THE ABUJA BIG BOY ~> BY JAPHETH PROSPER

My name is Mary Omokure. I am telling this story to educate young women and let them know what is presently happening in Abuja. Not most girls know that most of the fine boys who drive flashy cars in Abuja are dead broke and are living off women; vulnerable women.
After the cashier attended to me at the bank one Tuesday morning, I never thought that anything could spring out of that drama again until I began to get prayerful text messages. Initially, I listened to the mild voice of my intuition and refused to respond to them. But the messages kept pouring in from the same number. Who was it? I kept wondering because I hadn’t the number in my caller ID.

Curiosity then led me to check on the face of the bearer on WhatsApp and I was shocked at what I saw. He was one of the most handsome young men I had ever seen. I was still a single lady seeking the face of God on marriage matter. I just wanted to settle down because the pressure on me was becoming very alarming. All I wanted was to settle down with the right man who would love me irrespective of his financial status. My business was already doing great and I was heading for Dubai once in a while. Why did I need to bother if my man was rich or not?

After I saw the WhatsApp DP, I became rather inquisitive. i dialed the number and hesitated as it began to ring at the other end. What was playing in my head at that time was; “Mary, I hope you know what you are really doing?”
If I had known, I would really not have made that call. But I did make the call and it dragged me into this mess; the mess that I am still cleaning up as I type this story now.
“Hello,” I said immediately I heard a voice at the other end.
“I am dying dear. I am very ill and dying..”
The voice sounded like one who really was dying. I asked if there was anything I could do. “Can you call someone to take you to the hospital?” I asked rather agitatedly.
“I.. I…I” he stuttered and the line died in my ear. I hadn’t met this young man before but I was already feeling for him. I decided to mind my business when the line died but I couldn’t. I wanted to know what happened to him. What was wrong with him? What was he suffering from?

I called him again and when he answered, I asked where he lived.
“Gwarimpa..” came the voice inaudibly.
He went on to tell me where he lived in Gwarimpa. I tried to think again but I was now practically involved. If he lived in the address he called for me, then he must be part of the people in the middle class.

I grabbed my car keys and dashed off into the traffic without delay. I lived in Utako which was not too far from where he himself lived.
In less than ten minutes, I was at his gate. I was surprised to meet the security man listening to music from a small transistor radio.
“Is Victor in?” I echoed and he nodded.
“Yes, my Oga is dey inside. Who is you?”
I told him I was a friend and that Victor needed my assistance that was why I had come.
He threw the gates open and let me drive in immediately. Minutes later, I was climbing up the stairs to see him. He had one of the most tastefully furnished apartments I had seen. When I reached up, I met him groaning.
I took a close look at him. He was a very handsome young man. I liked him the moment I saw him in flesh. He was clad in a vest and a pair of boxers. He looked very cute.
“I.. I.. can’t get up,” he cried. He was sprawled on the floor.

I opened the window and called the security man. He was upstairs in five seconds. Together, we both carried Victor to my car and off I drove him to a private hospital which he told me was where he had a medical history.
He was there for three days because the doctor advised he should be placed on proper supervision.

That was how Victor and I started. The hospital bill was two hundred and thirty two thousand naira. I paid it. How?
Well, he told me the second day that he had invested in a property which he hoped to sell in no time and that it had drained him completely. He wanted me to pay the bill and he promised to pay later.
Without hesitating, I did a transfer that evening. that was the third day. To this very moment, I can’t tell exactly what was wrong with him because the doctors did not tell me. But with his antecedents and all the things I later came to find out about Victor, I must say that he was capable of anything. Perhaps, he faked his illness in order to get me and I fell for the trap like a child sucking from a poisoned nipple.
We became very close. One day while I was at his place, he took me out for dinner and while we were eating, a very pretty lady walked up to our table and said something very nasty to him.
“So, after breaking up with me, this is the trash you are now with?” she fire rather indignantly. “What can this cheap whore offer you that I can’t give times ten of it?”
I was charging up for a fight but Victor handled the situation in a manner that I became very proud of him. That was the day I fell for him completely.
“For your information Jacinta,” he arose from his chair, “this is the woman I want to marry and not all the money in the world will make me change my mind. Go and work on yourself and stop being bitter and nasty.”
My anger waned at the way he handled the situation. The lady hissed dispassionately after he’d lashed at her. Minutes later, she was gone.
From where I sat, I saw her hop into her Prado SUV and drive away madly. I sensed that she was from a very rich home. When I asked Victor who she was, he simply dismissed her with the wave of the hand.
“A spoilt brat who thinks money can buy true love.”

