.” Detective Mai-Coins whispered to the group as they casually stepped out of the crowded elevator.

Victor, a happy grin on his face, nodded silently and led them towards some suspicious looking police orderlies and other equally alert security operatives in mufti who all stared suspiciously at them as they approached.

Colour being a very prudent observer, quickly deduced that something was not right at the moment. However, he realized that it was already too late to do anything. Therefore, he wisely slowed down his steps and observed as Victor walked up to two of the uniformed men and confidently planted himself in front of them. The group paused in their strides and watched with keen interest.

“Who is in charge here?” Victor demanded from one of the uniformed men, a corporal who kept staring suspiciously at him.

“ Yes, what can we do for you?” A stout looking man in a black suite suddenly stepped out from the shadow and glared at the group. Colour had a quick glimpse of a canceled weapon between his protruding stomach lines.

“ espirit de cop.” Victor stepped up to him with a fake smile

“ espirit de cop, yes, can we know you?” the man replied, still searching him suspiciously.

“Yes, we are from the EFCC.” Victor responded, and proudly indicated his group who all stared silently at the unfolding drama. “ We are here on a mission, a very important assignment.”

He continued as if he was really an operative of the EFCC, instead of the suspect that he was. His fake smile now broader on his face, he stared at the security operatives with confident.

“Yes- EFCC.” Detective Etim suddenly flashed his badge, stepped forward and took over the talking. Mai-Coins also stepped forward with his badge and flashed it to the men.

“ ASP Mai-Kudi, EFCC…” He proudly announced loudly.

After much bravado, rank and agency intimidation and clarification, they finally drew the stout SSS officer aside and quietly told him their mission. They told him little and finally requested him to assist them make an arrest inside the lively banquet hall.



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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), no doubt is one of the most controversial financial crime agencies in Nigeria. The commission is controversial as some of those saddled with the responsibility of heading the commission. It was during the tenure of one of the chairmen; a no nonsense and fearless young man that the commission earned its daring reputation. The vocal chairman had without fear or favor stepped on many big toes in the country, especially among the hitherto untouchable elites. These powerful men and woman had long constituted the obstacle that kept pushing the rich country backward through their corrupt attitudes and deep passion to steal and siphoned the collective wealth of the people for their personal selfish needs. The EFCC had within the controversial tenure of this hotheaded chairman who called the bluffs of some of these big thieves brought fear and sanity into the greedy activities of these unpatriotic shameless crooks in the corridor of power, including those in the private sector of the country’s economy.

He held the hitherto impossible record of sending the country’s top police boss to jail for stealing about seventeen billion naira for personal use. He equally broke down the guts of some corrupt ex-governors, serving government official and bank executives. He also had the courage to have intimidated one of the most awed striking military presidents in the country, and equally frustrated the presidential ambition of an ex-vice president of the rich oil nation. The fact was the fear of the EFCC during the tenure of this bespectacled chairman was actually the beginning of wisdom, especially among corrupt government officials and other public office holders, both serving and retired. They hated his guts and the autonomous power the presidency gave him in running the affairs of the commission. He had to his credit a record-breaking financial crime bust to the tune of seven hundred million dollars in its second year in office, these both in liquid cash and confiscated assets from various criminal deals. He fought them boldly, effectively using the media to exposed and disgraced most of these hitherto untouchables.

So, it did not come as a surprise when the news of his change came to detective Mai-Coins and Etim that evening as they interrogated their three suspects. They got the news that their charismatic boss had been relieved of his appointments and sent on a controversial course in one of the country’s top administrative institutions in the country. Like many of their colleagues, they had long envisaged the change, but not the way it came so cheaply. This after the long verbal wars between their boss and the country’s controversial voracious Attorney General. They both felt sorry for their vibrant ex-boss and had wished him luck in his next posting. But their stubborn boss openly rejected his posting and subsequently retired controversially. The two EFCC operatives big regret that evening was the fact that their ex-boss would not be around to congratulate them and happily promote them for busting the most notorious cyber-crime syndicate in the country.
They regretted that he would not be around to see the illusive face of Smoke and his gang of criminals after smoking them out of their nest. Something they envisioned could happen any moment from now. They were both happy that Victor in conjunction with Colour had finally agreed to betray their faceless boss by leading them to his elusive hideout. This was the conclusion they reached before the bad news of their boss posting came to them via a text message on their phones.

They kept the news to themselves and returned their excited attention and concentration to the big burst within their grab. Although, they had wanted to suspend the operation and wait for new instructions from their new boss, a woman they both knew so well, but the temptation of finally apprehending the faceless Smoke was just too much for them.
This was a burst that every ambitious law enforcement officer in the country, Africa and beyond craved for and would gladly want to do. This including the prestige, promotion and profit the arrest would bring them, not forgetting the media fuzz and popularity they were bound to get after the successful operation. Therefore, the two detectives consulted each other, and they both finally agreed to go ahead with the plan to burst Smoke and bring him in without consulting headquarter or seek for a backup. This was a chance of a lifetime and the opportunity to prove to the world that they were two of the best brains in the EFCC. They reasoned. This should actually be a surprise package for their new boss, they both concluded as they set out for the biggest burst in the country’s financial crime history.












********
Colour sat close to a thoughtful looking Victor at the back seat of a black Range Rover Jeep. Detective Mai-Coins and Etim sandwiched them on both side. Mr. Richmond looking confused sat quietly beside the driver. The car was among one of the numerous expensive cars confiscated from different drug barons and other financial syndicates across the country. The idea to use a posh car had actually been Victor’s suggestion. He had confidently told his captors that the best way to present themselves and look genuine in their plan was to drive around in an expensive flashy car.

“Our world revolves around big cars and big things. In addition, our people are big people. It takes big things to convince them." He had explained to the two detectives proudly.

They both made sense on what he told them and agreed to use one of the latest jeeps at their disposal. Finally, they had loaded their three suspects into the brand new car and headed towards one of the most expensive hotels in the capital where Victor told them the faceless Smoke was at the moment. Colour at the moment grinned at Victor who frowned away thoughtfully, and then at Mai-Coins who returned his grin. He deliberately refused to look at Etim who continuously stared at him and Victor suspiciously.
The moon that evening came out early and shone boldly from the sky as darkness sets in. The populated city of Abuja was beautifully alive with lighted streetlights and the soft breeze of the night blew freely across the pampered city as the jeep cruised along one of the major roads and suddenly paused for traffic at a popular junction around the Hilton.

