Simply SAMAD

Barbaric Gentlemen

2018-04-14T11:26:00.001+01:00

A Nigerian businessman finds out that Hell is empty and runs into some of the missing demons...

It was past 2pm yesterday and I was at Zenith Bank Okota Branch to submit a document prepared on my company letterhead. I was asked to edit a part of it and resubmit. Because I wanted to conclude the transaction same yesterday, I had to go look for a business centre around to type in the edit.

Across the bank was one and, as I walked towards it, a young, scruffy-looking man accosted me, saying he was a police officer. His superiors wanted to see me inside a bus waiting around, he said. He was slightly bearded and on mufti, so I was sceptical. I asked for his ID card and he unhooked it from his waist and showed me. The prints were tiny and blurred, so I reached out to collect it and read properly. “So you want to snatch my ID card”, he shouted.

He took from me the PLANEX-branded envelope containing plain letterheads and other documents, and walked towards the bus, asking me to come along. Right away I made a call to my brother, Ekene Okoro, and briefed him. By the time I got to the bus, the story had changed: that I snatched his ID card from him.

They were about 7 armed men, and one of them started interrogating me. Why did I choose to use this branch of Zenith Bank instead of the one close to my office in Ikoyi? Where is the other director of PLANEX? Why was the document I was to edit not stamped with my company stamp? Dismissing all my answers, he said they would take me to my office in Ikoyi to confirm. That he knew people on that street and had just spoken to them, and they couldn’t identify me. Speak to my office landlady, I said. He ignored me.

At that point, I stepped aside and called the Lagos PPRO and narrated my experience. He asked me to pass on the phone to them and they took the phone from me, cut the call, and seized the phone. I became scared and started inviting passers-by into the argument and people gathered.

One man intervened and begged them a lot and they calmed down, though insisting that they would still take me away anyway. Then they asked to search my car, parked outside the bank premises and I let them.

Finding nothing, they took my ID card and demanded my car key and car documents. I had to corner their leader to a side and beg him, telling him he was like a father to me and should appeal to his men. His men were almost going violent but he kept calming them down. He told me to go arrange some money and I told him I needed the phone to transfer money from the corporate account to my ATM account.

I needed the car key too to get the ATM card. On my way to the ATM, the one who arrested me asked me how much I was going to withdraw. I told him N5,000 and he flared up.

At the ATM I called back the PPRO. “Don’t give them any money”, he said, promising to send down a band of policemen. I withdrew some money and ran into the banking hall instead, went straight to the bank toilet and hid. Then made an update on Facebook.

My phone battery was on 2% and I needed to save it, in case the rescue came. I sat there in the toilet for close to two hours. By past 4pm, I feared the bank would soon close and called the PPRO again, who assured me his men were on the way. He asked me to put the CSO of the Branch on the line for him since his men were being held up on the way. They spoke and he asked the CSO to put the bank mobile police unit on the line too for him to instruct them on what to do. But before the bank’s policeman could come speak to the PPRO on phone, the phone battery had gone flat.

I narrated everything to him, the Bank policeman. But he was sceptical, saying if I did nothing, SARS would not be after me.

I learnt from the CSO that the SARS people actually came inside the bank to look for me while I was in the toilet, purporting to want to give me back my documents. The bank policeman now said I should leave the bank, that the bank was not the place for people to hide. So he eased me out of the bank and, outside where my car was parked, I noticed the number plates had been taken away. The SARS bus was no longer around so I assumed they had left.

I got into my car and plugged my phone desperate to reach people. As soon as I started the car and moved, the SARS bus came from nowhere and double-crossed me.

I turned swiftly facing the bank gate and blocking it, hooting crazily to draw attention and for the bank security to let me in.

The bank security, on the order of their sceptical policeman, refused me entry, leaving me out for SARS to devour. It is a branch I have frequented for over 10 years, visiting there almost weekly.

SARS people jumped out of their bus and started banging on my car windows. One attempted to puncture the tyre but that superior asked him not to.

My phone was still yet to come on, heightening my fear. It was the longest moment of my life, as I was surrounded by 7 armed policemen who had patiently waited for me for over 2 hours. They ordered me to wind down but I wouldn’t and a crowd began to gather. They stepped aside, speaking to the bank policeman.

The bank policeman later came to me and asked me to wind down, that he had spoken to them, and that I should leave even outside the bank premises where all this was happening. The management had asked him to chase me away, he said, adding that the bank was not the place for me.

Shouting through shut windows, I pleaded with him to let my phone come on so help could reach me. He threatened to use force on me if I didn’t leave that very minute. I steered out of the gate and parked in the outside parking lot, still locked up in the car.

And hunched over my steering and said a short prayer. I am useful to my country’s economy, to its civic space—legitimately, therefore this should not be happening.

They came back to me again, SARS, asking me to wind down, and I pretended to be making a phone call. One was impatient and wanted to smash the glass. Their superior who had been soft all along got angry and dumped the number plates and documents on my bonnet and stormed out.

The others followed him, entered their bus, and they drove ahead and waited. I was scared that they were still waiting along the same road I was to take, so I remained in the car. The bank policeman came back again, fuming, banging on the car and urging me to leave.

I had to take the opposite direction amid a slow-moving traffic, driving insanely cutting through the traffic until I found a free road which was in the opposite direction to my house. I fled, literally.

At that point, my phone had come on. The PPRO and his deputy called respectively. They had been trying to reach me. Their men who were on the way also called me saying they had been unable to reach me since and were now around. For the next hour, they all kept calling checking up on me. Even the Lagos SARS commandant called, apologetic.

They all rose to the challenge and began to look for the erring officers. The response on social media had been overwhelming, from colleagues, friends and family. I was in shock. Still in shock: I have read stories of SARS tracing people home in the night and killing them and a part of me is worried. Later at night, I learnt the SARS team had been identified and would be arrested today. Does that eclipse the possibility of a retaliation?

It is not a country to die for, I know. But I recognize that one is not protected by silence. Nor is there protection in the incubus of fear, in a cowardly surrender to the prosperity of evil.

Giving them the money they asked for could perhaps have been an alternative to the current anxiety, but ransom guarantees nothing, except temporary relief.

In my evolution as a journalist, writer and, above all, a human being for whom slavery is not, I would be ashamed of myself funding evil to walk free. Yet I’m neither courageous nor smart. I am, in the main, merely lucky. Lucky for social media, for the goodwill and love of family, friends and strangers alike, for all of you who stood for me.

Lucky for the higher echelon of the Nigerian police—the PPRO, his deputy, the commissioner, Lagos SARS commandant—professionals who, without any meaningful leads, fished out the erring officers in hours.

I am grateful to all of you, even as I remain fearless in my advocacy for a decent nation-space.

A True Story

A Kind of Likeness

2018-03-30T02:33:00.001+01:00

Sometimes, the heart simply wants what it wants...

She liked him. She liked the air about him, calm and collected, free of artifice, bereft of a desire to dominate. She liked that he liked her, that he paused in the middle of serious discussions to remind her of how much his life was incomplete without her. She liked the sound of his voice; husky and coming forth in a slight stutter. She liked the way he made her feel; light, a colourful feather floating in the wind, propelled by forces beyond its control. She liked how buoyed she was with a happiness even she could not understand.

I like you, you know? He would say sometimes, often spontaneously, and she would burst into laughter. The unexpectedness of his words always took her by surprise and the fact that he seemed buoyed, always, with a strangely stiff certitude amused and saddened her equally. It did not occur to him, even for a minute, to doubt himself and the complexity of what they shared. It did not occur to him to ask questions, to even consider asking questions.

‘Awwn, you love me too much’ he would say when she complimented something he had done, and she would laugh. A brief pause often followed, dense with the weight of unsaid –and subtly implied- things.

Her laughter wounded him, made him feel small and inconsequential. She knew this, and yet she laughed anyway. There was something blithe and naive about the solemnity in his voice that made her laugh. That, and the fact that he could, of course, not be serious. She didn’t like him, not in the way he thought. And every night, when she snuggled next to her husband to inhale the healthy smell of his aftershave, she told herself that what she felt for him was simply platonic, something superficial. It was just that he was kind and well mannered and he had a way with words that was generally appreciable. What she felt for him, really, was what she would feel for a brother.

And yet she liked that he called at nights to feed her with tidbits of how his day went; his sultry bass voice filtering into her ears gently from over the phone line, mildly aching and mildly satisfying. She liked that he listened to her with a careful attention, only making vague sounds of assent to show he was following. She liked that he lacked that annoyingly knowing air typical of men. He had a remarkable way of showing understanding, without coming off as all-knowing.

She liked that, once, when she told him about a particularly annoying client who had regarded her with contempt and asked to be introduced to the man in the firm, he said “Awwwn… How do you want me to deal with him? A gun to his head or a bottle up his rectum?” And she laughed.

This was another thing she liked about him- his effortless ability to make her laugh. After she disconnected the call, she looked at the bulky frame of her husband lying next to her, so peaceful and so oblivious, and she wondered -not for the first time- what exactly she was doing.

She liked the risk; the thought that she was walking on thorns with barefoot and somehow hoped not to sustain injury. She liked the rush of adrenaline that raced up her nerves at improbable times when she had nearly been caught. Like the time he sent a quick text stating how much he loved her and her husband had gotten to the phone first.

"Hmmm... Somebody loves you," he said, a small smile playing on his lips.

She stared at his face, searching for signs. It was always difficult to tell what Chike was thinking. When she found her voice, they came in a murmur. ‘Who?’

He stared at the screen intently, tilting her phone sideways as though doing so would reveal something he had missed. ‘It doesn’t have a name’.

She released a breath she did not know she had been holding. Of course, she had not saved his number. It was still as it was, the very first day he had told her, ‘I could call you later when it starts working, if only you’d give me your number’, and she had typed her number into his phone. Oh.. Call me Nkem, she said when he asked her what he would save her number as. Later, as she eased out of the driveway into the narrow street, she remembered she had not even asked for his name.

Chike was beside her, taking her earlobe in his mouth, and it took her an effort not to turn away from him. ‘Who’s that, babe?’

‘Oh... A wrong number, perhaps?’ She whispered back, stifling a chuckle. His hands were behind her back undoing the hook of her bra and she tried not to compare his touch with that of him.

Later, after Chike rolled off her, she took her phone to the veranda and called him. She asked him not to call her anymore. She couldn’t allow it –whatever this thing was- to continue. “I’m married, you know?”

He was quiet for a while. She heard the rustling of leaves in the background and she wondered what he was thinking.

"Okay," he said, finally.

It took her a few minutes to realize he would say nothing else in addition. He was simple like that; one more thing she liked about him.

By Chukwuebuka Ibeh

Just One Seed

2018-03-21T15:26:00.000+01:00

A man finds himself with a beautiful wife but Without a job. His wife can see what's going on and decides to follow what her heart tells her...

Once upon a time, there was a man who did not make it to university. His mother was aware of the challenges he was going through so she went out of her way to make it easy for him to get a wife. She actually got him a wife she felt he would be happy with.

After the marriage, he got a job as a teacher in a primary school. Due to the lack of experience, he was squashed by the students in less than a week.

When he returned home, his wife dried his tears. She comforted him with these words:

"You should not be too sad about it. I am more than certain that there is a more suitable job waiting for you out there. All of this must be happening for a reason."

After a couple of months, he found another job but the job did not last - He was fired due to what his employers called his sluggish nature.

When he told his wife later that night, she was sad but she did not say anything negative about her husband. Instead, she said:

"There are always people who are skilful and there are those who are not so skilled. Some have experience from their years of work while some do not have a lot of experience. As for you, you were in school all this while. So, how could you acquire these needed skills?"

As weeks turned into months, he went for a number of jobs but never stayed long on these jobs. Each time, he would return home with a dejected spirit. His wife would always comfort him and never for once was she disappointed or resentful.

He was in his 30s when he suddenly acquired a flair for languages. He became a counsellor in a school for the deaf and mute. Later on, he opened a school for the disabled. A few years later, he set up chain stores in different cities and provinces selling apparatus & equipment for the disabled. He eventually became a multi-millionaire. He was John Doe!

One day, he asked his wife:

"When I had very little faith and hope in my own future, what was the reason that you had so much faith in me?"

His wife looked at him lovingly and gave him a very simple reply. She said:

"When a piece of land is not suitable for planting wheat, we could try planting beans. If the beans are not growing well, we could try planting fruits or gourds. If the vegetation is not economical, we can instead scatter buckwheat seeds. These seeds will one day bloom into flowers. On this land itself, there will be one seed that will germinate and grow."

After having listened to his wife's explanation, he cried like a little child. His wife's faith, love, patience, and persistence in him was precisely like that one seed that was destined to germinate.

His wife added: "In this world, there's no one person who is useless. It is just that they have not positioned themselves firmly in right place."

He kissed her tenderly and thanked her for standing firmly by his side all through the trying phase of his life.

Has your special seed germinated or are you still hoping and waiting for that right seed to be set free?

Author: Unknown

Bells of Lust

2018-03-04T16:00:00.000+01:00

Two brothers fall in love with a girl named Sefiyat. Driven by the desperation to have sex with her, one of them gets inspired by the Devil to do something unthinkable.

Advisory Content:
This story contains a degree of graphical content and language that might be considered violent/sexual/explicit and is not suitable for readers under 18 years old.

Once upon a time, there were two brothers; one named Sule and his older brother was called Ismaila. They were largely untamed, crude and loud but not all bad as they had their good sides as well.

There was also Sefiyat; she was my cousin; not related to Sule and Ismaila in any way. At the time, we were all teenagers.

I was just an observer and that was all I was. I observed the three characters involved in this story closely; especially from the moment I knew that there was something amiss.

My interest was stirred when I discover that the brothers boyishly lusted after Sefiyat. Perhaps, what they felt for her might be better described as infatuation because whenever I was opportune to be a part of their discussion, I always marvelled at how they would go on and on about matters relating to Sefiyat and their feelings for her. A large chunk of these feelings revolved around words like bed, breasts, ass, orgasm, sexual pleasure and the mention of several other body parts.

Of the two brothers, Sule had a more confident approach as it was crystal clear to both of them that there was no way they could share Sefiyat especially since she was not a jam doughnut they could cut in two. So, while Sule took the driver’s seat to hunt Sefiyat down intimately, Ismaila was forced to the bench like an injured footballer.

It, therefore, didn’t come as a surprise when Sule confidently considered and eventually declared himself Sefiyat’s ‘honey pie;’ a belief I found delusional. Sule, however, felt it was safer not to declare this openly but it was an open secret the brothers shared.

Sule was not the shy type and I wasn’t caught unaware when he began making moves towards luring Sefiyat into his love nest.

There was no doubt about the fact that of all the qualities Sefiyat possessed, the one Sule was overly excited about was her physical form and endowments.

While Sefiyat looked to me, like any other girl in the neighbourhood, to Sule, she stood out like a Greek goddess; her breasts like fresh apples waiting to be plucked and sweetly chewed upon; her bum like a teddy to be held and caressed; her lips like berries to be gently nibbled at and sucked; her nipples, often straining against the fabric of her blouse, never failed to set Sule ablaze with a flameless fire.

It didn’t take too long before she became an item of obsession for the young man. However, if Sefiyat had shared even half of what Sule felt for her, perhaps, they would have been able to strike an intimate equilibrium, which, would have enabled Sule to have his way and sensually fulfil his erotic quest of ploughing Sefiyat’s Promise Land, which lay somewhere between the girl’s voluptuous thighs.

Unfortunately, she did not and consistently turned down Sule’s request for intimacy without even batting an eyelid. She wouldn’t even let Sule touch her let alone fan his ember of seduction. The harder he tried to lure her into bed, the stronger her resistance got and this continued for quite some time.

