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“Can’t you behave like the first born!” Abiola Jr, grew up hearing those piercing words, which made him always feel like running away from home. As far as he could remember ever since he had dropped on earth, there was always someone around nagging him, eager to remind him of his duties decided for him, before he was even conceived. Being the first born son of Paramount Chief Abiola IV, Junior was expected to succeed him in a lineage that dated back over three centuries and become leader of his over two million Bola peoples.

Even as a little boy, Junior, would be dressed up in traditional attire, the agbada, and taken to some of the meetings and functions Chief Abiola presided over. He grew up seeing his father at a distance, seated on a throne, surrounded by courtiers, and ever wearing a permanent stern face, like an Egyptian sphinx. In his young mind he didn’t want to end up like this distant man constantly at work.

“You will one day be seated in that chair your father is in with everyone waiting on you,” his mother once whispered to Junior, as he slumbered through another long meeting, his eyelids dropping heavy with sleep. “So, stay awake and watch everything!”

He hated it all. It seemed no one was letting him live and enjoy his childhood. Largely because of this constant admonishment  he took to being the most mischievous child in the family.

In Chief Abiola’s compound of three wives and a dozen children, Junior was always the last to attend to his chores. At a local school, he stood out as a pain to the teachers, who were hesitant to punish him because of his royal status. But they would report him to the Chief, who would roar back, “You are embarrassing me and yet you are the first born!”

Pushed, but determined to have his way, Junior took to more cranks.  At every single opportunity he seemed to court trouble. Once he led his age mates to raid a garden of a neighbor and pick fruits without asking, against village norms. When reports got to the Chief, Junior was summoned and harangued. “You are not behaving like a first born, why!”

Junior lowered his head, hating everything about his birth.

Tired of receiving embarrassing cases of his errant son causing constant trouble,  fearing one day he might have to pick him from a police station, the Chief decided to send Junior to Justice Soyinka, a brother of his who was based in Abuja. “Maybe under a different environment you will grow up and start behaving like a firstborn.”

If Chief Abiola had expected a sterner hand to raise his wayward child it was the very opposite. Justice Soyinka was a busy man who after enrolling his nephew into a boarding international high school, simply cautioned him to stay away from trouble. But unlike all those people with whom Junior had grown up, Justice Soyinka did not reiterate to him his firstborn status. “You have to study well because it will be good for you in the future!” Then he left.

Freed from constant admonitions of a workaholic father, Junior hooked up with a group at school that spent more time patronizing bars than libraries. He barely passed his ‘O’ levels.  Soon after starting his ‘A’ levels, came the devastating news from Bola state. “You father has just passed on of a heart attack and you must leave at once for the funeral,” Justice Soyinka picked him from school.

After news of the death had sunk in, Junior realized that his father’s sudden death meant he had to succeed him as Paramount Chief as per age old custom. But he didn’t feel like he was ready at all. Junior had a girlfriend and was more interested in living his carefree life in the city. “I hope they don’t end up thrusting me into my father’s shoes when I don’t want!”  He thought to himself.

But just as he had feared, once the funeral was done, and he was planning to head back to the city and to his girlfriend, junior was summoned by the council of elders to the Capital hall.  Nervous, he walked to the palace hall, urged on by his mother. They found the Capital hall filled with all elders and  his siblings in agbada who bowed once they saw him step forward through the wide gates. They all immediately fell prostrate on the floor. Gingerly, Junior walked past, and was eventually led up to the empty throne. Then everyone got up and stood straight. The Prime Minister of the state, moved forward. He motioned Junior to take his seat on the throne.

He hesitated.

“You are now Paramount Chief of the Bola peoples!” the Prime Minister said. “Long live the Chief!” came a deafening chorus from the crowd. Junior sat nervously and started listening to speech after speech praising him.

Tired from the day’s meeting, once the ceremonies were , Junior called up his mother and told her he was not ready to become the Paramount Chief. “Besides, I need to go back to Abuja and resume my school work.”  He was thinking of his girlfriend whom he missed. At night without warning he disappeared.

Back at school, Junior picked up from where he had left of his old life of endless boozing and running around with his girlfriend. But when holidays came and he returned to Justice Soyinka’s house, he couldn’t be allowed to settle in. “You are going back to the Bola state to take up your duties as Paramount Chief,” Justice Soyinka told him in a matter of fact voice.

