₦airaland Forum

Alapereketu:
One person don post ham for sale on Amazon

Better take legal steps and sue the person

Christ. Where? Please can you send me the link?

Ishilove:
The semester holidays came and went. Chilo was now in her final year. It seemed like it was just a few weeks back when she was still doing battle with jamb, trying to gain admission into the prestigious UNILAG. Well, she liked to think the university was still prestigious. When it came to flexing and fun, UNILAG was tops. In the other important areas like academics…she couldn’t be too sure, neither was she ready to investigate.

She had decided to relax in her final year. She had been studying very hard for three years, so she believed she deserved some fun. The only challenge was Chilo was reserved and didn’t have too many friends. Apart from Deborah and George, she wasn’t really on friendly terms with her other school mates. She and Deb were polar opposites in nature, hence, while her chubby friend was the live wire of any social gathering, Chilo often preferred to skulk around in the background of things, preferring her own thoughts as company. Since she was bent on taking a much deserved break from excess ‘jacking’, she allowed Deb drag her to social events in and around campus.

Consequently, for the first time in her life, Chilo attended a night club and her right hand woman, Deb made it possible. She had always wondered what people found so fascinating in clubs. Back in her 300 levels, she had hall mates who attended night clubs three times a week. Sometimes four, if they got lucky. The girls would be clad in very tight bum shorts, sheer tops and sky scraper heels that often had Chilo wondering how they were possibly able to walk on such ridiculously high heeled shoes. Then, when they were leaving for their nocturnal club prowls, their laughter and the clackety clack and 'koin koin koin' of their shoes on the cemented floor of the corridor often made such a racket that she would grit her teeth and bury her head underneath her pillow. She vowed to attend a night club one day to know what magic it held for those who frequented there.

When the opportunity presented itself, she didn’t hesitate to take it. A course mate’s older brother was having his Stag Night at Bacchus club in Ikoyi, so he invited all his friends and course mates to come along. On the night of the party, Deborah primped her up, gave her a pair of wicked looking high heeled shoes that had Chilo walking like a duck, and stuffed her into the air conditioned vehicle of a villainous faced young man who looked like he was high on cheap crack. Just where on earth Deb met these kinds of people was beyond her.

They exited the campus premises in a convoy at a few minutes to 12 midnight. As they moved, Chilo was thankful that the windows were tinted because she would be hard pressed explaining why she was coiffed, perfumed, powdered and sitting dandy in a strange vehicle by that time of the night to her fellowship members if on their way back from night prep, they happened to pass by and see her.

To say the whole night was an anti-climax will be an understatement. First, their creepy looking driver turned on the car stereo at full blast and when Chilo complained, he looked at her with an amused glare {if such a thing was even possible} and barked over the boom of the music that Chilo obviously had never been to a club because if she had, she would know that the music at the clubhouse was ten times louder than his stereo.

He was right. The music was so atrociously loud that Chilo felt that her eardrums would surely explode and seep out through her eyes and nose. Then there was the god-awful stench of cigarrete smoke in the premises that permeated everything in the club, humans included.

Thank God I am not asthmatic, she thought in annoyance. I would have had an attack instantly!

The drinks were expensive, the dance steps of the clubbers salaciously scandalous, and the whole atmosphere one of general moral laxity.

However, Chilo decided to try to relax and see if she could try to milk out some form of fun that wouldn’t put her in a compromising position. She tugged self-consciously at the blouse Deborah had squeezed her into and hesitantly made her way to the bar. The garment was a size too small and Chilo felt her bosoms straining against the material. Her friend had abandoned her to her own devices immediately they entered the club and was now in a corner deep in earnest conversation with a young lady with the tightest bum shorts she had ever laid eyes on. The girl looked vaguely familiar. Probably a course or school mate. Chilo dismissed her and moved to the bar.

Perched at a vantage point on a barstool, Chilo surveyed the whole scene through a thick haze of cigarette smoke.

So this is what a club looks like, she thought. There is nothing here nau. Just smoking, drinking and dancing. I wonder how anyone can possibly come here to unwind in the midst of all these noise and rowdiness.

Right there at the bar, she was propositioned by several men but she politely but firmly turned all of them down. As the hours dragged on, Chilo’s boredom increased. Sometime during the night, Deb brought a chapman drink to her.

“How you are enjoying the place?” her companion asked at the top of her voice

“I know what we will gain if we were in church praying to God right now. The way I see it, there might be a lot of marine and witchraft guys and girls looking for virtues to drain!” Chilo replied, also at the top of her voice.

