MY JOURNEY IN LIFE.
EPISODE 1
Lying alone on a mas-sive be-d in one of the rooms in my father’s house, thinking about almost everything that was there to be thought of in the world, a weighty thought pressed my spirit so ha-rd ly that it spilled out what I would refer to as a ‘way out’ of the predic@m£nt I happened to find myself in as at that point in time. Having completed my National di-ploma Program, I was unable to secure myself a job for nearly two years before I got a job as a software engineer in a computer firm in Eket, Akwa Ibom State. My monthly pay was good enough for a 20 year old who was still living with his parents and had no bills to pay.
Three years later I resigned from the job and travelled to Ebonyi State in search of greener pastures which I foresaw, but it turned out I was too forward to see forever from yesterday. Everything I had foreseen bec@m£ nightmares and daydreams, and I got very familiar with misery and depression.
When I had it up to my n£¢k I decided to heed the advice of MISH, a singer from Akwa Ibom State who with the lyrics of one of his hit tracks titled; ‘AKWA IBOM AYAYA’ (Akwa Ibom is beautiful) urged Indigenes of the State to return home before they starved to death in another man’s land. My mother was over excited on my arrival, and her warm welcome almost wiped off the memories of my ordeal at Ebonyi for the past eight months, but I refused to forget even the tiniest detail of all. Though my mother was more than willing to house me until forever, I grew very uncomfortable with the idea of still having to live with and be fed by my parents at 24 years of age, so I tried all I could to become independent but it seemed like the more I tried, the more dependent I was.
The first thing I did was to leave home to stay with an Igbo business man friend of mine who virtually fed me every day. Secondly, I turned myself into an OLX market where sellers would advertise their products for interested buyers to purchase, but it turned out that when there were sellers, there were no buyers, and when there were buyers, there were no sellers. So I resorted to selling off those properties of mine that were of little or no use to me which I had managed to acquire during the past few years.
Whenever I sold any item, I would come temporarily alive until the money discovered from the sale was finished. Whenever I sold an item, I would suspend my friend from providing food for us and take over that responsibility to also show how capable I was and how independent I could be. But as soon as my wallet was dry, everything returned to the way it was, and for a longer time than any of mine ever lasted. Sincerely speaking, I was tired of all that and desperately nee-ded a change. But what was I to do?
Many thoughts crossed my mind. I thought of fraud, which I eventually got involved in and made 10k ba-rely three hours from the time I was introduced into the game. Walahi, if you’ve ever hit a mugu, you’ll despise even the highest paid jobs. To me, I had found myself a job that was gonna pay me enough to enable me measure up with my peers who were alre-ady swimming in the ocean wealth.
But ba-rely a week into the game, my boss committed a blun-der that nearly landed us in the EFCC net. If not for the mercies of God, I would have been less than history by now. After then, I thought of hacking into a bank database to transfer some cool millions of naira into my account. So I subscribe-d to the Airtel Nigeria 4GB plan at N1,500 and started my research on how to hack into bank database. By the time I tried the first and second step I found in my research, which I wasn’t even sure if it was gonna work, my 4GB reduced mas-sively to 1.7GB. Hmmm, na only God go punish Airtel oo. I spent approximately 30 minutes online and my data was over 50% gone? So I started wondering how long it was gonna take me to successfully hack a bank and how much I was gonna spend on data. I realized again that it took money to make money. And in this case, the money to be made wasn’t even sure to be made. I could end up spending my money on data for nothing, so I backed out and began to think of something new.
The next thought that got into my mind was football betting. Seriously ehh, I no be football fan at all!! I have never sat down to watch a complete 90 minutes pl@yexcept in cases where my beloved Super Eagles was the team pla-ying. Even at that, 50% of my attention would be on the reaction of the people watching the match, and whenever Nigeria scored a goal, I would scream to the t©p of my voice G..ooO..aaA..llL..!!!!!!! Amazingly, I ventured into football betting and was as hopeful as a politician that I was gonna make it in that line because I saw an advert on Surebet’s homepage of a man who staked N400 and won over N7,000,000. Chai!!! My head scatter!!! What have I been doing all these while, I asked myself.
From then onward, all the money that ever c@m£ my way again went into my nairabet account for staking. I began studying football, and I did so more diligently than I ever did study any course during my time in school. Soon enough, I was known as a forecaster by nearly all my pals, even the ones wey don dey stake game before me. During my course of betting games, I discovered that I remained nervous for 90 whole minutes while a match I had staked my money on was ongoing, most of which never ended to my favor. So I settled for another option called ‘VIRTUAL FOOTBALL LEAGE’ where a match only lasted for 3 minutes. At least, this one won’t keep nervous for longer than necessary, as the result was determined at the end of 180 seconds. And I would keep ma-king money every 3 minutes, but it turned out I was losing money little by little every 180 seconds. When the whole money was gone, I would sit in front of my l@pt©p and stare at it like a lunatic who wanted to jump into the l@pt©p screen to retrieve the money I had lost to football betting.