Colour eyes were alive and he quietly admired the beauty of his country’s capital at night. He instantly fell in love with the illuminated city at this hour of the day, an admiration he always felt whenever he viewed the lighted city in the night. The various high-rise buildings and their assorted bright lights have always hypnotized his fancy. He stared admiringly at the captivating structure housing the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), one of the country’s most valuable and powerful agencies along Aquiyi Ironsi Street in Maitama district. He noted with pride that Mr. Richmond despite all his worries was also staring admiringly at the building. The structure no doubt was one of the spectacular buildings in the capital, dwarfing the headquarters of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) close by. The building wrapped in a blue reflecting glass with a captivating suspended roof, stood out boldly on the busy street. Colour suddenly felt proud of being a Nigerian at that moment. He wished the commission could translate its beautiful structure into ensuring that the major telecom operators in the country fulfilled their business contracts by providing efficient and effective services to the millions of subscribers in the country, this despite the millions of naira daily siphoned from them by these operators.
He felt sad that the private telecom companies were fast joining the other government-controlled agencies in their epileptic wagon. He shook his head sadly and glanced once more admiringly at the NCC building, and reminded himself mentally to explore the place for sponsorship immediately he set himself free from his current predicament. He prayed silently, and begged God to get him out of his jumble. He allowed himself a smile, and then relaxed his tired frame more comfortably on the car’s leather seat as the jeep powerful headlights picked up the guarded gates of the Mercury Hotel. He quickly noticed the presence of armed security personnel around the gates; he braced himself for the worst, and kept his eyes fully alert as the car slowly cruised into the hotel in search of a parking space.


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Ken Solomon packed his bag quietly, his mind absolved with his unexpected journey into Africa. So how come this so-called ‘jungle’ still hosts some of the smartest human species on earth? Then this jungle must be filled with Goddamn smart crooks. He thought, stuffing some shirts into a brown Louis Vuitton bag. Was Nigeria a safe jungle? Could the country be as bad and dangerous as many of them were made to believe? What about the current security alert from the US consulate on the country? All these questions troubled his mind that morning as he arranged for his decisive journey.
He had earlier read the alert from the United States website on Nigeria, including the deadly activities of the terrorist group Boko Haram in the Northern part of the country, the daring Militants in the Niger-Delta, the daredevil robbers across many states in the federation, including the rampant cases of kidnapping and ethno-religious crises across the oil rich country. Thinking of the danger ahead as an American citizen he suddenly wondered if he was not carelessly putting out his neck easily in the net of some crazy dangerous criminals in the African jungle. This with constant reports of hostage taking in the Nigerian Niger Delta where some youths in the oil rich neglected area have now turned into militancy and directing their grievances on the many expatriate and foreigners who dare to remained in the volatile region; all these in an attempt to draw world attention and sympathy to their plights. Again, reports have also indicated that some of these so-called revolutionary militants were mere disgruntled criminals who now capitalized on hostage taking to make fast money through the demands of exorbitant ransomed fees from the families of the victims or the government. Ken Solomon’s mind shrieked a bit as he imagined the big scandal it will caused if any of these militant group conceivably decided to kidnap him in Nigeria.
No, his trip to the country will not include this volatile region. He assured himself and prayed silently that it should be so. He guaranteed himself that everything would move on fine and continued parking his bag and arranged himself for the most challenging journey of his life.
The phony transaction had centered around two cites in Nigeria: Abuja the new capital city and Lagos the old capital. He reminded himself. He had read somewhere that the latter was the most controversial and dangerous of the two, and unfailingly these two cities were his target. He was sure that the tricky smart corny bastards were hold-up somewhere in one of the cities, enjoying themselves and freely blowing away his hard earned money. He imagined as he prepared himself for his journey of a lifetime.

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Mr. Alfred Richmond was still finding it difficult to comprehend what exactly was going on between his two fellow suspects and his captors. At present one of the detectives, the broader and harsher among the two was slowly rocking Victor to and fro on a chair and at the same time slapped him casually across the face.

“Where we go see Smoke?” Detective Etim repeated with two fast slaps that sent Victor crashing against the wall.

“True, I no know, make una ask am, he dey closer to Smoke pass me. Believe me, na the truth be that, I swear.” Victor pleaded, quickly shielding himself from another sharp approaching slap from Etim’s thick hand.

“ Okay, wait.” Detective Mai-Coins suddenly interjected, and turned to face Colour.

“Maybe we should also try him on the chair.” He suggested with a grin and lit a cigarette. “Or what do you say?” He continued, grinned at Colour, and blow smoke across his face.

“ I go quench your flame very soon, unless you show me Smoke.” He finally threatened casually in pidgin.

The threat registered well on Colour’s mind. He sensed the guy was serious, this was different from the calm manner he had been effectively handling the interrogations so far. He noticed Etim’s hard eyes on him, including those of Victor who was still trying to lift himself up from the floor and Mr. Richmond who glared unsympathetically at him.

“See, officer, I don’t think there is need for this.’ Colour quickly announced, and indicated the empty chair. ‘’Honestly, my sitting down there won’t solved anything, instead, it will just aggravate the matter.”

“Is that? I like it when things are hot. They get cool at the end of the day. The hotter they are, the cooler they become after I have work on them.” Mai-Coins announced confidently, strolled up to him and gently tapped him on the shoulder.

“ Well, I just think putting me on that chair and beating my face blue, won’t give you the answer you want.” Colour persisted.

“And what makes you think so? You want to try me?” Etim challenged, and stepped towards him.

Colour stared at him with panic. “Look officer, I know, I will definitely faint in the process and probably die with the important information you’re eager to know from me. I am a fragile human being, officers. I hope you guys will reconsider.”

Etim not too convinced, continued towards him, but Mai-Coins waved him aside, dragged his cigarette and then grinned at Colour.

“Colour, am I right?’ he asked

“ Yes, officer, that is my name.” Colour responded quickly

“ Good, so give me Smoke, Colour and I promise you protection.”

Colour stared thoughtfully at him for some seconds, then at the others. He noticed the look of surprise and perplexity on Victor’s face. He noticed that Mr. Richmond was equally staring suspiciously at him with a hopeful look. He also noted the hard look on Etim’s face as he stared threatening at the empty interrogation chair.

“Okay, why not give us few minutes to discuss between the three of us.” Colour finally requested, and indicated the perplexed looking Victor and a confused looking Richmond.

Mai-Coins stared thoughtfully at him, then at Etim, Victor and Richmond, and then finally glanced at his wrist watch.

“Okay, five minutes, but make sure you are ready with what we want when we come back. I hardly allow a second chance.” He finally announced in a soft tone, but the threat was loud and clear. With that, he nodded at Etim and they both stepped out of the room an angry look visible on Etim’s face.

They locked the door and left their three suspects alone to discuss their fate and probably betray themselves and then luckily lead them to the most wanted notorious cyber-crime fraudster in Africa. All these thoughts raced through detective Mai-Coin’s mind as he led Etim away and waited patiently inside the outer office. He silently prayed that the three men would lead them to this mysterious smart fraudster who has remained elusive to security men all across the globe. Finally, they were a step closer to Smoke. God, please let this be true. Let it be the final moment we have all been waiting for. He kept praying as they waited for the five minutes that might change everything and bring glory and promotion in their career.




********
Colour grinned thoughtfully at Victor and Richmond, then crossed over to the far wall and rested his back, his hands folded across his chest.
“Come, why you no go tell this people wetin dem want and commot man for this yawa? Abi dem send you to me, which kind yeye agro be this?”
He slowly addressed the bruised looking Victor who had thought implicating him in their deal would save him from the operatives. But they had grilled him more on discovering that he had not tell them what they actually wanted to know. Victor stared thoughtfully at him, rubbed his chin, and then grinned at both of them. Richmond quickly frowned up at him.

“ Take it easy, White man. Don’t worry, everything will be okay. This is Nigeria” He told Richmond, who kept his frown. He then turned towards Colour.

