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There are so many things we wish for in life, more
often than not we are better off without these things.
Alcohol, sex and frivolities are some of them.
Tunji* is a 31-year-old man who works at the Lagos sea port and there is little or nothing on his mind than random binges, unprotected sex and pool betting. He has a two-room apartment, just along the road to the
stadium and adjacent to the police barrack. On many
occasions he would come home reeking of alcohol and
accompanied by a different girl – they all came in different shapes and sizes but weren’t so different in that he brought them from same beer joint. Cheap sex.
He continued to gamble and drink away his meagre salary, one girl after another every other Friday evening, till he got what he direly desired. It was a cold evening in June. The neighbourhood was near pitch darkness except for kiosks with kerosene lamps
and the Suya guy at the entrance of Aderibigbe Street. A girl, she couldn’t have been more than 16, was escorted by three women to the house to wait for her ‘husband’. They brought along a little bag obviously containing her personal items. No one needed any particular explanation to figure the real deal. Her cheeks were full and her eyes pale. She had malaria
because though nearly six months pregnant she hadn’t the least medical care whatsoever. Again, no one needed any explanation to figure how this
‘union’ would end. It was certainly not going to be long or romantic.
*****
Chinwe+ was always an opportunist. She was raised by a single mother who taught her to go for anything she
desires in life as nothing was guaranteed or gotten on
merits. This notion, though somewhat correct, would come with its price but no one explained this knotty side of things to her.
*****
At 23 she was fresh out of the university, with a degree in International Relations, and ready to take the world by storm. Already neck deep in the act, it would take a lot to reverse her mechanism from the course it had been on for years so she went on and on, believing everything in life was based on being opportunistic and nothing on merits. She had an excellent mind but never studied through her time at the university. She soon got a job with a Law firm in Ikoyi but this was only the half of it. She had big dreams. She read glossy magazines and had lofty plans to live like the society ladies pictured on red carpets and fancy Lagos shindigs. She didn’t know the cost of the good life; in fact, she must have thought the Centre of Excellence was the exact same thing as what she was used to in Asaba. She was wrong. Fast life, fast money – tons of prices to pay. In her second month at work she started making passes at her boss. He drove a Porsche Cayenne and a Mercedes. He lived alone somewhere in Lekki 1 and appeared to have all the connections in the city. She was wrong again. She thought she could get whatever she wanted with what she had but this road to fortune, though paved with glitters, is never really as golden as it appears. At 25 she drove a Corolla and then a Ford and a Honda; she didn’t spend a cent of her earnings on any of these. Actually, she could never have bought any of these from her pay cheque. By 27 she had gotten a BMW and proceeded to enjoying fun trips to Dubai, Johannesburg and Geneva. She wore pricey perfumes and dripped of gold.
‘If you envisage a no-sex affair with a wealthy guy then best create and master alternate skills at helping him relax, and be sure you are a master of the trick,’ she would say to her colleagues as they hit the Karaoke bar after weekend meetings at the office. She knew she was doing everything wrong but she managed to deceive herself into thinking it would be fine
in the end. Armed with a striking figure, piercing eyes and cravings for the good life, she slept with men at will. Of course, not without some good pay in return.
She had a ‘special’ doctor on speed dial whom she paid six figures to help end many unwanted pregnancies, before they became inconveniences. It felt surreal for a long time given how much she bought herself out of many a situation. Once, she was out clubbing with her gang of elite, sapiosexual ladies and her driver refused to come get her back to Lekki from a popular night club. She would drag the poor man out every other night until he felt he had had enough and
started ignoring her calls anything after midnight.
So they hit the road in a drunken fit – four ladies, fresh out of six hours of drinking and blaring music and eyes so
hazy her friend Jessica** nearly ran into a sedan parked
on the side of the road. A patrol van came round and they paid their way out after a seven minute dialogue.
But nothing lasts forever. Money doesn’t buy everything; at best it buys you a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti but won’t help you walk out of danger. It buys you a Channel and a Dior but there’s only so much you can stuff in one bag. Money buys you a Michael Kors, a Vacheron Constantin and a Piaget; but, hell no, it’s not getting you time once your cup here is full. In simpler terms, money won’t buy life.
It’s been two years since she passed. She got pregnant for Jide Lloyd***, one of the Oil big boys who cruised her on speedboats on the Lagos waters and flew her to Dubai for shopping sprees at The Dubai Mall and Mercato. She had sought an umpteenth abortion. The ‘special’ doctor was humane enough and had warned her several times, upon performing the last procedure, of how it might become a nightmare subsequently given how much she had been under the knife. So he refused to run the process this time around. She had diced with death so long that either of placenta
previa, cervical lacerations or hemorrhage were the likely outcomes. But it is unclear which of these it eventually was. Her autopsy is yet to say anything. In fact, there are speculations there was never one.
Word on the street is she got pregnant for Jide and was
too scared to abort, then eventually went for the process and passed from complications afterwards. Other sources say she got pregnant for him; refused an
abortion, threatened to move into his matrimonial home if he didn’t set up a deluxe Island crib and business for her as his second wife. But we would never know the truth in a country as ours where a Lagos big boy, with as little as a few millions, can make any female threatening the existence of his peace or marriage disappear. As well as obliterate every shred of evidence in the wake of this.
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* ** *** + Not real names
This is a fictional piece. Names and locations used
herein are a figment of the writer’s imagination. Any
resemblance(s) with persons living or dead are entirely
coincidental.
