“It’s not a good idea,” Etekamba said, shaking his head.
“But what is mine is also yours, isn’t it?” Edima suggested.
“I know, but it’s not a good idea.” Etekamba stood his ground.
“Okay, what’s not good about the idea?” Edima probed.
“Well, you see, it would be nice for me to have a structure to my life first. The way my life is now is neither here nor there. I am still trying to navigate my way around life,” Etekamba tried to explain.
“I do understand that, and that is why I am making this offer to sort of ease things out for you till you are stabilised,” Edima spoke in a softer tone.
“I am grateful for that, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I would suggest that we tarry a bit, then once I am stabilised, we can conclude arrangements,” Etekamba stated.
In that J5 public transport bus that was travelling from Zamfara State in northern Nigeria to Lagos State in western Nigeria, Etekamba’s mind played back to the last meeting with Edima. Every single detail was recollected. The ones that struck him the most were the words: “In that case, I will have to move on.”
‘So this is how fickle life could be?’ Etekamba thought. ‘When you think you are secure about a project, the carpet is swept off your feet and you crash land’.
In his wildest dream, he never imagined that part of his life would end in such a dramatic and eventful way. After travelling for several hundreds of kilometres to visit Edima, this was the outcome of his trip.
‘Did he make a mistake by rejecting the offer’? He thought so hard.
Sleep took a flight from his body and bags grew under his eyeballs overnight.
“No, no, no, it’s not a good idea. I did the right thing,” he tried to convince himself.
“Are you okay?” the gentleman sitting next to him asked.
“Why? Don’t I look okay?” he queried the gentleman.
“Well, for the past twenty minutes, you have been talking to yourself, and I was just wondering if you were okay.”
Etekamba didn’t realise that he had been conversing with himself all along, and all those who sat in the J5 bus near him overheard the conversation and kept wondering if they were safe with him inside the bus.
Edima and Etekamba met at the university. They became close buddies, and over time, the relationship metamorphosed into something special. Their attachment towards each other grew in weight and volume. They wanted to cement it further by making commitments to each other in the presence of witnesses. After graduation, they went on to carry out their national service in different States of Nigeria. After the national service, they reconvened at Zamfara State, as the idea was to explore how to take things further in their relationship. Etekamba was making a few trips to Monrovia and Abidjan, making some new contacts, and developing a business plan, but nothing had materialised yet. He didn’t have a house; he was perching with friends here and there. He also didn’t have a stable source of income. What the future held in store for him, he did not know, but he was courageous enough to face it squarely. What the future held in store for them, none of them knew either. They did not have any crystal ball to peer into the future.
Would Etekamba be like the proverbial young man who went to visit the local fortune teller and the cowries were cast with the tortoise? If the tortoise went right, it meant a bright future and if the tortoise went left, it meant a bleak future. All eyes were fastened on the tortoise. As slow as ever the tortoise crawled as if to go right then turned and started heading left and the young man grabbed the tortoise and turned it around to head right. The fortune teller was shocked. He said in over his fifteen years of being a diviner, he had never seen such a scenario play out. Would Etekamba do the same and take his destiny into his own hands now?
Edima, on the other hand, was a successful businesswoman. She had made quite a fortune from her business dealings in the past. She was willing to lend Etekamba some money to enable him to marry her, but not for Etekamba to invest in his business that would generate income to make Etekamba take care of their supposed home that they intended to build.
“No, no, no, no, it’s not a good idea,” Etekamba yelled in the J5 bus, and the driver slowed the vehicle to a halt.