‘’Come, who you be self, wetin join you for this matter? I mean where you connect?” He suddenly demanded.

“ Na me suppose dey ask you all this questions.” Colour answered calmly, and glanced at his watch.

“Two minutes don pass. Come, wetin push you go include me for una deal. I fit swell say I never take eyes see you befor. So wetin make you include me?’’ He glanced at his watch again, and then continued. “Well, all these na long story. Na how we go take comot for here we suppose begin plan. Na so I see am. Wetin you think?”

Victor stared thoughtfully at him again, grinned at Richmond, and then walked up to Colour and extended his hand for a handshake to the surprised Richmond who stared unbelievable at both of them.

“I no know who you say you be sha. But you look like correct Bobo and I believe say we fit blend and belong to the same line. But that na long story, I go explain to you later. I agree with you, right now na to plan how to commot for this yawa. I think the first thing na to job this EFCC guys. He explained proudly with a wide grin, and shook Colour happily to the amazement of Mr. Richmond who now stared more suspiciously at both of them.


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Abuja, Nigeria
Waterfall district in Abuja is one of the most beautiful organized urban settings in Nigeria. The district have also been acknowledged as one of the most expensive spaces on earth where only the super rich could afford to own or rent an apartment, a duplex, a mansion or a diplomatic structure, this depending on one’s pocket and purpose. The district unquestionably housed some of the most influential people in the country. The Nigerian master plan was designed by the International Planning Association (IPA) of America with a design which divided the city into two sectors of residential districts to accommodate a population of between 100,000 and 250,000 people, an unrealistic number that has since swallowed the plan.
The Federal Capital city in all was actually a four phased development plan with a short sighted arrangement to accommodate an initial total population of 1.60 million people within the year 2000 with an ultimate speculated capacity for 3.10 million inhabitants. But what the IPA had failed to put into consideration was the daily biological landing of more Nigerians into the world and the large number of existing ones, estimated to be more than 200 million people. So before you know it, most of the land in Waterfall and the other rich surroundings in the capital city had been allocated and divided among the rich elites and their cronies. They had the money and influence to built and erect some of the most spectacular untouchable structures in the district, thus turning the area to one of the most expensive, well organized space in the federal capital city, including the whole of sub-Sahara Africa.
The story goes that there is no house in Waterfall that housed a ‘’Nobody’. You must be a ‘Somebody’ or someone close to a ‘somebody’ to own a space or reside in a particular street in the district. Among the various exclusive streets in Waterfall was a peculiar street, simply known as the ‘CLOSE’. This street is said to be the most expensive street in Nigeria and among the most expensive in the world. The street derived its name from the nature of its long winding avenue that ended at a final close, and barricaded by high magnificent rocks and waterfall. Every house on the close was a masterpiece on its own. A prudent observer lucky to be allowed into the area will quickly notice two obvious thing among the rich elites with houses on the close; a silent war of showoff and flamboyancy. Every house owner conspicuously displayed its opulence to show the next door neighbor that ‘I too could afford to park some of the latest state of the art classy cars’ inside my multi million naira structure. This they do by building low fenced walls and expensive carports, so visitors and neighbors alike could see and marvel at their acquired vanities whenever they visit or stumbled upon their exquisite compounds. Every structure on the close was roofed in various competitive aluminum sheets and designs with exception to a particular house with modernized asbestos on its roof.
The house was currently the most luxurious, the most beautiful and most controversial house on the close. Every house inside this exquisite space have a personal guard and other domestic staff, this apart from the rich owners who hardly spend more than few months in the country before jetting out to their other various rich abodes abroad, making more money and enjoying the sweet things money could buy and those rare ones that life often offers.
The long wide road leading to the Close was lined with tall trees, bright streetlights and strong concrete slaps. The German multinational firm Julius Berger built the roads and almost all the prominent government features around and within the area. No visitor was allow between the gigantic barricades on the close without first passing through the suspicious scrutiny of the four well-armed security guards who watched over the area on a twenty-four hour shift. These four heavily built men would first make every visitor known or unknown go through their various interrogations and intimidation before allowing the visitor to pass through, this after been satisfied that he or she was not a threat to the rich elite and their pampered families. If not, then it was the beginning of trouble to the unlucky caller which might lead further to more interrogation and intimidation, and then finally to detention. A big signpost at the beginning of the close boldly cautioned in capital letters read: DON’T COME TO THE CLOSE IF YOU ARE NOT INVITED.

All the domestic staff both male and female knew each other, so there was never a vacancy or a chance for an unemployed passerby or a domestic service company to come nosing around for jobs within the close. The street was intentionally closed to the unwanted hawkers, painted taxis and okadas. The controversial asbestos structure was the last house that shared the same border with the tallest rock in the area. The building made up of a one story duplex, painted in white colour with two other one storey chalets, also painted in white stood very close to the decorated sculptured rock. The French window frame was all painted in red, with tinted reflecting glass.
All the structure occupied a large expense of land, almost the biggest on the close with tall palm trees adoring the compound and frontage. Parked neatly in an orderly outline around the carports were some of the most expensive state of the art cars, rare to see around the country, in fact around the African continent.

At exactly 6:05pm the massive gates of the controversial mansion on the Close suddenly glided open remotely and three creatures drove out of the rich compound inside a silver color BMW rear wheel coupe. One of the creatures was a human being and the other two were beast. The human among them as expected was on the steering wheel while his two breed of fiercely looking Doberman dogs gawked suspiciously at everything around them from the back seat. The car was roofless; the fresh breeze of the day enticed the three occupants inside the stylish car as they cruised away in its flashy alloy wheels. The young stocky looking guy on the wheel was a Nigerian in his late thirties. Simply dressed in a white sleeveless Danshiki, (Sleeveless caftan) with his bloodshot eyes hidden behind a dark framed designer sun-glass.
He wore a contented smirk on his round face with a goatee beard and confidently smoked a weed as he rock himself slowly to the track ‘ Beast of No Nation’’ by Fela Anikulapho Kuti, from the heavily loaded Pioneers sound system inside the car. The character on the wheel dragged his thick weed and occasionally took a swing from the chilled bottled of EVA water beside him. He drove towards the fortified gates of the close confidently with the weed held boldly to the view of the men by the barricades. The four armed men by the gate stared at the coming car and it occupants, stood suddenly alert and then smiled broadly at the young Nigerian with a bow. Their eyes stared admiringly at the car and the dogs, then knowingly at the weed in his hand. Two of them rushed to the barricade and quickly lifted up the bar with a bow.

The character on the wheel grinned at them, threw a bundle of fifty naira notes at their leader, engaged gears and then slowly cruised away, leaving the four men to gape at the money, and then suspiciously at each other. Man and money. Money controls men. The character on the wheel concluded, grinned, dragged his smoke, sipped his drink, and then cruised away with his watchful dogs.


********

The character inside the Chrysler Cross Fire notoriously known as Smoke in cybercrime world made a U-turn ten minutes later and cruised steadily on a street along Maitama district, another high brow neighborhood in Abuja. He finally stopped in front of a brown bungalow with beautiful arranged flowers adoring the fence. A uniformed guard by the gate sighted the car, the man a well built hard faced guy threw open the gates, then smiled at Smoke with his eyes warily on the dogs.