After that, I would take a very long nap to dissolve the pain of losing since I don’t do alcohol and weed anymore. Lastly, I thought of doing something tangible with my hands, but it wasn’t easy finding a job either, except I was re-ady to take on the ‘lowly jobs’. By lowly jobs I mean stuffs like security jobs, brick laying, and whatever I could l@ymy hands on just to make some money. Indeed I was re-ady to do so, but definitely not in Eket, Akwa Ibom State. That’s where I grew up for crying out loud! How was I supposed to do such jobs there after such a wonderful reputation I had built for myself over the years? I even got promoted to the position of a manager in the computer firm I worked with before I resigned, and all my peeps knew about that. During that time, I was privileged to interview and employ staff, and also sack staff. How could the mighty fall so low? Nonetheless, the fact remained that I nee-ded cash and I had to do those things for cash, so a very intelligent thought entered into my heart. ‘Since you can’t do those kinds of jobs in Eket, why not travel to a place you are not known and do them until a mega opportunity comes your way?’ That was the thought that c@m£ into my heart, and I bought it. Yes!! That was indeed the ‘way out’ of the predic@m£nt I happened to find myself in at that point in time. But there was still a problem.
I nee-ded money for the relocation. I had to rent an ap@rtment at Enugu, which is where I had chos£n to relocate to. I chose Enugu because I was quite familiar with the place since I schooled there. Raising the money was a major challenge, as I nee-ded to make my move with nothing less than N100,000, which would at least be enough rent me a room that goes for N60,000, while the rest of the money would go for a little furnishing of the room, feeding and some minor expenses until I was able to find myself something to do, which I was sure to find in no distant time.
Sadly, I couldn’t l@ymy hands on anything more than N20,000 which a kind hearted brother in my church gave to me after I had narrated my predic@m£nt to him. I knew that if I stayed back and tried to find more money to make it up, I would only end up spending the N20,000 that had been given to me. So I packed my stuff and prepared to leave for Enugu, not minding how far I could go with that amount of money in Enugu without accommodation. On a very bright Wednesday morning, I went to AKTC park in Eket, boarded a bus for Enugu, and off I went! About four hours later, I arrived at Enugu. I went out of the bus with my big school bag which contained all my stuff, walked out of the park and stood by the side of the road.
First thing I heard was the voice of a conductor shouting; Emene!..Emene!..Emene!..Hahaha, Enugu, I DON SHOW! Not knowing where to go from there, I just started walking along Garden Avenue, hoping that thoughts of the next step to take would cross my mind in no distant time. By then, I was left with N17,250.
MY JOURNEY IN LIFE.
EPISODE 2
After I had walked some distance away from the park, I got hungry and st©pped by a local restaurant to refresh myself.
“Madam, we-tin you get?”
“I get Egusi, I get Dror soup, Oha and Bitter Leaf. I also get Stew-Rice, Ofe Akpu and Pepper Soup. Which one should I brou-ght for you?”
“Give me Bitter Leaf.”
“Garri or Akpu?”
“Akpu.”
“Make I put how many meat?”
“A plate with one meat how much?”
“N400”
“Ha! Madam ee too cost oo.”
“My son ee no cost oo. Ee go bellefull you well-well.”
“The meat na today meat?”
“Na today meat nah. We no dey do carry over for here oo.”
“Okay oo, oya bring am nah.”
“Okay my son.”
“(Soliloquizing) Inside IMT campus, a plate of food was N150 back in 2008. I don’t know if it has increa-sed by now oo. No matter the increment, if at all there is any, it won’t be up to N400. For what? Is that how much I’ll be spending on food? N800 for two meals a day? From tomorrow, I’ll be eating inside campus. And I’ll still patronize that my 2008 madam. At least she knew more than embarras-sing me by asking how many meats I wanted because she know say I no dey chop meat.”
After eating, I stayed back to watch television until it was closing time and I left. I joined a bus that was going to New Heaven, with no exact destination in mind. When the bus got to Otigba junction I told the conductor to st©p. I st©pped because it is always very lively there and remains so till the next morning. What made that place lively were the hookers that normally hung around there waiting to be picked up by customers. I located a nearby bar and ordered for bottle water, sat there sipping the water little by little while feeding my eyes. That bec@m£ a normal routine for me. During the day I would go to a valley by Ebano tunnel where water constantly flowed throu-gh an opening on the surface of the rock to have my bath. That place was more like a stream for the guys. Girls were only permitted fetch water and leave, and that only happened when no guy was bathing. If any guy was bathing, a girl that wants to fetch water would have to wait some distance away till the guy is throu-gh before being allowed to step in and fetch. The wonderful thing about that place was that there had never been a r@p£ case there, even though the environment was conducive enough for that. Sometimes, there could be up to 20 guys bathing and just one girl waiting to fetch, yet, no guy would haras-s her. Besides that, every other thing you could think of happened there, from weed smoking to ritual sacrifice all went on there.
