Jonny just come...

    I could hear my heart beat loudly in my ears with fear hanging in my throat like a firm mold of pounded yam or the Adams apple I never had, anytime the commercial bus which I boarded arrived a major city.
   "could this be the centre of excellence? Could this be Lagos?" my raving mind continuously pondered in paranoia, but it was no secret that the question asked from within was only rhetorical, as I didn't hold the answers, this turbulent journey being my first voyage in solitude with no family members to guide me.
      Well, my curiosity continued to play the role of protagonist as my eyes hungrily fed on the scenery as we drove by. "is this your first visit to Lagos?"  the young lady seating beside me asked, and I nodded shyly, embarrassed that perhaps the tension within was beginning to show. She smiled softly before saying "I will let you know when we get there".
       We finally arrived lagos, and trust me I didn't need to be told.  As I alighted from the bus, the truth dawned on me as clear as crystal, that I have left my home in the East to come to the West to hustle, despite the fact that my parents could afford my fees and I was doing very well in the university.
      Maybe I was too gullible I thought, maybe the movies that clearly suggests that everyone makes it when they arrive lagos, must have misled me. I have no place to stay, what kind of risk have I ventured into, my busy mind continued to rave as I stared in confusion at the tarred road and fast cars going to and fro. But for fear of being regarded as mad, I began to ask for directions to "julius berger"  the only place I had heard of in lagos, before now.
        But as early as I had arrived,  the custom of the city began to sink in, first I had flagged down a bus, which refused to stop, as the conductor kept on staring at me like I was a learner but surprisingly  a few other able bodied men had jumped into the same bus while in motion, thus I did not hesitate as another opportunity availed itself, and I decided to jump into the next available bus, despite the fact that the driver was slowly bringing the bus to a stand still.
        Almost everyone in the bus wore a weird expression on their face as they stared up at me, probably  unsure of my mental status. The real struggle began when a fat lady, the size of three persons, decided to join me and two others at the back. I soon figured that I was seating on the air, but yet the two skinny others kept on giving me the look of oppression, like I was the source of their present discomfort, probably too scared to look at the female "lokozuma"  present.
     I immediately corrected the impression, as I coordinated the duo into fighting for a common cause tagged the "fight for space". And together we pushed without raising any alarm.  It soon began to feel like a hostile take over as it was yielding results, a victory which was soon cut short when Lokozuma noticed the coup that was going on and decided to retaliate.  Her action of pushing back with force soon corrected my impression, we were the civilians there and this was the Abacha regime all over again.
        However, civilian rule was soon restored when she arrived her destination and had to alight and all I felt was relief, but soon the bus arrived berger which was my own destination.
        I moved around for a while joblessly, until I got really thirsty and realised that somehow the money I had left in my jeans pocket was no longer there.  Desperation took a passionate hold on me, and my intention was to go to the nearby store to beg for a sachet of water.
    A middle aged man and a woman who looked like a hawk were seated there, which immediately made the plea dry in my mouth, but disregarding the confusion on my face the lady spoke up "you too have come to apply for the position of sales boy? And I immediately nodded. (Desperation meets opportunity)
 "what is your name?"  she asked
  "Emeka"  I immediately answered
"Where in the east are you from?"
    "Anambra"
   "where in Anambra?"  she asked further and I told her.
    Hei! She exclaimed, the frown on her face immediately melting into a smile,  "you are my brother o!"  Don't worry you have the job,  I will just tell you the prices of everything.
        I got a meagre monthly salary from her monthly, but that was okay as long as I was given food to eat and a place to stay.  Her husband soon came and moved me to his spare parts shop at yaba after his wife had showered praises about my hard working quality and honesty.
       Well from thence,  life really began for me as during my second day at work, I met Amarachi, the beauty Queen whose car seemed to have had a fault and which parts she wanted changed.
     I showed her the spare parts the car needed, but to go the extra mile to please her since she was so beautiful, I decided to check the fault in the car myself. Her warm gaze followed my every move,  which made my palms  sweaty and gave me happy goosebumps at the same time.
       It was a minor fault I soon discovered, and when I fixed it, she thanked me and then used her handkerchief to wipe the sweat off my face.
   "can I have your number?" she asked, "incase  I need to ask you about these mechanical parts".  She added
   I looked downwards somewhat embarrassed, before replying "I don't have a phone, but I'm  always in the shop".  She looked a little startled before smiling and nodding briefly, then she left.
     I had a difficult time sleeping that night, as the handkerchief ordeal kept making me feel butterflies in my stomach.  But with the days that progressed Amarachi brought her car more often, with one fault or the other or no fault at all.
      She soon got me a handset and from thence love bloomed like a tall iroko tree. This was true love, as I could not carry out any action without thinking about her.
      Amarachi soon secured a job for me at her father's company due to the fact that I had a valid university education, until I abandoned school of course.  I was overjoyed as I held her in my arms and I told her "Amarachi you do not know how much I love you" repeatedly.  Until a warm smile spread across her lips and she said softly"Emeka wake up!", "wake up Emeka" and I woke up to meet the concerned faces of my parents!
        It was all a dream!  "who is Amarachi?"  my father asked and my mother felt my forehead with the back of her hand, before saying "I think Emeka is having Exam fever again!"....