“Evening sir” He greeted, his eyes never leaving the two beasts at the back seat.

Smoke nodded at him, then drove straight to a carport and parked close to three other posh cars. He lit a stick of Marlboro cigarette and casually stepped out of the car followed by his brutes. He grinned at them as the two dogs dutifully flanked him on both side. He parted them on their heads, and the female dog obediently jumped onto his car bonnet and mounted a sentry on the car and the surrounding. He grinned approvingly at the dog, then sauntered towards the main building followed by the male dog. The uniformed guard at the gate stood transfixed, his eyes gaped uncomfortably at the dogs and their master.

The well furnished bungalow with its multi colour sofas and white painted wall hosted three people at that moment. They were all members of the Free-Hands, the most notorious cyber-crime gang in Nigeria, and also one of the most organized cyber-crime bands in Africa. Two male and a female, among them a tall, slim guy with a babyish face in his early thirties, dressed in a blue jeans and a multi-coloured designer shirt by Tom Ford with a brown half-cut Swede boot. The slim guy called Skinny busy himself on the internet on a silver color Apple laptop, sip whisky from a glass, drag his cigarette and then carried on with what he was doing on the net. The other guy, a massively built guy with a clean shaved face and a glittering shaved head that sat on his broad shoulder like a trophy was also in his early thirties and dressed in blazers over blue jeans and rich loafers’ shoes. He was known as John Bull. He had his attention glued to a big plasma TV on the wall with rapt attention to the football match going on. Skinny, crossed his legs and stared up at the third figure inside the room, the extremely beautiful Lizzy, the female character with a stylish breaded African hair style and a slim shape like a model and presently dressed fashionably in an expensive designer dress, embroiled with African fabrics. They called her Lizzy, short for Elizabeth, but well known as Franca by security operatives across the country.

She paused in her browsing from her expensive iphone from her position on a double multi colour sofa, re-crossed her long legs on a high heels gladiator designer shoe and joined the others as they glanced towards the glass door which at that moment remotely slides aside and the familiar outline of a dog strolled in. They all stared uncomfortably at the brute as the sniffing Doberman sniffed suspiciously around. Satisfied, the dog picked a corner close to the entrance and dropped itself into a squatting position. Smoke with a cigarette still burning on his lips, casually sauntered into the setting few seconds later. He paused by his dog and scrutinized the three other human figures in the room from his dark glasses. They all stared back at him quietly and stole individual glances at the dog. He wandered into the room and dropped his stocky frame into a two setter sofa close to the dog and stared at the three. He piled off his dark shades and smiled broadly at all of them with his bloodshot eyes.

“ So, wetin dey happen? Which Flame dey burn? Smoke finally asked with a deep commanding voice in pidgin. They all remained silent and Lizzy finally smiled up boldly at him.

“ Na Victor, e be like say dem don grab am for Money House…”

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Different tales for different folks, so goes the old English saying. But for one to really grab the practical meaning of this old aged phrase all one needed to do is to compare the unfortunate story of Ken Edward Solomon, the Wall Street financial whiz kid faraway in America who imprudently suckered himself cheaply into the hands of some smart Nigerian internet fraudsters and that of Colour, the struggling Nigerian activist who also innocently lured himself into a trap; a fraudulent mess that could like Ken Solomon tarnish and damage his reputation. Though these two incidences happened in different environment, millions of miles apart, but how often do we humans sometime imagine how things natural happened around us; things that might be far apart, but come to cross each other’s path through some mysterious circumstances, bringing them to match an inexplicable puzzle.

Take for instance the story of Ken Solomon whose quest for more money blindly led him into the trap of one of the most organized professional cyber-crime syndicates in Africa and merged it with the story of Colour whose quest for funding money for his NGO also led him into the ambush of the law and into the activities of the same notorious cyber-crime syndicate. These two stories of two different individuals in two different cities across the world coincidentally happened within the same time frame. And things presently seemed to be happening so fast in their individual lives, threatening their dreams and reputation and the world appears to be crumbling fast under their feet.

Preview the case of Colour. What he naturally thought was a minor issue has suddenly grown out of proposition. He could not believe that he was still detained in the hands of the EFCC agents and presently the two operatives, Mai-Coins and Etim were still interrogating him with their tough corny detective voices. They had long took down his statement and then bluntly told him that he was under arrest under the suspicious that he might know something about a wanted female notorious fraudster. Etim at the moment now produced a photograph of the said lady and demanded with his tough voice. “Where is she?”

Colour stared in astonishment at the familiar face of his beautiful breaded passenger, and shrieked back with shock. “ I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know where she is at the moment,” He replied and then stared suspiciously at the picture.
“So you know her?” Mai-Coins asked from his corner and lit a cigarette, and then passed the pack to the shocked looking Colour who picked a stick, lit up and then blew smoke across his face as he nodded his head silently.

“So, she is the same lady we are both looking for, I believe?” Mai-Coins continued with a grin. “Why don’t you help us, so we can help you? He threw in his bait.

Colour stared thoughtfully at him, dragged his smoke and then grinned back at him.

“Honestly, I wish I could, officer. I wish I know where she is right now. I would have done anything to help you.” He responded amidst cloud of smoke and wished that he was not really part of this mess.

“ This issue is very simple, just take us to her and I promise that we will protect you” Mai-Coins proposed with a serious look.

“ So you guys still don’t believe me. Honestly, I don’t know this lady from Adam. I told you we met each other not long ago. Believe me officers that is the absolute truth”

Colour responded with his trademark smile. He was grateful that the bully Inspector who had coerced him here was not part of those interrogating him at the moment. He had the feelings that the interrogation might have been rough and tougher. He was a frequent witness to his country’s police brutality against innocent suspects, and Inspector Mutum, he guessed looks every inch like one of the famous brutal police interrogators across the country. All the same, anything could happen from these two young operatives, although they both looked smart, civilized, and educated; but at the same time they had a tough looking quality. He cautioned himself, his smile still visible on his face.

“So you want us to believe you?” Etim demanded mockingly. “Then let me tell you.” He paused and glared at him, and then continued. “We don’t. We don’t believe all this bull-shit you are spilling out. Why should we believe you? On what ground?” he questioned angrily.

“Base on the fact that I don’t know anything about this lady and her syndicate. Again, on the ground that these two gentlemen here have both exonerated me from this whole thing. They have told you they don’t know me. And I have also told you that I have never set my eyes on any of them apart from today, right here in this place.” Colour narrated confidently.

The two operatives exchanged a secret glance, and then Etim walked up to Victor and led him into a separate room. They emerged few minutes later with a mischievous grin now visible on Victor’s face. Both Colour and Mr. Richmond stared curiously at him but detective Mai-Coins who knew what took place grinned and dragged on his cigarette.
“So what do you say to our proposal? Are you ready to help us, to help you or what?” The detective repeated his eyes on Colour.

“Honestly officer, I have told you nothing but all I knew about this woman. Believe me I don’t know anything about this people.”
Colour replied, his smile reappeared after he made up his mind that he was not going to allow the two operatives to intimidate or coaxed him to own up to what he knew nothing about.

