Ejiofor mesi natawa Nigeria (Ejiofor eventually came back to Nigeria) – Based on a true story
Ejiofor
is my mother’s cousin or my cousin, in the way that all my relatives that I
never hear about are my ‘cousins’. But the details of our relationship were
left unquestioned under the weight of the story he came with on that morning in
August. It was a few days to the New Yam Festival, the memory is clear in my
mind. One of those mornings that arouse emotions so strong that they stay with
you forever. It was the sound of Ejiofor’s power bike that jolted me up from
sleep that morning and when my mother said ‘come and meet your cousin Ejiofor’,
all I could see was his dazzling silver suit which I was sure was sewn by the
best of tailors in Onitsha or Aba and all I could hear when he responding to my
greeting were the layers of emotions in his voice.
That
morning, Ejiofor told his story with the fervour of a man that had received life’s
blows with fortitude and had quite literally lived to tell his many stories. He
told this particular story with feelings that indicated that it came from a
not-so-distant part of his memory and with every climax of Ejiofor’s true life
story, my mother would call out to me ‘I n’anu kwa ife n’eme n’uwa a’ (Are you hearing
what is happening in this world?). And yes! I could hear quite clearly and had convinced
myself that I had to retell Ejiofor’s story, so that several other people would
hear and hopefully learn, because to hear is one thing and to take home a
lesson is another.
‘Yes her name is Princess
Nnenna!’ were Ejiofor’s exact words as he looked up her picture on his phone;
she was very light skinned, her eyes obscured by dark sunglasses. Princess
Nnenna had began by promising to get a Canadian VISA for Ejiofor, but after
more than a year of disappointments and failed promises, she miraculously
discovered a contract job worth thousands of dollars waiting for Ejiofor in
Dubai. A true miracle! Millions of undergraduates were and are still seeking
employment in Nigeria, but there was Ejiofor, minding his own business in Ebute
Metta and suddenly this job was waiting for him in Dubai whose currency is not
even dollars. Surely, it was God’s doing through this Nnenna, not even an
ordinary being but a ‘princess’.
Of course, before the job was to be given to Ejiofor formally, he
had to transfer 300,000naira into Princess Nnenna’s account, not inclusive of
the VISA fee and air fare he had to pay. But what were those compared to the fortune
Ejiofor was to going to earn in Dubai? Ejiofor my cousin had definitely made it
and he had made it big! Although Ejiofor had his doubts, he was reassured by
the fact that this ‘princess’ was also an Evangelist at a Winners’ Chapel
Church in Festac Town and who was he to doubt a woman of God? Certainly, he
could not risk hindering the flow of his new-found stream of abundance.
Ejiofor spent the eve of his departure at Princess Nnenna’s house
and the next morning, his journey was blessed by the same woman he was later to
describe as being ‘worse than the devil’. Ejiofor’s morning flight via Etihad
Airways landed in Abu Dhabi International Airport at night and the unknown man
that should have been at the airport to pick Ejiofor up was nowhere in sight.
By midnight, Ejiofor was stranded in the popular Marina Mall, far from the
famililar sights of Ikeja-Under-Bridge, Ebute Metta and Festac Town and far from
the familiar, discordant medley of Lagos sounds. He was surrounded by
enthusiastic shoppers and boisterous children who were all painfully oblivious to
his predicament. Ejiofor’s realities were a world apart from the Dubai he had
conceived.
After several phone calls to Princess Nnenna, the stranger finally
arrived to pick Ejiofor up; it was in this stranger’s house that Ejiofor placed
another call to Princess Nnenna to find out the details of his job which up
till that moment had remained a mystery. But the reply Ejiofor got reverberated
through his being: ‘you are a man, go and find yourself a job’ were Princess
Nnenna’s words, in between the insults she spat at him. Ejiofor felt the ground
move beneath his feet. At this point, he had spent almost more money than he
had made in his lifetime, he had sold properties, those belonging to him and
those belonging to his family members. How was he to find a job in a strange
country when he could not find a job in his own country? How could his stream
of blessings have started to flow backwards so suddenly?
A few days to the date of his return flight and Ejiofor was still in
Dubai, more jobless than he had been in Lagos, if at all there are ‘degrees of
joblessness’. How was he to explain to his young nephew whose land he had sold
that it all was for a lost cause and that he might never be able to pay back?
How was he to explain his folly to a teenager? In Dubai, he had met about 6
other people from Nigeria and Ghana who had been through similar ordeals as
him, they had been robbed of everything and what they awaited at that point was
to be rounded up and shipped back to their own countries, like goods. Ejiofor knew
that if he had not had the good sense to book a return flight, he would have
been like them, stranded in Dubai indefinitely, his fate in the hands of the
Emirati government and the memory of him fading in the minds of his children.
The saying is that what does not kill a person makes them stronger,
so let us take it that Ejiofor returned to Nigeria a stronger man, albeit a
million naira poorer. On hearing of Ejiofor’s return, Princess Nnenna’s could
not keep her shock contained, her exclamation was ‘eh?! So na Ejiofor mesi
natawa Nigeria’ (So Ejiofor eventually came back to Nigeria). Yes! Ejiofor mesi
natawa and his tragic story has been told and retold. But my fear is for the
thousands that remain stranded in different countries, their jeans loosing at
the hems and their next meal an uncertainty. Will they live to tell their
stories? and if they do, will there be ears to listen?
This is great! You have a good pen skill. Anyone who reads this will your effort in bringing to life the realities that hunt the-over-ambitious husslers of this times who are so gripped with making wealth as fast as possible. It's also a warning for everyone out there to be conscious of who they deal with so that their case will not be that of Ejiofor. A good piece altogether, bravo!
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