   

The Hustle

Growing up in the ancient city  has been quite eventful, a city where children could of  their own accord decide no longer to continue school and get praises from their parents such as "bookproof" head, olodo, otondo and so on...  And soon the chorus  raised by such children will be "ring road×2" or Asoro igbiyoko as vibrant bus conductors and drivers.
     Well,  I Osahon Ehigiator was no exception.  But I soon got tired of life, I mean you see posts everyday that support dreaming, and they  usually come in attractive packages like "dream big! Because dreaming is another way of planning"...
    But anytime I dream,  it only shows the wide lacuna between my wonderland dreams and the harsh reality, and makes me feel like an angel cast from heaven;which I didn't want the case to be.
     I soon decided to find an escape route, and the world's most popular being love. But that didn't work for me either, as I got my heart broken into pieces several times and I soon wondered if I still possessed the organ. Well,  reasons being that most girls these days wants a guy with a car or atleast a guy who could take care of all their expenses and according to Itohan, the girl I loved like crazy, I was far from that, her exact words; Osas I can't date you because  you are broke and a shameless excuse for a man.
       Well, I soon decided to have a talk with my siblings after we all watched a thought provoking movie.  They talked about our young girls going over to Italy for prostitution, an act which I once condemned but was beginning to see reason in.  A friend of mine soon suggested that we could go to Italy through the desert an act which I strongly objected to, but when it was time to eat supper and my 7 siblings and I all waited for the garri to rise before dipping our spoons in, I decided that this life of poverty I could no longer condone.
       So as early as 3:00am in the morning, I in company of two of my very close friends boarded a bus and from thence we prepared for our journey to Italy through the desert.
      After months of suffering in the desert and I lost my best friend Eseosa to  hunger and the other Ehi to Thirst, we arrived Italy by boat. But from there on we took a straight bus to another country, the name,  unknown to us.
    We waited for a while, as the bus which I boarded was soon stopped by police officers or atleast I thought they were and they started asking for everyone's visa's...
      Panic rocketed through my body as my life began to flash before my eyes...  After months  of suffering and even losing my two best buddies in the desert, constant fights over water or even urine, I was going to be deported! No way, my fate couldn't possibly be that bad...
     Thus when it got to my turn, I broke down into hot real tears...  "I'm a citizen I pleaded, my parents abandoned me...  Oh God why!"...  The tears continued with catarrh coming from my nose and hiccups later on...  And the white officers were amazed, thus they took me to a refugee camp and that was where I met Kayla, the beautiful white nurse who seemed to like me...
     Efforts were made to help me, since I  was abandoned by my parents, but as soon as I got hold of a phone, I called straight home to Naija,  and when my brother Odion picked up after putting the call on loudspeaker  I said "Guy...  I don cross o" and there were screams of jubilation...

  ... The Economy put us up to it... 
   