“ Is that?” Mai-Coins asked with a surprised look. He grinned and then turned to Victor who had a faraway look on his face and a hidden grin.
“Okay Victor, now tell us the truth about this gentlemen here. Remember nothing, but the whole truth.”
Colour and Richmond stared curiously at Victor who was still busy staring into space thoughtfully.

“ Yes, Victor. We are listening. Who did you say this guy is?” Etim demanded loudly, breaking Victor’s thoughts.
Victor suddenly grinned broadly and then stared hesitantly at a perplexed looking Colour.

“He is a Flame, officer” he confidently blurted out.

“ And who is a Flame, Victor? Etim pushed on.

“ A Flame is part of the Smoke. I am a Flame; the gentleman here is also a Flame. We are all part of the Free-Hands and close to Smoke.” Victor responded as if he was reciting a verse.

Colour and Mr. Richmond both gazed surprisingly at Victor. Richmond suddenly frowned up at Colour suspiciously while the two detectives nodded their heads approvingly and grinned away.

“Come officer, believe me, this guy is talking rubbish. What is a Flame? What smoke?” Colour finally managed to blurt out quickly, and his smile disappeared fast from his face.

“That is exactly what we want to know from you, unless if you’re now ready to help us. Think about it. You have enough time to do that. We are not in a hurry.”

Detective Mai-Coins finally said, grinned then led him into the same room Etim and Victor had entered earlier. What is the flame and smoke? Colour kept wondering as he dropped his frame into a brown wooded chair inside the well secured room. An interrogation room he quickly guessed. His eyes took on the furniture in the room, made up a desk, and two wooded chairs. The only window inside the room was high up, close to the concrete ceiling with two strong iron bars wedded from the outside. A white ceiling fan swigged noiselessly from it hook. The room was bright with light from a white fluorescent tube.

Detective Mai-Coins stared thoughtfully at him, grinned and then sauntered to the door.

“Remember if you refused to make up your mind in the next few minutes, then I have no option than to transfer you to headquarters.” He said, dropped his pack of Rothmans cigarette on the desk and left him alone inside the room to decide.

Colour picked up a fresh stick of cigarette, lit up and sat thoughtfully on his seat. God, what should I do? He wondered, and questioned himself why he had allowed his judgment to lead him to this cheap trap. What would people think or say when the news of his arrest finally breaks out? What would happen to his hard earned reputation as a sincere patriotic Journalist and activist? Right now what he could see was that his reputation and name was about to get enmeshed in a crime he knew nothing about. Why should God have allowed something like this to happen to a struggling guy like him? How would his aged mother react to the terrible news of his arrest? And what would his younger ones think or do? What about the dreaded court? How on earth will he get the money to engage the service of a good lawyer to defend him in this hard time? All these and other questions raced through his mind that afternoon as he quietly analyzed his situation.

Finally, he lit another stick of cigarette, puffed out slowly and cracked his brain. Should he keep worrying? Would worries solve his problem? This thing had already happened. What is the next solution? He asked himself. Every problem is a challenge. There must be a solution somehow. He suddenly concluded, already thinking up one. He was a full blooded Nigerian and this happens to be his country. So, why not flow with the law of nature? He reasoned. What was that wonderful lines from the Taoist again? He grinned, remembering one of his favorite philosophical lines.

“ There is no point in anyone doing anything to interfere with what nature has set in motion. Sooner or later, everything will return to its opposite. No matter how unbearable a situation is, it will soon become better. No matter how pleasant a situation is, it will soon fade away.”
He quoted the lines aloud, and grinned thoughtfully. God! I just hope this problem will soon return to its opposite. He prayed silently, as the door suddenly pushed opened and detective Mai-Coins stepped quietly into the room.

“ How far, you don ready for us” The detective asked jovially in pidgin, and shut the door behind him with a smile.

“ Yes, I don ready.” Colour replied with a broad smile.

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What only few people knew was that Ken Solomon spends most of his cherished weekends at his home town of San-Francisco, one of the fifty states that made up the United States of America. San Francisco many have agreed is a strikingly beautiful city, famous for its Golden gates, hills and bridges with sea on its three sides. According to reports in the first century, San Francisco was one of the friendliest cities in the country with magnificent parks, schools, and abundant supply of family house. According to information by the popular economy magazine, The Economist, the city is home to some of the richest people in America. Almost seventy percent of its population is detail to be single. Some are even of the popular opinion that it has more dogs than children.
The city has also been described as part of the vertical America, a land of soaring skyscrapers and high density living. It is said to have a mixture of blue bloods, gays and the Dot.com millionaires and ageing hippies’ population. Again, it is assumed to host one of the country’s biggest concentrations of homeless people and also known as one of the most liberal states in America. San Francisco is also acknowledged as the city of political activists and pacifists. In fact, it saw some of the biggest public protest against the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, in which Ken Solomon was a strong financial and active anti-war supporter. He and some of his rich and influential townsmen and women had organized and bankrolled most of the protests. Thus instigating the other educated folks who were mostly graduates and postgraduates residence.
A noticeable feature of the population in San Francisco is the educated people and their democratic attitudes. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan had really upset their intellectual ways of reasoning and pitched them against the supporters of the ‘wasteful’ wars who were mostly Republicans and supporters of President Bush. The educated and mostly democratic San-Franciscans had trooped out in large number to express their displeasure with all the concocted lies being forced on the American public, including the high rate of American soldiers daily maimed in the wars. They had fought intellectually, using the press and other peaceful medium form of expression to expose the deceits in the wars. At the end they gallantly organized the biggest most successful public protest against the war.
Ken Solomon being a staunch pacifist hated violence as much as he hated wars and those perpetrating them. He had this strong conviction that the mysterious creator of all the beautiful natural things on earth did not just created them to be destroyed by some selfish men and women. He was always happy whenever he had the chance to contribute financially, spiritually and physically to anything that has to do with peace and safeguarding the earth.

Presently, he had decided to sleeked away from his penthouse in New York and come straight to his Palladian style villa with a terrace that overlook the Mediterranean. In the very house he had always found peace, after long hours of calculations, strategizing and hard thinking. It was in this same place he had first met, talked and dinned with the woman that entrusted him with the first million dollars he ever held in his life and what was to become the watershed in the long adventurous story of his pet company Shares.com Although all these had been almost six years ago, but one thing that still baffles him till date was how he was later to become the owner of the property which was ranked as one of the most spectacular antique villas in Baltimore –San Francisco and also one of the most beautiful in America. This was something he had never dream of in his frequent fantasies of those days. And today, it is not only part of a dream, it is a reality.
Now here he was, a Mr. Landlord, inside his exquisite furnished house, thinking his ass-off at this late hour while most of his other rich neighbors were busy fucking their wives, mistresses, girlfriends or boyfriends, depending on their taste or probably resting their rich heads in their expensive magnificent beds. Ken Solomon imagined, now dressed in a green combat chinos with a white unbuttoned silky short sleeve. He sipped a Carlsberg Pilsner beer, stared at the can, and then stared thoughtfully away at the shining stars and moon from his bedroom terrace.
His house was one of those rare Palladian style villas with a stylish terrace and a living room that opens into the terrace. The walls were painted in clear white with the furnishing done in silk draperies and masterfully crafted antique settees, sofas, topped console chairs and low tables, all painted in shining black colour; thus giving the room a kind of black-and-white setting. Even his bedroom was branded in the same two colors. The house has big rooms with Jacobean plaster ceilings and 19th century Persian carpets and a big oak paneled piano also painted in black. This was where KS derived most of his happiness, this after playing tune after tunes of his self composed inspirational songs. He was in reality a good and gifted pianist with passion for Beethoven and Mozart, two musical ‘prophets’ as he called them that were ever sent to mankind. He loved and admired their musical genius, and some of their erratic characters. So he had groomed his musical pattern and style of playing after the two great pianists.