“But I don’t want to,” exclaimed Junior. “I just want to stay here and live my life.”

“Sorry,” the Justice said, motioning Junior to follow him to the car. “You do not have much choice in this. Just as you did not decide on your birth so is being Chief. This is your destiny. You can’t run away from your destiny.”

Driving back to the state with his uncle steady at the wheels, Junior sat in deep thought, hating every moment that he was being pushed into a position given to him at birth. However, by the time he got to the state capital he had accepted his fate. “I will just do my best!”

Once it was clear in his mind and he agreed to being crowned Chief Abiola V, Junior assumed his duties with remarkable zeal. From once the rebel child he was now the strictest Chief. He would spend the day in long meetings, much like his father, listening to intricate cases and receiving delegations from near and far. When his old village agemates would visit him and ask him to go out with him he would keep them waiting. Much later, he would send a chit that they should come back another time, when he might have time.

Junior’s old friends now resigned to seeing him at state functions where he sat alone on a raised throne wearing a stately face. If they waved at him, he would motion with a finger, his face a sphinx, as was once of his father.

Some years later Justice Soyinka happened to visit Bola state and called upon his nephew. The moment he saw the young Chief he noticed something wrong. The once light hearted boy who used to live in his house full of life was no more. In spite of his youth, Junior’s face was all harrowed with lines of worry. His hair was fast greying. He noticed the boy was now walking with a hunch.

“Do you ever find any time to rest,” the uncle asked his nephew.

“But how can I!” replied the Chief. “My day is filled with all these cases to decide and delegations to receive. Everyone wants a piece of me and I have all this work to accomplish to protect our state.”

“You used to go out a lot with your friends,” the uncle pressed on. “Do you ever find time to play with your old friends?”

“But how can I! replied the Chief. “There is no time to play. What will I talk with them anyway? I am now Chief Abiola. They have no idea of the hot chair I am seated on.”

“Son,” the Justice after a long pause, drew his breath. “If you don’t start relaxing and having time for yourself, find a way to relax with your old friends, and laugh, do things you enjoy, not just because you have to, within a couple of years you will drop dead like your father. It is good that you finally accepted your destiny. But for your gentle sakes place, just as you resisted everything before, now remember the State is not you, for you have also a life to live.”

Everyone who heard that Mutambuze had quit his job, as a Partner in a Wall Street Investment bank to go and settle back home in bushy Africa as an orchard farmer, thought he had lost his mind. The job he was giving up was not like your run of the mill assignment.

After graduating at the top of his MBA class, the Dean of his US Midwestern Business school, impressed by his grades, had advised him to apply for a job at a famous investment bank. Mutambuze had done some case studies analyzing some of this bank’s ventures, but had no prior contact.  Nevertheless, not eager to go back to Africa, and end up job hunting for scarce jobs, he complied.

Being recruited at Lion’s Investment Bank (LIB) was notoriously competitive. It snapped the best and brightest kids from top B- Schools handing them six figure dollar salaries. Invited for an interview, Mutambuze noticed he was the only black. The rest were white and Asian kids, who came from Ivy League Colleges and carried themselves with supreme confidence, if not cockiness.  So he was most delighted, if not shocked, to be called the day after his interview. “We are offering you a job at LIB!”

Having joined, when he received his first paycheck, Mutambuze almost went crazy. He had to go over it, wild eyed, to make sure it was him. If he was back in Africa it would take him probably five years to earn this kind of money. His life instantly changed. He secured a Penthouse apartment overlooking a Lake. There was almost no toy beyond his reach now to acquire; he quickly spoilt himself to a sports car. This was some life, even in his wildest dreams, he had never dreamed of.

Mutambuze discovered earning this kind of money at LIB was by no means a walk in the park. Young investment analysts like him worked 24/7, going over huge files where they analyzed various firms balance sheets before recommending acquisitions. So often they had to fly out to visit these firms. Living in planes and at airports in the US, as he was always shuttling between cities, hardly having chance to enjoy his neat apartment, became the norm.

LIB had a masculine and competitive culture close to open bullying. Assignments had to be delivered yesterday without fail. Staff were constantly harassed to deliver results or be dropped. “You are lucky to get a job at LIB!” any would be reminded, if there was a hint of a complaint.