I knew for a fact that Sule was no gentleman and that there was no way he was going to succeed in his plan to have sex with Sefiyat but like an observer that I was, I merely watched as the drama unfolded on a daily basis.

Despite the fact that I was young, I did not fail to realize that Sule was a poor student of the laws of attraction. He was not neat. He was overtly vulgar in his ways. He lacked tactical knowledge of seduction and he was abysmally loud and vain and generally unrefined.

He would curse, fight, appear untidy and had a reputation for violent confrontations yet, was regrettably unattractive to Sefiyat in any possible way.

Sefiyat on the other hand, might not have been the perfect city girl but she did not share or admire these qualities Sule possessed in any way.

After a few weeks of trying and constantly failing, frustration began to set in for Sule and whenever I saw the look in his eyes when he looked at Sefiyat walk by, I knew the young man had begun to scheme.

I once asked him out of curiosity:

“Ki lo ma wa se nisiyin (which in Yoruba language meant: ‘So, what are you going to do next?’)” and he had replied:

“Mo ma get omo yi (which translated into: ‘I’m going to get this girl’ in Yoruba language).

Suddenly, Sule hatched a plan to get Sefiyat regardless of whether she liked him or not but I had no idea what he was planning for the grand finale.

Sule’s plan was to corner Sefiyat while she was having her bath in the bathroom. There were two bathrooms in the house and they were only divided by a wall/fence.

On the day Sule chose to act out his carnal desires, Sefiyat had entered one of the bathrooms; just as she did every other day to take her bath.

The moment Sule saw her go in, he swung into action; he dashed into the second bathroom and locked himself in the moment he stepped inside. Like a starved demon, he began to shed his clothes as if they had spikes in them until he was left with only his underwear and this happened to be a plain black pant. Sule knew how important time was to his randy plan and he wasted none of it. Putting his clothes aside as quietly as he could, he deftly put his feet on the water closet and climbed to the very top of the wall. For a moment, he suddenly stopped; not because he was tired or scared but because he wanted to listen. Listening to the movement of his target was supremely essential to his plan. If he went in too early, he would regret not waiting a little longer for her to undress. He also knew that if he went in too late, he would regret not going in early enough to catch her completely nude.

Sule wasn’t really good at Maths that had to do with solving equations or advanced calculations but when it came to calculating and anticipating the actions and movement of a naked girl in a bathroom, he had the proficiency of a grandmaster.

At this point, he could hear Sefiyat move around preparing to have her bath and though, he couldn’t see her, he could hear her movement. Suddenly, he heard the shower come on with the water pelting the tiled floor loud enough for him to hear. This could as well have been music to Sule’s ears because his body came alive. He could feel his pants begin to swell in the right places. He licked his lips in excitement as his third leg began to respond, nod and grow hard and erect in anticipation of the sweetness of the things he would do to Sefiyat when he finally got to her.

Others might have called this a rape plan but to Sule, it was a way of finally getting Sefiyat to succumb to the erotic instrumentals he had been playing for her all along. As far as he was concerned, he had to have this girl and since words had failed him, it was time to get physical with the girl. He suddenly thought to himself that maybe Sefiyat did not like the idea of being seen with him in public glare. If that was the case, this would turn out even better than he had anticipated. The thought of stepping into the shower with her and laying his hands on her wet skin made his heart skip a couple of beats. He was happy about this and turned his mind back to listening and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Sule definitely knew a whole lot of things but one thing he did not know was that while he had a seemingly perfect plan, there was a dark cloud hanging on the horizon.

The bathroom was all tiles and while this made it easy to clean, it, however, proved to be Sule’s nemesis. The wall was quite high. Sule knew there was absolutely no way in the world that he was going to jump down. That was a terrible plan because Sefiyat would certainly hear his feet hit the floor and she might flip into a state of shock and prompt her to scream. He didn’t want that at all. It would ruin his delicious plan. He had to climb down. There was no other way.

When he heard Sefiyat’s body come between the water streaming from the shower and the tiled floor, he made his move. Just as Sule was about to place his feet on the water closet in the bathroom Sefiyat was in, which would have enabled him to descend quietly, disaster struck… He slipped! He didn’t see this coming at all so struggled to hang onto something; anything but it was too late. He fell... He fell all the way from the top of the wall and as he fell, a terrifying scream erupted from his open mouth: “Yeeeeeeeeeeee…!”

His eyes opening wide in a terrifying mixture of horror and panic. Sule found himself in midair; struggling to grab onto something, anything at all but failed woefully to do so. By the time Sule hit the floor tiles from the high wall from which he had slipped, he did so with an extremely loud thud as he reflexively screamed out in pain because he landed on his belly and struck the tiled floor very hard too; smashing his rib cage into the cold hard floor of the bathroom.

Out of shock and fear, Sefiyat grabbed her towel, threw it around her body in a desperate rush and dashed out of the bathroom screaming; without even bothering to see who or what had made the disturbing noise. Fortunately for her, she was yet to remove her towel, so, it was easy for her to run out of the bathroom; in a bid to escape from whatever it was that had howled out so loud. What Sule had thought was her body coming between the water from the shower and the floor was actually her palm merely feeling for the temperature of the water.

Naturally, people close by quickly gathered and comforted the terrified girl who looked stunned and terrified. She stood some distance away from the bathroom, constantly pointing at the bathroom door as she struggled to explain what made her dash out of the bathroom.

Sule knew his game was up; his romantic script had suddenly turned into a dramatic tragedy.

The wind had finally blown and the hen’s anus was out in the open; exposed and glaring; leaving a foul stench in its wake.

Sule knew he could not stay in the bathroom forever, so, he decided the best thing he could do was to seek an escape. By the time he desperately dashed out of the bathroom, he was only clad in his wet black pant; running away with his erect manhood shamelessly pointing forward.

One thing I found quite funny was the fact that he was running with an erection and had lines of the tiles all over his chest and stomach; a very clear indication that he had hit the ground very hard.

Sule tried to escape and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. However, the culprit didn’t get far and was chased down and caught by an older man who had seen Sefiyat run out of the bathroom.

While men and women comforted Sefiyat and tried to calm her down, the man who caught Sule knew precisely what to do with the randy boy. I remember the man very well; he was big, tall, very strong and had very powerful hands. I recall this scene in vivid details. I watched him drag (a struggling and screaming) Sule along with him towards a tall tree that had thick and strong branches. At first, I didn’t understand why he was dragging the boy towards a tree but I watched on regardless.

I remember how he used one hand to cut a very long branch off the tree while using the other hand to pin the struggling Sule to the ground. When he had detached the branch from the tree, what he had in his hand was no longer an ordinary branch. It was a cane and in his huge hands, it had the trappings of a whip in the hands of a man who has a masters degree in torturing guilty souls. By the time he descended on Sule, your guess is as good as mine. Sule didn’t cry or scream. It was worse. He howled out loud like a wounded dog as I held my belly laughing my head off.

Did Sule deserve what he got or would you have preferred a different ending to the story?

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD
A true life story

My Roommate Tried to Kill Me

2018-03-04T11:30:00.002+01:00

Dennis was sleeping when his bloodthirsty roommate walks in at 3 in the morning. Something terrible was about to happen...

Once upon a time, I was in the military when someone tried to kill me.

I wasn’t fighting Nazis, Boko Haram or radical Islamic terrorists when it happened. I was in the barracks, in my room; sleeping.

My roommate came in at 3 in the morning; drunk as a skunk. He yelled at me to wake up.

I ungraciously told him I was tired and didn’t want to.

I suddenly felt rough hands seize me and flung me against the wall.

When my head cleared, I realized that there was a switchblade tucked up into my nostril.

He screamed at me that he was hurting inside, and I was f..king up.

Meet My Roommate

He had five brothers; all older than him, 4 of whom were in prison for criminal activities.

The only brother he had who wasn’t in prison was in the Army and guess what? He had just found out that his Army brother stabbed somebody and had just been sent to prison.

He was starting to rant about making it to where he and his siblings would be in prison.

I tried to talk him down, but he wasn’t having it. So, survival mode kicked in.

He attacked me and we wrestled around the room.

The fight only lasted a minute, but the time slowed to forever. Furniture was broken, holes were made in walls.

Did I mention that the whole time we were fighting, I was doing my best not to get stabbed?

When senior officers came in, they brought MPs with them.

They came in to find me straddling my roommate and punching him with reckless abandon.

My roommate's face was mangled, and he was out cold but I had a switchblade sticking out of my left arm.

I don’t remember much of the fight after the blade entered my arm though.

An investigation was carried out and I was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Wondering what happened to my roommate?

Well, he was found guilty and eventually sent to jail.

Moral of the Story:
Sometimes, it is the smallest decision that can change your life forever. His (antagonist) decision to get drunk, the fight that followed and getting sent to jail formed an alliance to change his life.

Author: Dennis Manning

Lagos Danfo Valentine 2

2018-02-18T20:41:00.000+01:00

A young man's plan to see his girlfriend on Valentines Day suddenly spins into a nightmare when he boards a Danfo... [For those who missed it, read Part 1 of the Lagos Danfo Valentine]

No matter what anyone said, he just turned a deaf ear to them all. When some got tired of begging, they began to hiss out loudly. Others simply began to step off the bus while a few still hoped that their appeal would get to him.

Unfortunately, it didn't. When the driver realised that the young man was not cooperating, his voice suddenly took on a very soft texture and he began begging the guy the way he would have spoken to a lady. He was polite, courteous and subtle with his words and body language.

Five minutes passed and nothing had changed. The young man remained sitting on the bus...

"I'm not going anywhere," he thundered.

"Nobody or anything can take me out of this bus till you take me to Allen. That was our agreement..."

"But Sir, I have explained everything to you…,” the driver said for the umpteenth time

In all of this, one of the things I found strange was the nature of the driver. He did not look or sound like a typical Lagos driver. He was neatly dressed and spoke good English. These were two qualities that one might need to consult an Oracle to find either of them in a Lagos driver yet, this one possessed both and to worsen my state of momentary confusion; he had been extremely polite to the young man all through despite his glaring biological seniority.

At a point, I was forced to look at the unyielding passenger a bit more closely. He was also well dressed, wore a Nike branded wristwatch, had a big headphone just above his collar but was listening to loud music as I wondered why he couldn't just vacate the seat he had stubbornly occupied for so long just to let peace reign.

Suddenly, his phone rang and when he dipped his right hand into his pocket to retrieve the phone and receive the call, I couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"Baby, I'm sorry... Don't worry I'll be there soon... Yes! I'll be with you in the next one hour... I know I should have been there but you can't blame me...”

All along, the driver had ceased begging to avoid disturbing the young man's phone call right until the young man used a word that pulled me back into his telephone conversation.

"Na this bastard driver come park me for Maryland o and no gree move... That's how these fucking bastard Lagos drivers behave... The son of a bitch is still here with me."

The driver’s next line came in the form of a question. And it had just seven words.
“Did you just call me a bastard,” he asked.

I looked at the driver and felt sorry for him. He just stood there and slowly shook his head three times. After the third shake, he left the side of the young man, opened the door to the driver's seat, went in, killed the ignition and exited the bus.

A part of me really wished the young man had agreed to get off the bus. I reckoned this would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble but apparently, the young man did not share my chain of thoughts.

I was jolted back into the scenario playing out before me by the young man's voice.

"What do you think you're doing?" I heard him ask aloud.

Right about the same time, the driver went into the bus the same way a passenger would and sat right next to the young man. That struck me as odd but what I even found more astonishing was what the driver did next.

Right after he took a seat beside the young man, he shut the door of the bus and instantaneously had both he and the young man locked in. Commuters who had witnessed the drama to this point exchanged curious glances and then the young man spoke again:

"Driver, what's the meaning of this nonsense?"

By now, he had anger plastered all over his face. The driver said nothing. His eyes fixed on something straight in front of him that only he could see. When I looked at the driver's face, my heart felt like a foot bumping into a hard object in the dark. His face was completely devoid of any emotion I could name. I was still trying to comprehend why the driver's face looked so blank when he spoke:

"I begged you as much as I could yet you chose to ruin my day. I respected you and spoke to you courteously all along yet, you have the audacity to call me a bastard. My friend... Today, you will witness what bastards do."

The young man's reply was swift.

"Bros, no dey threaten me joor. Na for your pocket you dey talk all that one..."

To this, the driver replied.

“I’ll show you how bastards who drive commercial buses to feed their families act.”

The young man’s voice rose to a thunderous pitch when he impulsively said,

“Are you mad?”

That was the last time the young man asked a question that evening because everything that happened next shocked everyone into silence.

The driver began to shed his shirt, unlaced his shoes. When he was done, he shed his brown pants and just when everyone looked on in wild anticipation, the driver pulled aside a part of the driver’s seat and what came tumbling down from a concealed compartment of the backseat fleetingly made my breath cease. They were clothes but not just regular clothes.

Apparently, the young man who was now trapped in the bus was the first to see it and his countenance abruptly changed. I could have sworn that the young man had lost his voice. In a space of one minute, I noticed his face was covered in beads of sweat.

The driver paid little or no attention to the young man. Rather, he began wearing the clothes that had tumbled out of the driver’s seat in a hurry. He wore the pant then, put on the shirt, buttoned it from bottom to top, tucked the shirt in, wore his stocking, pulled on a pair of black shoes and then wrapped up his transformation with a cap that had the unmistakable colour of men saddled with the responsibility of taking and protecting lives; men who fight as part of an organized land-based armed force.

Ladies and gentlemen, the man was a soldier and that’s probably why no one said a word when the first slap sent the young man’s head crashing against the window.

The second sent his head flying forward and then there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and I lost count.

When the door of the bus slid open, the soldier had his right arm tightly gripping the young man’s belt and pant; forcing him to move in a very awkward position.

Once again, the young man tried to break free but the next slap must have shifted a few things in his head because he fell to the floor and began crawling around on all fours; searching for an object that was never lost in the first place or one he would never possibly find.

When the man pulled him back up, the young man burst into tears and then began to chant the same line of appeal he had turned a deaf ear to moments ago. He said “please” over a dozen times but he might as well have been soliloquizing.

“Oga abeg. I go find another bus enter... I beg you,” he repeated.

The irony hit me when I realized no one made the slightest move to speak on the young man’s behalf. They simply watched both men. A few were bold enough to bring out their mobile devices to steal an image or a 20-second clip of a civilian being dragged away by a huge soldier.

I knew the young man’s Valentine’s plans for the day would forever remain locked in a cage. The soldier had just taken the place of his girlfriend who was still expecting her sweetheart to show up. I wondered if she would ever see him on this beautiful Valentine’s Day.

As I kissed baby girl while she slept that night, I suddenly remembered that there was a military barrack very close to the bus-stop where the young man’s Valentine had gone ugly and I wondered how hard the young man must have chewed on the apple of regret upon realizing that he had become an unwanted guest to soldiers; on his Valentine’s Day that once held so much promise.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Lagos Danfo Valentine

2018-02-15T20:21:00.000+01:00

On his way to spend time with his girlfriend on Valentines Day, a young man boards a bus (Danfo) that turns into a calamity...

The year was 2017 and Valentine's Day incidentally fell on a working day of the week.

"Not a big deal..." I said to myself and consoled myself with the fact that all the necessary things were solidly in place - A sweetheart who looked like my kind of model; just the perfect height for me; trim in the right places and provocatively curvy in all the places I was sensually crazy about; an oval face that played host to lips I could have for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not complain and eyes that never failed to light me up.

Everything looked sweet and tight but this day was not about my Valentine's Day.

Oh no! It was one that I witnessed on my way home from work.

This was not a movie as there were no actors, directors, producers or technical crew but there was a stage and this stage was Maryland; a major district on the Lagos mainland; situated in Ikeja to be precise.