KS always loved doing the best whenever it comes to doing anything. The question he had always asked himself when embarking on anything was: Why do the least, when you can always do the best? Part of doing and owing the best was his abundantly stuffed library with a curving staircase and black rolls of painted shelves housing some of the best classical books in the world. From Robinson Crusoe’s Dafoe, A Tale of two cities, The Last of the Mohicans, The Three Musketeers, The Sorrows of Satan, The Arabian Night, Animal Farm, 1984, The Prince, The Art of War, The Auto-biography of Benvenito, Gulliver Travel, Shogun, Root, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, The Man Died by Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi’s African Night Entertainment, some collection of James Hadley Chase and other world classics, including of course, all the various classical religious books on earth, from the Christians Holy Bible, the sacred Torah, books on Buddhism, and Hindu, including the Muslims mighty Koran.
Again, among the beauty of his breathtaking villa was his presidential style master bedroom with a French door that opens to a terrace marked with sculpted balusters and thick faceted terracotta columns with a secret facade closed for privacy and to also eliminate noise. Apart from KS, two other trusted aides inhabited the house with him. The soft-spoken Mr. Patrick, his butler of many years who also served as his chef and housekeeper. A combination KS handsomely paid him every two weeks for. The other occupant was Mario, his Mexican-American gardener, Chauffeur, bodyguard and close friend. KS also makes sure that he received his weekly wages handsomely on time. The three of them, including his two dogs Enigma and Zika made up the inhabitants of the ‘Villa de Peace’ as its first owner had rightly named the place, and KS had retained the name after spending his first few hours in the magnificent house few years ago. The villa was quite that night with occasional sound of waves from the sea and the ceremonious songs from owls and other night birds residing or on transit within the tree lined vast estate. The moon on this particular night was still fully awake and glowing freely to those who were still out of bed, thinking, planning or analyzing the cumbersome task of living.

Ken Solomon, his athletic frame resting firmly on the sculptured baluster ray of his terrace, stared thoughtfully into the night, his mind strategizing on how or when was the best time to storm Nigeria. His dogs flanked him by both side as he cracked his brain into the night. He was certain every other member of the house were sleeping by now. The gates were securely locked and electrified by this hour to fend off invaders. A security measure that the fearless KS had finally approved after two war supporters had one night stole into the villa during one of his numerous isolated weekends. Luckily for him, he had spent the night playing poker and drinking mugs of beer with some of his childhood friends at the Fishermen’s Wharf, one of his favorite hangouts in San-Francisco. Mario had professionally disarmed one of the armed men and used him as a shade against his equally armed colleague who had angrily blasted his gun, splitting his partner brains across the room. Mario had shot him straight, knocking him unconscious on the Persian rug, and inflected a serious wound on his trigger-happy hand. He then phoned Ken Solomon who quietly excused himself from the game he was playing and then called the police.

The incident had happened shortly after their well-organized and adequately publicized protest against the Iraqi war. However, this did not dampen his spirit nor scared him from further contributing financially and participating in rallies and protests against wars and other earth destructive plans. In fact, KS knew that the government was not happy with the physical and financial supports he was pumping into most of the anti-war non- government organizations across the country and his growing popularity among republicans and democrats alike. Therefore, the attack did not come as a surprise to him. He knew they would eventually come after him. But, he was certain spiritually that no one really dies before his or her time. Just the way his parent had both died in the ghastly auto accident that claimed their lives when he was just three years old. He had grown up with two kind foster couple who had nursed and groomed him to be a self dependant man, despite the health challenges and financial crisis that tormented their lives till the end. But death had also claimed them at the appropriate time. He reasoned and smiled broadly to himself.

He had inherited no ‘ dime’ from them, not because they were penny-pinching, no, the reality was that they had no dime to give him not after spending all those tormented years in various Health Care Centres. The only valuable thing they left him was an old Grandfather Wall clock he had pawned off immediately to run away from poverty in Baltimore, the very day their mortgaged house went back to the Mortgage Company. He was then sixteen but claimed eighteen in New York to get a job as a clerk in a Casino, and it was there that he saw it all. The good, bad and ugly side of money and apart from these three elements, he also met some of the best smart criminals in New York during those unforgettable years. He grinned as he remembered his days at some of the places life had ferried him to without his consent and the many escapes. He smiled and brooded over some of the tricksters and smart conmen he had come across. Smart men like Sam, the Cash, Sneaky Billy, Joe Shine, Neat Charley and Breezy John, not forgetting sweet suede talking women like Vera, the ‘sleepy eyes’ and Agatha Smiles. These were all smart conmen and women his path had encountered in his turbulent years and all of them had left an impact on him with the many secrets they taught him in the ‘art of war’ of survival as a youngster in the hard streets of New York.
Some of these lessons later helped him scaled through college on scholarship, and equally shielded him from all the troubles, battles and worries on Wall Street when he first came in as a novice. And right now they were part of the elements he must unleash on the criminals who stole his money and the authority who certainly would unleash their fangs any moment. He reasoned, sipped his beer and smiled broadly.
However, so far, he was happy that he had been able to stay above water, away from the government and their charges, blackmails and attacks. Though he had no doubt in his mind that the top men and women in Washington still have their curious eyes and inching fingers not too far away from him. Right now, he knew he could fall into their anxious pews through the financial mess he had suddenly found himself; unless he could think fast and quickly find a way out. If not, then the dreaded frame up charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion would be their next streak of attack.

Ken Solomon sipped from his can beer again, stared thoughtfully into the sky, and then sauntered back to his antique resting sofa, followed by his loyal dogs. He dropped his frame, and then silently wrapped a weed from a silver box. He lit up some sweet-smelling incense from an electric incense appliance and set the smoke on fire. He took a soft drag, inhaled and exhaled and blew the curved smoke across his face thoughtfully. He stretched forward from his seat, picked another can of beer from a cool vacuum flask on a side stool. He was on his fifth can from the pack of six. He was already feeling high, the smoke taking its spot in his body, making his mind more focus and alert. He realized that his thoughts were now flowing freely as many torrents of questions raced through his mind. What was the best thing to do? How to do it? When to do it? All these raced through his brainpower as he whistled to his dogs and parted them obediently on their heads.
Should he call a press conference and break the news to the world? Make a call to some influential friends in Washington and inform them about the fraud? Call his attorney, tell him the news over cups of coffee and couple of beer, and then finally declare bankruptcy? No, all these were negative solutions, he reasoned. They were not dangerous and adventurous ideas; rather they were self-crucifying suggestion and solutions that could place him at the mercy of his enemies. He cautioned himself. Why call a press conference and foolishly exposed his ass to the world to laugh at and make jest of? On the other hand, why inform his so-called friends in Washington when anyone of them could turn out to be a Judas?