For Mutambuze, having grown up under harsh conditions, surviving on coarse posho corn meal and weevil-laced beans in the boarding schools he had gone to, this was no issue. Indeed, he excelled and after five years was rewarded as a Partner. This came after he had gone through three days and nights without sleep to write a report that earned the firm a major acquisition in China. A partnership at a top investment bank came with even more benefits.

Around that time he married a beautiful black girl from West Indies, called Anne. The two were attracted to each other being both immigrants and working in the financial industry. Soon the married couple bought a multimillion dollar house in a leafy suburb, circled with the best schools, wide roads and malls, and looked forward to a happy bright future. After struggling for years they had a son and settled into a life of a wealthy suburban couple that vacationed in Hawaii.

Then one day their lives changed abruptly.

Mutambuze was busy at work when he got a call that his mother back in Africa had suddenly passed away.  Mutambuze knew he had to attend the burial as he had missed his father’s funeral while attending graduate school. Having called up Anne he boarded a plane and after 21 hours of flying across the world, he arrived just in time before burial. He had expected to leave immediately after due to pending office assignments. But just after burial he started receiving delegation after delegation of elders seeking his counsel and decision over some outstanding family matter.

As heir to his father, a former chief and head of clan, many of the locals recognized and looked up to Mutambuze as a cultural leader. They had been waiting for him ever since. Besides attending to them, Mutambuze, got to understand that the land his father had left to the family, was now being encroached on as he and his siblings had long migrated to the US. The matters were quite complicated that he called LIB asking for a week’s extension. The bank denied his request.

It is on his flight back to work when Mutambuze made the decision to quit. “Why can’t I stay and develop our land with a mango farm and start a juice making factory!” He wondered, reflecting on all the companies he was restructuring around the world before selling them. “Cant I take this knowledge back home!”

When he got together with Anne, he told her, “I want to go back to Africa and start life as a farmer!”

“Have you lost your mind!” she sneered at his proposal. “We are happy here with a child and have a dog. If you are going, just know I am not following you.”

Later, after debating the pros and cons, it was agreed that while Anne stayed behind, Mutambuze would go and give the project a two year time limit. “If nothing comes of it I will return,” he promised. “I will ask the bank for a two year unpaid leave of absence.”

The bank didn’t promise to keep his job, though it mentioned he would always be considered, if he ever wished to return. Mutambuze wound up his duties and then flew back to Africa to start large scaling farming.

In his former career as an Investment Analyst, Mutambuze could easily figure out how to turn around a firm from loss to profit making. But going into large scale farming here at home was nothing like he had ever expected. It seemed he was hitting road blocks everywhere he turned. The machinery he imported could not arrive on time and when it did the taxes where through the roof. Simple implements like seedlings and fertilizers were almost impossible to procure. The workers he hired were slothful and quick to cheat on him.

Initially Mutambuze settled in the city, whose life he was more accustomed to. But as no work was making progress, he moved to the rural farm, throwing away his suits for overalls. He now lived in a small hut and spent the day out in the sun.

Two years down the road he had not even started planting trees. He called up Anne to ask for more time. Her response was fast. “I am leaving you!”

Mutambuze considered giving up the project and going back to the US, to return to his old life. But then, as he reflected, in spite of all, he was enjoying what he was doing. Life was far more rewarding; he was providing a valuable service as a farmer to his community and was consulted on for many things, including cultural issues as a clan head.

“Anne, it’s okay but I am staying here!” The couple agreed to a divorce, with Anne going with his son and their multi-million dollar house.

Much as he had lost his job and all his investment, Mutambuze trudged on. Slowly, things started coming together, though he was always up to a new unexpected challenge. The mango trees he planted were often subject to pests and once they ripened he had to deal with thieves.

Once it was time to harvest Mutambuze noted he had never wanted to be a seller of raw materials, like a peasant. Using his old connections he got investors to start a mango juice factory in his district with ultra-modern machinery. Being a cultural leader he convinced his people to supplement on his farm produce as out growers.

When his juice factory released its first product no one was as excited. Mutambuze developed a marketing plan which he executed, turning his juice product into one of the best-selling on the market. Eventually he started selling regionally and to the Middle East.

All this time he remained in regular contact with Anne, who with time, remarried. Mutambuze also started a new family. When his son was about to graduate, they invited him for graduation. At the ceremony hearing his son’s name read, he had a moment to reflect and look back on his life.

