Episode 8
I stood at the same spot for a couple of minutes trying to process what just happened.
Did I just shake hands with Chief Agbabiaka? The owner of Agbabiaka Group of Companies?
“Yes oooo” Deola responded, with a mischievous grin on her face.
I thought my question was in my head, I didn’t even know I voiced it out.
I counted the wad that he had handed me and it was twenty thousand Naira…crisp N500 notes.Deola dragged me back to our room…I was still dazed and confused.
That night, Deola came clean with me and confirmed all my suspicions and others’ insinuations. She told me the story of how she was fortunate to meet Chief Agbabiaka when she was at her wit’s end. Her parents were about to become homeless and she was going to forfeit her University admission the second year in a row because there was no money to pay her tuition and get her registered.
According to Deola, this was a man God sent to help her and her family out of the hydra-headed money problems they had. When the man later requested that they should be dating, she just couldn’t say no. The man had done so much for her that she needed to pay him back somehow…and since what he requested was available, she handed it over on a platter of gold.
“Was I not dating a young boy back then?
How did that help my situation or solve my problems?
Was he not sleeping with me for nothing?
Did I not allow him deflower me based on blind love and empty promises?
This same guy took a hike when we thought I had become pregnant…I saw the way he treated me. The professed love dissipated fast.
Thank God I wasn’t really pregnant…I would have been in real trouble.
With Chief, it is a convenient and beneficial agreement
It’s the same commodity; I just had to learn to use it to get out of the abject poverty that plagued my family”
“But isn’t that close to prostitution?” I interjected
Deola looked at me in astonishment but continued
“Was I standing on the roadside when I met him?
Was I out to trade my body for money? Of course not
It was a meeting that fate orchestrated. I was busy sipping from the bitter cup that life had handed me and simply walked into an oncoming vehicle’s path.It was Chief Agbabiaka’s car…his driver almost ran me over. It was so scary, I heard a screech and the car bumped into me but not enough to hurt me…I actually thought I had died.
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