A hunter who carries an elephant on his head should not
use his feet to till the soil for a cricket. – Yoruba proverb
It is 3:25 p.m. on a bright Monday. A gray, bearded man descends the Ojuelegba Bridge in Lagos and his car begins to sputter. He pumps the accelerator as the car jerks like a stubborn goat. He wonders what’s wrong. After all, this is a brand new Mercedes-Benz, purchased two weeks ago from a reliable dealer. He continues driving and the car coasts further down the bridge. It moves slowly, causing the other drivers to honk their horns impatiently. The bearded man is oblivious. “Callous Lagos drivers,” he mutters to himself.
He descends the bridge and veers toward the service lane of the oncoming vehicles from the Ojuelegba roundabout junction and steers the car toward the walkway slowly. After about five meters, he turns the car into the pedestrian walkway by the fence of the Abalti Barracks, about 20 meters from the gate. The engine stalls.
He sits in the car and, once again, wonders what’s wrong. Why the problem on his way to a multimillion-naira business meeting with a foreign partner at Ikeja? He starts the engine again. It sputters.
“The beast,” he shouts as he winds down the driver’s window. A whiff of fresh air hits him in the face—quite different from the new car fragrance he’d been breathing all afternoon. He reaches under the dashboard and pulls a lever to open the bonnet, steps out of the car and raises the bonnet. He stands, confused about what exactly to do. Then he goes back into the car and opens the booth, picks up a pair of pliers, and goes back to the bonnet. He hits the battery terminal with the pliers several times. Maybe this will work, he thinks, as he goes back into the car and starts the engine. It crackles, then stalls.
“This is just my unlucky day,” he says and waves his hands in the air dejectedly. Just then, he sees two men crossing the four lane highway and walking toward him from the Ayilara street side. The man sizes them up. One is stocky like a wooden barrel and draped in an old-fashioned green tweed coat so wrinkled it looks like he has been wearing it in his sleep. He has a fist-size, lion’s head pendant neck chain. His colleague is tall and lanky and dressed in a blue shirt, and a blue tie with black polka dots. Threads sprout from the lapel of his collar. His trousers seem to be angry at the ground; they barely reach his ankles, thus exposing red socks that clash with his scuffed, brown shoes.
“Hello,” says the man, as he hastily glances at the shoes of the lanky stranger.
“Hi, buddy,” they both answer in unison.
“You gotta problem?” the lanky fellow asks in a fake American accent.
“Well, sort of,” the gray-bearded man replies.
“What’s ya problem?” the barrel-chested guy asks.
“One of those unlucky days,” the bearded man intones. “The car just decides to mess me up.”
At that moment, the barrel-chested guy grabs the pliers and goes to the bonnet. He removes the plug caps and notices that they are soaked with engine oil. He shows one of the plugs to the bearded man. After about five minutes of cleaning the plugs with a rag and blowing air into them with his mouth, he places them back on the plug sockets. Then, the lanky fellow slips underneath the car. Moments later, he emerges with the fuel filter and shows it to the bearded man.
“This gas filter is dirty, man,” he says as he blows air into the filter. “Anyway, I’ve blown the gaddem dirt away.” He slips underneath the car again and emerges after about 20 seconds.
He tells the Mercedes owner to start the engine. He follows instructions and marvels as the engine responds with a smooth low noise. The lanky man then tells him to switch it off and start again. The car responds with a rhythmical vroom. Elated, the bearded guy switches off the engine and steps out of the car.
“Gentlemen, thank you very much,” he says. “How much should I give for this service?”
“Men, we aren’t a roadside mechanics,” Mr. Barrel-chest says. “We just saw a brother, a buddy in distress, and just wanted to help.”
“Yeah man,” his friend adds. “When we saw ya, we thought this was a perfect gentleman who has been treated badly by a machine.”
“In that case, gentlemen, since you wouldn’t like to take money for this favor, I will like to say thank you very much,” the man says. He dips his hand into the inner pocket of his suit and brings out a gold-plated business card holder. He gives a card each to the fellows. As he opens the car door, the lanky fellow touches him on the shoulder.
“Your business card says you are the managing director of Creative Ventures. What’s that all about?” he asks.
“Oh, that? We are into a lot of creative businesses, you know”
“Well, we’ve just returned from the United States.” the lanky fellow says. “Actually we live in the United States and just came here a couple of days to meet our business partners.”