I wasn't driving so I stood at the bus stop like every other commuter in view. The only visible difference was that I was more mentally and physically ready to board the next available commercial bus that had Opebi-Allen as its destination. My eyes were not darting here and there like a pickpocket with a familiar hunch that the day was a bad one but my sight stayed trained on the direction from which the bus would emerge.

I was very vigilant and had my power of observation tuned to a very high frequency. I stood as if I had springs right beneath my heels. It was the way I moved whenever I had to engage in an activity that called for moving fast on my feet and so I waited; stood on the look-out for the next vehicle.

The clock ticking away; 75 percent of those around me as impatient as a starving man served a hot plate of ‘dodo’ and then the bus came into view though it was at quite a distance, I did what I usually did whenever I found myself in such a situation. I focused on the conductor who was hanging by the door of the commercial bus; with a large portion of his body hanging outside the vehicle as he deftly positioned himself by the door.

I took one more in-depth look at the conductor and read his lips. I couldn't hear him but I could see him and that was all I needed. In a space of three seconds, I got what I needed; he was going my way - Opebi Allen axis of Lagos.

When I stepped away from the spot where the rest of the commuters occupied, some of them cast quick glances at me but looked away as quickly as they had looked in my direction. I was not acting sensibly in the estimation of some of them but ironically, by the time the bus ground to a halt at the bus stop, I was already sitting comfortably inside the yellow and black 'Danfo.'

I watched the commuters as they almost climbed over one another; all in a desperate attempt to secure a seat in the bus.

"Madam! Please behave yourself…" I heard a young man say.

"Abeg comot for road if you no wan enter," the woman fired back.

Not done with the altercation, the young man sweating like a skipping boxer replied:

"It's not your fault. I don't blame you at all. I don't blame you!"

What I found even more ridiculous was that at the end of the rush for space in the bus, the vehicle was not even half filled. By implication, even if they had queued to get into the bus, there would apparently have been enough space for everyone.

My relief at eventually getting a bus to convey me to Allen was short-lived when the driver slowly craned his neck towards us from the front seat and said:

"Passengers, abeg make una no vex o. I'm not going to Allen anymore. Na Ikeja I wan load...”

I looked straight into his eyes and he wasn't even smiling. Apparently, this was not a joke.

At first, the commuters began to grumble then, they began to curse under their breath with lines of frustration and anger drawn all over their faces. They were clearly upset and it wasn't too hard to see why.

As expected, they complained bitterly; accused the driver of being responsible for half of the nation's problems and never ceased lamenting; even when they could see that the driver's mind was made up.

The driver on his own part never ceased apologising to the passengers. He tried his best to make them understand that it wouldn't be wise for him to load a half-filled bus when he could get a fully loaded one by altering his route from Opebi-Allen to Ikeja.

At that point, I cast my eyes upon the rest of the commuters still stranded at the bus stop and realised that the driver was right. I would have done the same in his shoes because, in truth, those still standing at the bus stop could conveniently fill three or four commercial buses.

Reluctantly, we began to disembark. First, it was the man who had the dramatic face-off with the fat lady; then, the fair-skinned girl with the green T-shirt and short black skirt. The man with the white shirt and blue tie followed. It was time for me to join them and two others on the bus also dragged themselves out of the vehicle.

Just as the lady in the cream-coloured dress stepped out, the driver's voice must have sounded like an award-winning track to those heading towards Ikeja.

"Ikeja! Ikeja! Ikeja...," he repeated in his husky voice and before you could say Jupiter, the commuters heading towards Ikeja swarmed the bus like a gang of demented men rushing to penetrate an unconscious woman laying legs spread out wide without clothes.

This was precisely the way they would have rushed in but there was a problem and it was in a human form. I noticed that while those of us who were Allen bound had hopped off the bus, a certain young man had screamed when the driven announced his decision to change his route.

"If you like, change your route to Lokoja or Abia, I'm not stepping out of this bus."

Not too many of us had paid him much attention when he expressed his displeasure but when he remained in the bus even after we all had alighted, I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen but then I said to myself:

"The worst that could possibly happen is that he gets a refund from the driver."

I cast my mind away from the displeased passenger and the route-changing driver and concentrated on getting another bus to convey me to Allen but 5 minutes later, my attention was drawn back into the drama that was unfolding right before my eyes.

The disgruntled passenger refused to give in to the driver's request to alight from the bus after his route had changed. He remained adamant about being driven to his destination, which in this case happened to be Allen. After 10 minutes, some of the fresh passengers who had their minds on Ikeja began to exit the bus. Others continued to appeal to the young man who wanted to be driven to Allen at all cost.

At a point, every single person in the bus sounded like members of a choir as they repeatedly chorusing the same line.

"Oga, abeg now...."

"Bros, we take God beg you. Come down make the driver dey carry us go..."

The dude just sat there and refused to budge...

#We'll share the concluding Episode on Sunday, Feb 18, 2018

Dodging Bullets in Church

2018-02-11T21:45:00.000+01:00

On a beautiful Sunday, a Catholic church is struck by an unspoken brand of terror after the Reverend makes an announcement.

Once upon a time, an old church in a village was leaking and the walls were almost collapsing.

After the service, the Reverend asked the worshipers if they could organize a fundraising to rebuild the church...

He told them to contribute whatever God has blessed each and every one of them with.

"If you have some money, you can bring the money... If you earn a living by selling tomatoes in the market, you can bring the tomatoes and they get auctioned to raise the money... If you operate a hardware it would be even better, you can bring some nails and iron sheets for the roof... Bring whatever you have."

Eventually, it was the day of fundraising and worshippers came out in large numbers; some with money in their pockets. Others with goods depending on their jobs and sources of livelihood.

As they stepped arrived at the church, they were met by a strange sight; a coffin at the entrance of the church...

"Gosh!"

"Who had died?"

...but then again, it was on a Sunday and funeral services were never conducted on Sundays...

What was going on? People started talking in whispers; asking what was the coffin meant for and who was inside.

They started pointing fingers to an old man seated at a corner; he was the coffin maker...

Some looked at him in fear. For many others, it was open hostility; as if the man was cousins with death.

Looking at the old man was not easy for many. They had silently branded him the emissary of death - The one who did death's dark bidding.

The people said so much and thought about even much more all around the old man but he paid no attention to them. he just sat there as if they didn't even exist.

The Reverend had made it clear that people should bring whatever God has blessed them with and since the old man was a coffin maker, he had brought the church a fine coffin.

After the service, it was time to raise funds; those who had money contributed. People with hardware gave iron sheets and other building equipment and materials. Traders brought their tomatoes,' which were auctioned away.

Finally, the coffin maker dragged his coffin to the front of the church and stood still... People gasped and fell silent... You could hear a pin drop.

Suddenly an old man, a friend of the coffin maker stood up and offered N200,000 for the coffin on behalf of the Reverend... He said he was buying it for the Reverend...

The Reverend shot up so fast with eyes wide open; his lips suddenly very dry. He quickly offered N250,000 for the coffin on behalf of the leader of CWA (Catholic Women Association).

The Lady nearly stumbled as she sprang to her feet looking so shocked at seeing her coffin...

"No! No! No!" She shouted.

"It is not mine! I will buy it for the Catechist! N400,000, please... Please!"

The Catechist nearly peed on himself. He turned to look at her angrily as if to ask

"Do you want to kill me?"

Clearly, nobody wanted the coffin and it kept on being passed around until finally another old rich man stood and said that, he is offering N1 million for the coffin and added that he was buying it on behalf of the coffin maker.

The coffin maker smiled in a twisted way, took his coffin and returned it to his shop.

The Sophisticated Hellion

2018-02-07T22:25:00.002+01:00

Biyi's wife decides to pour her heart out to her beautiful friend and all of a sudden, she begins to see that her husband has been playing her for a fool...

"Biyi hasn’t worked for that long?”

Dayo’s voice drips with resentment.

"For real?"

She repeats with question with alarm scribbled all over her face

He’s been trying,” I say in a feeble attempt to defend my husband and I add:

"You know how the economy is..."

...My husband and I had vowed never to bring in a third party into our relationship but with a bank account screaming for revival, I needed to share my burden with someone else. I grip the phone...

Dayo is unusually quiet.

"You still there?" I asked.

"Hello?"

"I am here,” she finally responds.

"I just didn’t know things were this bad. And all this while, I thought Biyi was providing for the home."

But he is, I argued silently. Well, maybe not financially for now, but in every way else, Biyi is a rock.

"It’s not that bad."

My words sounded frail. Dayo clucked her tongue before she dropped the next line.

"You might as well be a widow."

The words hit me like a fist. "Na you I blame," she continues, oblivious to the damage her words had caused.

"Me? Why?"

She is blaming me for this? Seriously?

"Why do you keep paying the bills?"

"Because there is no one else to do it," I protested and to be honest, I was beginning to get upset.

"For real? He drives your car too?"

"He needs it," I mutter. "To attend job interviews and stuff. He gets back late sometimes."

“How late are you talking about?" Dayo asked.

“9, 10...ish.”

Dayo pauses for a second.

"I hate to say this girl, but your husband spending your money on another woman."

Whoa! Hang on. Where did that come from?

"Haba, Dayo. Biyi would never!"

"Look, I know men," she slices in.

"You are his moneybag and he will take you for a ride as long as it takes. Where is your dignity, girl?" Ride. Dignity. Moneybag. Ouch!

"But he’s a good guy," I manage. Can my husband be using me? It had never crossed my mind in the past, but I now wondered if Biyi was actually having an affair.

"I trust my wonderful Dennis...," Dayo was saying but I was barely listening to her.

My eyes were on the clock. It was almost midnight and Biyi wasn’t home. I forced myself to hear what Dayo was saying about Dennis Ono, her multimillionaire e-oil- company-golden-husband.

Gosh! I envied her life and her perfect marriage.

"My marriage is wonderful," Dayo said; as if in affirmation to my undeclared words.

"But only because I show Dennis who the boss is. He cannot try nonsense with me. Abi, you think it’s easy to get ten thousand pounds a month as pocket money?"

She really gets ten grand a month? That’s like, my entire annual salary in my crappy job plus bonuses. Life is unfair. Honestly!

"I am Biyi’s wife," I said.

“I cannot just desert him.”

Or can I? At this rate...

"In that case..." There is an edge to her voice now, "give him an ultimatum. He gets a job in two weeks or you are out of this marriage."

"I..."

The words got stuck in my throat.

"Look, I know his type," she says with conviction.

"He conveniently won’t get a job as long as you keep dishing out your money."

"But..."

Once again, the words were stuck.

"Starve him," she adds.

"No sex. Make life hell. You are not an ATM machine."

Keys jingle in the hallway. Biyi is home.

"Talk later," I said to Dayo.

"He’s back."

"Stand your ground," Dayo whispers menacingly and added, "Ultimatum... Two weeks!"

I hang up with a sigh.

My husband is leaning against the door frame. For a second my heart falters. He looks tired and drawn. But Dayo’s words punctuated my compassion.

"Where have you been?"

Biyi gives me a side smile and says, "No hug?"

I jerk my head at the wall clock.

"Its midnight. I had a job interview in Birmingham," he says.

"I called you to tell you I was stuck in traffic severally but I kept getting your voicemail. What’s wrong?"

I cocked my head. Is that a whiff of female perfume? It is. Dayo is right. He has been with another woman. With my car! Spending my money!

My head spins.

"Biyi!" I glared at him.

"Where are you coming from?" He steps back looking surprised.

"I went to Birmingham..."

"Did you get it?" I screeched.

"The job?"

Biyi shakes his head. "I didn’t..."

This is the last straw. I throw my open palm towards him.

"My car keys."

He gives me a hard level stare.

"What is wrong with you, Toni? Did I offend you?"

"Pass my keys!"

He thrusts the car keys into my palm.

I pushed past him, grab my duffel bag and stuff my overnight things into it. I know I am acting crazy but I have to show him that I would not be taken for a ride. That I am not a moneybag. That I have dignity.

I zip the bag up and spin around. My husband is staring at me. "Is everything all right with you, sweetheart?"

"Get out of my way!"

"Where are you going with that bag?"

"I need to clear my head."

I am still yelling.

"Can we talk first?" Biyi suggests.

"I don’t want to talk. Get out of my way."

He moves out of my path. I swipe a hand across my face, smearing my cheeks with mascara.

"Don’t look for me. I will be back when my head clears."

I rush out of the house and jumped into my car. My rage doubles as the feminine scent permeate the car. He has been with a woman in my car. I felt like an idiot.

* * *

I pulled up in front of Dayo’s mansion. Her husband’s Porsche is in the driveway and the porch lights illuminate my dreary form as I reach the door.

I ball my fists to knock, but a scream freezes the motion.

"Kill me!" I heard Dayo scream.

"Good for nothing idiot. Womaniser of the century!"

Whoa!!! Momentarily, I am unable to move. My hand hovers in the air. I hear dull thuds and muffled screams. Dennis curses.

"I warned you never to serve me stew that is not freshly cooked!"

"Am I your slave?" Dayo yells back.

"If you want fresh stew, get your PA to cook it for you. Or you think I don’t know about her? You think..."

Dayo’s words are suddenly silenced by another thumping sound. My hands fall to my side as a flurry of blows stifle her cries.

I wanted to call the police, do something... Anything! But I could not move. And so, I shut my eyes tight and listened as my friend is pummelled by her husband.

The beating stops. I should dash to my car but something holds me back.

"I am sorry I got you upset darling," Dayo finally says.

Her voice is laced with pain.

"It is my fault. I should have cooked for you. I... Toni wouldn’t let me get off the phone... It's her fault."

"Next time you talk to me like that, I will tattoo a punch on your forehead," Dennis growls.

"Get into the kitchen and make me fresh stew. And do something about that leech you call a friend."

That was enough for me. I sprinted back to my car and drove home.

* * *
A knock sounds on the window. Biyi... I wind down and he gives me a smile.

"Head clear now?" he asks.

"Leave me alone," I mutter.

"Dayo’s wonderful Dennis beats her up? And she never mentioned?" I say to myself; momentarily lost in thought.

"I will leave you alone in 2 seconds,” Biyi says.

There is a twinkle in his eyes.

"...but first, get out of the car."

I oblige, grudgingly.

"What?" He reaches under the car seat and pulls out a small basket.

"I didn’t come home straight from the interview. I stopped over at the perfume shop to get you this."

He hands the basket over. Inside was a range of exotic feminine perfumes and a small card. I pulled the card open and read the words:

"Thank you for your support during the hardest times of my life! I love you."

"That’s why I was late," he explains as he pulls me into a warm embrace.

"You have been so good to me, Toni. I couldn’t have asked for a better wife."

I couldn’t reply. My throat was lumpy.

"When you left the house to clear your head, I got a call back from the recruiter," he says with a beam.

"God answers prayers, babe. I got the job. It’s a package you won’t believe. Let’s go in. I’ll tuck you into bed and you can tell me what’s bothering you?"

* * *

I awaken to a text message from Dayo.

"Denis is flying me to Seychelles this weekend. This is what you get when you stand your ground. You have to be a no-nonsense gurl! Don’t you just love my life? Ciao sweetheart xxx."

I typed a quick response back: "Ciao!" and I quickly blocked her line with an App I had downloaded specifically for this purpose.

Now, this is one story every woman should read. The grass is never greener on the other side; best to believe that.

No matter how good a friend’s marriage, work, family or life is, NEVER EVER compare your marriage or your life to theirs!

Author: Abimbola Dare | Simply SAMAD

The 8 Million Naira Marriage

2018-02-04T22:03:00.001+01:00

Tayo meets Helena in the House of God and stumbles on something that makes him propose marriage to her 3 weeks after meeting her...