By returning to Africa it had cost him immensely in terms of his professional career and wealth enhancement, given all the opportunities he had left behind. He had lost his marriage and time witnessing his son grow.  Whatever success in life he knew of had come at a huge price.

But Mutambuze was happy. He felt a very fulfilled man, having gone out and done something close and dear to his heart. He had built in his country something enduring that created jobs for many while also saving family land. Life had presented him two roads to choose from. He took the one filled with all dangers and less glamour. “Even if I was given another chance I wouldn’t choose differently,” he nodded, as he saw his son walk down with his degree.

Cathy Mcpherson never forgot the day she first came across a copy of National Geographic magazine. Her father, a university professor of linguistics, always came back home with a bunch of magazines like TIME, New Yorker, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and more. There was also this magazine with glossy pictures of often distant dark skinned peoples, secluded away in some tropical forest in the Amazon or lost down on a remote island floating on the Pacific ocean, that caught Cathy’s attention most.

National Geographic fascinated her as here she read about a semi- nude people, hunting down and feasting on wild meat, retiring to dance excitedly beneath a full moon. At a very early age she decided she would study more about such remote tribes.

Once admitted to university she decided to major in anthropology after her first degree, a subject that explores the lives and cultures of peoples in different habitats. For her Ph.D the university required her to venture out and write an original thesis about a distant tribe that westerners had little knowledge of. Of course such tribes were becoming rare but through connections at her local church where there was a mission organization targeting un reached tribes with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, she came across one.

“There is this tribe of the Togela peoples who only allow in visitors briefly,” a missionary at her church shared. “Perhaps you could go there and help us understand why there are so resistant to the Gospel.”

With the help of this missionary Cathy  was allowed in to study the ways of the Togela . “If you have not come here to preach to us about abandoning our ways of life and take up yours we can even allow you stay longer,” Chief Asilika nyo welcomed her.

Ever adventurous Cathy quickly settled among these secluded people. She would rise up early from her thatched hut and after a breakfast of yams with hot tea spiced with lemon grass, walk down bare feet to clear bushes for plantations. She worked with the women and their little kids with extended bellies. The men would meanwhile splinter off to the forests where they spent the day hunting, sometimes returning late at night with their trophy.

In the evening these men would sit around in a circle to sip a brew which had been prepared by the women, upon return from the gardens. Seeing all, Cathy made her first observation- “in this culture the women are ever bent in back breaking chores while the men feast from their  captured wild meat to dance and clap. It is not good.”  She wrote.

The Togela culture forbade women to taste beef and sip on intoxicating brew, a high offense which could lead to a woman being ostracized from the tribe. But being a foreigner Cathy was given a pass; she tasted some of the roasted game meat, which she found delicous.

One day Cathy also took a sip of the local brew. She had noticed that the men could spend almost all night sipping on it after a hunt while munching their roasted meat called muchomo. The brew called Lira-lira had an effect on them and would get the men jumping up and down in a wild dance as they called for more liquor to be served. Exhausted they staggered back to their huts where they would commence on beating the very women who had been serving. Sometimes it was like the whole village was lost in wails from these beatings by drunken men. In the morning one after the other the women swept away broken teeth while nursing their black eyes. “This needs to change,” Cathy wrote.

Back at her home Cathy had grown up around various spirits and brandies which her father regularly imbibed, and she an occasion lazily sipped too. But the day she decided to take a few sips of Lira- lira she quickly blacked out. After she got up from her delirium there were dark men standing over her, pointing to her lamely, “Poor white woman weak! She can’t stand our Lira- lira.”

Back on her feet Cathy wondered how any people could drink so strong a brew ( Lira- lira could even light up like paraffin) night out after night. When she started asking her women friends, at first they laughed her off. But gradually as she gained their confidence they started opening up to her.

“Those men drink so much because there are unhappy,” said Abyotodde, one grandmotherly confidant. “They need to for there are hurting so much.”

“What is it you are talking about?” Cathy asked.

“You see here we have so many secrets,” Abyotodde pulled her within ear’s reach. “Lira- lira helps break our men free for a while.”

“Can you let me on in some of those secrets,” Cathy whispered.

After glancing around and seeing no one was within ear’s reach, Abyotodde started. “We have men who get home and after beating their wives turn on their daughters and rape them,” she said, her eyes melting with tears. “Those men could be a product of rape too and they grew up very embittered. You wait when we go to war with one of the neighboring tribes and you will see what I mean.”

