There and Back on Time

Major Test

The day after our allowance was paid; I followed

Johnson to Berlin to buy weed. We stopped at Alexander

Platz train station and boarded the S-Bahn (A smaller train

that circled Berlin).

There and Back on Time

We got to another smaller train station and went

underground. I was almost scared when we were going

underground. I saw people coming out of the ground like

rabbits. It was when we got to about 40 feet underground

that I discovered it was a train line. It was called the U-bahn.

Berlin had nine U-bahn lines that went to every angle

of the city. The U-bahn was the fastest way to get to your

destination in Berlin. Some U-bahn lines were up to an hour

and half line. Berlin was a very large city. It was the capital

divided into two during the troubles between East and West

Germany.- the Berlin Wall. was demolished in 1989 when

they unified.

Johnson and I followed the U-bahn for about ten

minutes before we stopped at a place called Wedding

(pronounced Vedding). We walked for another one minute

from the U-bahn station and got into a big building. After

pressing the bell, a Guinean man opened the doors for us.

He greeted us and offered us beer, then went inside and

brought out a half kilogram of weed. Johnson examined it

and certified it good enough. Then the man brought out a

different kind of drug called ‘hashes’. Hashes were not as

strong as weed. People who felt that weeds were too strong

for them smoked hashes.

We paid two thousand euros for the weed and nine

hundred for the hashes, and then we finished our beers

and left the man’s house. The drugs were stuffed inside a

backpack kind of bag which Johnson gave me to carry. I

was so scared but I couldn’t show it. That was when I felt

the biggest fear of my life. I had heard about people who

went to five or more years imprisonment because of drugs.

I carried the bag and fixed it on my back. I was so scared

Samson Akpaka

that I could hardly breathe but since I was already carrying

the bag, there was nothing I could do.

We came out of the man’s house and walked back to

the Wedding U-bahn station. When we stopped at the

Alexander Platz train station where we were supposed to

board the train back to our Heim, Johnson said he was

going somewhere. He told me to take the bag back to

Brandenburg and wait for him. Berlin to Brandenburg was a

thirty minutes journey. I waited for the train while Johnson

went to God knows where.

Right inside the train, my mind was not at rest. I thought

about every possible thing that could happen to me if I got

caught by the police. I thought about my family in Nigeria,

about Efuah in Ghana with her pregnancy, about Agnes and

Awiti. I thought about how long I would spend in prison if

they caught me. It was only when the train announced that

we had reached Brandenburg that my mind was able to rest.

I got down from the train and entered the already waiting

bus that took us to the Heim. I took the bag to Johnson’s

room and locked it up. He had given me his keys. As soon

as I closed Johnson’s doors, I ran down and went to the mall

to buy something to cook. I felt like a warrior who had won

a war against the German police.

When Johnson returned some twenty minutes after I

had returned, we went into his room and opened our bags.

He said I had passed the first test and that since I was not

scared, I was destined for greater things. Only if he knew

that I nearly threw the bag away when I saw a police car in

the television that was inside the train.

When we opened the bag, he measured fifty grams of

weed and gave me. He also gave me the sachets to tie them.

There and Back on Time

I took my weed to my room and kept it inside my cupboard,

and then I went back to the Eurospar to buy a can of air

freshener. We used the air freshener to clear up the air while

tying the weeds.

When I returned, I took my key from the reception and

went upstairs to my room. To my greatest surprise, my door

was open but nobody was inside. Instantly I suspected that

something had happened inside the room. I fearfully passed

my door and looked inside to check if the police were inside

since we heard that they had master keys to every door in

Germany. There was nobody inside. I walked in and found

my cupboard open. Somebody had opened it and took the

weed. I checked if the door lock was broken but it was not.

Then I knew who had done it. It was my Camerounian

roommate.

That coward from Cameroun had taken my weed. The

weed I had saved all my money to buy. The weed where all

my hopes had been hinged had been stolen. One bad thing

about drugs was that you can’t report that you lost it to the

authorities. It was an illegal business and you couldn’t even

make noise about it.

What was the next thing to do? My heart was beating

faster than normal, my blood had gone hot. I left my door

open and went down to the first floor where Johnson lived.

As soon as he saw my eyes, he knew that something had

happened. He asked what it was and I told him. He asked

me to sit down and calm down first. He brought out a can

of Becks beer and gave me. He told me not to make noise

about it.

After the beer, we closed his door and we went outside

to look for the thief. I had seen him rushing outside on

Samson Akpaka

my way back from where I went to buy the air freshener.

We searched everywhere but couldn’t find him. On our

way back to Johnson’s room, we heard the Camerounians

drinking beer inside one room. We knocked and opened

the door, the thief was among them. As soon as he saw us,

he looked away. They all stopped talking and looked at us.

I called him outside and asked where he had kept my weed.

He denied stealing it. I told him that the receptionist said he

had taken our key when I went outside, but he maintained

that he didn’t take it. Johnson dragged me away from him

because I was beginning to shout.

We got back to Johnson’s room and I helped him

package his own goods. When we finished, he gave me

another fifty grams and asked me to pay him up when I

had enough money. That was the only thing that calmed

me down because I was not ready to sell for them again and

wait for another one month to get my allowance.