He quickly reasoned, mentally remembering one of Niccolo Machiavelli’s principles in The Prince, one of his favorite books. “This is to be asserted in general of men, that they will offer you their blood, property, life and children when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you” This line was one of Ken Solomon’s much loved Machiavelli doctrine. Stored permanently inside his memory, he could recite the line off head even when woken from a deep sleep. He cherished the principle and always used it whenever he found himself in a tight situation like this. No, he will not call any friend in Washington and opened his financial anatomy to them, the FBI and the other curious anti-fraud boys to operate upon. This alternative was foolish and cowardly. He concluded.

Among Ken Solomon’s prized possessions was a Bose music sound box; A six CD changer with a 4 jewel cube speakers and a hideaway bass mode. The box stood perfectly on a transparent glass with black painted shining frame. KS had thoughtfully distributed the speakers across his most frequent part of the house. He had done the distribution himself on one of his frequent visits to the villa. He always enjoyed the effect of the music whenever he snorts in a disk and played some of his favourite songs from various world artists. So, on this night as he dragged his weed, sipped his drink, and played with his dogs, he picked up a remote control nearby and clicked on a button suddenly filling the room with the soft classical music of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

He suddenly wished he could increase the volume of the music to the fullest just as he was doing everything this night. Enjoying his life to the fullest before the troubles come crashing openly. He wished he could loud the music and let the soft sound diminish his problems. He suddenly wished that he was already in Africa where he learnt people have the liberty to raise the volume of their music and blast their sorrows and pains away. However, this was Baltimore and still part of the United States where people must sacrifice their enjoyment for the happiness of others. Well, maybe it was better he play his music softly not to wake up some of his rich neighbors and arouse their curiosities on what he was doing in his Villa in San Francisco on a working day of the week? This was something they all knew he never do, as if they owned the villa with him and San Francisco was not actually his state of origin. He thought and grinned.

Apart from Patrick, Mario and his dogs, the only other people that knew he was in San Francisco that day was old Mr. Brown, the popular newspaperman at the airport where he had stopped to pick some newspapers and magazines from his stand as usual whenever he sneaked into town. The others were Harry and Joe, the two airport staff that always cleared his luggage and Ma Gloria, the old and always suspicious florist who had a florist shop close to the arrival hall of the busy airport. These four people he could not fully trust not to report him to the authorities when the need arise. But Mario, Patrick and his dogs he could rely on, since they all relied on him for their daily sustenance. He nevertheless refused to tell anyone else his current financial dilemma. So, apart from himself and the faceless fraudsters somewhere in Africa no one else knew about his imprudent predicament. So he had thought and concluded and slowly decreased the volume of his music set.

The instrument cut softly into the silent night, filling it with a soft soul refining melody. KS dragged on his smoke, sipped his beer and silently analyzed the third alternative. Was it safe to call his attorney and confess his mistakes to him, mistakes that the state might quickly interpret as a crime? Should he call this mortal like him and surrender his fate in his hands? Giving him and his other zealous partners in law the opportunity to exploit his remaining scanty money in trying to defend him against much stronger, richer and powerful state funded attorneys and ambitious prosecutors.
No, no, no, he exclaimed loudly, and then pushed himself up from his seat. He made his way back to the baluster and then stared once again thoughtfully into the night. No, he will not call any lawyer, not now, maybe later. He concluded on this, dragged his smoke, sipped his drink and then stared up to the sky. His two dogs by now had both taken different positions not far from him. This was part of his loads, and he must be ready to carry them alone for now. Maybe shout for help when the loads become unbearable, but definitely not now. He started the whole shit alone, so he should be ready to tolerate the stink as well.

Why quickly confess to his attorney that he had actually committed a crime for money launder and tax evasion when he still believes there is possible alternative to his problem? So what exactly should he do? He questioned himself silently as he dragged his smoke and sipped his drink. Simple – go after his money and the faceless smart crooks now probably blowing it freely somewhere in Nigeria. He finally concluded and his rich worried face suddenly creased into a smirk. He nodded his head happily to the music on the background and slowly twisted his body to the melodious tune. Yes, he will be safer in Nigeria and free to go after his money. He assured himself and sauntered back to his seat. He whistled softly, parted his dogs on their heads, picked the last can of Carlsberg and popped it opened with a happy grin.

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Alfred Richmond the middle-aged British business man was not a happy man at the moment. His brown eyes kept staring dumbfounded at his Nigerian business associates and at the two fraud detectives who all stared back at him quietly. He was still confused and dazzled to bring himself to comprehend what appears to be the reality about the business deals his company had been pursuing in the past eight months. No! This cannot be real. He almost shouted aloud. It suddenly downed on him that this was actually a glaring hoax after spending his huge money, energy and time. He was still finding it difficult to believe that the much-expected day to finalize the deal was actually a fraud.

The programme today was supposed to be a happy day after the ceremonious final handover of the company he had invested in. All these after settling the last payment; something he was prepared to do with the crispy dollar bills in his briefcase. However, right now, things appears to be going crazy in the wrong direction. He suddenly felt himself losing his stable breath. He felt silly and stupid and at the same time embarrassed with the situation he suddenly found himself. What the hell is he doing inside a small stuffy office like this? Instead of the tastefully furnished cozy looking office with a large mahogany desk and a beautiful looking female figure who was supposed to be his secretary seated with a broad smile on a sneaky looking visitor’s chair. All these had been displayed to him on the internet, on brochures, newsletters and exquisite pictures. He remembered and frowned up.

“What the hell is going on here?” He finally summoned his gut and shouted out at his Nigerian associates with a perplexed look, his two hands flying confusingly at their direction.

The top member of the Free-Hands stared silently at him and Victor finally gave him a wide grin and then stared thoughtfully away in a trance look. He could not bring himself to believe that he was finally in the hands of the law. What he didn’t know was that Mai-Coins on noticing that he had ferried Mr. Richmond into the DG’s office, quickly alerted Etim and together they had rushed into an elevator that brought them straight to the top office where they met him and his expatriate friend seated coolly on one of the reception sofas going through some documents while the female secretary oblivious to what was happening engaged herself on her laptop as the two visitors chatted away.

The plan that day actually was for Victor to bring Richmond into the Director General’s office to give him the confidence that he was a staff of the agency working directly under the DG’s office and then engage Richmond in a tactical conversational delaywhile Lizzy who was supposed to be around meet them and usher them into one of the secluded offices inside the building where they will dispose him of the last payment he was suppose to make before signing the MOU that would give him monopoly of the new business. All these were plans long arranged by the Free-Hands in conjunction with some faceless criminal elements working as staff of the NPA, but in actual sense they were shadowy members of the notorious cybercrime syndicate.