The Togela people regularly engaged in bloody scuffles with neighboring tribes. One day it was reported a hated tribe had encroached upon the Togela land. In the deep of the night, Chief Asilika nyo sounded a war drum. All the men came out dressed in war garb of animal skins. Without waste they started pursuing the enemy. At dawn they returned with a column of prisoners. What happened thereafter shocked Cathy.

The prisoners were pushed down in a trench which served as a prison. For Cathy the rules of war dictated that a prisoner of war should not be tortured or maimed. Yet here now they started freely torturing war captives, including pulling their nails off, one by one.

Peeping from her hut and overwhelmed by deafening wails Cathy noticed that the men who indulged in this torture seemed  to relish it all. They casually bludgeoned their captives to death with small hoes, pushing bodies off like some useless cockroaches.

“They do that because there are hurting within,” Abyogedde, explained to Cathy once they got together. “Our people grow up feeling unloved because of all the abuse they endured. They have bottled anger and this is why you should never stand in the way of a Togela who is mad. Anything can happen.”

Deeply concerned Cathy decided to approach Chief Asilika nyo. “Chief I  know I am a visitor but I want to help on some  important matter.”
“What is it my child,” Chief Asilika nyo said in a fatherly voice.

Cathy pulled her stool nearer. “Why is there a lot of domestic violence here? Your men habitually beat your mothers down to bloody beads. Some have told me the men are also victims because they grew up seeing their fathers unleash reigns of terror in homes. They don’t know how to express themselves other than through violence. This is why after war they ghoul out captured prisoners eyes, yet torture is forbidden among civilized people.”

“The problem with you is you forgive too much!” Ataseka loved to remind her husband, Kasana who had an irritating habit of passing slights, believing forging and maintaining relationships was far more important than holding on to grudges. “Life is long and no need to hold on to petty slights.” This was one of Kasana’s favorite sayings.

Ataseka would have none of that. There was one particular incident that really irked her.
Kasana had applied for an executive job of a newly created government agency. If they got that job there was no doubt it would improve the family fortunes. So eager was he for this job that Kasana took effort to inquire about the recruitment process. The news he got was comforting. On the interview panel would sit an Assistant commissioner from his ministry, a man he had himself recruited. “At least I have a vote in hand,” he thought to himself.

After the interview, Kasana waited anxiously for his appointment, quite assured he had done well. To his shock, another candidate was appointed to the job. Eager to know what happened he used his inside networks to find what had gone wrong. And that is when he discovered that the Assistant Commissioner he was dependent on had actually voted against him.

After the news had sunk in, he shared it with Ateseka. She vowed never to forgive
“that man and any members of his family. I recall how he was unemployed and you took him to the ministry,” she reminded Kasana. “And here he was the one speaking against you. I will never speak to that man again!”

Kasana was as equally mad. But other than hit back, taking his philosophy of a long view of life, he just settled back in his old job where he continued to work with the very Assistant Commissioner. He had in his powers to make life miserable for the Assistant Commissioner by, say, putting out a damaging dossier yet he chose not to. Part of his reason was tactical. “You never know whom you may need one day,” he would shrug off Ataseka’s urges to have the Assistant Commissioner fired.

In her life, Ataseka lived with a maxim of a scorched earth if she run into anyone who ever slighted her. At the National referral hospital where she worked as a nursing supervisor all the nurses and junior staff under her lived in terror of ever getting on the wrong side of her. She would not hesitate to put one on ‘katebe’, for daring showing the slightest disrespect.

One day came this particular nurse, Onsanze, who started boasting having a nursing degree unlike Ataseka who as an enrolled nurse. In meetings, Onsanze would making alternative suggestions countering her proposals. As it was in her powers, Ataseka had had her re assigned to a dead-end shift, past midnight, one where she was denied of any serious work. “That is what you do with a smart aleck!”

Now, time came when Kasana and Ataseka retired from their formal jobs. Soon, a son of theirs graduated and started looking for a job. Then Kasana reached out to his old networks. He found that his old Assistant Commissioner had eventually taken up the job he once coveted. Kasana decided to approach him. “I have my boy just out of school and can you find him something to do here?”