Three days later, he proposed to me. From that day onwards, I literarily picked up all his bills. I bought all his tickets whenever he wanted to travel. I picked up his clothes from the laundry and pay for them. I stuck the house with food items. I paid the rent when it was due. I picked up the bills when his tailors came calling. I made reservations and bookings for hotels when he travelled. He drove my cars and I fueled them.

One day, he called and demanded that I do a transfer of five million naira into his account which he promised to pay back. This happened two days before we travelled to the village for our introduction. I didn’t know how to say ‘no’ to that. What if I did and he cancelled the trip? I thought.
The next day, I sent him the money and decided to continue to play the good girl. However I was not happy with the way things were going. He had borrowed so much money from me without paying. He kept telling me that the moment he sold the house he had bought and renovated, he was going to pay me all my money.
My parents were so excited when I brought my husband-to-be home. In order not to deplete his ego, I gave him the sum of four hundred thousand to spend at the village so that my parents would like him. I was doing all this because I was glad that at last I had found a perfect man to settle down with.
I thought the marriage things would follow immediately after the introduction but he kept postponing it.
“There is still time,” he kept saying. But I wasn’t getting any younger. I was now thirty-five years old. Where was the time?

It was at the salon one day that my eyes opened. Two ladies were talking about Abuja big boys. I pretended as if I was not interested in their discussion. At that time, Victor and I had dated for more than a year.
“Do you know Victor Megwai, the one that duped Pricilla?” The first girl asked suddenly in the middle of their conversation.
“What about him?” the other threw rather curiously.
The first girl smiled. “He is disturbing one of my friends now with prayerful text messages after he copied her phone number from our bank register. That guy will never change. Because that babe came to deposit huge sum of money, he saw her number and quickly began to send her prayerful text messages.”
The other lady smirked. “The same old tactics! Later he will start saying he is sick and at the hospital and the innocent girl will begin to cough out money with the belief that she has found a potential husband material..”
“Ha, he will even use a faceless girl in a borrowed car to come and harass her so that…”
I couldn’t bear to hear what they were saying anymore. With my hair half-done, I left the salon and went straight into my car. I couldn’t imagine that it was my own Victor Megwai that the girls were talking about. How could that be?

I remember that he told me he was travelling the day before. I had told him to find people to dispose off my house because I wanted to reinvest the money into my business. I said that because I had the mind of moving into his apartment after our ‘marriage’.
The gate man did not allow me into the house when I arrived. He said it was the order from his boss before he travelled. That was strange but it was the pointer that something was definitely not right.

I thought about what the girls had said at the salon. Could they have been right about my Victor? Go to the hospital Mary! I drove to the hospital but he wasn’t there. I called his phone number but he did not pick.
Mad, I rushed at once to the eatery where he had taken me to ; the one that I was harassed by that pretty girl.
It was there that I found my Victor. When I stood outside the eatery and saw him with another girl having dinner, I knew at once that it was true what the girls were saying at the salon. I was about driving off when I saw a black Prado SUV which I immediately recognized. Soon, the occupant of the car dashed out of the eatery and as she was about entering the car, I blocked her.
“Yes,” I said. “It was you who insulted me last year because of that man in there. I am sure you have come again to do the same to the new catch. You are part of the syndicate. The police are on their way now to pick you up.”
Fear settled on her face immediately I said that. She began to plead with me to let her go but I refused. I beckoned at once to the policemen who stood beside a Hillux bus and they came at once to join us.
To cut a long story short, Victor and the said lady are still at the police custody while I am here counting my losses and regretting ever meeting him.
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THE ABUJA BIG BOY by Japheth Prosper