“Maybe you’ll be interested in our business,” adds his associate. “It’s a multimillion-dollar income generating business, which has made many people wealthy beyond their imaginations.”
The bearded man doesn’t say a word as he listens attentively to the duo. Maybe today is not an unlucky day after all, he thinks. Then he looks at the fellows, and observes their shabby clothing. They seem to read his mind.
“And don’t look at our appearance to judge us. We are indeed multimillionaires,” the lanky fellow says. “Lagos is a dangerous place to flaunt your wealth. We have to be careful not to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”
“And what’s this business of yours?” he asks.
“We sell a wealth creation system,” the lanky one says in a soft whisper. “And our office is just about two minutes’ drive from here. Would you like to see the place?”
The gray-bearded man says okay and invites the men into his car. Just about a kilometer into the trip, they instruct him to turn right onto a bumpy, dusty road. Horns blare from commercial motorcyclists, also known as Okadas, as the riders avoid the potholes while aiming for the small patches of flat ground. After about 30 meters, the car makes a left turn.
The man’s eyes travel to a tall, fair-complexioned lady, probably in her early twenties, who loiters near a bungalow across the street. She has no shirt on, but a red brassiere and white shorts which expose her shapely thighs and legs.
He looks ahead toward a green, two-story building where a woman in a black chiffon camisole and high-heeled shoes stands seductively.
Then, his eyes meander to another young girl next to a poorly-maintained bungalow with a blue, tattered window blind and broken door. She wears a white organza blouse, and her hair is unkempt. Their eyes meet. He quickly averts his gaze.
Here and there, young girls in short skirts, tight tops and wispy dresses sit in groups or alone in seductive postures. Nearby, a tipsy-looking man embraces a woman who stands by a low brick fence in front of a dilapidated house. The man pats her on her behind, then places his right arm loosely around her bare, round waist. The couple jauntily enters the rundown home.
A few minutes later, the lanky fellow announces that they have reached their destination. As they exit the car, the stench of urine and feces hit the bearded man’s nostrils. His eyes travel to an unfinished building with broken doors. Half-naked young boys and girls, in worn pants, scramble about. Momentarily, his eyes catch a young teenage girl strutting along the street in a skimpy red skirt. She puffs a cigarette.
The man follows his companions into a bungalow with rusty roofs. The compound is dotted with stagnant pools of water here and there. The cream-colored wall has lost its luster, and now assumes the appearance of a burnt mushroom. Confused and quite uncomfortable, the bearded man asks the fellows where, exactly, they are.
One of them explains that the area is known as the Empire Hotel vicinity. About a couple of streets away lies Moshalashi street. Many years ago, the Kalakuta Republic, a communal compound which belonged to popular African-beat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was located at 14 Agege Motor Road, Idi-Oro, Mushin. The unknown soldiers set the compound on fire on February 18, 1977, because Fela had ridiculed soldiers in one of his albums. In a song, he described soldiers as zombies who obeyed orders blindly. During the attack, Fela was beaten, and his elderly mother was thrown from a window. She died later from the injury.
The man is afraid, but he follows the duo into a narrow, dimly lit hallway. They stop after three doors, open a room, touch a switch, and turn on a soft light from a yellow bulb. The room smells like burnt mud and reeks of cigarettes and stale beer. The men sit down on a bed that creaks and offer their new acquaintance a seat close to the door and a drink from a bottle stashed in a half-closed cupboard. The man declines. Meanwhile, the barrel-chested guy swigs the drink like a fish.
“Schnapps is truly the drink of kings,” he says.
But Mr. Gray Beard is not the least bit interested. After all, he can detect the smell of the local gin, ogogoro, poured into a Seaman’s Aromatic Schnapps bottle. His thoughts are on the wealth creation system and how this venture will change his life forever.
The barrel-chested guy brings him back to earth as he whips out a black leather suitcase stuffed with piles of black banknote-sized papers. The guy explains that they brought the banknotes in a container from the U.S., and had intentionally stained them in black to deceive the Nigerian Customs officials at the ports. He adds that a chemical exists which can clean the banknotes.
As he says this, his business partner flashes a small vial of washing liquid and asks their bearded guest to pick any of the black banknotes.