The Assistant Commissioner had long been torn with guilt over what he had done to Kasana. What made him feel even worse is that Kasana had chosen not to retaliate, going ahead to leave behind a positive recommendation that had catapulted him into this agency, one of the best payers in the country. He also recalled how Kasana had once been of help to him in his struggle to secure employment at the start of his career. Quickly, he called in the Human Resource Director. “I want you to find something for this young man immediately.”

Kasansa left beaming with some satisfaction. “I am glad I left the doors open,” he reported back to Ataseka.

Out of a job, Ataseka continually suffered poor health. Whenever she visited any clinic they would refer her to the National referral hospital where she had once worked. “Those are the ones with expertise to handle your situation!” But Ataseka hesitated going back to her old work station. As a nursing supervisor she had left a trail of enemies and feared now finding herself dependent on those she used to harass.

However, her condition continued to worsen. Late one night, as she struggled for life, Kasana had to call for an Ambulance. There was no other place to take her but the National referral hospital.

Admitted, in the morning when Ataseka opened her eyes, there was Osanze standing erect and gazing at her, along with a troupe of other nurses, she used to work with. Ataseka closed her eyes. She wanted to bolt out of the hospital, but there she was, and in her weak statre, all she could do was to pray for the good graces of those she had once terrorized.

Taking a long view of life means that in human relations there are certain fights which you let go, and appear even a loser at the time, simply because you really have no idea who in the very end will be in the driver’s seat. Slights are ignored not because they do not bite but simply that the big picture matters more.

There are words that are told to us once in life, whose significance only rises with time. When Abebi was passing on of a cruel diabetic condition, she called up her son Abiola and told him, “Always be trustworthy!” In her weak state she muffled a few other things, the betrayal she had met in life but bore no bitterness because she believed in a just and fair God. Then she breathed her last.

At the time both were living together, having been thrown out of the family home. This was after Abiola’s father, Chikuemuka, had secured a younger wife, Katali. Chikuemuka was a trader in cotton which he would sale largely to travelling merchants. He always bought on credit from peasants but yet would never sell to any merchant unless by cash. Now instead of paying back the peasants what he owed he would use the proceeds to acquire square miles of land for his growing business empire. Whenever his many debtors would call upon him up for payment, he would put them on hold insisting that he had no money. “Come back when I get paid.”

That’s how he became one of the wealthiest men in Umondi county. But Chikuemeka’s fortunes started going down when one day he trusted one merchant with a huge delivery on credit, which he rarely did. He had done business with this particular merchant many times before and when he called him that he wanted a huge purchase, Chikuemuka quickly went back and collected as much cotton from the peasants. “Trust me this time,” he assured all of them of payment.

But once he delivered the assignment that was the last he saw of the merchant. Chikuemuka kept waiting for his payment in vain. Then the peasants started demanding their payments too and for sure this time Chikuemuka had no coin. They got the local authorities involved and started confiscating his land.

As his fortune spiraled down, at his home, Katali the new wife started accusing Abebi of engaging in witchcraft that was the cause of their husband’s misfortune. Chikuemuka sided with Katali and threw Abebi out of the family home with her son, Abiola.

Chikuemuka was eventually arrested and thrown in jail. Once in jail Katali run off with what was left of his property. Chikuemuka died a miserable man, unattended, regretting the pain he had caused to all those peasants he had used to get ahead in life.

After the death of his parents, Abiola, dropped out of school and started doing odd jobs. He would go to rich people’s gardens and plead to be allowed to till for them. But he hated these jobs which exacted faithful hard work for poor pay. Then one day he met a village mate who convinced him to start brewing local gin. “It is easy to make money here because you can easily cut corners and sell people even bad stuff,” said the village mate. “They are mostly drunk anyway and can’t tell the difference!”

Cutting corners involved minimizing contents like molasses, yielding a brew with a high poisonous alcoholic volume. One day several deaths were reported in Umondi. When investigations were carried out the culprit was found to be Abiola’s ginnery. Villagers moved to lynch Abiola. But he caught wind of their advance in time and fled to Kumasi.

Kumasi was a big city where Abiola found he could easily survive by passing with a false identity. Using some of his savings, he started by boarding a nice apartment where he paid for the first three months. Then he stopped. When the landlord showed up, he begged for more time. But after three months he decided to vacate in the night; he was confident of being safe, since in the big city, no one could trace him.

Abiola took up another abode where he paid for the first three months. As before, he disappeared after tossing the landlord up and down for the next three months. “If I can get away in a year by paying only half the rent,” he thought to himself. “This is good saving!”