Sitting close to her in the church, he looked focused on what the preacher was saying. Suddenly, Helena’s phone beeped... It was a text message. She stretched her hand towards her phone, which was beside her to see what it was this time.

The number one suspect was MTN and their annoying “messages.” Raising the phone, she must have pressed 'OK' when the phone slipped off her hands onto Tayo’s body.

Immediately, being a nice brother, he helped her pick up her phone.

Tayo got hold of the big-screened phone and had a sharp sweeping glance at the message on the phone. He couldn’t believe it what he just saw. It was GTB alert and the amount was #8,350,503.00. Whaaattt!!!

Considering how fast Tayo gave her back the phone, Helena never suspected he saw it. Even if he saw it, she wouldn’t mind. Believe me.

At the end of the service, Tayo 'marked' Helena so closely and managed to start a conversation. It was swift. He got her number and everything started happening fast.

You don’t meet this opportunity every day. A babe with 8million in her account? Yesu Kristi!!!

3 weeks later, Tayo shocked Helena with a marriage proposal. Helena was a church sister. She doesn’t believe in dating. She believes that the man that would marry her should come straight up with a proposal.

Tayo perfectly fit into her picture of her perfect man.

“Oh Tayo must be a Godly man,” she reasoned.

He didn’t even ask for her to come visit his house.

Unlike others, he didn’t ask for sex. Now, he proposed? What a lucky girl Helena believed she was.

Piam... Piam... Piam... Tayo and his people had come for the introduction. Now, they have the list. It was not that expensive. He hustled to raise some cash and piam! They had done the marital rites. What a sharp brother!!!

He did his best to avoid letting Helena know that her money was the main attraction why 'everything' was happening. This was why he chose not to ask her about the money.

After the marriage, that same night, while they were in the room enjoying themselves, Helena’s phone beeped again.

It was another text message. Helena pressed some buttons and lo and behold - It was the same alert again. This time around, the amount had risen to 15 million Naira. Helena hissed... Tayo jumped up from the bed wondering why his wife would hiss like that.

AS he glanced through the phone once again, he didn’t know when he shouted “Woooowwww!!!”

At this point, Helena spoke up...

"Darling, please I’m tired of these text messages that will put me in trouble one day. My aunt who lives in Canada opened an account using my phone number. She did it in a hurry. But now, I have to inform the bank to remove my phone number from that account before armed robbers would see this alert on my phone and attack me.”

On hearing this, Tayo froze in shock with his mouth and eyes wide open, as he couldn’t believe what he just heard. He couldn't seem to breathe well again...

Any Advice for Tayo?

Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

The Dirty Apogee

2018-02-01T19:35:00.000+01:00

Agnes, 37, receives a shocking gift from an armed robber but it comes at a very wicked price. Hold your breath for this one...

Chapter 1: Agnes The Virgin

I am a Banker in my early 30s and going through a messy divorce. I married my husband as a virgin. I have never been with any man but him until I was raped. I didn't know anything about orgasm, climax or what have you because I have never experienced it. My 8 years of marriage was replete a miserable sex life. I have 2 children from my marriage and I love them with all my heart.

Chapter 2: The Trip

It happens that we travelled to my husband's village during the last Easter period. While in his hometown, our home was raided around 1am by dare devil armed robbers. It was a gang of 7 members. It was a very terrifying experience; after collecting all the valuables at home, the leader turned his attention to me and began to roll his tongue over his lower lip. He spoke one of his men he came with and they told me that he was going to have sex with me. He added that this was all he wants to do. He asked me to be cooperative for the sake of my family. I was devastated despite the fact that the rape was yet to happen. My heart and soul had already been raped. I vowed to just lay there and let him have his way. if this was the price I had to pay to ensure the safety of my family, so be it. I cast a look at my husband but he shook his head, lowered his gaze and looked away. he was just as helpless as I was. I was about to be raped for the first time in my life.

Chapter 3: Forceful Entry

The leader of the gang tied my husband to a chair, tore my clothes and went on to show me his manhood saying this was what he will use on me. I was frightened. I begged him and cried but he wouldn't listen. It was a rape that cost me my marriage. He lay me down on the floor and as the man was entering me, I was supposed to feel pains but that was not the case. Instead, I felt electrifying sensations; the kind I have never felt in my whole life. I screamed:

"Oh my God!!!"

Chapter 4: Stars and Bright Lights

He wasted no time and started pounding me. I felt stars and bright lights blow up inside my head. I didn't know when I held on to him; wrapping my fingers around his body and begging him not to stop to the utter shock of everyone present. This was wrong but I was enjoying being raped by this criminal. I was later told that I was screaming very hard when I approached orgasm for the very first time in my life. Yes! I had my first orgasm through rape and since then, my life hasn't been the same. The robber took me on 2 rounds of rough sex and I climaxed twice. I don't know what happened. Maybe my village people are after me as some people are bound to say but all I know is that I have never ever had such with my husband.

Chapter 5: After the Robbery

My husband gave me the beating of my life after the robbers left. He called me unprintable names. He called me a prostitute. he even said:

"I never know you were an Ashawo! I can't stay married to such a dirty whore."

I was hospitalized for two weeks as a result of that incident and his beatings. My husband left me in the hospital and travelled back to our home. I was Damaged. How could such a thing happen to me? What was responsible for me enjoying being raped and even climaxing as a result of it? How could I even enjoy such an act of cruelty on my body? These were the questions I kept asking myself.

Chapter 6: Discharged

When I got discharged, I met a divorce papers waiting for me to sign. I tried begging my husband; involved my parents but he swore that instead of staying with me, he would rather die. He tagged me a disgrace to his life. My husband is a rich guy so when our divorce news broke out, while I was denying it, he kept telling everyone one that I am a whore. It took me months to accept my predicament and move on. I am still healing; still seeing my therapist. But one thing I know is that I am not what my husband says I am. I am just a woman who was sexually starved. I did not pray to be raped but it was the turning point of my life. I just feel like sharing this with everyone because I believe it will help me. Please, don't judge me because you don't know my pains. By next month, I will be through with the divorce. I just want you all to wish me well in my new life. I pray to find Love in the nearest Future.

Please, what could she have done differently?

Was it a crime for her to enjoy sex like that?

➽Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

GIVEAWAY
We once shared a story about a man whose girlfriend fell and died when she found his corpse in his bedroom. What was her name?

1. Tolani
2. Aishat
3. Veronica
4. Lawunmi
5. Annie

WHO CAN WIN?
The 1st, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 13th, 15th, 20th correct answers win N500 airtime each.

RULES & REGULATIONS
➽Only answers posted as comments on the blog will be considered valid
➽Comments must include your name and email address to ensure you can be contacted if you win
➽Anonymous comments will be considered invalid
➽Winners will be announced on February 12, 2018
➽Authors of multiple entries will be disqualified
➽First 3 correct answers on the Simply SAMAD WhatsApp Channel win automatically

Let the GIVEAWAY begin...
PS: Don't forget to tell us what you think about the story (THE DIRTY APOGEE).

Dedication
This story is dedicated to all the ladies and women out there who have struggled with orgasm and sexual satisfaction at one point in their lives.

Damning Confession of a Married Woman

2018-01-29T10:30:00.000+01:00

Her first words:

"I Thought I Was Deceiving My Husband"

My name is Anita. I met this guy in 2001 when I was writing WAEC. His name is Deji. One thing led to another and we eventually fell in love.

He was everything a woman would ask for; he is fair, handsome, intelligent and God-fearing and he loved me so much. He shared the little he had with me and he was willing to do anything I asked for though he didn't have much because he was still in the second year at University of Nigeria, Enugu campus.

I was not at the university yet and he did everything possible for me to gain admission into the university. I eventually gained admission in 2003 into the Enugu State University of Science and Technology and graduated in 2007.

Chapter 1: The Fling

At that point, I honestly don't know what came over me. I had a fling with this guy named Frank. I never really loved him but he ended up getting me pregnant. I didn't know what to do but terminating the pregnancy was not an option. I didn't want to lose Deji. That was not an option either. It was as if my world has crumbled. I cried my life out the day I discovered I was pregnant.

"I didn't tell anybody; not even my best friend because I never could tell what would happen if I did. I kept it all to myself and decided to play a very smart card by telling Deji that I was carrying his baby."

Of course, he believed me because he trusted me so much but I betrayed the very love he had for me. He was also a little scared but he summoned the courage and came to see my people, though my parents are dead.

I eventually put to bed; a baby girl. This was in 2008. As if God was bent on punishing me, my baby was exactly the carbon copy of Frank; the guy I had a fling with?

"I was not surprised because I knew the pregnancy wasn't Deji's but I was really hoping and praying that the baby would save me by resembling me. Of course, I was wrong. Deji accepted us even when he knew the baby did not look like him or me. I was not sure if he suspected anything and I was permanently scared. My life was lived in fear of being discovered.

I died in silence over and over again. My conscience remorselessly destroyed me. At a point, I hated my own child as I constantly saw the picture of another man in her. My husband, Deji loved her so much; more than anything in the world.

In 2010, I had another baby boy for my husband. My joy knew no bounds. I was really happy and so was my husband.

In 2012, I had another baby boy for my husband yet he loved my daughter more than his two biological sons. At a point, I became jealous but what could I do? I just couldn't bear it anymore so I decided to seek penance and peace with God by seeking genuine forgiveness.

This I did because I couldn't continue to die in silence. It was now for me to confess to my husband but how would I achieve that without breaking my home? I didn't want to lose my home, I loved my husband and my kids.

He is a wonderful man but I betrayed him. I prayed and asked God to give me the strength to confess to him... On the chosen day, I started by calling him on phone to ask him if he would ever forgive me. He asked what I meant by that. He asked if I was alright and I said yes. He eventually ended the call and I cried like a baby.

When he came back from work that same day, I served him his dinner. After that, I went into the room with him and told him to forgive me. I begged him not to punish our daughter for what she does not know. I begged him over and over to punish me instead.

Chapter 2: End of the Road

He asked again what I meant by that. I narrated everything that transpired between Frank and I. To my greatest surprise, he dropped a bombshell:

"I have known all these years that I am not the biological father of our 4-year old daughter."

I asked him if he knew about it and didn't bother to ask me? He said that he knew that someday I was going to tell him but he never knew it would come this soon.

It was as if the ground should open and swallow me. I was so ashamed of myself that I bowed my face in tears but he cuddled me and said he'd forgiven me long ago.

He told me no one was perfect and that we all make mistakes in life. He said that I was a nice person and that we have been through a lot in life. So, he could not abandon me now that I needed him most.

He told me that he could possibly throw me out so that people would laugh at me but added that he has always loved me.

He said that as for my daughter, as far as he is concerned, she was his daughter. He had always seen her as one and that he would always love us. These were his words.

I was short of words. All I could do was to cry and thank him and thank God for the kind of man he had given me because I know that very few men would take that from any woman no matter what; except by the special grace of God.

I am now a happy person and I have genuinely embraced the love of God. We must all learn how to confess our sins to God no matter what so that Satan would be put to shame and as well learn how to forgive others and seek forgiveness when we wrong others.

We now live in the UK. I also had my two boys in the UK...

The Dead Whistler

2018-01-27T23:39:00.002+01:00

A Nigerian lecturer encounters a whistler and decides to teach him an unforgettable lesson.

One day in a well known University, a Senior Psychology Professor started his class on a very serious Topic. The moment he turned towards the blackboard, one of the students whistled. He turned, looked at the class and asked the whistler's name...

As usual and as expected, no one answered.

The Professor peacefully kept the pen in his pocket and picked up his bag and said: "The lecture ends here. That is enough for the day..." He started moving towards the door of the class. Upon realising the professor was leaving, the students were overjoyed to be free.

Then, he suddenly stopped and turned towards the class, kept his bag on the table and said, "I'll tell you a story to utilise the remaining time." Everyone suddenly became interested.

Yesterday night, I tried hard to sleep, but it was miles away from my eyes, so, I thought I'd better get petrol in my car, which will save my time next morning and might induce sleep. After having my tank full, I started roaming in that area, enjoying the peace of a traffic-free ride.

Suddenly, along the road, I saw a girl who was as young and beautiful as the clothes she was wearing. She must have been returning from a party. Out of courtesy, I turned my car towards her and asked if I may be of any help. She asked me if I could drop her off at her place. She added that she would be very grateful, to which I agreed.

The professor cast his eyes towards the roof as if he was staring at an eagle and said, "Who would deny a beautiful young company instead of a dry non-sleepy night.

She sat in the front seat with me. We started talking, and to my amazement, she was very intelligent and had control on many topics, which many youngsters don't.

When we reached her address, she admitted my courteous nature and behaviour and accepted that she had fallen in love with me.

I also admitted her intelligence and beauty and that I've also started liking her. I told her about my job as a professor in the university.

The girl asked for my number, which I gave her willingly. Then she asked me a favour, to which I couldn't have denied naturally.

She said that her brother is a student in the same university, and asked me to take care of him since we'll be in a long relationship now.

I asked the name of the student. She said that I'll recognise him with one of his very prominent quality.

He whistles a lot.

The moment the professor said this, all eyes in the classroom turned towards the boy who had whistled.

The professor turned to that boy and said,

"Young Man, I didn't get My Ph. D in Psychology by sleeping, playing and whistling..."

Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

Dedication
This story is dedicated to a friend who became a brother, Theophilus Akhimie.

A Friday Night in 2012

2018-01-24T21:00:00.000+01:00

On a Friday Night in 2012, a young man spends time with a beautiful beauty queen, 1 good cop and other men with bad intentions...

Chapter 1: The Lagos Cab Driver

The day was September 27. It was a Friday. The time was 11pm and I was in a cab cruising towards Victoria Garden City (VGC) in Lagos for a late meeting with a film director. Of course, I wasn’t driving the cab so while the cab driver concentrated on getting to his destination safely, I concentrated on something I was more interested in. It wasn't just something. It had a human form and was attractive. As the car rolled towards its destination, I settled into the warm company of the beautiful young lady who shared the back-seat with me. Her beauty was astonishing and so was her mind and I could barely tear my eyes off her enticing form and sensual appeal. The reason was simple -She was a model; not just the average model but a beauty queen. Yes, she was a beauty queen from Osun State. I was the host and she was my royal guest.

When I suddenly noticed the cab driver pull off the road into a gas station for a refill, a strange feeling spread its cloak over me but I couldn’t precisely place the feeling so I let it go after the driver apologised for the slight delay in a very courteous voice.

In no time, my gaze, attention and interest returned to the intoxicating presence of the gorgeous princess who instantly colonized my thoughts. My mind was overtaken by the intoxicating aroma of possibilities that the rest of the night held.

Shortly after leaving the gas station, the cab cruised along on Ikorodu Road for the another 10 minutes or so until the driver suddenly pulled over again at a vulcaniser’s roadside workshop to work on his wheels. Once again, the odd feeling returned to me and the driver must have seen it on my face as he uttered the words (in Nigerian pidgin English):

“Oga! Abeg no vex. E no go tey at all."

When tranlated into English, this meant that he was sorry for the delay and that we wouldn’t have to wait for too long.

True to his words, after a few minutes, he was done and we resumed the drive towards VGC but just as we went past Marlyland, Palmgroove, National Stadium in Surulere and were on the Carter Bridge, I noticed the cab begin to lose speed. Within a minute, the cab had grounded to a halt on the dark bridge.

Lagos is not the safest city in the world and but not entirely dangerous either. Like other populated cities, it has its blessings and curses but as far as I was concerned, there was nothing romantic or sweet about a dark bridge, a technically broken cab and a pretty model with lines of worry tracing a map across her visage.

Chapter 2: The Man With The Gun

As expected, the driver ran a clumsy diagnosis on his car but still couldn’t get it to start.

