“See where greed landed you. You wanted to make
quick money. You should thank God that they did not use you for money rituals.”
I have entered "one chance" bus once. It was in my secondary school
days. My school teachers went on strike and all the students were asked to
vacate from the school. I went to the park in search for a bus going to Onitsha
where my parents live. I met one bus loading in the park with only two
passengers seated. Due to impatience, I decided to stand along the Awka –
Onitsha road to see if I could see any car that is already on its way to
Onitsha.
After a little while, I saw a bus coming and the bus conductor was shouting “0nitsha one
chance! Onitsha one chance!” I waved at it and shouted Onitsha. The driver of
the bus which was almost full stopped for me to enter. I entered and the driver
drove off. As we were approaching upper lweka, the driver said that there was a
serious go slow in the front and he diverted to another road which he said
would be better for us.
After the diversion, he drove for about 5 minutes and
stopped. "Who get that big blue ‘Ghana must go’ bag in the boot?” the driver
asked. One man responded "na my bag o”. The driver asked the man about the
contents of the bag but the man refused to talk. The driver stopped the car and
opened the boot. He unzipped the bag and shouted “Chineke mere mmadu ebe re o!”
which when translated means “God have mercy on man“.
We asked the driver what
the problem was but the driver
asked us to come down and see for ourselves. We all came down to look. What l
saw in the bag were bundles of 1000 naira notes packed in a big ‘Ghana must go’ bag. The driver
said he would take the bag to the
police. The man who claimed to be the owner began to beg the driver and said “I
beg don’t take it to the police.” The man claimed that the money was given to him
by a politician to share to people for their votes. It was that period
Mbadinuju’s tenure was coming to an end and Chris Ngige was to take over as the
governor of Anambra state. The man who claimed to be the owner of the bag of
money asked the driver to share the money into 2 instead. The owner would take half of
the money while the driver and the rest of us share the remaining half.
Oh my
goodness! I was so excited. I began to thank God for this wonderful bus I
entered. My share of the money would not be less than 100, 000 naira. The
driver insisted that he would call the police but we begged the driver not to
involve the police. Later, the driver agreed but said that we have to go
somewhere to cleanse the money and also take oath. All of them agreed. I taught
that they were all passengers like
me but I don’t
know that majority of them including the driver and the owner of the bag of
money were all working together.
The driver drove us to a place that looked
like shrine. He asked us all to come down from the bus and follow him into the shrine. I was
scared but since other passenger were not afraid, l have to be brave. We went
into the shrine which was an uncompleted building. One man dressed like a
native doctor came out and asked “what can I do for you people? “ The driver told him that we have a bag of
money that needed to be cleansed before
shared and to take oath that no one among us would report this to the public or authority. The driver gave the bag of money to the native doctor. The native
doctor began to do incantations and told us that the cleansing and oath
would cost 120,000 naira. The driver asked the native doctor to take the 120,000 naira from the bag
of money. But, the native doctor said it was an abomination to do so. Since
we were about 12 in number, the driver
asked us to contribute 10,000 naira each for the exercise.
Immediately, one market
woman among us brought out the sum of 10,000 naira and gave the driver as her
own contribution. One other woman there said she was the secretary
of her church
group. She
said she has 10,000 naira belonging
to the group and would go home and bring it. Other passengers made their promises. I wondered why it was an abomination to pay the
native doctor from the money bag and the reason for the cleansing but I was not
bold enough to ask the driver or the native doctor. All I had was 1000 naira so
I promised to go and search my dad’s room and would surely bring the 10k. They
seized my phone and asked me never to talk to anyone on the road nor tell anyone
about this deal including my parents. “You will run mad if you tell anybody or
if you fail to bring the money” the native doctor said. They told me that I was
lucky to have this opportunity to be rich at my young age and should not mess
up this opportunity. The driver wrote down a phone number on a paper and asked
me to call the number when I get the 10k.
I rushed out and took a bike to Awada Onitsha
where my parents live. Luckily, when I arrived home, my parents were not around.
Only my junior brother was there. I gave him the 1000 naira note I have and
asked him to buy 20 naira Omo detergent for me from mama Okechukwu’s shop. Mama
Okechukwu’s shop was 5 buildings away from my home. And before they would get
980 naira change, I must have finished my mission.
As soon as my brother left, I began the “Guilder
ultimate search.” I searched my dad’s wardrope, opened all his drawers and checked
all his bags and pockets. I found no money. “Which kind poor man be this?” I
asked myself. But he used to keep big amount of money in his wardrobe. I ransacked
everywhere including my mum’s bags, wallets and baskets. I found no penny. I
was frustrated. My junior brother came back with the detergent but said that
Mama Okechukwu could not find change but we should come later to take the
change. I asked him to send the detergent back and bring my 1000 naira for me.
When he left, I then searched the entire house and found no money. Governor Mbadinuju was owing teachers six months’ salary. My parents were both teachers
and it was a very difficult period for them.
When my brother returned, I took
the money from him and went to a call center. I called that number the
driver told me to call when I get the money and he picked. “You don get the
money?” he asked. “I no see any money o” I replied. He asked me to go and borrow
from somebody so that when we share the money, I would pay the person back. He asked
me to get the money as quickly as possible before madness descends upon me. I
was overwhelmed with fear. Who would lend me 10,000 naira? I asked and asked
and asked. But no one agreed. Someone asked me what I wanted the money for. But
I refused to tell. I don’t want to go crazy. Who would save me from this kind
of situation? I cried. I decided to keep it to myself. There was nothing else I
could do. I made up my mind. I did not call them on the phone again. The only
thing I lost was my Motorola mobile phone which they seized. I had to lie to my
parents that robbers stole my phone at gun point.
However, the trauma I had that period affected
my WAEC studies. I was preparing to seat for my WAEC examination. I found it
difficult to concentrate when I read. “You will run mad” kept echoing in my
mind. The outcome was that I had three F9 including English and math, four P7
and two C6.
As one of the most intelligent students in my
class, everyone including the teachers and students were surprised at my poor
results. That was when I finally narrated the story to my parents. My dad said “see
where greed landed you. You wanted to make quick money. You should thank God
that they did not use you for money rituals.”
Since then, nobody, I repeat, nobody could
entice me with material things again. The following year, I took another WAEC
exam and cleared all the subjects. Today, I am a university graduate. I did not
run mad and would never run mad.
Have you had a similar experience? Please,
share your own story.
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