This became Abiola’s standard way of living and doing business. He would start off by being a good client to someone he was trading with, and once he had the unsuspecting person hooked, he would make a huge transaction on credit, then disappear with the client’s money. From this way of doing business he started buying huge tracts of land in the countryside. He was happy with his progress and started thinking of starting a family.

After sharing his need, a friend in the city introduced him to a young beautiful girl, still in school. They struck a bargain with her agreeing to be married to him, if he could pay her school fees in a beauty vocational school. “I don’t want to be seated home all day!”

“No problem,” Abiola agreed without hesitation and started bankrolling her.

From trading and pulling fast ones on the unsuspecting, Abiola’s business empire kept growing. Aware of all the enemies he was making Abiola acquired a pistol for defense. He always moved stealthily ready to fire back just in case one of those he had cheated caught up with him. He drove cars with tinted glasses and ever at breakneck speed.

As a tycoon he decided to invest in real estate too. Once he had set up rental units, he had no problems in having them taken up. But something strange started happening to Chukuemuka soon after. Every now and then came those tenants, who started by paying well, only to disappear into the middle of the night after keeping him in suspense for three months or more. He was furious, seeing all the damage they had caused to his property and without paying.

Abiola decided to report the culprits to police. “Why are people here untrustworthy!” The police knew he was a wealthy man. All they did was to extract as much money as they could from him, pleading they needed all to carry out investigations. Frustrated for lack of progress Abiola gave up chasing delinquent tenants and suffering more losses. “You can’t trust anybody here!”

One day Abiola needed to secure a loan from the bank for his business. When he offered some of his titles as collateral the bank upon verification found the land was encumbered. Abiola couldn’t believe it. He recalled how the seller had given him all assurances that the land was unencumbered. But here he was discovering he had been sold air. “You can’t trust anybody here!” he spat.

Just then he got another blow. After paying school fees for his girl fiend, and as she was about to graduate, she sent him a chit mentioning that the friend who had introduced them had all along been her lover. The two were planning to wed. Abiola was crushed. He felt like the end of the world had come after all his investment in this girl. “Why me!” he moaned. He took out his pistol ready to end his life.

Down and disheartened, wanting to end his life, it is then that Abiola recalled his gentle mother, Abebi’s last words. “Always be a trustworthy person!” The pistol still pointed to his head Abiola saw that all along he had been riding on other people’s back to get ahead, and his sins were finally catching up on him. “She said this to protect me!” Trembling, he lowered the pistol in deep contemplation….

In any society there are those who decide that to get ahead theirs would be a life of pulling a fast one on those whom they deal with but who happen to have fallen asleep. The consequence of that is theirs is always a fast life one of constantly looking over the shoulders, fearing that perhaps one has met their match, and it is now game up! And, perhaps for that reason, is why some have suggested preaching virtues like trust and honesty is literally in one’s interest, because otherwise you are living on borrowed time!

Lulu had joined a Diploma in Education course at Kyambogo Teachers College, which he didn’t like. So, when the opportunity came and he heard the government of Japan was availing scholarships to study engineering he applied. He found his application needed to first be vetted and supported by his home district. However, when he presented his papers to the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Embatta, a man who had seen him grow up, there was opposition.

“But we are expecting you to come back as a teacher!” Embatta protested. “Let those who are able to become engineers!” Lulu felt insulted; was it that the CAO didn’t think of him as engineering material! He started courting the support of councilors, but most who had seen him grow up and dropped out of school early were not enthused. “Why is that boy so ambitious,” so they queried. “I know he wants to go out and come back with big titles and boss over us.”

As a last-ditch effort, Lulu decided to appeal to a local white priest, Father Lourdel who had paid his school fees and of many district leaders. Father Lourdel was very excited. “We already have enough teachers,” he mused in the local language which he was fluent. “What we need here are engineers to fix roads and help improve the transportation of goods from the fields to the market. This will make our district prosper.”

Father Lourdel took up the matter to the CAO and because he had educated him too, he finally yielded. “After completing your studies make sure you return and bless us with your skills,” Father Lourdel prayed with a sign of the cross for Lulu before he jetted out for a four-year degree course. Lulu promised to do so.