In the night, I went up to my room and found the

useless thief on his bed. As soon as he saw me, he got up and

sat down. I didn’t say anything; I just opened my cupboard

to bring out my knife to cut chicken that I had bought the

day before. As soon as he saw the long stainless blade, he

jumped out of the room like Ben Johnson. It was funny but

I didn’t laugh. I had just found the opportunity to chase

him out and own the room all alone. I came out to the

passage and as soon as he saw me, he quickened his pace

and vanished. I went inside the house and laughed. Later

that night, a Camerounian called Guy knocked on my door.

When I opened it, he said he had come to carry his friend’s

bag. I allowed him to take the bag and some other things

that belonged to the thief.

There and Back on Time

That was how I got the room all to myself.

From then on, I stopped keeping my key at the reception.

The room belonged to me alone and there was no need to

keep the key there. The thief had moved in with Guy. Each

time we met on the road, he would be on alert as if I was

going to stab him to death. He eventually left the Heim and

relocated to where, I never found out. He only returned to

take his allowances at the end of every month.

I made almost €450 from the weed Johnson gave me. I

gave him all the money and he gave me more. Within one

week, I returned his credit to him and from the profit I had

made, I started my own business. The room was mine alone,

so I didn’t fear losing my goods anymore.

Life became sweeter from then on. Sometimes I would

call Agnes and ask her how she was doing. I didn’t know

the whereabouts of Awiti and Melinda; else I would have

been calling them too. I called Africa almost every day as

well. I talked to Efuah all the time. Sometimes, I would

offer to send her money but she always declined telling me

that she had enough. She just wanted me to be alright. Her

pregnancy had reached four months and her stomach was

getting bigger every day. She would take pictures and send

to my email address.

By the ending of November 2002, I had saved up over

€8000 of my own. I would sometimes mentally change

my money to Naira and smile. Life on the street remained

the same. We would go out in the morning and return at

noon. Then we would rest and go back in the evening. By

November, the winter had come. Everywhere was very cold.

The authorities had given us winter allowances of €100. I

used mine to but winter jackets and winter boots. I hated

Samson Akpaka

cold, so I would wear three pullovers beneath my jacket. I

would also wear tight trousers before putting on my regular

trousers. I had fitted in perfectly into the system and there

was no stopping me. I was the youngest Nigerian in the

Heim at twenty-two, so the older ones such as Jordan who

was 35 back then and Tony who was 40 would encourage

me to save money. They said that if I continued the way

I was hustling for three consecutive years, I would have

enough money to live a free life.

They were right.

By December 2002, the snow had fallen everywhere.

The whole city was covered with ice. We wore boots with

snow soles because the flat soles were slippery. On December

29, 2002, the day of our monthly allowance, Agnes returned

to the Heim to collect her money. Her stomach was somehow

big. I approached her and we got talking. She said she heard

that I was doing fine in the Heim. She said she missed me

and that life was not easy for her. I wanted to ask her to

return to the Heim so that I could cover her. I could have

been paying her more than the authorities were paying us. I

was making over €1500 every month. The problem was that

she had taken in. My Agnes was pregnant and the worst of

it all was that it was for John the Bighead. That bastard had

won Agnes while I was busy looking for money. I cried over

a woman the first time.

By the end of December 2002, my elder brother in

Nigeria had started going to China to import used spare

parts. He was doing very well in Nigeria. He had acquired B

transit visa which allowed him to venture out of the airport

in Germany because he used Lufthansa, the German flag

carrier to travel to China. On one of his business trips to

There and Back on Time

China, he requested that we meet in Frankfurt where his

flight would land before returning to Nigeria. That very

morning, I travelled to Frankfurt for the first time. My

Ausweiss was not supposed to reach there but since we didn’t

buy train tickets with our IDs, I travelled to Frankfurt

anyway. I took with me, some items I had collected from

my customers when they didn’t have cash to pay for weeds.

Those items included hot drinks, many used phones, wrist

watches and nice shirts. I got to Frankfurt that evening and

went to a hotel near the airport. He had booked the hotel

from China because his connecting flight would be leaving

the following morning.

I got to the hotel and waited for him. I sat at the hotel

bar drinking whisky and smoking Marlboro Menthol.

The hotel was mostly patronized by travellers on transit in

Frankfurt international airport. Many travellers were there;

Americans, Asians, Africans and so on. I mixed up and

became just another traveller. Unknown to people at the

hotel, I had no traveling papers. I was just an asylum seeker

but I exhibited enough confidence amongst them. I spent

over two hours before he arrived from China with his friend.

We went up to the room he had booked and I unpacked

my bag. I gave him the hot drinks and watches. I told him

how to distribute the watches to my friends in Nigeria. I gave

him pictures and used phones. I also gave him €7000 to buy

two plots of land for me at Awada, Onitsha where we lived.

That was my first investment. He was more than happy.

I smoked Marlboro in his presence but he said nothing. I

never smoked in his presence before although he knew I did

smoked. We spent almost the whole night chatting with

Samson Akpaka

his friend until we got tired. It was almost 5:30am when I

announced that I was going back to my Heim.

I gave €200 to his friend who was a businessman. He

laughed and took it. When I asked why he laughed, my

brother said it was because he was worth over €500,000. The

man took my €200 and promised to give it back to me with

interest when next we meet. I left Frankfurt and travelled

back to Berlin where I connected another train down to

Brandenburg an der Havel, my golden city.

