Lying alone on a massive bed 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 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
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 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.