Meanwhile, I had not forgotten the purpose for which I embarked on a journey to Enugu in the first place, so I was busy trying to find what to do before I ran out of money since a place to freshen up and a place to spend my nights had been settled. One day I stumbled into a little café with some inexperienced workers. From the look of things, the café was struggling to stand and could not afford paying for the services of capable hands. I took advantage of that and offered to render professional service for whatever amount they could pay. They doubted my capabilities at first and brou-ght out a typing project with they had at hand and told me to type. They offered to pay me N50 for each page I typed, and that motivated me a lot. Omor come see typing! After my JSSCE exams, my mother had enrolled me in computer institute, and out of all I learnt, typing without looking at the keyboard was the lesson I was most pas-sionate about because I watched American actors do so in the movies and I so loved it. So when I had the opportunity to learn about computer, I took it upon myself to study and master typing. I bec@m£ a very fast at typing, and as soon as I had learnt how to type, I st©pped going for the computer lessons. Eventually, I worked with a computer firm where I acquired the rest of the basic knowledge of computer. So when I was given this very project to type, I shone very well. I typed 50 pages within 90 minutes and got N2,500 for it. Oh, what a wonderful day! They asked me to come again the next day, as there was still so much to me typed. The typing lasted for 12 days, after which I was employed as a full time staff with a monthly pay of N5,000 only. How I wish there was always something to type. That way, I would make more money to rent an ap@rtment. Well, no problems. Half bre-ad is better than none.
One of those days I did a lot at work and was so exhausted. After dinner I went to my normal sp©t and bought a bottle of water. I started sipping the water and feeding my eyes, but before long, I fell asleep on the chair I sat on. I felt a very soft hand tapping me on the shoulder. I could tell that whoever had the soft hand was trying to wake me up, but the softness of the hand made it seem like a mas-sage to me, so I l@yback and enjoyed it while it lasted. If that hand had continue to try waking me up in the same manner it started with, there would have been no end to my slumber. But after a while of trying to wake me up unsuccessfully, I heard a sl@p on my left chick and the soft tone of a gentle voice screaming; WAKE UP! Immediately, I woke up. I noticed everyone running helter-skelter. It seemed like there was chaos, and I started weeping. LORD, plea-sE HAVE MERCY ON ME! HAVE MERCY ON ME DEAR LORD! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE WITH THE ANTI-CHRIST. plea-sE I WILL GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME. JUST GIVE ME ON MORE CHANCE.
“What’s wrong with you? The gentle voice which woke me up asked.”
I didn’t even pay attention to it. I thought the ra-pTURE had taken place. I was still weeping de-eply and asking the Lord for mercy, and then the soft hand that had sl@pped me before did so again. Then I noticed that it belonged to a very pretty damsel who was squ-atting beside me as though hiding from something or someone.
“What is wrong with you? She asked again.”
“Can’t you see that the world has come to an end? I replied. The saints have been taken up to heaven by the Lord and the sinners have been left behind. Now we will have to suffer for not paying attention the commandments of the Lord.”
“I can see that you had so much to drink today. That’s the only reasonable explanation to this drama, said the girl.”
“What do you mean by drama? I asked. “Or are you so ignorant that you don’t even have a clue of what’s going on?”
“I should be asking you that”, she said. “The police are here arresting people and there you are, pleading for mercy and begging for a second chance. Better keep your head low before we are sp©tted and arrested too.”
“You mean it is not the ra-pture?” I asked with much excitement. “So it’s the police? Thank God!!!”
There was a great relieve within me that I even forgot the police were on operation and nearly screamed but the pretty damsel stretched out her arm and covered my mouth with her palm.
“Are you crazy? She asked. Do you want to be arrested? Well if you want to, I don’t, she said. Just wait till I’m out of here before calling such attention to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And suddenly, my courage, which seemed to have left me temporarily returned, and I remembered everything I had forgotten.
“What is your name?” I asked her, smiling.
“Seriously?!” She exclaimed. “Do you really think this is a nice place for that? We are caught up in the middle of a mess and all you can do is ask my name? Are you really that drun!k? I bet the next thing you’ll ask for is my number. Crazy dude!”
“Don’t take my wanting to know your name the wrong way,” I said. “I’ve got a perfect idea of how we could get out of here unnoticed by the police. You know if we keep hiding here long enough, they will find us.”
“Really? Okay, my name is Ogechi”
“Now ogechi here’s what will happen……………………………………….”
I devised a means by which we escaped to a nearby h0tel where we hurriedly checked into a room.
WATCHOUT FOR EPISODE 3