Deb laughed merrily and moved back to the hall.

About an hour later, the DJ started playing a very popular song by Dj Zeez titled ‘Bobby eh’. The drama that followed thereafter was hilarious. A wild eyed guy unceremoniously dragged her off the stool and unto the dance floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw a very harassed looking Deborah sandwiched between three guys who seemed bent on having a feel of her ‘bobby’. Her friend was very, very well endowed.

Bobby eh

o ja mi laya

Ju di eh

O ja mi laya

Bo she shaki eh

Mo mo pe o le fake e

Dj Zeez’s deep voice rumbled through the sound systems and drove the crowd wild. Chilo was forced to use ‘anya akakpo’ {‘strong eyes’, as Mother would say} to extricate herself from the grip of the young man who was twirling her round the dance floor and fled through the mass of wriggling, sweaty bodies to a dark corner of the hall. ‘Fled’ might not be the right word; wobbled away’ might be a more appropriate phrase. The heels of the shoes were so darned high. Those wearing these kind of shoes were inviting an early onset of rheumatism, Chilo fumed, swaying this way and that as she made her clumsy escape. The bulb was out in that corner so no one was exactly keen to go there.

From the corner, she saw her wild eyed dancing partner scanning the crowd for her and ducked behind a large table nailed to the wall. To her surprise, there was a low stool beneath the table. She dragged the stool out and sat on it. She could see everything happening from where she sat without been seen, so she made herself comfortable watching everything happening. Enclosed in the warm darkness, she amused herself until she fell asleep.

She slept for about two hours, waking intermittently when the Deejay changed tracks. Much later, Deb marvelled at how in God’s name she had been able to sleep through the noise and Chilo replied that it was all a function of the mind. She had simply blocked out everything and focused on sweet, blessed sleep.

Someone shaking her roughly by the shoulder dragged her up from a dream about rainbow coloured dancing robots. The robots wore skirts and high heeled shoes and were doing the moonwalk when she was pulled back to wakefulness.

‘’Chi, sleepy sleepy, let’s go jor! I’ve been looking all over for you and our driver is about to leave us.’’ Deb looked impatient and relieved at the same time.

She checked her wristwatch. It was a few minutes past 4am. What a blasted waste of time! If she had attended night vigil instead of this nonsense place, the heavens would probably be shaking by now. Hissing, she picked her shoes which she had tossed aside while she slept and walked barefooted out of the club and into the car park. It wasn’t the same guy who had driven them to the club. It was a different gentleman, one who appeared saner than the first one, but not by much.

The drive back was silent, and in no time they were back at the school gate. Their driver refused to drive into the campus so they were forced to disembark and trudge their weary way back to the hostel on foot. They used their ‘Legedes Benz’, Deb wryly remarked much later.

Chilo didn’t mind ‘legging’. The quietude, the hard tarmac beneath her bare feet {she hadn’t put on those ridiculous shoes since she left the club}, the feel of the cool night breeze against her skin and the calm ambience which was usually absent from the campus during day time suited her just fine. She could have trekked to Timbuktu without feeling it, and when she voiced this out, her companion merely snorted savagely and kept silent.

They didn’t feel any danger so they moved at a leisurely pace. Besides, the Man O’War guys would soon be out for their twice weekly early morning jog so there was nothing to fear.

The girls walked on in silence. Chilo looked around her. Unilag. The Great Akoka. It was hard to believe that very soon, she would be leaving these four walls. Four years, gone in a jiffy . . . she was likely going to graduate among the top five in her department, she had never had any issues with any of her courses; well, almost. Her voltron force had disappointed her badly when she was in her 200 level, scattering at the last minute and leaving her and Deborah stranded. She had carried over GST212 as a result, but she bounced back in 300 levels and passed the course in flying colours. Lesson learnt: never put your trust in man.

God had been good to her academics. After the initial delay from jamb, it had been smooth sailing all the way. She had had no run in with any lecturer, her romance with Paul had not left any bad blood between them and she hadn’t had to struggle extra hard to pass, unlike most of her course mates. God was indeed good. If only the other areas of her life were as smooth and devoid of bad drama as her academics.