Before I could say Jack Robinson, I suddenly noticed a dark silhouette of a male form slowly making his way towards the cab. I strained my eyes a little harder and in the dark outline of his hand, I saw a gun. From a very subconscious level, my shoulders instinctively assumed a squared dimension; with fists solidly clenched. By this time, I was standing outside the cab and as the man came into full view, I saw his police uniform and relief spread a welcoming blanket over me.

He courteously introduced himself as he laid emphasis on the fact that we were in safe hands. He assisted the cab driver with his technical knowledge of automobiles but after 30 minutes, we still couldn’t return life to the cab. It was a major bridge in Lagos and getting another cab proved as hard as getting the faulty cab to work.

However, mother luck eventually smiled on us when another cab pulled over for us. The cab driver and the cop negotiated the fare with the new driver.

I was really impressed by the cop’s protective conduct, I reached into my wallet and handed him a generous amount of money for his help just as I was climbing into the cab to join the beauty queen.

This time, it was a smooth ride all the way to VGC and the meeting was as smooth as my model company’s succulent skin. It went so well that at the end, I had over N100, 000 in my back pack.

At the end of the meeting, I stepped back into the cab and my darling princess looked straight at me and asked:

“Where are we heading now?”

I looked deep into her stunning eyes, cupped her face in my palms, gave her a kiss that sent waves of pleasure coursing down my spine and replied:

“Now! It’s fun all the way sweetheart.”

Her eyes lit up with excitement, she smiled and returned the kiss; this time, it was more passionate than the first kiss.

I dropped the cash at home and ran into some of my cousins and family friends whose plan for the rest of the night coincided with mine; fun. The only difference was that while I had planned for a serene lounge or club, they insisted on late Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s ‘New Afrika Shrine.’ Instantly, thoughts of wild-looking men and women puffing marijuana, enjoying loud music, drowning bottles of spirits and alcohol and many more uncertainties flooded my mind but I embraced optimism and tagged along.

Chapter 3: Men With Bad Intentions

It was a typical Friday night and Ikeja didn’t look or sound like a bad idea to spend the rest of the morning though I had strong reservations.

We got into the car and drove straight to the New Afrika Shrine. However, just as we were parking the car, we spotted a police van directly in front of us and the cop in the front seat manoeuvred the car as if he equally wanted to park the car.

However, contrary to our expectations, two armed policemen disembarked from the van and ordered all occupants of the car we were in to step out of the car without the slightest courtesy.

It was already past midnight yet the armed cops with bloodshot eyes insisted that we all stepped out of the car.

We had 4 guys and 2 beautiful young ladies in the car and the next thing we all heard was the boom of the cop’s voice:

“If you get ID card, stand for this side (the cop’s right). If you no get ID card, stand for this side (his left side).”

Unfortunately, one of the ladies (unfortunately, it was my beautiful princess) did not carry an ID as she had naively dropped her bag at home. Ironically, while she became apparently nervous and scared, the cop’s eyes gleamed with excitement upon making this discovery.

If the lady in question was a call girl or a total stranger, the temptation to leave her to her fate would have been overwhelming but this was more than just a friend. She was... Let’s just go on with the narration.

All appeal to the cops fell on deaf ears as they marched her into their van, ordered her into the back of the van and threatened to drive off with her unless we did what they termed “settle.”

A look at the young lady’s face revealed another round of unadulterated fear.

We quickly weighed our options. We could call their bluff and let them take her away and drive to the ‘Area F Police Command’ in Ikeja where the most senior officer said they were taking her (as a check revealed that the police van was actually branded Area F Police Command).

The alternative was to part with a bribe to facilitate her release but we had no idea how much they wanted as a bribe.

What if they drove off with her, took her to a deserted location and (God forbid) began to molest her sexually? I had personally listened to the confession of commercial sex workers. Many of their stories were about how policemen would arrest them, take them to a deserted location and forcefully have sex with them. What if the cops fell into the error of taking her for one of such girls?

Chapter 4: Last Chance

All of a sudden, the Area F Police van began to move and in the blink of an eye, the cops were driving away with my beauty queen. I literally ran after the car. I had to run really fast before it got to a point where my feet would no longer be able to match the speed of the car. As I ran, the car suddenly grounded to a halt. I levelled up with the car and spoke to the driver with anger and irritation rising inside me like a test tube getting filled with poison. The driver happened to be the head of the police patrol team. I spoke directly to him and to be honest, I was no longer able to conceal my anger and it must have been visible when I asked:

"Officer!!! What in God's name is going on? Are you planning to take her away and leave us here?"

Rather than give a reasonable response, he slowly turned his head away from the road and looked squarely at me and uttered just one word:

“Last chance!”

I got the message and asked him how much he wanted. he replied with:

“...bring N10,000...”

I appealed for over 3 minutes before the dirty looking policemen reluctantly agreed to accept N3,000.

By the time they released my elegant sweetheart, she was visibly drained and traumatised and it was crystal clear that whatever plans we had to socialize in Lagos that beautiful night had been killed and buried by the ‘bribe-hungry’ policemen from Area F Police Command. You can imagine how the rest of the night panned out.

Have you ever had any personal experience with good cops or bad cops in Lagos? Kindly let us know in the comment section.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

A special dedication to all men and women who have ever been harassed, intimidated or abused by officers of the Nigeria Police Force.

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Sleeping Nemesis

2018-01-22T03:00:00.000+01:00

Shortly after eating Suya and unzipping a beautiful girl's blouse, Olumide discovers it is his last day on earth...

Olumide always considered himself God’s gift to mankind. He was tall, handsome, physically carved like a Spartan and had a quick mind but like most mortals, he also had his flaws.

The young man was evil. Perhaps, tagging him evil would constitute a grand injustice to the depth of vileness he harboured in his heart, lifestyle and and habits.

Olumide was an embodiment of malevolence. At different points in his life, he had embraced violence with the totality of his heart and soul. Just name the vile act and he had either done it or had turned it over in his mind; with the hope of adding it to his long list of atrocities.

One of his landmark deeds was an encounter with an old man. This single encounter changed affected his life much more than he had ever anticipated. Take a seat and follow the lines...

Chapter 1: A Very Cold Evening

On a very cold evening, shortly after a heavy downpour, Olumide was bored and to make matters worse, he was broke and upsettingly hungry.

He knew he could easily get food nearby on credit but his ego counselled otherwise.

This brand of evil was proud!

It, therefore, didn’t come as a surprise when he slowly rose from his bed, put on a shirt, a pair of blue jeans and boots and set out to find a solution to his problems.

For a very strange reason, he decided to veer off his familiar route to the major road and opted for a muddy terrain as a shortcut. He hadn’t walked for more than 4 minutes when he looked up from the wet and muddy floor and saw the silhouette of an old man approaching from a distance.

With each step he took, the distance between him and the approaching old man shortened.

Also, with each stride, came the evil whisper; that familiar sound of dark persistence; with its ominous texture; wrapped in a melody of death, sorrow, destruction, pain and misery.

The old man wasn’t too far off now and the voice in Olumide’s head provided him with a mental guide of precisely what to do once the old man was within his reach.

Chapter 2: The Old Man

Just as the old man was about to walk past Olumide, the young renegade suddenly moved off course, took a bold step off the straight line he had been walking and stepped right in front of the old man; automatically blocking off his path.

The old man who had his head lowered all along, slowly looked up to see who or what had blocked off his path. When his eyes fell on Olumide’s face, he neither smiled nor frowned. This man was four times Olumide’s age if not more and revealed a face that must have encountered evil more than a few times.

Without waiting for Olumide to speak, the man dropped the heavy sack he was carrying, looked back at Olumide and said:

“My son, all I have on me is the money from the toothpick I was able to sell today… I beg you in the name of your creator. Spare me… My daughter is very ill and N1,000 is all that I have to buy her drugs and feed my family today. God will provide for us tomorrow…”

The man was about to say something when Olumide threw a hard right-hand fist into his face; violently throwing the old man backwards; forcing him into a fall into the wet floor.

From the impact, Olumide knew he had just broken the old man’s nose. Even as the old man groaned in pain; still on the floor, Olumide moved in. He picked the man up from the floor and while holding him erect with one hand, he swung his massive fist across the old man’s jaw. The impact not only broke the man’s jaw but sent saliva, blood and three teeth flying into the brown mud. The old man crashed into the wet ground like a bag of potatoes yet, his assailant was not finished with him.

Olumide took four slow steps to where the man lay and just as he was about the drive his boot into the old man’s face; a move that would have killed the old man instantly and left him with a broken neck, Olumide’s eyes caught something that captured all of his attention; it was money; in bits and pieces on the floor.

He abandoned the man, walked towards the money and began picking them up. When he was done picking up the wet notes, he counted and had a total of one thousand Naira.

Without any hesitation, he stuffed it all into his pocket. As he was about to leave, he took one last look at the old man who was barely moving; his shirt all bloodied. The mixture of mud and water on his body and the countless pieces of toothpicks that lay scattered all around the old man looked really messy.

It suddenly occurred to Olumide that indeed, the old man had been truthful. He was almost tempted to return the money to the man and probably help him up but the presence of the N500 in his pocket and the dark voice in his head helped him make up his mind.

As he began walking away, he looked back at the man for the very last time and saw the old man crying and sobbing.

Like a tortured soul, the injured man did something strange. He picked up a blood-stained toothpick, pointed it at Olumide and howled out loud in agony.

A bolt of fear coursed through Olumide as he heard the man’s cry but it was already too late as the wheels of nemesis had begun to grind in a steady roll of inevitability. He looked away quickly and just kept walking.

Chapter 3: N600 Suya

After spending N600 on Suya and N300 on locally prepared alcoholic drinks, Olumide stepped out from the bar and beckoned to a scantily dressed girl. As the girl got close enough, Olumide grabbed her big buttocks and dragged her close to his chest.

She was very calm despite Olumide’s hand lingering on her bum. She looked straight into his eyes and said:

“Short time is N1, 000 and TDB will be N2, 500 but because you saved me from police yesterday, just buy me a drink.”

He gladly obliged and just before he stepped out of the bar, he moved to pick a toothpick off the tray close to him but hesitated for a brief instant as the scene of his encounter with the old man flashed across his mind.

Olumide instantly killed the flashback, picked up a single stick of toothpick, wedged it between his lips and headed home with his sexy prize. He had barely opened the door when he unzipped the girl’s short blouse and grabbed her again but this time from behind.

She had the kind of body capable of giving a man an erection in less than 10 seconds and in a minute; Olumide was as hard as an ice cube. He was not one to indulge in foreplay and while the girl had her back to him, he expertly slid her lacy pants off, used one hand to place her hand on the bedpost as he guided himself into her.

Olumide knew the size of his manhood was far above average and he enjoyed the audible breath that escaped the girl’s lips as he penetrated her. She groaned and moaned as he held her hips still and thrust in and out of her. This went on for another 20 minutes; altering her position from time to time.

At a point, he had her lying face up; her back on the bed and lifted both her legs off the bed, placed them on his shoulders and penetrated her wetness once again. Her sexual depth spurred him to ride her. His length and size made her grab the sheets; fists clenched like the claws of an eagle seizing a prey. He rammed into her like a foreman knocking huge metallic nails into a yielding ground of a site and sweet moans of pleasure escaped her throat.

After a while, he felt the girl’s body begin to throb and then vibrate as she approached orgasm. She began to moan and gasp for breath as she held on tightly to him and climaxed.

Chapter 4: A Blast From the Past

Shortly afterwards, Olumide also reached his sexual peak. She had a cold shower, got dressed, sat between his legs while he sat on the bed and whispered to him:

“You’re good and I like you but next time, I’m going to charge you.”

He smiled at her and winked as she stepped out of the room. Olumide sat up in bed regurgitating the satisfaction of his latest sex romp and smiled; slowly shifting the position of the toothpick between his lips.

Without any warning, scenes of his violent encounter with the old man flashed across his mind again. As if this wasn’t bad enough, graphic scenes of his rape victims, their tears and agony came barging into his thoughts.

He remembered Aishat; how he had brutally raped her and cut her from time to time with a knife to instil morbid fear into her.

He recalled Nkem and what he had done with her corpse after raping and snuffing the life out of her.

He remembered the look on Emeka’s face as he stabbed him in the chest, pulled out the knife in a flash and slit his throat.

He remembered the little girl walking along the dark road barely a week ago and how he had grabbed her when no one was looking, knocked her unconscious and delivered only her head to his client.

Olumide knew he was a product of the society; where corruption, greed and quest for power reigned supreme. However, for some strange reasons, the thought of turning a new leaf now had him in a vice grip and he switched the toothpick to the left side of his lips and decided that he would think deeply about his life in the morning.

At the moment, the only thing on his mind was sleep. As he lay back on the bed; with the toothpick still playing on his lips, he wondered if he could really ever change for the better. He was certain he could but one thing he doubted if he could ever bury were memories of his past.

Within seconds, he closed his eyes and was consumed by sleep.

Chapter 5: The Final Awakening

Sometime shortly past midnight, Olumide’s eyes shot open; not because he couldn’t sleep but because he was in agonizing pain. Something had gone very wrong. He felt as if an Olympic athlete had driven a javelin through his entire neck with deadly intent. He wanted to scream out in pain but he couldn’t. There was something in his throat and it stabbed against the walls of his oesophagus. He couldn’t see it but he knew there was blood trickling down his throat. He would have preferred to stay still but he felt the pain of a hundred needles in his neck; constantly stabbing at his throat from the inside.

He was on his feet now. Olumide jumped all over the room; like a man having a choking fit. Indeed he was beginning to choke. The more he panicked; the deeper and harder the sharp edges stabbed into his throat and then he remembered… The toothpick!

The knowledge did nothing to help. In his panic and disorientation, Olumide tripped on an electric cord lying on the floor and he lost balance, wheeled forward, tried to stop himself but couldn’t and crashed his head into the window. Once again, he tried to stop himself but before he could bring his body from crashing forward, his bare neck slashed across the sharp edge of the louver; tearing his neck open; blood gushing out as he frantically grabbed his neck with both hands; choking on the pain and blood already flooding his throat and choking him to death.

Before he finally slumped, he slammed his 95kg frame against the door; trying to break it open but failed.

As he slumped, his vision blurred like a light being dimmed. In the blurred distance, he saw what looked like a blood-drenched old man holding a blood-stained toothpick; tears in his eyes and as if the countdown of an evil clock had suddenly run out, the man howled in an eternally infinite echo of agony… Deadly, deafening and diabolically doomed.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

Specially dedicated to all those who love me despite my seemingly strange nature.

The CEMETERY

2018-01-18T12:12:00.000+01:00

Driven by bitterness, vengeance, bloodlust and a desire to kill, a young man chooses to pay his friend a final visit...

Chapter 1: The Yellow Dress

Leke stood inside the cemetery on a cold night, slowly rubbing the surface of his dry palms together; his eyes appeared glued to his object of focus; his late friend’s grave.

All of a sudden, he stopped the palm-rubbing act, dropped his arms to his side, raised his head to the sky and began to laugh; not in the manner of one amused. Rather, like a man who has lost his mind.

Leke was curently thinking about Hakeem. The day's date was August 13, 2010; precisely 10 years since Hakeem was murdered in cold blood. The circumstance and nature of his death had instilled devastating fear in many. His corpse, seen by an unfortunate few, had sparked a controversy that raged on for weeks. Those who had glimpsed the remains of the dead man simply could come to terms with what they had seen. Their minds just couldn’t bear the sheer horror that has assaulted their minds and hearts.

One of such people was Lawunmi – Hakeem’s fiancée. She had decided to pay Hakeem a surprise visit that fateful day; a visit she had planned so well just to give he sweetheart a thrill.