But the eagle-eyed EFCC team led by Mai-Coins had sauntered into the office arena few minutes later and confronted them as they chatted over the documents in their hands. The two anti-fraud agents had first stared curiously at them and then engaged the secretary in a conversation. She told them the visitors led by the black guy told her in pidgin they were here to see the DG who she explained was not on seat, but the Nigerian said no problem they will wait inside the reception for their contact, someone they expect to direct them on the next thing to do. He had further explained to her they were at the NPA to submit their bid for a business they both have interest. It was a normal request so she had allowed them to stay while she engaged herself with her job. The EFCC agents not satisfied with her explanation strolled up to them from the glass partitioned office where they could see Victor and Richmond as they discussed.

‘’ Good afternoon gentlemen, yes, can we help you?’’ Mai-Coins threw the question aloud and stared suspiciously at Victor and his foreign friend.

Victor stared quietly at the two agents and his mind instantly told him he was in a mess. But being a confident conman, he smiled up broadly at the two agents and extended his hand for a handshake as Mr. Richmond stared confusingly at the drama, he became more confused as the female secretary also stepped in and stared suspiciously at them.

‘’ Afternoon, yes, we are here to finalize our business with the DG, so we are strategizing while we wait for further directive from one of our partners,’’ He confidently lied to them with his broad smile.

‘’ But the DG is not on seat and what business could this be that has to do with the DG alone?’’ Mai-Coins asked with a grin after shaking him.

‘’ What is going on, Victor? Where is the chairman? Who are these people?’’ Alfred Richmond now more suspicious, suddenly chipped in from his seat, his briefcase held tightly in his hands.

Then the bubble busted and Victor unable to wriggle his way out of the torrent of questions that followed suddenly found himself and Richmond under arrest and from there they were both ferried down into the EFCC office for more interrogation.

“ Hey! Common Victor, talk to me. What the hell is this?” Alfred presently demanded once again in his conservative tone inside the secluded office of the anti-fraud agency.

Victor gazed at him with his wide smile and then responded. “ I am sorry, Mr. Richmond, that is the truth..” he finally confessed. “But don’t worry, everything will be okay- trust me” He added in his confident Nigerian manner.

“What! I don’t understand. You mean all the eight months financial sacrifice, the energy and time have all been based on false transactions? No, no, I can’t believe what you’re telling me.” Alfred muttered, shuffling his feet angrily.

‘’ Hello, Gentlemen, I think the show is over.”

Detective Mai-Coins suddenly interjected from his seat. He was getting bored with the sluggish result he was getting from the two. The long hours him and Etim had used listening and watching the two was long enough to get them somewhere in their investigation. He reasoned. At least they had laid down the truth to the Briton, told him the hard truth of the false fraudulent transactions he had been conned into by a notorious transnational internet fraudsters.
The crooks had actually lured him to invest on a bogus privatized company and succulent shares acquisitions. And luckily for him they now have under their custody, right beside him a top member of the notorious syndicate. Unlike many others who had never been fortunate to ever meet their dupers face to face. He thought Mr. Richmond ought to be grateful to be in this auspicious position. He lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully at the White man. Why and how was he able to smuggled hundreds of thousands of American dollars into the country? Definitely it was an action that was against the financial laws of the country. When and how did he meet his Nigerian associates? And how long has he been dealing with them? These and other questions were some of the burning questions he wanted answered at the moment, not continue look of surprise and long grammatical speech.

“So, back to the question of the large amount of dollars we found on you, how and why did you bring this huge sum of cash into the country?
And like I mentioned, contravening the money laundering laws of our country.” Mai-Coins continued, pushed back his chair and stared out of the window thoughtfully.

Alfred Richmond stared unbelievable at everyone in the room. He was really sweating and totally confused. Nobody told him that bringing such large amount of money into the country was illegal in the first place. All he knew was that it was easy for him to bribe his way through the Airports. What about the other millions of dollars that the crooks had siphoned from him? What is the law saying about this and the many lies and deceits? Could this lead to his arrest and subsequent trial by the Nigerian authority for violating the country’s law? Why the hell had he refused to involve his attorney in the first place? All these questions raced through his mind as he stared dumbfounded at all of them.

‘’I came here on a legitimate business; I am a foreign investor for God sake! I came here to invest my money, my hard earned money. What is going on? I don’t understand?’’ he finally drowned out in his conservative British tone, holding his head in his palms thoughtfully.

‘’So you assumed, but the reality is you have been conned off your money and the investment deal is all fake. They are all 419ers, all member of a notorious cybercrime syndicate here in Africa. Sorry, Mr. Richmond that is the reality.’’ Mai-Coins told him from the window and sauntered back to his seat his eyes jarring at Victor.

‘’ So Victor, where is Smoke?’’ He asked, lit a cigarette and smiled up at him.
There came a sudden knock on their door at that moment. They all stared inquiringly at each other before detective Etim sauntered over to the door and demanded in a loud voice.

“Yes, who is there? Sorry we are having a meeting”

“Open, Inspector Mutum. I have a visitor for you”

They heard the loud bully voice of the Inspector. Etim turned to Mai-Coins who first stared thoughtfully at the door, then nodded to his subordinate who slowly opened the door and gave way to the curious looking Inspector and his visitor as they stepped into the room with the Inspector taking up the rear. Etim shut back the door, re-locked it and stared more curiously at the visitor.
Colour quickly took in his environment and instinctively sensed that something was wrong. He suddenly felt as if he was under some kind of arrest and maybe incarceration from here. He concluded, and tried to analyze the situation as his eyes took on the air-conditioned office and the strange looking people around him. And so far his eyes had not seen any female figure that look like the mysterious Franca in the room, neither could his eyes remembered ever seeing any of the male figures staring curiously at him, apart from the corny looking Inspector he had met just few minutes ago.
Actually, his mind had told him something was not right immediately the bully Inspector nudged him into the lobby where they had waited patiently side by side for one of the busy elevators to ferry them upstairs. He noticed that the tight faced police officer had kept staring distrustfully at his clothes, his shoes and his ID card. In addition, the ride to the top office in one of the elevators had been a silent one. The Inspector did not attempt to return his ID and the bag containing his laptop which the policeman had also confiscated on their way upstairs, and Colour had deviously refused to ask for it, certain that he will get back his property at the right time. They had rode up to one of the long corridors on the top floor and the Inspector had grinned in his wolfish style and then slowly prodded him into his entrapment. Colour at once knew he was in a trap, a trap he had innocently drove into. He reasoned and then stared curiously around him, wary of everything that was going on in the room.

“Yes, Inspector, who did you say is our visitor?” He heard one of the young looking men in blazer asked jovially.
Inspector Mutum stared distrustfully first at Colour before answering. “I think he is now your suspect, you are free to ask him all you want. I have finished my part.” He told Mai-coins who had asked him the question.

The other eyes in the room suddenly turned and gaped at the shocked looking Colour who stared back surprisingly at all of them.

“But, I am sure he is one of them. He told me he was here on business and to see our female suspect.”

Inspector Mutum continued, happy that his statement had made the desired impact. He then turned and stared suspiciously at the expatriate and his Nigerian associate. He swiftly had the desire to know what exactly the EFCC operatives were discussing with these two suspicious looking individuals, especially the foreigner who appears scared and confused. He sensed whatever they were discussing with him must be something big, probably involving large sum of money. He summarily had the desire to be part of the discussion.

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