CHAPTER FIVE

Life Goes On

By January 2003, I had become popular among weed

smokers in the whole of the Brandenburg city. Many smokers

had collected my phone number. They now called me just

like others before they came to the Heim. Sometimes, I

would go to their houses to sell to them. It was dangerous

initially but when you get to know them, you relax. Some

of them were small dealers who sold to their friends. They

would buy large quantities from me and sell to their friends

in schools and night clubs. The supplies I made to them

gave me much more money and less risk. Due to the small

competition among the dealers, our operations had started

to attract the police. We believe the police knew what we

were doing but since it was contained right there in our

Heim, they didn’t have much reason to invade us. It was

just marijuana. They were much more interested in class

‘A’ drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Fortunately for us,

we didn’t deal in such drugs. The German government was

debating whether to legalize marijuana like Holland had

done. The opposing side had been winning the debates. Our

dear business was on the line. We discussed it in the Heim

as if our opinions counted. We voted against legalizing it

because it would mean that people would be able to buy the

stuff in every corner of every street. It was better for us the

way it was. Not that our vote mattered or counted anyway.

Samson Akpaka

One afternoon, we were outside selling our stuff as usual

when the police showed up. They came from Potsdam, the

capital city of Brandenburg. We saw their car, though not

an official police car but we knew that weed smokers usually

didn’t drive such flashy cars. Everybody evaporated upstairs

as usual except Johnson and me. We had come downstairs

with a soccer ball. Our goods were buried in the ground as

usual and covered with dry leaves. As soon as they alighted

from their vehicle and came to us, Johnson and I continued

tossing our ball as if we had not seen them.

Another Zinedine Zidane had surfaced in Brandenburg. It

was only a matter of time before Bayern Munich come calling.

One of them, the female cop came to us and asked

if we knew the people who sold drugs there. We denied

ever having the knowledge of drugs in the first place. How

could we know, we were just two innocent Africans, who

had suffered hunger and war back in our continent. They

went into the nearby bush and searched for our drugs but

couldn’t find anything. We both joined them to search for

drugs. We concentrated our search directly opposite the area

we buried our weeds.

Johnson and I, the good people of the Heim were interested

in helping the police find our drugs.

When they were going back to their car, I stopped one

of them and asked for his phone number. I told him that

I would call him first if I ever see or hear anybody talking

about drugs. He gave me a go-to-hell glare and left without

saying anything. Johnson and I continued selling our goods

while others remained upstairs. They had seen when the

cops questioned us. But we were saved by the soccer ball.

Africans will survive.

There and Back on Time

Somehow, we had a feeling that the cops would come

again sooner or later. We became more careful on our

routine deals. I on my part had started diverting most of

my customers to different venues. I started a zigzag kind of

business. I would sell at point A, then direct the next caller

to point B. Point C hosts me and the next caller. Then I

would try point B again. It was fun but more dangerous

than selling at our original spot. The danger in it was that

sometimes, I had to sell it close to the local residential areas.

One or two elderly people who loved peeping from their

windows must have been seeing me. Sometimes, new faces

would come to buy weeds from us. We hardly sell to them

unless you were ready to take the risk. We identified the

police by the universal style of shaving their beard every

day and calm manner of approach. A drug addict hardly

used gentle and calm approach to do anything. We couldn’t

generalize though but we were right most of the times. Drug

business was and still is a game of risk and luck.

By February 2003, Efuah was seven months pregnant.

The pictures she sent to me showed her stomach. The doctors

had told her she was going to deliver a baby girl. We talked

all the time on the phone. She was ready and looking forward

to delivery. Agnes’ stomach had bulged too. She came to

Heim for her February allowances. I invited her into my

room and asked after her wellbeing. She told me that John

had not found work and that she was still staying with her

aunt in Berlin. John the Bighead also lived in Berlin but was

squatting with a friend, so she couldn’t move in with him.

Her situation was pathetic or maybe she made it look so.

Of course I knew the only thing I could offer her was

financial protection. I asked her what I could do to help.

Samson Akpaka

She said she only needed some money. According to her,

the €200 the Germans were paying us wasn’t enough to

maintain her and the pregnancy. John Bighead in the other

hand wasn’t helping out. He had no money and no job and

wouldn’t join drug business.

I took her to the city centre and bought her two nice

dresses. I also bought her an electric hand hair drier and a

new phone. Then I saw her off to the train station where I

bought her ticket back to Berlin and gave her another €200.

She cried.

*********

A new girl arrived in the Heim some days before our

payday. I didn’t know where she came from but everyone

in the Heim had girlfriends except me. Johnson was dating

Marie, a white German girl whose father was a German

Soldier. Her parents had kicked against the relationship

but they respected their daughter’s wish too. The girl loved

Johnson so much and she was interfering in his business.

That meant that I had to take over the supply from Johnson.

I was the one who now goes to Berlin to buy weeds in

large quantities. I had met a man called Tony in Berlin

where I had gone to buy goods, we had exchanged numbers

and he told me that he imported weeds and hashes from

Amsterdam, the European capital of drugs.