He gingerly picks one and hands it to him. Momentarily, the barrel-chested guy distracts the bearded man by shoving the plastic cup, thereby spilling the local gin onto the table.
However, the man notices as the lanky fellow deftly pulls something like a black bank note from underneath the table. What is it? And why the surreptitious slights of hand? He wonders.
The lanky fellow pours the washing chemical on the black paper. Gradually, the image of a $100 bill appears. The bearded man is stunned.
How did the magic happen? Here is an explanation of the trick, also known as the money-washing scam.
The money in the suitcase is not real currency. It is black construction paper. However, the con men coated some genuine hundred-dollar bills with a protective layer of Elmer's glue. Thereafter, when they dip the money into a solution of tincture of iodine, the dried bills look and feel like black construction paper.
Their guest picked one of the pieces of construction paper, but as he handed it to one of them, the other distracted him so that his colleague could switch it with an iodine coated genuine dollar bill hidden under the table. The chemical solution for washing the money is actually crushed Vitamin C tablets dissolved in water.
The corrupt duo was desperately trying to pull their gray-bearded companion into a devious scam.
“Buddy, this business will indeed make you fabulously rich,” one of them says. “We can wash a minimum of two million dollars for you, or you can increase it to whatever amount. All you need to bring as the minimum is two hundred thousand naira to buy the chemical to wash the bank notes and another two hundred thousand naira as professional fees.”
The man ponders the proposal for about two minutes as the music of Oliver De Coque, the Ogene superstar, wafts across from one of the rooms. He can hear the lyrics of the track, “Funny, funny, identity.” From the adjoining room, the soft moan of a woman and the groan of a man in ecstasy filter into his ears. He knows the sound from the woman is fake, but what about the man’s? It sounds more like pain than pleasure. Why, he wonders, did the groaning man seek out a prostitute to fulfill his desire? Is he a young or old man? Is he a single or married man? Is he using a condom?
“What do you think about the business?” the barrel-chested guy asks.
“It’s a deal, gentlemen,” the man says, suppressing his enthusiasm. “I will get 800,000 naira ready tomorrow. That will be for four million dollars.” The man stands up to leave the room. Then he looks back and says: “You see, I’m a pastor in my church. I will not want any of my congregation to see me in this environment. Let’s meet at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja. I’ll be waiting for you at the lobby tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.”
The duo look at each other for about five seconds, then shrug their shoulders in agreement.
“That’s OK buddy,” they say in unison. They shake his hand one after the other and say good-bye.
As he leaves the room, his eyes meet those of a stranger coming out of the next room—the groaning man. He walks to the side of the corridor, making room for the guy to pass. When they both reach an open space, he observes the fellow. He is a scruffy man, wearing soiled, shabby trousers. His shoulders droop, and he has an extensive stomach. The fellow jumps on top of a motorbike and soon vanishes from Oguntokun Street to the Yaba bus stop road.
A man has been made a king yet he’s searching for a good luck charm. Does he want to become God? (In other words, being crowned a king is about the best fortune a mortal could hope for)—Yoruba proverb.
That night, the bearded man cannot sleep. He tumbles and rolls on his bed and frets about his meeting with the two fellows earlier in the day. His thoughts are not about the sudden wealth which he has been assured, but the characters of those fellows. What is prosperity? he ponders. How can a man channel his energy positively to be prosperous? What about those fellows? Based on their skill and knowledge of auto mechanics, they’re probably intelligent, he thinks. At the very least, they’re bright enough to engage in a profitable trade to earn a good living.
As he continues to ponder and roll on the bed, his wife wakes up and asks him why he is so restless. He tells her all is well, then pecks her on the cheek. Drops of sweat trickle down his face, even in the air-conditioned room. His hands tremble, and his heart pounds heavily. He gets out of bed and goes to his study room where he sorts through the bookshelves until he finds his favorite book, As A Man Thinketh, by James Allen. He flips through the pages, then stops to read.
“A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts.”
He places the book carefully onto the bookshelf. Then picks another book by the author, “Eight Pillars of Prosperity.” He searches the page for the first pillar–energy. He reads softly.
“The man of energy exerts himself to the accomplishment of some end, or ends. The end may be a good one or a bad one; but if a bad one, that is the abuse of energy which reacts destructively on the doer, like one striking a wall with his fist, and only injures his own hand. Energy is always good, but it is only useful when applied to good ends, and those ends, when reached, constitute happiness, success, prosperity.”
