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 hardly that it spilled out
what I would refer to as a ‘way out’ of the predicament I
happened to find myself in as at that point in time.
Having completed my National Diploma 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 became
nightmares and daydreams, and I got very familiar with
misery and depression. When I had it up to my neck 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 needed 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
barely 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 already
swimming in the ocean wealth. But barely a week into
the game, my boss committed a blunder 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 subscribed 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 massively 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 play
except in cases where my beloved Super Eagles was
the team playing. 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 top 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 came 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 LEAGUE’ 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 making 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 laptop and stare at it like a lunatic who wanted to
jump into the laptop 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 ready to take on the
‘lowly jobs’. By lowly jobs I mean stuffs like security
jobs, brick laying, and whatever I could lay my hands
on just to make some money. Indeed I was ready 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 needed 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 came into my
heart, and I bought it. Yes!! That was indeed the ‘way
out’ of the predicament I happened to find myself in at
that point in time. But there was still a problem. I
needed money for the relocation. I had to rent an
apartment at Enugu, which is where I had chosen 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 needed 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 lay my hands on anything more than N20,000
which a kind hearted brother in my church gave to me
after I had narrated my predicament 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.
...to be continued.
1 comment:
Hehehe... I dey wait!
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