On one of my trips to buy goods in Berlin, I called Tony

and we met. He supplied me the goods I wanted and gave

me another one kilo of weed on credit. I got to the Heim

and supplied every dealer a hundred gram and asked them

to pay me what they paid where they usually got theirs in

Hamburg. Some of them had no contact in Berlin which

There and Back on Time

was thirty minutes away. They go as far as Hamburg to

buy 100 grams of weeds which was risky since Hamburg

was over three hours away from Brandenburg. I supplied

them 100 grams of weed at the same price they bought it

in Hamburg, thereby eliminating their transport cost and

above all, the risks involved. They were happy and had no

reasons to travel to Hamburg again. On the other hand, I

supplied them on credit sometimes but since we lived in the

same Heim, getting my money wasn’t that difficult. Within

one month of dealing with Tony, I had become the biggest

dealer in the whole of the city. Money was flowing from

every angle. I would buy a kilo from Tony at €3800 and

distribute at €5 per one gram. I would make €1200 from

supplying one kilo and still make more gains from supplying

my customers from Germany.

I supplied one kilo every week which meant that I made

up to €1200 a week from supplies and another €1000 or

more from retails. I started saving up to €7000 every month.

The allowances from Germany government, which people

scrambled for, meant nothing to me anymore but I still

collected mine. I was getting rich and getting it fast for that

matter. The new girl who had come was living in the Heim.

She had no boyfriend. Every other guy had a girlfriend

except me. The new girl had done everything to grab me

but I was on a mission and I needed no interference from

anybody. I was leaving a lot of money carelessly in my room

and wouldn’t want anybody to be in the room in my absence

except Johnson of course who I suspected had much more

money than I had.

The new girl tried everything she could to encroach on

me and she succeeded.

Samson Akpaka

Her name was Fatimah, I wasn’t interested in where she

came from but I believed it was Guinea or Burkina Faso.

She spoke French but understood enough English to know

when she was told to remove her clothes. I didn’t like her,

she was not my type. I was still in love with my Agnes but

it seemed destiny had taken Agnes away from me.

One afternoon, after supplying goods to my fellow

dealers in the Heim, I decided not to go to the field to

hustle. Instead I opened a bottle of Johnny Walker and

soaked myself in it. When I went out to take my bath, I saw

Fatimah on the corridor standing in front of one Guinean

man’s door. I smiled at her and told her to come in. We

chatted a little since there was language problem. I told her

to wait in my room while I took my bath. When I finished,

I came into the room and saw her sprawled on my bed with

her upper thighs exposed deliberately. I ignored her and

creamed my body. Somehow, my dick had started rising. It

was going to happen finally, I thought.

I was still standing when she got out of bed and pulled

down my towel. I was now stark naked. That little girl had

no fear of the fearless drug lord. Whoever told her to go after

me must have told her to take chances. I was torn between

shouting at her and playing it cool; because after all, she was

a woman and I believed every woman had the same thing. I

turned around and held her around the waist. I carried her

back to the bed and laid her on her back, then I unzipped

her short sexy skirt and found out she wore no underwear.

She came prepared.

Since I didn’t love her or even like her, I didn’t bother

sucking her breasts or playing any kind of foreplay game.

There and Back on Time

I just climbed on top of her after putting on my durex

condom and pumped away.

When we climaxed, she was smiling because she thought

she had captured the drug kingpin. I had other plans.

************

I’m A Rich Boy

By March 2003, I had saved up a lot of money. I also

became afraid that something could happen to it, so I went

to Berlin with Johnson to buy vehicles and ship to Nigeria.

I purchased 2 Mercedes 190, A Honda civic, a V-boot

Mercedes and one Mitsubishi L300 bus. I removed the

headlamps and other items that could be stolen, put them

inside the bus and loaded it up with some other items such

as engines and used TVs. We drove them to a shipping

yard that belonged to a man called Jude Owa, a man from

somewhere in Delta state of Nigeria. We paid up for the

shipment and went into the Berlin city centre.

There was a Nigerian restaurant in Flughafen Strasse. A

man from Onitsha was the owner of the joint, his name was

Akunne. There were many Nigerians drinking and eating

when we came to eat. Somehow, news that an unknown

Nigerian guy had come into Berlin and purchased 5 vehicles

had reached the Akunne joint ahead of us. People were

heard talking about the guy who purchased the vehicles.

Some said they knew him, some said he was their friend

and that they had gone to night clubs with him. Unknown

to them, the guy who bought the vehicles was sitting right

there with them eating Semo and Egusi soup.

Samson Akpaka

When we finished eating, Johnson, being a more

reserved person said it was time to go back to Brandenburg.

A part of me wanted to stay back in Berlin and drink more

and even buy drinks for the Nigerian guys there. The way

some of them were begging for food told me that they were

hungry and poor. I told Johnson to go back alone. We were

supposed to buy some weed before going back. I told him I

would buy them when returning in the evening.

When Johnson left, I bought a bottle of Jack Daniel

whisky which cost about €30 back then and sat in one

corner. I placed the whiskey in front of me and drank alone.

About twenty minutes later, Jude Owa, the owner of the

shipping yard came there to eat. As soon as he saw me, he

walked straight to me and shook my hand. He said I was

the first customer who bought vehicles and paid for the

shipment instantly. We talked some more and he said the

vehicles would be in Cotonou before three weeks. People

started picking interest and before I knew it, every Nigerian

at the joint was shaking my hands. They were surprised,

especially Akunne that a guy my age could pull such a feat.

Some of them got glasses and joined me to drink whisky.

