I am shaking my head with a mixture of amusement and amazement as I punch away on my PC’s keyboard. I had an encounter on my way home this evening, which I am still trying to get my head round.
I was at Egbeda earlier this evening walking down to where I was going to board an okada home. As I did, I noticed a small boy of not more than nine years old standing by the side of the road, a tray of fufu on his head, crying. I approached him to know why he was crying, and his story instantly touched me: he narrated how he had had lost the entire money he had made from the sale of his fufu – five notes of N200, meaning he had lost N1,000.
The boy further explained that the money had been snatched from his hand by some people from a moving vehicle, as he was counting the money. I felt his story was quite possibly plausible, so I sympathized with the poor boy. I asked him where he lived and he mentioned Iyana-something-I-could not-comprehend. On whether he lived with his parents, he answered that he lived with his aunt. I felt some chill course down my spine on hearing that. Some aunties would skin any child who dare throw away a N10 note and only God knows what this aunty could do to this poor thing this night if and when he got home without that ’whopping’ N1,000. So I started to think of how exactly to help him. I concluded that giving him another N1,000 would not exactly be the smart idea to adopt, so I toyed with the idea of going to see his aunt and help him explain to her.
At that point another man noticed the agitation of the boy and joined us. He also expressed empathy with the boy’s situation. Between the two of us, we decided to put the money together to give to the boy rather than follow him home. The man was rummaging in his pocket while I was trying to find out more about the boy’s plight, when another man passing by said, calmly but sharply, “You this boy, na everyday you dey come cry for here?” He said that without waiting or looking back. I tried to call him back to shed more light on what he had said, but he wouldn’t budge. “I no know am o,” was the only thing he added. But he had sounded honest and the import of the conviction with which he said those words was unmistakable.
We turned back to our little ‘angel’, with the other man asking shebi you hear wetin that man talk? I added, ‘na true im talk? The little thing seemed to be lost for words momentarily, then quickly gathered himself together and claimed, in a stuttering voice, that the only other time such had happened before was once when he also lost his money. And you happened to have stood at the same point as you are now standing that other time? How very convenient I said to myself.
Suddenly it all started to come together; his tray still had about 12 wraps of fufu . At N10 per wrap, that would amount to N120. Even at N20 per wrap, that will still be just N240. If truly he sold part of his wares to the tune of the N1,000 he claimed had been stolen, that would mean that he initially had about 62 wraps of fufu on his tray – that is not impossible but it is highly improbable and, in fact very doubtful considering the size of the tray. Pray also, a fufu seller who only has N200 notes, no N10, N20, N50, N5? That is quite interesting. Interesting indeed that those N200 notes conveniently rounded off to N1000 and not N850, N700, N520 or some other figure not so round in total.
The other man was already too pissed off and was raring to go, urging me to leave the dubious thing there and go my way, too, but I tried one last time to salvage the seemingly unsalvageable: I asked him once again, where the incident had happened and he shifted the crime scene to ‘inside estate, I come shout but them hold me, come run’. I don’t think the other man heard everything else he said after that before he turned and walked off in anger and disappointment.
I gave the little imp a you-are-lying-through-your-dirty-teeth-you-little-con look and also walked away as he stood there determined to act out the remainder of his script to an imaginary audience. I felt the urge to go back to him, give him some good spanking and haul him, kicking and screaming, off to his house, wherever it was. But I reconsidered that. Beside a little twine that can cook up such obvious deceit is sure capable of a little more. And God help me if he suddenly yells out for help, claiming I was trying to kidnap him or even worse. So, quietly, I pocketed the Samaritan in me and took the next available okada home, asking myself what the world has come to. But did I hasten into conclusion on that little thing? I may never know now.
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