After reading those words, the man relaxes. He has an “ah ha moment,” a moment of truth. Those fellows have an abundant amount of energy, he thinks, but in its application that they are greatly deficient.
He turns the page, over, and over until he gets to the third pillar–integrity.
“There is no striking a cheap bargain with prosperity. It must be purchased, not only with intelligent labor, but with moral force. As the bubble cannot endure, so the fraud cannot prosper. He makes a feverish spurt in the acquirement of money, and then collapses. Nothing is ever gained, ever can be gained, by fraud. It is but wrested for a time, to be again returned with heavy interest... What is a thief but a man who carries to its logical extreme the desire to possess without giving a just return—that is, unlawfully?”
He ponders more on this as he sits in deep thought in the book-filled room. Then he begins to doze. At last, the sweet sleep he longs for taps his eyelids softly. And he floats into peace.
The following Tuesday, the man drives from his residence at Palmgrove towards Maryland. Behind the wheel, his mind swings like a pendulum, wavering back and forth to the texts he read the previous night. He continues to reflect on those philosophical words over and over again, relying on introspection to pass time. By the time he turns from the Maryland Bridge on to Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, he is completely engrossed in thought. About three minutes later, he is close to the Sheraton Hotel. As he veers right into the hotel gate, his eyes journey to the Opebi U-turn road, close to the hotel fence on the left. His two new acquaintances are standing under a tree, trying not to look conspicuous. He drives into the car park and heads into the lobby. It’s 7:10 p.m.
As he sits at the lobby bar, he swings his head in nostalgia to the melodious highlife music of Dr. Victor Olaiya (the Evil Genius of Highlife), being played by the in-house live band.
Ilu le o ko sowo lode
Obirin nkigbe, okurin nkigbe
Kaluku lo nkigbe owo
The times are hard, there is no money to spend
Women and men, all cry
About this cash crunch
Twenty minutes later, the con men saunter into the lobby. He beckons and shepherds them to a table at the south end of the restaurant. It’s a window seat, away from other patrons. He calls a waiter and orders a bottle of champagne. Five minutes later, the waiter returns with a bottle immersed in ice cubes in a stainless steel bucket. The waiter opens the bottle and pours the drink into three wine glasses.
“This is for a new beginning and an everlasting friendship,” the gray-bearded man says, while they clink glasses.
Then he reaches under the table and pulls out a brown brief case. He unlocks the case and watches the eyes of his guests gleam. And he stops.
“I have a confession, gentlemen,” he says. “I’m not really the fool you think I am. But first, I’d like to thank you for rescuing me from the problem I had with the car yesterday. I also thank you for the business proposal–the wealth creation system.”
The waiter appears with the menu to take orders. He orders his first course—sea bass roll stuffed with mussels and artichoke sauce. He also orders the main course—filet of beef sautéed in Marsala wine with goose liver and truffle on potatoes, spinach croquette-style. He asks the fellows if they would like to eat. They decline by shaking their heads.
He continues: “From our interaction yesterday, I think you guys are intelligent. What really baffles me from the manner you fixed the car is that you both have a good profession which can indeed bring fortunes to you, only if you can channel your mechanical skills and ingenuity into a positive energy.” He stops as the fellows look on in amazement, mouths agape at the turn of events.
“Let me tell you who I am,” he says as he stands up and puts his right hand into his right pocket. “Well, I’m indeed into creative business; creative writing. I’m a writer and an author. You, gentlemen, have just given me the concluding chapter of a collection of short stories that I’m working on.”
The lanky fellow dips his hand into the breast pocket of his black suede suit. Momentarily, the bearded man waves to three heavyset men in well-cut suits who sit about 30 feet away.
“Friends, those men over there are also my friends,” he cautions. “I brought them in case you want to try something silly.” He stands up while the dazed con artists watch nervously.
“My buddies, you may keep my empty brief case. Honestly, it’s a genuine Louis Vuitton case, and I’m sure it’s enough compensation for you for your roles as characters in my story book,” he says.
As he leaves, he turns back and faces the fellows, and adds: “By the way, you can have the remaining champagne—it’s truly a drink of kings.”
He chuckles as he remembers what the lanky fellow had said the previous day while swirling the local gin.