We finished it up and I bought more. Some didn’t drink

strong spirits, so they took beers. Some said they had not

eaten since morning, so they took food. By the time I spent

two hours at the joint, I had also spent over €400. One of

them had given me a name; “Ozoigbondu 1”. The name I

was to be remembered for the rest of my days in Berlin and

Germany.

I became the toast of the joint. The ambitious ones

wasted no time in asking me what I did for a living. Some

wanted to know where I came from or where I lived. Some

There and Back on Time

asked for my phone number and so on. It was a Thursday, so

I promised them that I would be in town again on Saturday

afternoon so that we would go to a night club. I took my

bag from Akunne and exited the joint through the back

door. I went to Tony, my supplier and bought a kilo of weed

and two kilos of hashes and went back to Brandenburg. I

usually hid my goods inside the forest near the Silokanal of

Brandenburg. Silokanal was a man-made river behind our

Heim.

Howecer, that night, I had taken too much alcohol in

Berlin. I wasn’t in a good state of mind to hide the goods

that night. I just divided the goods and gave Johnson his,

and then I took mine to my room and hid it inside my sofa.

I had used knife to cut open the sofa through its hand and

made a hole in it. I used to hide small goods, especially the

ones I couldn’t sell for the day in it but that night; I had just

bought large quantity. I put the drugs inside the hole in the

sofa and left it there. One other reason why I decided not

to go to the bush while I was drunk was that I couldn’t be

careful enough. If anybody saw me hiding the goods, the

person would steal it. Some German weed heads usually

patrol along the area at night looking for drugs to steal.

There was another Yoruba guy, Bola who had been

posted to our Heim in December. He was a thief and had

followed some people into the bush in the night to know

where they hid their goods. Then he would steal them when

the owners left. I couldn’t risk Bola following me into the

bush that night, so I decided to hide them in my room.

Unfortunately for me, around 4 am the following morning,

the German Police invaded Brandenburg Heim. The drugs

were discovered.

Samson Akpaka

*********

Thief and Victim

I didn’t hear the sound of their vehicles when they

arrived. It was very early in the morning. The whisky I drank

in Berlin woke me up around 3 am. I used that opportunity

to prepare the goods I would sell the following day. When I

finished tying the goods, I wrapped one joint and smoked;

I had started smoking, a bad move.

One of the lessons of drug was never to get high on the

stuff you deal.

After 4 am, I thought I heard some kind of noise outside.

We were all in the habit of looking out of our windows if we

heard any vehicle sound. Most of the time, it would turn

out to be taxis or private cars but that very morning when I

looked through the window, tens of green and white police

cars had surrounded the Heim. Hundreds of police officers

had covered every angle of the Heim. My heart skipped

a beat and I went into thinking mode. My mind jumped

from one thing to another without getting hold of anything.

I wanted to gather my drugs and throw them out of the

window. I knew they would pick it and bring it back to me,

so I decided to take my chances.

My brother in Nigeria had called days earlier and said

he bought lands for me. I had bought some cars and took

them to the shipping yard. I also had some small money

that I left in Nigeria before traveling. I had sent one million

naira to my mother to save for me. Therefore, those German

police can take me to prison even if I spent 4 years there, I

would still be richer than many Nigerians who had lived in

Germany years before I came. I went to my door and opened

There and Back on Time

it to look along the passage; two police officers were already

standing in front of my door. I didn’t hear their footsteps.

They both kitted up like they had come to arrest Osama

Bin Laden.

“Guten Morgen herr Ebot” one of them said.

Those skinheads even knew my name. Apparently they

had come for me. They must have heard how drugs were

being distributed in the Heim.

I answered their greeting and asked what was happening.

I already knew but I enjoyed pretending to be a fool whenever

I was with the police.

One of them just asked me to go back inside and sit

down. I moved backwards and sat on the sofa where I had

hidden the drugs. I obeyed them, not that I had many

options.

A few minutes later, they entered my room and started

searching. The search was going on in the other rooms at the

same time except unoccupied ones. Several minutes into the

search, they found nothing. They turned everything upside

down except the chair I was sitting on. I was deliberately

sitting there because that was where I hid the drugs. It was

about one kilogram of weeds and two kilograms of hashes

worth €5500 Euros in cost price.

The search went on for several more minutes and when

they couldn’t find anything, they asked where I had hidden

my drugs, I denied having anything. They didn’t believe it.

The search continued. I had opened my windows when I

saw the police cars outside, the cold weather of Germany

had surged into my room and within minutes, the smell of

the joint I smoked had evaporated. We were in the winter.

They had almost concluded their search when one of them

Samson Akpaka

asked me to stand up and move to the bed. At that moment,

I knew they would find the drugs.

He turned the chair upside down and something made

some noise under it; it was the water-proof bag I had used

to cover it. He put his hand in his pocket and brought

out a sharp dagger. It was almost funny. These people had

prepared for war should in case they met resistance. They

must have thought that we dealt on hard drugs. But then

they were some Arabs living in the Heim and dealing on

drugs as well. Maybe they had guns. The police man tore

the base of the chair with the dagger and brought out the

drugs. He put them together with my measurement scale on

the table and used his police phone to call their leader. The

head of the Kripo (Kriminal Polizei) came up to my room

and saw the drugs on the table. He then called the media

lady to come with her video camera

They took pictures of the drugs and pictures of me.

Then they asked me to stand near the drugs for a picture. I

asked them why. One of them said it was to show that they

found the drugs with me. I asked them what was inside the

bags on the table; they just looked at me as if I was silly.