True to his word, upon completing his degree course, Lulu returned to the country as a civil engineer. Immediately, he reported back to his district and applied to become a District Engineer. But the CAO kept throwing him off that there was no money for this job, even as he pleaded that it would be good for the district to have a homeboy as District Engineer. Discouraged, he turned to the central government which hired him. But he didn’t last there; he soon quit to join a French-owned company, Bozac. The country had a huge infrastructure development programme and it was Bozac doing most of the road construction. It was often said there were no local companies that could do such jobs.

For Lulu, the major reason in joining Bozac was pay, as he could hardly make ends meet from his government salary. Bozac, on the other hand tripled his central government salary. But as he would soon find out, it was not for nothing.

After the European owners of Bozac would snap up huge multibillion-dollar contract jobs, they would get back to their capitals, having spent a few days patronizing the five-star hotels. Locals like Lulu were left to sweat it out. He was always in the field, supervising construction. Sometimes, having spent much of the day out in the sun, he would drive across the country back to the capital to meet with his bosses in their rented air-conditioned offices. They would quiz and harass him, threatening not to renew his contract for whatever was amiss. Disgusted, Lulu started thinking of starting his own firm.

“It is our country,” he talked to fellow engineers. “Yet there are the ones getting the best deals. Can’t we start our own local firms, bid and get these jobs. “Try your luck,” Lulu was rebuffed to those he appealed.

Now back in school, Father Lourdel had always preached that to succeed in life one had to persevere. Recalling that, Lulu decided to quit Bozac and start his own engineering firm. However, whenever he did bid for major road construction jobs, rejection slips would quickly come his way, noting “lack of experience and capital.” Lulu was hurt that it was mainly his local people who were rejecting his company, and who were not willing to give him a chance.

“We have the expertise but our own people want us to be permanent slaves,” Lulu would be agitated each time he would face rejection. “All these conditions they create against us are to discourage the emergence of home-grown companies.” One day Lulu noticed a tender to build a bridge in his home district. Lulu applied proudly specifying in his application that he was a homeboy well-known to the district leadership.

This time there was a new CAO. Although Nkejje had gone to school with Lulu he presented Lulu’s tender papers with lukewarm support. “This Lulu we know,” he told members of the tender committee. “Can he do a big job like this!”

Lulu was invited to come and share a presentation along with another company that had a European name, Quimax. He arrived on time, quickly presenting his prior job contracts and going even further to share designs. After he was done, a man Lulu seemed to recall having met once asked, “we hear you never reached Japan but bought that engineering degree of yours from a Japanese supermarket as you were just doing kyeyo jobs.”

“I take exception to that line of questioning!” Lulu picked his papers, stood up, and stormed off. Quimax had sent a white manager with a black officer who came carrying bags. The white manager let him make the presentations. After they were done the tender committee immediately awarded the job to Quimax. “These people from outside know how to do these jobs,” the tender committee reasoned against Lulu’s bid. They have a muzungu on the team.”

Upon securing the job, Quimax demanded to receive half of the sum as an advance to start works. The district quickly wired off the monies. But after over six months there was hardly anything on the ground. After writing many letters Quimax sent a few trucks and bulldozers that commenced works.  But what eventually came of their efforts was some shoddy structures, far from the original presentation. In the meantime, everyone noted the muzungu had never shown up in the district again. It was rumored he had taken much of the money back to Europe and was sending a pittance back.

The bridge constructed was so poorly done that due to local complaints the Inspector General got involved. When a technical team was set to review the works, it recommended the job be retendered. Lulu did bid again and this time with a more technical committee formed of senior officials he won. Indeed, he was able to do the job at half the cost of what Quimax had quoted.

On the day of opening the new bridge, Lulu was given a few minutes to speak. Dressed in a rare black suit, he decided to use the opportunity to vent something that had long bothered him. “All you people here know me well as I grew up among you. But I fail to understand why you never support your own or wish them well. If it were not for Father Lourdel who educated most of us here, none of you was willing to support me.”

He paused, as guests nervously shifted in their seats. “When I first asked to do this job you questioned my education. But did you enquire into the muzungu’s education? I want to help us develop but until we people here learn to love ourselves and our nation, with each other well, have pride in ourselves, as I saw back in Japan, tell you what, we have a long way to go!

Lulu walked back to his seat. He loosened his tight collar and gulped down water from a mineral water bottle. Then he looked at the bridge he had just erected for his district. It filled him with pride.