She had taken time to cook what she considered a top of the shelf delicacy; spiced yam porridge garnished with vegetable, shrimps and roasted snails. In addition, she had prepared ‘Zobo;’ a drink, which Hakeem always proudly boasted of being an addict of Zobo and would often say to her:

"I will drink Zobo on my deathbed."

Hakeem loved yellow dresses and beads and had presented these to her on her 26th birthday; barely a week ago. This, she had chosen as the most appropriate outfit for a candle-light dinner for two.

Looking elegant and carrying the food flask in a branded polythene pack, Lawunmi looked smashing enough to disrupt a religious service. Spending less than 20 minutes in the light traffic that night, she arrived at Hakeem’s two-bedroom apartment.

After three light knocks without a response from within, she turned the door-knob; only to discover that the door had been open all along. She stepped in and asked in her melodic voice.

“Hello! Is anybody home?” Yet, there was no trace of life in the house. Sensing her sweetheart could be engrossed in one of a million things and might never hear her, she began moving stealthily through the house hoping to seek him out and probably give him a scare in the process.

Lawunmi gently placed their supposed dinner on the dining table and kept searching. After 90 seconds of quietly opening and closing doors, she stopped in her tracks and looked in the direction of the only place she hadn’t searched; the bedroom.

It took her only 10 steps to get to the door as she quietly and cautiously opened the well-greased door. Before she stepped in, she sensed foulness about the air that hit her. She waved this aside; hoping she might even catch him sleeping.

When she opened the door full length, one might have thought Hakeem was indeed sleeping; only that when a man sleeps the way she found Hakeem, it was certain that such a man would never wake up.

Chapter 2: Lawunmi Finds Her Sweetheart

What Lawunmi saw made her heart seize. She felt her head grow larger and tried to scream but even with her lips fully parted; with her mouth wide open, not a single sound escaped her throat because, in her 26 years of existence, she had never seen anything as barbarically messy as this.

Hakeem was dead! There was no doubt about that but that was a very false description of what Lawunmi’s eyes beheld. If the definition of a man was to have most parts of the body intact as one, then Hakeem was far from being a man. The only identifiable part of Akeem’s body was his head, which lay in the middle of the blood-soaked bed.

Other parts of his body were scattered all over the place. His intestines were wrapped around the bedpost. His torso nailed to the wall; like animal-skin hung in the sun to dry. His innards including lungs, heart, liver and other things Lawunmi couldn't recognise were scattered all over; like toys in a busy kindergarten class.

The bedroom reflected the venue of a ‘Splash-It Fight’ between a painter with a tin of black paint, a sewage disposal boy with a bucket full of raw human faeces and a drunk butcher with a sack of bad meat.

Chapter 3: The Girlfriend Joins Her Sweetheart

Lawunmi was a decent young lady; one with a fragile heart. So fragile, Hakeem had dubbed her 'The Epitome of Gentleness’ and could never resist the urge to tease her about this.

When she saw Hakeem in the manner whoever or whatever had done this to him had left him, she was terrified, transfixed and rendered completely immobile. Her mouth ran dry; her eyes blinked rapidly in sheer horror. Her stomach twisted and churned at the sight before her. Her eyes burned with tears of pain, despair and incomprehensibility began to sting her suddenly red eyes.

Within seconds of all these, all began to darken around her. Her last thoughts were of trying to scream as she fell backwards – losing consciousness.

In what seemed like the slowest of motions, her head struck the marble floor so hard that her skull gave way to an opening and she breathed her last; allowing death take its toll.

Chapter 4: The Tragedy of August 13

Once again, Leke looked down at Hakeem’s grave; towering above the dead man’s place of rest. He recalled vividly, the tragedy of August 13, 2000. The bloody scene flashed across his mind like a man trying to recall details of a 7-day-old dream. He and Hakeem had been friends.

Again, images of Hakeem’s death rented his mind. He had gone to Akeem’s house that day to pay him an eternally retaliatory visit.

Men have secrets; some dirty, others bad and a few, absolutely unthinkable.

Hakeem’s past was shrouded in darkness for he had committed atrocities while an adolescent.

Chapter 5: The Atrocity

Driven by poverty and other unseen factors, Hakeem had robbed, hurt and abused many but specifically, he, in the company of 3 others, had robbed a certain family.

The household had suffered a great loss because, besides robbing, Hakeem and his cohorts had raped a mother and two teenage daughters.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the gang had forced the father to rape his own daughters and made his son have sexual intercourse with his own mother.

Still not content with the terror they had unleashed, they slaughtered the girls and shot the mother point blank; sparing the father and his teenage son and left the family scarred for life.

The gang leader - young Hakeem, had bluntly told father and son through his hooded face that he was a product of the society; branding himself 'The Left hand of God.'

Hakeem’s gang had left as they had come; quietly but when the wheel of nemesis is tampered with, there’s no going back for he who has erred. Whether by fate, stupidity or the grinding wheels of Karma, Akeem had dropped a single item, which would set in motion, the beginning of his end - his wallet, which contained the most devastating loss to anyone in the act of robbery, gang rape and murder; his ID.

As if the hands of retributive justice were starved, something occurred. The item was found by the unforgiving son and brother of the raped; a seemingly innocent boy who was enrolled in the same academic institution Akeem’s ID reflected - A seeming innocent boy; fondly called Leke.

Chapter 6: Nemesis Has a Face

Leke survived but through years of nursing a devastated heart, which never really healed, Leke had schemed, pretended and devised a perniciously vile plan; following a carefully plotted script of revenge.

His short trip to Akeem’s residence was the final page of Leke’s book of vengeance. Putting an end to Akeem’s existence hadn’t been too difficult for a sleeping man hardly ever puts up much of a resistance.

Leke had arrived Akeem’s residence to find him sleeping. With the stealth of a puma, Leke drew the hunting knife from his belt, deftly covered Akeem’s face with a pillow and swiftly slit his throat with the precision of an assassin. What followed was a bloody affair - Like a work-starved butcher in a slaughterhouse, Leke had performed the deed like a zombie; no feelings whatsoever.

In truth – He was hollow but he was not born that way. Years of pain and hatred had conditioned his heart into something ugly and remorseless.

Chapter 7: Whispers From the Past

As Leke stepped out of his prolonged flashback, he realized the heavens had opened up a little and drops of water hit the ground in splashes yet, he glanced at the inscription on Hakeem’s grave and in defiance to the laws of life and death, Leke whispered:

“Dear bastard friend, now that you tread that lonely path, may Lucifer grant you what you deserve... May your wretched soul burn eternally in Hell...”

The rain fell in showers; making him mildly wet. He wiped his face to clear the water already hindering his vision. As he did this, he heard something. The sound appeared to have come from behind him. He spun around but all he saw was the greyness that lay within the rain and he smiled, grinned and laughed; feeling as triumphant as a frustrated writer who finally eliminates a hungry rodent that’s been chewing his manuscripts.

Suddenly, he heard the pronouncement of his name from behind. His laugh was truncated... He slowly turned around hoping for the worse but he saw nothing. Then he asked himself:

“Could I be scared of ghosts? Goodbye Hakeem. It’s time to leave. I don’t belong here.”

He had barely taken three steps away from Akeem’s grave when he heard: “Leke!” from behind. He ground to a halt; not because he felt he was going insane but because he knew that this time, he had actually heard someone or something voice his name.

Now, he was scared to death; visibly wearing a mask of panic on his face for the first time for it dawned on him that he was as a matter of fact, within a cemetery. He froze when he felt something like a finger rest on his shoulder from behind.

Chapter 8: A Cold Embrace

This time, he was too terrified to turn around but he knew he had to; for how long can a man have his back against reality. In what seemed to take forever, he made a slow and fear-inspired u-turn but surprisingly, he saw nothing.

Barring the odds, a challenging grin crept into his face and he whispered:

“It was my destiny to take your life you bloody decaying son of a whore. What’s yours, my late friend?”

He had barely finished uttering the words when the ground trembled beneath his feet. It was unbelievable.

In a metaphysical spell, the earth slowly parted. Shocked into a trance-like stare, Leke watched in paralysed consternation; his face white with horror as a termite-infested coffin rose to meet him; like a troubled child running into the embrace of a loving father.

In what would remain his final moment of sanity, he looked on helplessly as the lid of the coffin opened and the rotten remains of Akeem stretched its bony arms towards him in a deranged embrace of death. In the slowest of movements, Hakeem’s 10-year-old corpse grabbed Leke with its cold bony fingers; drew him into a terrifying hug and effortlessly hauled him into the coffin.

Without the slightest of resistance; not even a scream, Leke accepted his fate and the coffin’s lid slammed shut and returned back into the soil.

In a space of four seconds, Leke had ceased to be in the midst of the living... Moments after the rain, a cemetery attendant walked by Akeem’s grave without faltering in his steps because the grave looked exactly as it did 10 years ago.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

This story is dedicated to Omolara Nathalie Savage. We met in 2017 and the innocence of her spirit, the purity of her heart, her expressive soul and her willingness to play endeared her to me. No one gave me as many gifts in 2017 as ‘Savage’ (as she's fondly called at work) did. I am grateful for your friendship and forever grateful to God for making our paths cross. May the rest of your life be long, fulfilling and beautiful.

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The Lipstick Bandits

2018-01-10T16:10:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, a private Catholic school was faced with a very unique problem - A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom.

That was fine provided it was a natural or neutral skin tone, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips against the mirror; leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night, the maintenance man would wipe for several minutes to remove them and he always succeeded but the by the next day, the girls would have put new prints on the huge mirror. Something had to be done but the girls did not have reputation for being obedient.

Finally, the principal, Sister Toyosi, decided that something had to be done. She summoned all the girls into the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every night. There were yawns of sarcasm from the little princesses but the Principal didn't let that distract her.

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, Sister Toyosi asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. After that days, the maintenance man never found lipstick prints on the huge mirror.

There are teachers and there are educators! The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

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The Lagos Taxify Driver

2018-01-05T13:14:00.002+01:00

The Taxify driver showed me a big black welt on his neck. It ran around his neck; blueish black and swollen.

He told me that in October he had gone to a real estate agency on Allen Avenue to pay for six plots of land in Lekki EPZ zone.

Twenty-four million plus naira inclusive of all charges.

Chapter 1: The Nigerian Plan

It was the balance of the money he had saved during three years stay in Germany and had brought back with him.

He had imported five cars from Germany into Nigeria.

He gave his parents one. His wife the other. Sold two. And was driving one.

He had paid two years rent for his house in Surulere and furnished it.

Bought a piece of land in his village in the East which he was still developing.

And hurriedly done the traditional and white wedding to his Igbo bride who had waited for him during his stay in Germany.

The purchasing of the land at the Lekki EPZ zone was a long-term investment for him.

While in Germany he had got into a partnership with a manufacturing company and was going to build a factory on the land for the fabrication and assemblage of solar power equipment using their proprietary technology.

He had inspected the land.

Met with the Baale and the Omo-Oniles, got the C of O, took it to the local government and the land registration offices, met the officers he was directed to and their authenticity was confirmed.

Then he had in the first week of last month he had paid the money into the accounts of the real estate company and promptly on the advice of his wife, he had mobilised builders and gone to the land to fence it in order to ward away trespassers.

At the site as they began work, some of the Omo-Oniles who he had never seen had accosted them and an argument had ensued when they told them that the plots of land belonged to three other individuals collectively.

He protested and marched with them to the Baale to make his case.

On getting there, the Baale he saw was different from the Baale he had seen the first time he visited the palace.

Another bout of arguments that took hours, during which the other owners of the land were summoned.

They showed him their C of Os.

One owned two plots. One owned two plots and the last one owned three plots.

Chapter 2: Dark Realities

Not believing the authenticity of their documents they all went with him to the local government and land registration offices where he once again met different people from the ones he had met when he first came there.

The verdict? His documents were fake. Theirs were genuine.

Beside himself in shock, he had driven to the real estate agent office on Allen Avenue.

It was closed.

The agency had packed up and left.

The guards at the bank next to the building told him that they had moved out at night.

The Taxify driver said that as he heard the words from the guards, he actually felt a dark cloud envelop him and a deep sadness seize him.

Chapter 3: Sorrow Knocks on the Door

So deep he could barely breathe or think. He had never felt such sadness before. Never felt such sense of hopelessness.

He called the real estate agent.

It rang unanswered thrice.

And then it was switched off.

He tried repeatedly and got the same - The number you are trying to reach cannot be reached at the moment please try again later.

Each time he heard the message, he felt the grip of sorrow tighten around him.

And it was in its grip he had driven home that afternoon, his heart drumming in his ears.

The house was empty since his wife was at work.

He sat in the living room and stared at the television which was not turned on.

All he could see was himself working so hard in Germany to save the money he had just lost.

The questions rained on him.

Chapter 4: The Final Decision

How would he complete the house in the village? How would he raise the money for the factory? What will he tell his business partners in Germany who had already advanced him a credit facility and were sending him a shipment of the equipment he will need to set up the factory? What will he tell his Uncle who had collected a high-interest loan on his behalf from his bank to finance the building of the factory itself? How would he take care of his new wife? How would he take care of his aged parents?

He said the more he thought the more he couldn't think.

And all he heard clearly and distinctly as though someone was talking to him were the words;

"There is no hope. No need to stress yourself again. End it all. Kill yourself. End your suffering. Your wife will remarry and move on. Your parents will survive and your sister will marry and take care of them. God understands. God knows you have tried. Go and rest in heaven. It is easier to die than live through this suffering. There is no way you can raise that money again. There is no way you can pay back the interest on the loan your uncle has collected even if you return the loan itself. Three months had already passed since he collected the loan for you. Didn't you already give him his cut? You see you don't even have the complete loan itself even if you return it. The bank will take whatever you return as the payment of the interest that has already incurred. Then the balance they would use as part of the loan itself. The rest of the loan will then accumulate interest for every day you have not brought it in. How would you pay that one? How would you pay that kind of interest, talk more about the balance of the loan? You can't pay it. The bank will harass your uncle. They will take the house he used as collateral. Your Uncle will disturb your life. He will harass your parents. Why do you want to go through all that? If you die, he won't be able to disturb you or your wife or your parents. The Germans will not be able to disturb them. Without you, they can not do anything. You see, the solution is to disappear. Save your family. End it all. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself."

He did not know when he took his belt, made a loop, tie the end without the buckle on the metal railing of the staircase that led to the upstairs bedroom of the duplex in which he lived. Pull up one of the dining room chairs close to the staircase, climb on it, put the loop around his neck.

He said a short prayer and begged God to forgive him and receive his soul.

Then he kicked the chair out from underneath his feet and his weight dropped making the loop tighten around his neck.

Chapter 5: End of the Road

The suddenness shocked him.

And even without thinking he had his hands grabbing for the tight belt around his neck.

He tried to breathe.

With every draw of air, the belt squeezed tighter.

His throat and his nostrils were on fire.

There was a ringing in his ear which grew louder with every passing second.

He felt his lungs catch fire and his windpipe begin to break.

His vision began to blur as darkness rushed towards him.

But he didn't see his life flashback as he had thought he would be based on the stories he had heard.

Instead, he felt an indescribable urge to survive; to fight for his life.

He tried to grab hold of the railing behind him so that he could pull himself up and his feet could find a footing on the staircase but his hands couldn't find anything as it flayed around in confusion and alarm.

It was then he felt the saliva pulling in his mouth. It was like a river. It was rushing.

His strength was failing him. He could feel his mind telling his body to fight but he could feel the power fade out of his body and his hands and feet sagging towards the ground.

And as the darkness rushed over him, and he felt a terrible coldness seize him, the last conscious thought he had was that he had forgotten to write a note to his wife.

