By Funke Egbemode
Remember the good old days of Finance Houses in Nigeria? Our young men achieved success overnight. One minute they were marketing officers and the next, they were on management floor. Those places were real magic places. And you know how young men who come into money early run things. They simply remember their long gone ancestor, the prodigal son in the Bible. Exactly.
They lived large and spent money like it was going out of fashion. The set-up of the Finance Houses didn’t help matter much either. They paid more attention to glamour than the deposits. Their buildings were chrome and glass. The new rich boys dressed in the best of the season. Or have you forgotten that that was when such expressions as ‘power dresser,’ ‘yuppies’ and ‘upwardly mobile’ joined our lexicon?
Those were the magical days when the streets were full of 26-years old green horns who became treasury managers straight after doing their NYSC year in remote farm settlements.
They drove Daewoo Racer, Daewoo Espero, Hyundai Excel, Sonata .Then, affairs were straight from best sellers, complete with expensive perfumes, chic restaurants and weekend trips. Husbands performed their God-given roles and wives did their wifely duties. Girls milled around the glamour boys. The boys picked, chose and discarded as they wanted. Yes, they were spoiled for choice. Shameless desperate uncivilized girls fought over them in public places. But it was fun and dance for the lucky ones. But you know how it is with things that are too good to be true. The Finance Houses soon fizzled out, collapsed like a pack of cards.
Suddenly, the big salaries and posh cars disappeared. Some of the directors of the glass and chrome offices were declared missing or wanted or both.
The fine girls left the fine boyfriends who no longer had enough money to give them. Engagement rings were returned or kept as ‘retirement benefit.’
The search for Mr Right, who dwelled in greener pastures resumed. The home girls were wary. The fast-lane ones worried about how soon the easy life would return, when things would return to normal and the days would be lit again?
Their prayers soon got answered as resourceful Nigerian blokes came up with new tricks. There was advance fee fraud (419), armed robbery, Otokoto and now yahoo, yahoo plus and yahoo plus plus.
The bad fast girls were back in business. All that mattered was the posh cars and bright lights. Who cares where the money came from?
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With careless, greedy mothers all over the place scheming and swindling, more and more of our girls are today falling into deadly traps and becoming raw materials for diabolical concoction of desperate get-rich-or-die-trying boys. These days, you wake up to one stranger-than-fiction story or the other. A young pretty girl the other day alighted from a cab and stripped herself naked in broad daylight. Another one has been menstruating since she returned from a ‘baecation’ in South Africa with her young ‘Boo’ who has since dumped her.
The flashy guys with no defined business address are back in town and it’s so easy to fall for them. Fortunately, there are signs and characteristics that set apart this breed of men. He is 32 or thereabouts, money makes up for whatever he lacks in looks or dress sense.
He drives G-Wag, Lexus gleaming black, in the mornings and has an array of convertibles for evening swags.
He wears designer wristwatches and shoes. In fact, each fashion item from his head-to-toe carries mind-blowing price tags. He has all manners of call cards. The reason is he has a chain of businesses ranging from importing condoms to crocodile. There is always a bevy of bleached girls around him as he moves from night club to night club, mixing all kinds of powdery stuff with alcohol.
The way he spends money tells all his right-thinking neighbours he is either going to go broke soon, die young or end up in jail, or all of the above. Unfortunately, the death of one has not diminished the zeal of more to join the evil wagon. Easy life, soft life, soft money have all become the albatross of decency. Bad parenting is making our boys into little demons who seek money in all the wrong ways and wrong places. But I am more worried about how our young women, our precious daughters are getting sucked into the destructive cauldron. For the desire of something as flimsy as bone-straight, double-drawn lace front wig, our girls are being ‘used’ to cook blood money.
To a non-African, that is a strange concept, but here, it is a sad reality.
And to worsen an already deadly trend, the girls these fast boys used no longer have to die ‘after use’. They are allowed to wear their designer wigs and false lashes but they are empty shells, according to a pastor friend. He told me this sad story.
‘One of these bad boys came to my church and gave his life to Christ. His confession was long and terrifying. He told me that most of the beautiful girls we see around have been ‘used’ for money rituals. The boys no longer need to kill them physically. They just do what they need to do on a sacred bed sheet, chant some lines of incantations, for five or seven days and the fate of the victim is sealed. The victim is quickly dumped by the man once the ritual is complete.
‘They start by wooing the girl with expensive gifts. That is followed by a vacation where her full attention is on the man. According to my new convert, when they return, the guy starts picking quarrels over inconsequential things and then dumps her. The sad thing is even though the girl looks okay to all, she is finished. She is not likely able to have children even when all medical reports say she is fine. She may never be able to hold down a good job or make a success of any business.
‘Indeed some of them may never be able to find husbands because there is already an evil mark dedicating them to someone’s pot of wealth. In other words, many of the girls you see around are empty shells.’
Did that leave you shaken? I was covered in goose bumps when I heard the story. And this is just half of it. Occasionally these days, when I see a fine babe swinging her waist, I ask myself, is she still whole or she has been used? Imagine buying a basket of big snails and finding that they are just health brown on the outside but empty shells.
Dear mothers, my dear sisters and daughters, this ugly trend is heartrending. It’s not a matter we can invite the police into or a case we can prove in court but it is a present palpable evil. The mean glamorous, fun-loving, sleek man doesn’t even look like the mean things he’s capable of but the polished look is only skin-deep, for the discerning, that is. He talks and drives like an Italian.
His money is not inherited or from a long chain of family business. His money is his. Ask yourself how he made so much at age 30. Are his decent parents also dazed at the rate at which their son ‘arrived’ suddenly?
He most likely belongs to many societies and clubs that on the surface look like social associations. But they are cults. He is too far gone to consider leaving. His blood brothers are his lifeline.
He owes them and his life is in danger if he betrays the oath.
Girls who flock around him are taking big risks and if you are involved, you need all the luck you can be wished. This dude may offer you his kind of romance and glamour. He may spoil you with money. But remember he may also be cut down in his prime.
His brains may get spilled all over your bedroom wall in the middle of the night. His offended blood brothers may send goons after him. His cult may ask for your blood for the next sacrifice.
You may end up as accessory after murder. Whichever way you look at it, greedy girls who flock around men of questionable income are not likely to end up well.
Then, what’s the worth of all the glamour dollars and pounds sterling if you can be dead or widowed at age 25 or worse still, end up an empty shell, walking corpse designed to move from one disappointment and failed venture to another?
Egbemode (egbemode3@gmail.com)
