CHAPTER 1
FOURTEEN YEARS EARLIER
Just like yesterday, fourteen years has passed
but memory lingered. It was in Ibadan where
Mr and Mrs Bassey lived in their own house
with their three children, Joshua. John and
Jessica (Jessie for short). Being the last born
and the only girl, she was always protected by
her male blood relations, father and the two
brothers. She lived her life in childhood bliss.
Her rapport with her brothers was strong,
although she got punished whenever she
proved stubborn. But her dad was her best
friend. He hardly scold her. He lavished and
dotted on her endlessly. His appellation for
her was ‘my little hibiscus flower’ or just
‘hibiscus. This was because of her eye
popping beauty.
Her beauty was also coupled with intelligence.
She was very smart. Her least position in class
was always third, right from her primary days
to her junior secondary days.
Everything was going on well until Samuel
came into the beautifully crafted family
picture to ruin it. He came in through Mrs
Roseline Bassey, her mother. When Jessie
turned eleven years old, Roseline announced
after their supper one night that her younger
brother would
soon move in with them. She had earlier
obtained permission from her husband to
allow him join them in the house. Although
the request did not go down well with Peter,
he reluctantly gave his consent.
The news sounded appealing to the children.
It would be fun to have an uncle in the house
with them, even Jessie was excited. More
male figures in the house would mean more
protection, perhaps more outings and
pampering. SAMUEL MBANEFO
Samuel Mbanefo was a tall, dark young man
of average built. He left the shores of Nigeria
to the UK when he was twenty years old in
pursuit of academic prospects and financial
greener pastures. Unfortunately, his dream
came crashing down on his head when he was
denied admission into the college he had been
working so hard to study for the past two
years since his arrival in the white man`s
land.
This resulted into depression. He started
moving around with bad peers. One day, he
was introduced to a robbery gang by one of
his best friends who hailed from Mexico. He
felt well received and without hesitation, he
agreed to be initiated. He was tutored in the
art of hooliganism, smoking, liquor, pick
pocket, shoplifting, brothel patronage and so
on. He was in this fraternity four three years,
graduating from one crime to another.
After three years of being a member in the
gang, two of his closest friends in the
fraternity, one also from Nigeria by the name
Victor and the other from Malaysia by the
name Al-waheed, left on the grounds of
irreconcilable differences with the boss.
Samuel decided to go with them partly
because of racial affinity with the Nigerian
and partly because he felt the two men were
sincerely cheated by their leader. He was
twenty-five when he left the soil of UK. The
trio sneaked into USA through a fraudulent
means. When they arrived, they settled in
California and went in search of menial jobs
to cover up their tracks.
They would work from around 6am till 8pm,
shifting between an average of two jobs in one
day, afterwards they would retire inside their
small cottage where they all lived together. In
order to douse any
suspicion of their evil mission in the US, they
worked apart in different business firms as
cleaners, watchmen or attendants. Their
retirement was not to rest from the day`s hard
work, but to plan for a rewarding robbery
operation. They swore to remain together and
not to admit anymore members into their
reformed gang. They decided not to name the
group since there was a strong mutual
understanding amongst them. This routine
continued unhindered for two years as they
always find a way to escape the wrath of the
law after each operation.
During this nine years of refuge with these
outlaws in the diaspora, Samuel represented a
demigodly life back home to his Nigerian
family and friends. He painted a majestic
picture of himself living in affluence abroad.
He achieved this by sending huge amount of
money and expensive gifts to his people.
Some of the cash went into the education of
his siblings. Some went into the purchase of
two landed properties in Lagos and in his
home town in Imo state. Some were used to
bankroll the elaborate wedding of one of his
younger sisters, a ceremony which he could
not attend. Some were flushed down the drain
in the guise of ephemeral materials.
Later some members of his family were
requesting for his assistance to help them
facilitate their own trip to the States in order
to also enjoy the oyinbo ego (white man`s
money) in abroad, although such pleas fell on
his deaf ears.
Amidst all these hullabaloo, no one bothered
to query his source of wealth. The general
notion that once you are in the diaspora, you
will be automatically made rich was their die-
hard belief. In order not to whet their appetite
of curiosity, he always feed them through
phone calls and letters that their strong
allusion to the white man`s country as a
country carpeted with dollars and pound notes
all over the ground is nothing but the truth.
Nemesis soon caught up with Samuel and his
gang. By the time he was twenty-nine years
old, he had already spent up to nine years
abroad. One of their robbery operations in
Texas went sore and they were bursted.
Without further ado, they were charged to
court on four count charge; theft, false
identity documents, fake international
documents and felony.
Their trial took less than forty-eight hours.
They were all charged to seven years
imprisonment after which they would be
deported to their various countries. Bail was
not allowed.
Like a fast-forward button on a typical video
player device remote control, destiny was fast
forwarded and in a twinkle of an eye, seven
years elapsed. His accomplices were deported
to their individual countries, he and Victor to
Nigeria and Al-waheed to Malaysia.
********************************
The veil was then removed from his people`s
eyes when he returned to his family house in
Imo State. Ironically, they all rejected him
when they heard the true story from him. He
had thought they would forgive him because
of all the things he had done for them during
his foreign sojourn,that was why he told them
the whole truth without thinking twice. But to
his utmost dismay, they lambasted him. They
called him all sorts of names, forgetting his
good deeds towards them in the past. As if
that was not enough, they asked him to leave
their family house and go else where to fend
for himself. When he asked them for the three
landed properties he had asked them to
acquire for him, Chief Enoch Mbanefo, his
uncle who was in charge of the transactions
dismissed the issue. He threatened to retain
the lands and the documents as a way of
punishing Samuel for being such a disgrace to
their noble family.
”For your information Sam, those two lands
will belong to the family from now on.
Afterall, we were the ones who sponsored your
education when you were still in Nigeria and
even partially sponsored your trip to the UK
nine years ago. So you have paid back the
debt you owe us.” Chief Enoch roared at him.
Sam was enraged but was also helpless
against them. He was empty and cashless, so
there was no way he would be able to fight
them. All his earnings in the USA had been
frozen. The money he believed his family back
home in Nigeria had saved on his behalf had
been seized by his family head, since the
official document were in Chief Enoch`s
possession.. He resolved defiantly that he
would take revenge. He will settle down first,
start all over again and when he is back on
his feet,
he will hire a lawyer to fight for him. He swore
in his heart to fight till death if the case get
to that extent.