   
   

The Verdict

     You could almost taste the tension in the court room as three young men stood in front of a supreme Court judge and waited for the verdict; their fate obviously no longer in their hands.
      The crime of cultism was quite a touchy one for his lordship, Henry peters.  Thus while the young lawyers in front of him threw a cross fire of legal tantrums, the learned justice stared on to think of the very event that seemed to be his unending source of pain, even though many years had now passed and he now had a family of his own.
    Figuratively,  it had been a decade back and young Henry was then in the university as a law student; a course which his father had forced upon him, for the love of his children following a professional field.
   Henry was not such a strong willed young man thus his father usually referred to him as soft and easily bended, more so  he nick named him, mellow,  like the fruit mash mellow. But the young man was quick to find an escape route from the pain he constantly faced at home by using his good looks to get the attention of young women.
     Henry was so good at it that he was soon given the nickname of  "Honri the player". A nickname which he preferred to his former nickname of mellow and soon became more popular than the latter. But like all other great players in the game, Henry soon faced his own "achilles hill" when he fell in Love with a certain young woman Chelsea,  and felt by all means that it was time to quit the game.
      He had seen her the first time at the school's art theatre where she gracefully took the role of Lady Macbeth in one of William Shakespeare's legendary plays, Macbeth. He had watched her every move and there and then realised that he wanted her for keeps.
    He had tried to talk with her several times and unlike most other girls, his good looks seemed not to have any effect on her whatsoever thus she had given him the cold shoulder and without warmth or pity, snubbed him; "such brutality"  he had thought, but he never gave up.  Especially when he realised that he needed to keep on thriving not just for himself but to prove  to himself and his father that he could persistently go for what he wanted.
    Thus,  he would wait for her every day after lectures and stalk her tirelessly, and days soon turned into weeks and weeks into months,  until she literally got tired of protesting and would just walk in silence while he followed her.
     He soon had some time to think on one cold faithful evening as he realised that she would never be his.  This was definitely karma he thought, a payment for all the hearts he had broken prematurely and also his attitude towards girls who really liked him but he didn't share their concerns, even those he had only used to do his bidding, selfishly thinking of only his gains while the love drunk young girl would do all he asks.
       Now it was time to pay the price, as the only girl he had ever loved didn't share his concerns,  and this turbulent thoughts soon led him to premature illness.
    Chelsea had waited patiently the next day for her good looking stalker to come around, the young man she had grown fond of and whose company she was beginning to long for, to the extent that she would patiently wait for Henry's lectures to be over before passing the route by the law college just so he would see her and stalk her.
   But today, the case was different as lover boy was nowhere to be found. Panic rocketed through her body like a killer virus and the blue ink of concern boldly written on her face could no longer be hidden.  Thus she asked around and learnt of Henry's illness.
   Henry thought his fever had reached its peak when he saw Chelsea at the door and his thoughts were as to... "am I hallucinating?"  but when the young lady hugged him and told him she had come to take care of him and wasn't leaving any time soon, he was sure it wasn't a dream.
    But from thence,  a passionate love tale bloomed. Henry never understood that love could be as sweet as nectar from a flower enjoyed by the butterfly, but now that he knew, he had no intentions of letting go..
     Talking to his best friend he said
"Guy, I really love this girl. She understands me like a wife, takes care of me like a mother and provides solutions to my problems like an asset, if she leaves me, I will die".
    For Chelsea, the feeling was no different as if there was a guy she was ready to spend the rest of her life with, it was Henry.
And the opportunity soon availed itself, yes! Henry decided to propose soon after their final exams.
    He had called her that Saturday evening under the school's big mango tree, the tree nicknamed the "couples tree", due to the fact that lovers often met there, she was hesitant initially but she finally agreed  and he had waited for her to come as fear and anxiety overwhelmed him.  It felt like he was going to check his result, who knew that proposing could be so tedious.
    He soon saw her walking gracefully towards him when the shootings began.  The cultists at school had obviously declared another war against themselves! He quickly ran to grab her as she held unto him,  obviously frightened.
      "I'm going to protect you" he kept whispering into her ears as she held unto him, believing his every word.   The shootings were soon over but just before he made to speak there was another rain of gun fire and a stray bullet hit her...
      He started screaming for help, but everyone seemed to be running for their lives.  His pain wasn't only from the fact that she had been shot, but his heart bled as he watched the love of his life, struggle for her life in his arms without being able to say a word until she finally died.
    That pain knew no bounds and it was that same pain that made him follow his study of law vigorously and had even landed him first class honours in the law school.  And now,  here he was some donkey years later facing a similar case with three young cultists killing over five persons intentionally and stray bullets killing three other final year students.
     As if coming out from a trance he realised that the honourable court was waiting for his verdict.  He took a deep breath with pain and anger still burning passionately within him as he said.
    For the charges of murder and manslaughter I hereby sentence Obiora Kingsley, Bola Adeniye and shehu Usman to death by hanging..
   
       .. Shun cultism..