Chapter 6: The Miracle

When he opened his eyes, later that day, the first thing he saw was the white ceiling of the clinic and the first thing he felt was the sweat on his face.

For a moment he was disoriented and couldn't remember who he was, where he was or why he was there.

Then he heard voices.

A lot of voices.

And in that din, he heard the voice of his wife. Shrill with fear as she asked a question.

"But how would you know if he has suffered any brain damage?"

The doctor responded.

"He has to wake up first before we know."

"God please o! You saved me from being a widow, don't punish me now with a husband in a coma. I beg you Father. King of mercy. Help your daughter in the name of your son Jesus!"

His wive's voice had a sing-song to it when she prayed which usually made him laugh. It was as though she was singing while laughing and jumping up and down on the same spot.

"We are lucky the belt broke in time for him to start breathing on his own accord, if not, we won't even be having this conversation. You would have found him hanging in rigour mortis. I mean you found him lying there more than four hours after he fell. So madam, be optimistic."

It was then he called out her name.

And the hospital room exploded in joy.

The week that followed was tough.

His wife after her joy had subsided was furious at him.

She accused him of not loving her at all. How could he have wanted to kill himself and leave her like that? He didn't even bother to leave a note? Was money more important than her? It was this and it was that all through the hours of the day as he tried to placate her while recovering his strength.

His parents and his younger sister journeyed down from the East and joined in the angry outburst.

How could he do that? Did he want the church to blacklist them? The Umunna would ostracise them? No one will marry his sister? There will be no one to take care of them? He was very selfish to have thought only of himself? He didn't even bother to leave behind a male child to carry the family name? It rained down on him like a storm.

And all he could say was a remorseful sorry.

Chapter 7: The Doctor

But it was the doctor who intervened and urged them to sheath their swords before he told them that the real estate agent could be caught.

He knew someone at Lion building in Lagos Island who had experience with matters like that and who was an expert in recovering stolen funds.

His parents insisted that the doctor give him time to heal before anyone went in search of the real estate agent, but when they heard the amount of money involved they changed their tune.

So the contact was called.

He offered to help but needed a mobilisation of N250,000.

It was his wife who offered to bring the money.

Like her husband, she was a saver too.

The money was given to the contact, who then requested for the number of the real estate agent and the account number the money was paid into.

The telecom provider was contacted by the contact and the call log of the number was procured.

It had all the numbers that were called and the numbers that called it.

The most frequently called numbers were extracted.

Their registration details got from their respective telecom companies.

Each one was called and through subterfuge, a conversation was opened with them, with an offer from the telecom company to visit their office for a price won from an end of year surprise lottery done by the telecom company to reward loyal phone customers.

Out of the five people contacted only two showed up; two ladies.

The contact and his team were waiting for them at the telecom company headquarters.

They were promptly arrested.

Meanwhile, the bank the money was paid into was contacted. It was ascertained that the money was still in the account.

A police order for a hold on the money was forwarded to the bank.

The bank complied.

The girls were interrogated.

Chapter 8: The Power of Hot Slaps

After a marathon questioning that included threats and hot slaps, one of the girls confessed that she was a girlfriend to the real estate agent and under duress, she agreed to take them to his house.

They arrived at his house at Magodo 5.30 a.m in the morning.

They burst the doors and met him sleeping in bed with another girlfriend.

Both naked.

The other rooms had other boys and girls in them.

Most of them naked.

A network of thieves, fraudsters and the girls who date them.

They were all arrested.

Moved to the station.

And by noon of the same day, the money was transferred back to the account of the Taxify driver.

He gave the contact an extra N500,000 in gratitude for Christmas and another N500,000 which he had requested for his contacts at the banks and the telecom companies.

It had taken the contact four days to recover the funds.

Chapter 9: Second Chance

And the Taxify driver had been discharged a fifteen days after his admission when his lungs, throat and his right sprained ankle had sufficiently healed.

The Taxify driver looked over at me as I sat quietly listening to his story.

"You never know the value of life until you nearly lose it man. I would have sworn that I could never take my life no matter what happened, but in hours, there I was already doing what I thought I could never do. Pray you never experience something that can break your spirit, because this your mind, you can never trust it. It can lie to you just like that and just like that it can save you. It can confuse you and it can make things so clear to you, you will be amazed. So you have to be careful when you choose to listen to it. You know when it was telling me to kill myself, I was still hearing another voice telling me to call my wife, but the voice that was telling me to kill myself was telling me that my wife will blame me for being foolish. She would laugh at me. Another voice told me to pray. The voice that was urging me to kill myself was saying prayer will never get the money back and the only prayer I need to say is to tell God to accept my soul. I tell you it was like there were different people in my mind men. Just pray that you never get to that point where you are at the mercy of your mind. Because what it can make you do, hmmmm..."

And he fell silent.

We drove on.

Chapter 10: Final Question

After a while, I asked him.

"Are you still going to buy another land for the factory for the Solar project?"

"Me?"

He laughed for a while before he continued.

"Solar what? Man, didn't you hear me? I saw death man. It cleared my mind. Made me see everything in 3D. What do I need all that stress for? I have told my uncle to return the loan. I paid back the part I gave him as his cut. Paid the interest that had already accumulated. I told the Germans thank you very much but I am not interested anymore. I paid back the shipping charges and penalties for breaching the contract. I still have like a couple of millions in my account. I am waiting for my wife to get her papers and we are taking off back to Germany. We get there. She gets a job, I get a job. We make enough to raise a family, travel on holidays, live life. Man, all this wanting to build empires and acquire money you can't spend cos its too much doesn't mean anything. If you experience the loneliness of death you will understand what I am saying. Vanity upon vanity man, all is vanity. One life to live that is all we have got and you don't have to spend it chasing what doesn't matter. Just be happy, show love, experience the world, earn just enough to make you comfortable, be contented and keep your mind in check."

Then he laughed again.

"Man, I tell you. The devil is right there in you. He is your mind. If you are looking for salvation, then conquer your mind. You think Jesus didn't know what he was saying when he said '...lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil?'"

I was looking at him silently.

He continued.

"He was talking about the mind!"

There was a transcendental peace on his face as he kept shaking his head and laughing with such pure happiness, it was evident that to him, he had found out the greatest secret in existence.

I couldn't help but smile with him; infected by his happiness.

Author: Unknown

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Diary of a Nigerian Rapist

2018-01-04T12:28:00.000+01:00

“Who is at the door?”

I had to really raise my voice because I was just stepping out of the bedroom when I heard the doorbell ring. Perhaps, it is my wife. If she's the one at the door, I have no desire whatsoever to see her... There is something about her that I always find darkly unsettling.

Not only did I consider her strange. She was also as diabolic as the Devil; always smiling cynically with the side of her mouth but deep down, I know I can't trust her.

Over the past few months, I kept sensing this evil vibe around her. I have to admit that when I married her, I truly loved her but that love must have relocated across the seas. She was no longer the woman I married. Outwardly, she looked beautiful and charming but my intuition kept telling me that this was a woman I should be actively worried about.

“I will be with you in a moment,” I screamed when I heard the doorbell ring again. At that point, I was very sure it was my sweetheart. She used to be adorable and charming but has since become my worst nightmare.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not take a similar situation off my mind; the tragic story of Nigerian leaders and how good men always ended up vile and bad once they tasted power. They were all the same. Now I believe the elders had always been right when they said, ‘to test the heart of a good man, give him money and power. If he remains good afterwards, then indeed, he is good.’

I used to love my wife but all we shared flew to the stars precisely four months ago when her younger sister visited while my wife was not at home. To make matters worse, she did not call to inform us she would be visiting; on an unfortunately cold night when I was home alone.

Chapter 1: The Cold Night

Back to my sister-in-law, there was no going back for her when she arrived; the night was cold and unforgiving. Moreover, it was very late and returning home that dark and fateful night would have been as successful as sipping undiluted acid with a straw and not die.

The tragic confrontation regrettably ensued and my beautiful and innocent sister-in-law had a taste of her own blood because she really fought, resisted, screamed and struggled but in the very end, I had my way. I would say I was tempted but my critics would call it rape.

“Oh my God!” I had said to myself moments after I satisfied my carnal desires. This happened about 4 months ago; in one moment of sexual blindness, I had betrayed my wife’s trust in me. I had carnal knowledge of my sister-in-law. I'm not proud of what I did but I'm not sure if I'm sorry about it either.

Silently, I had hoped my wife’s sister would miraculously drop dead after the incident; perhaps on her way home. That would have made me a free man; giving me wings of freedom to fly high into the skies and the opportunity to devise the freshest of plans; a chance to start all over again. Now that I think about it, I think I would rather not have done it.

Sadly, She did not drop dead. I never stopped wishing for this though.

Chapter 2: The Door Opens

As I opened the door, what did I see? It was a big black gun pointing at me and guess who was holding it? Who else but my darling wife. I looked straight into her face and realise that her makeup was smeared with dried tears.

In a very shaky voice, I asked:

“What are you doing? What are you doing with a gun? What's going on?”

Her response did not take long in coming.

“You broke my fragile world. Now, it’s time to do the same. Look at the gun you bastard... Doesn’t it look very familiar? Big, black, hard and heartless...”

I looked into her eyes and what I saw in there made my heart skip more than a few beats. To be honest, I was terrified. My wife looked menacingly cold and appeared physically bent on delivering justice.

I had committed an abomination; a hideous crime and the god, Nemesis was indeed very thirsty; waiting to line his throat with the sinful flavour of my condemned blood.

Chapter 3: The Angel of Death

As my wife stood there; with a gun in her hand, she looked like an angel of death; bringing a fitting punishment to an accursed soul. I had tried to conceal my evil deed but I guess she eventually found out.

Her eyes were blank but not the gun’s cartridge. I didn't have to collect the gun from her to check to know this. Her heart was poisoned and I knew that as well. I should never have gotten myself into this.

“Oh my God!” If only I had resisted the temptation to rape my sister-in-law, surely things would have turned out differently. All I had to do was look away and fight the temptation that fateful night. I was weak I swear. I was just vulnerable. I had not had sex with my wife in a while and I wasn't the type to keep a mistress outside my matrimonial home. No way!

Finally, I found my voice and said:

“Don’t shoot me – I beg you... Please! I can explain everything...”

But she cut me short. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. I want you to explain everything but I want you to do it with a bullet in your head.”

Chapter 4: Pulling the Trigger

The gun’s hammer clicks behind the chamber. My throat goes awfully dry, yet, I cannot cry.

In all honesty, my heart bleeds at my own misdeeds. If only I could turn back the hands of time; without losing my precious life. I would surely make things different. I swear I would.

“Say your last prayers,” she barked. And I watched her apply pressure on the trigger.

“You definitely had your way with my sister but it must not linger.”

She gave the trigger a final squeeze and I closed my guilty eyes. My heart begging for mercy because I knew I was bound for Hell.

I heard a click; closely followed by a deafening bang... Is this what it feels like to die? But, wait a minute... Am I still alive?

I could still feel the cold tiles beneath my feet. I listened fearfully to my drumming heartbeat and I could hear the racy beat.

Chapter 5: The Kiss

When I felt a warm kiss on my lips, I wanted to open my eyes but I was paralysed with trepidation.

Then I heard her voice:

“You will not die on this day,” she said.

I recognized the voice

...My sister-in-law!

I opened my eyes and lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood with a shattered skull was my beloved wife. My sister-in-law was right in front of me; holding a gun in her right hand.

When my sister-in-law spoke again, at first her words did not register but when they eventually did, my legs went weak.

In 7 agonizing words, she explained it all.

“I will not have a fatherless child...”

Before I could say anything, she spoke again:

“I’ll leave you to clean up the mess and remember... I was never here.”

I heard her familiar voice say goodbye as she withdrew into the mystifying night; with strong streaks of tears on her face. Laying one hand on her protruding belly as she walked away gracefully, she looked just like her sister.

Sadly I realize I just inked my name in the Book of Eternal Damnation

“I’m so sorry,” I say to myself. Without anyone to speak to, I bow my head and say to myself:

“Dear God... What have I done?”

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

This story is dedicated to all anyone who has ever been raped or escaped an attempted rape. May the creator protect us and those we care about. For those who have been scared, may your hearts and souls find divine and permanent healing.

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My Girlfriend Wants Unprotected Sex

2018-01-03T18:55:00.000+01:00

Once Upon a time, I had this girlfriend. Shortly after we met, she and I opened up a very intimate side to our relationship. She was sexually active and so was I and I always looked forward to the experience of getting under the sheets with her. She was a goddess; nothing short of that. The fact that she was gorgeous, enjoyed it as much as I did and knew how to please me always made it something we both eagerly anticipated.

All the times that we got intimate, I always made it a point of duty to wear a condom for protection. This was our standard way of playing.

However, on this fateful day, she had arrived quite early in the morning and after the usual chit-chats, jokes, snacking and sensual games that we play, I looked at her and she had the familiar colour of readiness on her face. I took the cue, dipped my hand into my pocket, picked out a condom, slipped it on and moved to slowly lower myself into her familiar pleasure island but guess what? She held me back at the last minute and whispered something into my ear.

I hadn't heard what she had whispered and had urged her to repeat her words. She did and that was when I heard it.

"I don't want you to use a condom," she said a bit louder.

"But why?" I had asked her and to this, she said, "...because I want to feel you deep inside me..."

I knew this was not right. It didn't feel right at all. I could hear alarm bells ringing deep inside my head and I said to her:

"You know I can't do that Dear. I don't subscribe to unprotected sex and it's safer for us both is we use protection..."

From the look on her face, I could tell that I was beginning to sound like a man trying to pound yam with a toothpick; completely wasting time. She heard me all right but she wasn't buying my explanation and she made me know this.

For the next 5 minutes, I tried to convince her to allow me use a condom but she remained adamant on having raw and unprotected sex with me.

Strangely, I still had an erection but after I realised she was not ready to buying my explanation, guess what I did? I got up (still with the erection) and pulled up my boxer shorts.

She looked baffled and could not believe what I was doing but by the time I had my legs inside my jeans, zipped up and was reaching for my T-shirt, she knew I was not playing games. She was watching me but she could not believe what I had just done.

Initially, she appeared upset and even angry but after a few minutes of awkward silence, she could see she was fighting a losing battle and then slowly, she looked at me, blinked her sexy eyelids and said:

"Baby, I'm so sorry. I didn't know what came over me..."

Rather than reply, I looked straight at her, slowly flashed her a warm smile, said: "It's okay love" and threw my hands wide open. She did not need any further invitation as she collapsed into my warm embrace...

Please don't ask me what happened next because I can't really remember. *winks*

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

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The Unhappy Woman

2018-01-03T14:55:00.000+01:00

In 2011, Mrs. Ajayi was not happy - In all honesty she was in an extreme state of despair yet she felt like jumping. She knew these were two things that should never go together but the feeling persisted.

She had a lot of things on her mind but this feeling of jumping stayed with her like a shadow on a hot afternnon. It was just there and no matter how hard she tried to shake it, it wouldn’t go away.

“Nobody seems to understand how I feel,” she said to herself.

“I’m a simple woman and I have always tried to lead a simple life yet the Devil always has a way of getting in the way of my happiness,” Mrs. Ajayi lamented.

She walked past a blind man who sat by the side of the road; apparently waiting for the next person to drop money into his tray.

She knew a lot of people would find it easy to tag her an ingrate but she didn’t care.

“They just don’t understand. They just don’t. No one does,” she said to herself.

For every step she took, the feeling of jumping persisted and she asked herself: “What am I going to do?”

She was not expecting a reply from anyone and was not surprised when it never came.

“I have to jump. I must jump. It is the only way. It is!”

Now she knew she was going to jump and she also knew she had to make it count. It was the only way...