They were very close to New Hall where their different hostels were located when they ran into a course mate, a visual arts major named Billy Benson, or BB for short. The incursion of the blackberry phone into the Nigerian market was still a few years away; otherwise with a moniker like ‘BB’, Billy would have been the butt of jokes all over the faculty. For now, he was just plain old Beebee to his friends, which Chilo wasn’t. Which was why when they came across him on his way to his early morning training at the Sports Centre, Chilo casually called out “Hey Billy!”

There was nothing plain about Billy Benson. He was about six feet four inches tall, ebony black in complexion, muscular, broad chested and handsome of features. He was also a notorious borrower. Billy never went anywhere without finding someone to leech from. Most women were taken in by his charms and usually didn’t know when they dipped hands into their pockets and purses to lend him generous sums of money. It was only when they had parted ways with their money did they suddenly wake up from what ever spell he had cast on them. The painful thing about Billy was that he never repaid any money he borrowed. Once you lent BB money, you could kiss the money goodbye because as Deb had once said, the money would ‘’enter voicemail’’: please try again later. Despite this, BB was very popular in the faculty and was very active in his student fellowship.

Chilo had had a crush on him longer than she could remember, so she always went out of her way to exchange pleasantries with him but it never went beyond that because she was well aware of his reputation and she on her own part would rather hang out with someone she stood a chance to gain something from.

Billy scrunched up his nose when they got close to him. Chilo knew they reeked of cigarette smoke; their hair, their clothing and who knew, perhaps their underwear too. He didn’t comment, however, and they exchanged awkward pleasantries. Chilo was very conscious of the fact that she was tramping down Unilag barefooted while Debbie was concerned about the dishevelled state of her hair. Add the stench of cigarettes coming off them in biting waves and you had every cause to be self-conscious around a hunk like BB.

"Hello babes," he responded, a knowing smile on his lips. "I see you are both returning from night vigil. How was service?" He was grinning from ear to ear by now.

The girls laughed louder than was necessary and fell into awkward silence. Deb unconsciously reached up and chastised a strand of wayward weave.

A few minutes of stilted conversation later, he offered to see them the rest of the way, but they declined his offer. It wasn't necessary, they assured him. They were almost at their halls of residence. However, Billy, being the charming fellow he was, insisted on acting as their body guard and the girls found themselves agreeing despite their initial adamant stance. Billy was indeed a very persuasive fellow. Very.

At New Hall, they exchanged phone numbers and every one parted ways.

God bless whoever liked this. The club experience is entirely mine. One hunnerd per cent!!!

Ishilove:
She read the message, faintly amused and flattered. It was a Facebook message. She had decided to open a Facebook account after all, especially as it was all the rage on campus. Her roommate, Jewel, had laughed her to scorn when she had learnt the reason why she had not opened a Facebook account yet.

“Jesus, Chilo, must you always behave like an mgbeke, for God’s sakes? So you feel the devil is taking stock of all mankind’s details through the internet?” Jewel burst out in exasperation.

“Yes o. If only God can open your eyes to the things that are happening in the spiritual realm, then you will understand what I am talking about” Chilo retorted, very confident in her argument. “The devil has planted his agents all over these websites, and they post their pictures all over the internet to trap people. When they enter your life, everything runs down. At the same time, all our records are being kept for usage against us one day.”

Jewel brayed with laughter and began singing D'banj's hit track 'Run Down'.

"Iwo lo ma run down,
Iwo lo ma run down
Gbabe o ma run down!

"Jewel I'm serious. You don't know what is happening out there o."

Jewel hooted some more before asking,

“Wait o, but you have a yahoo account, don’t you?

“Ehen, if I do nko?”

“So you mean to tell me that the devil cannot get your info through your e-mail address? Don’t forget that to own an e-mail address, you will have to register, and everything goes into the same internet that Facebook is on. Hm?”

Chilo didn’t have anything to say to that.

Gradually, Jewel’s arguments won her over, and she soon enough, she created a Facebook account.

The lady I modeled Jewel after was an actual old university roommate of mine, and sadly, she passed last year October. Always smiling, had so many friends, was constantly teasing me about behaving like an old woman even back then because she said I was the only person she knew who went about with a torch in their handbag. I told her one can never know when it will come in handy and she would laugh, clap her hands and scream "Ishiiiiiii!!!"

I hope you are resting in peace, sis...

God bless whoever is liking this old story... Reading some of the posts brought tears to my eyes because the experiences of the main character is so troubling and cringey. I feel like I know her personally and find her humiliation very touching.

I wonder how I came up with this story. I really wonder.