I asked them to tell me what it was; one of them said

it was drugs. I faked a surprise and asked them what they

wanted to do with it. I told them that the bag didn’t belong

to them and that they should leave it for the owner. The

Kripo leader explained to me that they were police officers

that had come to search for drugs and they found the drugs

in my room. He said the drugs were illegal. As soon as they

mentioned that the drugs were illegal, I looked up at the

leader and said, “Das ist nicht meine” (that is not mine).

There and Back on Time

I braced my cheeks for a surprise slap from one of them

but none came. They were different from the Nigerian police

who had slapped me more than once in Nigeria. They asked

me who owned them, I said I didn’t know. I told them that

the room didn’t belong to me alone. There was another man

who shared the room with me, I told them. They asked

for his name and I mentioned Sandis, the Camerounian

who had stolen my weed in October of the previous year.

They looked on the list of names and rooms they had with

them and confirmed that the room belonged to me and one

Sandis from Cameroun. The authorities had not assigned

him a new room officially because he never approached

them for it. He only came to the Heim during the month

ends. We had been paid allowances two days earlier and

Sandis returned for his money. He had left a day before the

invasion. The Kripo leader asked where Sandis was, I told

them that I saw him last night but I didn’t know where he

was. I told them that he slept in the room sometimes but not

all the time. They took notes and after proper procedures,

asked me to sign under my name. I told them that I wasn’t

going to sign anything without knowing what it was. They

explained that written on the paper, was the things found

inside my room and what I said. I signed it and they left with

the drugs. They didn’t take me along. Sandis was the culprit;

He was going to pay for stealing my weeds.

Several people were arrested but due to the fact that

we hardly leave drugs in our rooms, only small amounts of

weeds were found in their rooms. Not enough to send them

to prison. They were taken to the police station and fingerprinted.

Jordan was among them. I and Johnson were the

only Nigerians in Heim that were not finger-printed. Johnson

Samson Akpaka

had gone to his white girlfriend’s house to sleep. The thief,

Bola whom I had nicknamed Derico was whisked away to

the station too. Some missing items from the Eurospar mall

near us had been found in his room. Chibuzo the tall slim

guy from Anambra state was taken to the station as well.

When they returned from the police station, they said

that I used voodoo to confuse Police. Yes, I used tactical

juju.

I have always believed there is a solution to every given

problem; one just needed to exploit every possible thing.

After the invasion, everybody was scared to continue

business. They were afraid that if they got caught again,

they would be sent to prison. Since I was not finger printed,

I had no reason to fear. The smokers had been calling their

suppliers who didn’t pick their calls. They had piled up

around the Heim, blowing whistle to alert us that they

needed weed. Somehow, I got motivated and took drugs

from Johnson and went outside, back to the street, back to

my customers and back to making money. I was the only

one outside for over one week and within that one week,

I made triple of what I used to make. I recovered my lost

€5500 worth of lost drugs.

************

New Arrival

After the invasion, I went to Berlin and found an

apartment. It was a one room apartment. Akunne Onitsha

had used his Passport to rent it for me. I also started keeping

my money with Akunne in Berlin. I would travel to Berlin

every week to buy drugs in large quantities, and then I

There and Back on Time

would keep them in the new apartment and travel back to

Brandenburg with little stuff. Most of the dealers were on

break. I was the only person who didn’t care much about

being arrested. I believed that if I was captured by the police,

they would pardon me after finger printing. That was the

rule and we all knew it. As a result, the others started hating

me. They became envious to the point that they couldn’t

even hide it. My security was in danger, and that was the

reason behind the new apartment in Berlin. The new little

boy had taken over Brandenburg.

I would go to Berlin every Friday and sleep there until

Sunday night, and then I would take the last train back to

Brandenburg.

I once decided to attend the Nigerian church in Berlin.

I found Agnes and John Bighead there. That was the church

they attended. I was not a church person. I just went there

because the pressure from Heim was getting too much.

I tried as much as possible to stay away from the Heim.

The Bighead had somehow heard that I had money. Agnes

must have told him or he might have heard it in one of the

Nigerian joints. He approached me after the Church with

a devilish smile which translated into, “I have Agnes now,

what can you do”?

We exchanged numbers anyway and I gave him €150

after the Church. It was such big money for him judging by

the way he thanked me. He almost knelt down.

I also gave Agnes €100 Euros. It was Agnes I intended to

give all the money. I just shared it among them to eliminate

suspicion from Bighead. He knew Agnes was posted to the

same place with me and he knew that I liked her.

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April was approaching, it was the summer again. The

period when every angle would be filled with sexy ladies in

short skirts; white thighs flashing everywhere. I had saved

up enough money again and I didn’t want to buy more cars

so I got a new plan.

Ken, my cousin who lived with us in Nigeria had been

clamouring to come to Europe. He was a good footballer,

so I decided to take my chances on him. I travelled to Essen

and got him a business invitation letter from a shipping

company there. He applied for visa in the German Embassy

with it and was granted. I sent him more money for ticket

and BTA. He boarded air France enroute Berlin but he was

stopped in Charles De Gaule airport, Paris and taken to the

Deportation Camp. I went to the Tegel airport Berlin to

welcome him. I spent the whole day at the airport drinking

coffee and gin. By 5 pm, I knew something had happened,

so I left the airport and went back to Brandenburg.