By this time she was no longer on the street – Rather, she was looking down at the street and the different people who went about their various businesses. They looked tiny from the rooftop of the building where she stood but her vision was clear...

“When I’m dead, there won’t be anything to worry about... I would be gone forever and leave behind this world and its many problems."

At the moment, she was on the rooftop of a building that had 23 floors and there was only one place she wanted to be – Not where she stood, not 23 floors below but with her maker. Yes! She was now very eager to die. She craved it like a junkie hooked on hard drugs.

“Father Lord, I know that you might not like what I’m about to do but I know I’ll be happier when I leave this world and come to you... and that time will be now...”

As she spoke the words, she jumped. Yes! She jumped.

Falling thorugh the air, she closed her eyes; not wanting anything to taint this beautiful moment of her escape from this problematic world.

Shortly after, she landed on a taxi; head first. The sound of her body crashing into a taxi was loud.

She had multiple fractures in more than a dozen places including her spinal cord, which was by now broken.

When Mrs. Ajayi began to hear voices that sounded distant, she was glad to discover that angels actually communicated in English language. She was happy. She couldn't see anything but she was happy she was now without problems.

She could tell that they angels were talking about her.

Her eyes remained shut. She had expected that she would feel like a brand new being; fresh and newly made but when she felt bolts of pain stampede all through her fragile body, she was shocked. She didn't understand what was happening. This had to be Hell Fire. Was this God's way of punishing her? She had to apologise to God. He just had to understand that the problems in her life left her with no choice but to kill herself.

In a flash of deperation, she threw her eyelids open and what she saw made her scream out in long deafening screech – She saw what looked like a surgeon and nurses with gloves on their hands and by the time she saw the inscription on the wall, she passed out as the words ‘Intensive Care Unit’ registered in her sight...

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

True life incident with a slight alteration in the identity of the character.

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The Lagos Weekend [A Review]

2018-01-03T13:50:00.000+01:00

What does a weekend in Lagos mean to you? For some, it's an opportunity to finally stay away from work for two days and to others, it's an opportunity to relax, unwind and have some tamed or wild fun depending on what appeals to you. We also have those who use their weekends to deepen their spirituality and those who barely ever leave the comfort of their home. So, again we ask, what does a weekend in Lagos mean to you?

In this piece, a Lagos resident shares what a weekend in the city of Lagos means to him. Enjoy!

Life in Lagos has always struck me as turbulent, chaotic and constantly filled with enough details to turn a complete gentleman into a deranged monster perfectly concealed beneath corporate wears and smiles that never linger past the surface.

It, therefore, hardly comes as a surprise to realize that that millions of residents of the ‘Centre of Excellence’ as Lagos is sometimes called, consistently look forward to Fridays; the day popularly considered the end of every working week. The acronym ‘TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday)’ has since assumed a key that unlocks the door of relaxation, fun and excitement for a majority of the populace. The idea of a perfect weekend in Lagos naturally varies depending on where individual interests lie.

The Mainland in Lagos

For those on the mainland; an axis of Lagos, which includes places like Ikeja, Surulere, Ebute Metta, Egbeda, Mushin, Oshodi, Ikorodu, Iju, Yaba, Apapa and other popular social spots, clubs, bars, restaurants, shopping malls and fun spots present a quick escape from the harsh realities of work, government and occupational demands. The Lagos mainland has a rich offering of tasteful and exquisite options for those who prefer the soothing option of fancy places to hang out with friends or family.

We also have the loud, wild and bubbly options for those who prefer the excitement that comes with roadside bars and golden quarters that offer the private brand of entertainment.

Individuals with what many would be quick to tag as deviant appetite for fun are always more than eager to latch onto the operations of strip clubs that are constantly springing up on the mainland and there are more than a few of these.

The Island in Lagos

Meanwhile, life on the Island especially in places like Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki, Ajah and others equally enjoy the wide array of posh restaurants, clubs, shopping malls and recreational spots that make the weekend come alive. One element that however, gives those who choose to unwind on the Island an edge over those who patronise the mainland is the aquatic edge and serenity of nature’s touch they glaringly enjoy. Of course, the Island is surrounded by water so things like boat clubs and rides across the lagoon are exclusively confined to the Island.

Another point of call on the Island for many is the private and public beaches available to those who seek fun right in front of the waves. Visits to the beach are usually reserved for Saturdays or Sunday mornings when the weather is predominantly clear and friendly. In addition, most of those who spend time at the beach often tend to spend the entire day there especially for those driving in from the mainland.

Traffic in Lagos

The traffic congestion in Lagos never eases up on weekends. Rather, it often escalates with the traffic of residents and travellers moving around the already congested city.

Ebun and Lade White Wedding in Lagos - Photography By Jide Odukoya

Weddings in Lagos

Weekends also play host to hundreds of weddings across the city and their colourful Ankara fabrics, headgears and other traditional attires stand out as monuments of matrimonial crusades.

Police in Lagos

Men of the Nigeria Police Force in Lagos are not left out of the buzz and frenzy as they make their presence felt at countless checkpoints across the city. Police vans and unbranded buses that comb the corners of the state are not hard to miss. Well, the police in Lagos enjoy having conversations with occupants of cars and vehicles they stop at checkpoints. Sometimes, these conversations are peaceful and short but at other times, it spirals into a long list of likely endings that include options like getting arrested, being taken to the police station, unnecessary questions and arguments, getting slapped and in some cases, getting shot at (Yes! with a gun). It all depends on what transpires during the conversation.

Prostitutes in Lagos

One aspect of Lagos that cannot be ignored or ruled out is the activities of prostitutes and commercial sex workers who eagerly provide sexual thrills at divergent rates to a cross-section of clients. Their rates differ depending on how they size you up and whether what you want is a quick ease off or an all-night adventure with ladies who have mastered the art of pleasing men sexually. Let's leave this here.

Cinemas in Lagos

Also, cinemas like Silverbird Cinema, Film House, Ozone, Genesis Deluxe Cinemas, The City Mall Cinemas and a host of others also enjoy a large traffic of humans on weekends. Movies are a big thing in Lagos and while they offer business opportunities for investors, they offer a steady source of entertainment to those who have a soft spot on the big screen and popcorn.

Weekend at Home in Lagos

Who says you have to go out to have a wonderful weekend? You can decide to either spend your weekend at home by yourself or invite a friend or friends over. You can see a movie together, chat over a pack of pizza and bowls of ice cream or any other thing that collectively appeals to you. If you're a gamer, you can indulge yourself in playing your XBox or PlayStation console without even stepping outside.

Exercising in Lagos

The weekend is a great time to exercise and more people are including a morning or evening run into their weekend plans. Mornings are more popular and a drive around will give you an opportunity to see runners making the best use of the weekend to burn some calories. All the major stadiums in Lagos are currently on the mainland. We have the Teslim Balogun Stadium and the National Stadium as the top two Lagos boasts of. The Island also has sporting facilities and spots like Fun Turf and many others.

Workaholics in Lagos

Not everyone enjoys the luxury of unwinding on weekends. We have those whose working days don't end on Fridays. They work on the weekends so for them, it's not particularly different from a typical working day of the week. We do hope this isn't you though.

Swimming in Lagos

If you love to swim with a particular liking for depth and size, then you wouldn’t want to miss the Olympic-sized pool of the Lagos Airport Hotel in Ikeja – The pool currently remains the biggest on the mainland with its deepest end measuring a staggering 25 feet. A number of hotels on the mainland and Island also have pools that allow you keep a honed edge on your swimming skills.

These are just a few of the many offerings of a typical weekend in Lagos. Tell us how you spend a typical weekend in Lagos.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

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The Black Circle

2018-01-03T12:35:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, a guy named Stanley went to a native doctor and requested to know how bright his destiny would be.

After listening to his request, the native doctor told Stanley the spell would cost him N10,000. he was surprised that a simple spell like this could cost that much but he was really eager to have this sorted out once and for all so, he agreed to pay.

The native doctor asked him to take his seat. When he was seated, he brought out several weird things Stanley couldn't recognise. He took his seat directly opposite Stanley on the bare floor and drew a circle with a white chalk and another circle with a black chalk.

He then placed a dead millipede on the floor and asked Stanley to watch carefully.

He explained that he would chant some incantations to make the dead millipede start crawling.

The witchdoctor told Stanley that if the millipede crawls into the white circle, it means his destiny would be bright and prosperous.

He was quick to add that, if however, the millipede crawls into the black circle, it means his destiny would be dark and full of gloom and confusion.

He began chanting the incantations and the dead millipede started crawling. Stanley was amazed.

When it got in between the two circles, it turned and started crawling towards the black circle.

Stanley watched... As it was about to crawl into the black circle, he picked it and gently dropped it into the white circle.

The native doctor got furious and asked why he did that.

Stanley replied: "I won't fold my arms and watch my destiny crawl into darkness. My destiny is in my hands!"

With that, he got up, paid the native doctor, stepped out of the shrine, kept walking and never looked back. As he walked, he asked for forgiveness from God and made a vow never to get involved in anything that looked diabolic or required the services of a native doctor or anyone versed in dark arts.

Dear reader, you believe in voodoo, black magic or what Nigerians often refer to as Juju? Let us know in the comment section below.

Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

This story is dedicated to anyone out there who has ever been frustrated to the point of seeking our dark priests and spiritualists. May God grant you the wisdom to make guided decisions and the will to overcome the trials of life.

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The Tragedy of Yoruba-English

2018-01-03T11:54:00.000+01:00

I have never been a fan of men and women who find themselves drawing daggers and pointing loaded weapons at the beauty that the English language has always represented for me.

Over the year, I have come to appreciate the power, depth and beauty of the language via its numerous portals of expression. Nigeria is an English-speaking nation so it's only important to speak a language that is spoken by millions of people you are bound to interact with.

I was born into a Yoruba home in Lagos State, Nigeria and I remember that back then, my dad (late now) and mum always made it a point of duty to communicate with me in Yoruba language right from the time when I could barely stand on my own to the time when I began to learn how to look at the clock to tell the time.

They, however, ensured that I was enrolled in a school where I had Chinese, Americans, Indians, Lebanese, Asians, Ghanaians, Senegalese, French and of course Nigerians and many other kids from all over the world as classmates and teachers.

Chapter 1: The Yoruba-English Formula

Here was how it worked - The moment I stepped into the only place I had come to know as home, I only spoke Yoruba. It wasn’t as if they would pull a cane on me and flog me if I spoke another language but I was mentally raised to operate that way.

On the contrary, the moment, I stepped out of the house, not a single word of Yoruba would ever escape my lips and this was the way it was for me since I was a kid and this culture stuck with me all through my days in school. In fact, it got so bad that a lot of my friends and classmates in secondary school never believed I was capable of speaking the Yoruba language since they never heard me say a word of it.

Many would even openly accuse me of being vain and pretentious but how could they blame me. I spent the very first years of my life in the midst of kids who were not even Nigerians and as such had little or no understanding of the Yoruba language and for us (back then), English was the language we were subliminally raised to understand and accept as the official key of communication.

Chapter 2: The Bullies

I remember how my elder brother’s friends (in secondary school) once grabbed me; about three of them and bundled me into their hostel, made a threatening circle around me with my brother just sitting there and watching them as their voices boomed at me: “We have been told you can actually speak Yoruba. Oya, say something in Yoruba else we’re going to beat you up...” They didn’t look like they were joking and so when I opened my mouth and spoke Yoruba, their eyes widened in shock and they turned Oliver Twist on me and kept asking for more...

So, given this kind of childhood experiences, I have come to develop a strong bond with the English language without necessarily choking the life out of my ability to communicate in the Yoruba language.

I had to go through the pain of telling this story because like I said, I hold the English language very close to my heart; it’s a boundless form of expression and I often giggle, marvel and laugh out loud whenever I hear or read phrases or remarks (in English) that strike my fancy.

I could go on and on about this but I’ll just cut to the chase at this point – the dangers of lingual interpretation of the English language and those found guilty.

Chapter 3: F9 in the English Language

At one point or the other, we have all encountered individuals whose grasp and use of English language ranks in the realm of F9 and other zones close to red marker and quarters of grammatical calamity.

We can’t blame this category of people because most of them did not enjoy the same luxury of being raised and schooled by reputable teachers and tutors pooled from different continents across the globe. Some suffered the misfortune of being taught English by teachers who struggle with the language themselves. Sad but true.

For these individuals, a majority of them erroneously carry their flair for the Yoruba language into their use of English language and this could become very ugly especially if you have had my kind of experience. As a result of their deficiency in the English language, they wrongly fire grammatical cannons and shocking sentences during conversations. This happens because when they try to say something in English, they interpret it directly from the Yoruba language thus, interpreting the Yoruba words into English. The result of this could be grammatically disastrous.

Chapter 4: My Encounters

This piece was triggered by any some of my recent encounters. I went swimming with my cousins and friends the other day and I had just swum across the breadth of the pool when a guy in the pool (who appeared animated and overtly excited by the water) harmlessly splashed water at me. When I turned towards him, he screamed (trying to raise his voice over the volume of the Disc Jockey’s speaker) “Bros! Come and learn me.” Initially, I assumed I had heard wrongly but then he repeated the same thing again but louder this time: “Come and learn me now,” his voice thundered again.

I could tell he was Yoruba and that he was merely trying to ask me to teach him and should have said, “Bros! Come and teach me.”

Well, English is not my father’s language but the horrors of what happens when people wrongly lift the grammatical barrier separating Yoruba language from the English language haunts me as I write this piece.

I’m certain we all have had our fair share of these encounters but another Yoruba English mishap I recently heard was when an elderly man asked a young chap: “Where is your second?” In the Yoruba language, this man would have rightly asked: “Ikeji e da?” However, by translating that Yoruba directly into English and uttering it, it was totally incorrect. He would have rightly asked: “Where is your friend (or partner)?” but the Yoruba-English syndrome killed it.

Chapter 5: Correcting the Mistake

First, we need t understand that the Yoruba language is different from the English language. Second, we need to stop interpreting from one language to another directly. Not cool. Language Interpretation is decoding- coding of intended meaning.

Remember that the answer is usually in the question. Examples of these are:

Does he...? Yes, he does
Can she...? Yes, she can
Is it...? Yes, it is

Also, pay attention to conversations that go on in movies from English-speaking countries especially movies that are rich in dialogue. Try listening not just to what the words mean, but to how the person says them. Notice which words the person links together in a sentence. Finally, when you're not sure, ask someone who knows for guidance.

I’ll bring this piece to an end right here to avoid stretching the pages and I hope we all learn to draw a line between correct English and Yoruba English and of course, we must endeavour to learn to correct those who fall into this error whenever we can.

Let us collectively keep the walls of English language erect.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

This piece is dedicated to my teacher, Mrs Modebe whom I barely remember what she looked like because I was extremely young when she taught me the basics

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Marbles and Sweets

2018-01-03T11:02:00.000+01:00

A boy and a girl were playing together. The boy had a collection of marbles while the girl had some sweets with her.

The boy told the girl that he would give her all his marbles in exchange for all her sweets.

The girl agreed but the boy kept the biggest and the most beautiful marble aside and gave the rest to the girl.

The girl gave him all her sweets as she had promised.

That night, the girl slept peacefully but the boy couldn't sleep as he kept wondering if the girl had hidden some sweets from him the way he had hidden his best marble.

There are several morals from this story and one of them is that if you do not don't give your 100 percent to those around you, you'll always keep doubting if the other person has given his/her hundred percent.

This is also applicable in relationships and interaction with friends and loved ones - business dealings are not left out.

Therefore, learn to give your 100 percent in everything you do and you will find yourself worrying less and sleeping peacefully.

Author: Unknown | Simply SAMAD

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