The following morning, he called me from the

deportation camp in Paris. He said he had left his invitation

letter in Nigeria. He didn’t know it was that important. The

immigration police had asked for it at the airport but he

couldn’t provide it. His visa was genuine but he was taken

there to be deported alongside others.

I called the company that gave him invitation letter in

Essen and told them what happened. They said they could

not reach the immigration police in Paris. Immediately after

talking to Marcel, the guy who sent the letter, Ken called

me from a pay phone. I asked him the other people there,

he said that the Red Cross society were the people feeding

them. I asked him to ask for their phone number and call

me back. Ten minutes later, he called me back and gave

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101

me the office number of the Red Cross in Paris, the airport

wing. I called them and told them what happened. They

asked me to forward a copy of the invitation letter to them

through fax. I called Essen again and after much haggling,

they agreed to send the copy if I sent them €400. Ken had

said that there were going to court the following day. It was

at the court that they stamped your deportation ticket if you

fail to provide enough evidence.

I boarded ICE fast train and travelled to Essen. I gave

them the money before they sent the copy of the letter to

the Paris Red Cross. I asked the Red Cross to give a copy

to Ken to hold.

The next day in Court, the Red Cross took the letter to

court and the Judge set Ken free.

The next problem was that he had missed his original

flight to Berlin. I told him to ask people where he could get

a bus to Berlin. He did and found the big Gare Du Nord

station in Paris. Then he travelled overnight from Paris to

Berlin. I went to the bus station to welcome him. My third

investment had arrived safely to Germany.

************

Guns and Roses

Anja was a local Brandenburg girl. Like most of her

peers, she smoked weed. She had come to buy weed one

evening but somehow misplaced her money. I gave her a

credit of €8 and she took my phone number. The following

day, she called and said she would come in an hour. When

she arrived, I asked her to follow me upstairs to my room.

She hesitated a little but eventually followed me. When we

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102

got into the room, I wrapped two joints and we smoked.

Afterwards, I cooked white yam and we ate it with tomato

sauce.

When she was ready, she announced that she was

leaving but I asked her to sleep over. Agreeing, she called

her parents and told them she wouldn’t return that night.

It was a Friday, so I left her in the room and went to hustle

outside. I needed quick money because I wanted us to go to

a night club. About 9 pm, we went to the local night club

behind the central train station. I was the only black guy

there. The racist Nazis initially refused to open the door for

me. It was when Marko, one of the people I supplied weeds

came and told them to either open up for me or there would

be scarcity of drugs in town, that they opened up for me

and Anja.

We sat at a corner and drank Smirnoff Ice, a mixture of

Vodka and soft drinks. Half of the people at the club were

the people I knew very well. Some of them greeted me very

well. Others asked if I had come with drugs. They didn’t sell

weeds inside the club; they sold a different kind of drugs.

These were tablets. The name was Ecstasy. I had not heard

about it prior to that night. I bought three pieces for €15 and

pocketed it. I was determined to find out all about Ecstasy.

I danced with Anja and we left the club around 3 am. We

took the ever waiting taxi and went back to the Heim. As

soon as we got home, Anja slept.

When we woke up around 8am, some customers had

called my number and since my Nokia 3310 was in a

silent mode, I didn’t hear them. On our way outside in

the morning, we ran into that Fatimah girl who had been

claiming that she owned me. She was angry but there was

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nothing she could do. I never really liked her and she was

beginning to notice.

**********

Other Things

I was very good at geography during my secondary

school days, in fact, I loved maps more than anything else.

The first thing I did when I arrived in Brandenburg was

to locate the library. I had gone there and found the city

map. The way the map was drawn made it very easy for me

to locate all the neighbouring towns. Brandenburg an der

Havel was surrounded by Rathenow in the North, Ziesar in

the South-West, Kade in the West, Wenzlow in the South,

Lennin in South East and then Potsdam and Berlin in the

East. The shortest and normal route to Brandenburg from

Berlin was through Potsdam. Each time I had a feeling that

I was being followed, I would enter a train from Berlin and

head towards Rathenow in the North of Brandenburg. From

Rathenow, I would head to Kade which was about 25km

from Brandenburg. Then I would use a train from Kade to

a small town between Kade and Brandenburg. Stopping at

the town, I’d take a taxi to anywhere close to the Heim.

Sometimes, I would take a taxi from Berlin and stop

across the Silokanal, and then trek to the Heim. I enjoyed

taking the police and other German authorities on a ride. I

knew every small town near Brandenburg. The whole district

was my turf. It was a big advantage over other dealers, but

one thing was strange throughout that period; I had become

immune to fear. Nothing seemed to jolt me at all. I was

out of the world. I had become a beast, something I didn’t

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104

know I had in me. I had started smoking marijuana daily.

I would wrap four or five sticks of skunk weed and smoke

them while playing my PS 2 alone.

I had also started growing dreadlocks by then. I had

broken another rule of a drug dealer; “Don’t ever wear

anything special for a long time”. Money was coming in. I

had gone to Berlin and bought more cars. I bought a new

E36 BMW 325i. More people had come from Nigeria to

me. I didn’t sponsor any other person after another cousin

of mine came from Brazil. He had lived in my apartment in

Berlin before I sent him to camp.

John a.k.a. Awada or Abada had come from Onitsha

Nigeria too. I kept him for two weeks and sent him to camp.

Others I didn’t know before also came through me.

During the following summer, Agnes gave birth to a

baby boy. No doubt, he resembled John the Bighead. She

called the boy Victor. They returned to the Heim and lived

there again. Agnes was a sensible girl, since she knew John

had no money and that I liked her, she knew that I wouldn’t

allow her to suffer the child upbringing alone. She thought

it would be difficult to penetrate me but when she tried, I

welcomed her and Victor into my life. I minimized the rate

of my hustling just to stay with them. After breakfast every

morning, she would carry Victor and come to my room.

They would stay there until the night again when I would

take them back to their room and stay with them until it was

time to sleep, then I would return to my room.

Some group of new people had been posted to the Heim

again. Among them were Nnamdi Ndifor from Nnewi.

He was from Nnewi, just like Jordan, yet Jordan could

not teach him what was happening in the Heim. He was

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105

referred to me by everybody he talked to but there was only

one problem: he had graduated from ESUT University in

Nigeria.

We were talking someday and I told him that I didn’t go

to the University before I came to Europe. He immediately

started that arrogance associated with some of Anambra

people. He felt I was inferior to him.

How can a Wawa guy from Enugu State be the boss in the

Heim? He is not even educated. No it can’t be. I was the guy

who went to ESUT. He is even dating Agnes, the most beautiful

girl in Heim.

These sentiments were written all over Ndifor’s face. In

order to show me that he was better than me since he was

educated, he went and asked Agnes out. That was his biggest

mistake in years.

**********

Obey the Laws

The first law of power was the 6th law of a drug dealer.

It says “Never try to outshine your master.” That was

what Nnamdi Ndifor had done. I could have easily ignored

his ranting about education but going to Agnes to tell her

that I was not educated, just to get between her pants, was

unpardonable. He had to pay.

As a drug dealer, the 7th rule was never to stir up trouble.

Problems had a way of coming on its terms, not how we

wanted it. Confronting Ndifor face to face would be bad for

my reputation. Besides I had not told Agnes anything about

dating. She had told me that she was separated from John.

I didn’t care. Even if she separated, Victor was just eight or

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106

nine months old. I couldn’t date her yet. I just played the

father role to Victor and left things that way. But Ndifor

going to Agnes to bad-mouth me because of ESUT, it was

out of line. He was going to pay for the insolence although

he was older than me.

Two months had passed since he came out of camp, but

he had not started anything. Jordan had eventually taught

him how to tie the drugs and how much they were sold.

The problem was the supply. Jordan had tried to supply

him from the ones he got from me. I had noticed when

Jordan, who had been requiring 50grams at a time from me,

started demanding for 100grams. I cut the supply to Jordan

as a punishment. He was angry with me. He travelled to

Hamburg to buy 150 grams. He paid transport fare which

was over €60, and then he took the risk. He gave Ndifor 50

grams out of the 150grams. For two days, I refused to supply

weed to the Heim. The 150 he got from Hamburg finished

in within those two days, and then the Heim was in need of

weed again. Then, I released goods in the Heim but not to

Jordan and his ally Ndifor. After three days, Jordan made a

wise decision. He came to beg. He was no longer interested

in carrying Ndifor’s cross. He reminded me how we were

closer before the Ndifor showed up. I placed him back on

50grams a week. I knew it wasn’t enough for him but it was

far better than going to Hamburg.

Agnes had somehow noticed that there was trouble. I

no longer cared much about Victor. I stopped opening my

doors for them even when I was inside. She caught me while

closing my door one evening, I allowed her to enter. She

had come to ask what she did wrong. Apparently she did

nothing wrong but she was caught up in a jealousy game

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107

and in the game of war; you cannot supply food or weapons

to your enemy.

Agnes cried in my room that day. I only took one look on

Victor and forgave her; even though she did nothing. Jordan

and Agnes had returned, it meant that I was reclaiming my

kingdom. It remained Ndifor, the educated Engineer who

had seen every other person in the Heim as inferior because

he wasted a few years in a system that hardly produced

food for its people. Germany was paying him the equivalent

of 40,000 Naira a month for doing nothing while in the

city that hosted ESUT graduates; some educated people In

Nigeria earned 10,000 naira a month then.

We would meet on the road or stairway and just pass

each other without much talk. I was the boss and I followed

the hierarchy ladder, not academic route. Johnson, Tony,

Jordan etc had stopped school after elementary six. I still

respected the rules; I never tried to make them know that I

had gone further than them.

At a stage, Ndifor left Heim to hustle elsewhere. I didn’t

know where it was but he returned after two weeks. He

clearly started staying miles away from Agnes. I didn’t know

what he heard but somehow, he ran away from Agnes and

Victor. Victor on the other hand had started walking. I

would take him to the city alone while Agnes rested. I

would buy him toys and foods and so on. He started calling

me daddy. He became my son and as a result, I took care

of them. Agnes started saving money for her mother back

home in Uganda. She said she wanted to send some money

to her mum and the younger sister Winnie who both lived

in Kampala, Uganda. She said her mother required €300

to start a mini poultry back home. I sent the money to

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her mother in Uganda. The woman wanted to thank me

on the phone but I refused to talk with anybody. I lied to

Agnes that I didn’t want my voice to travel to any other

country in Africa except Cameroun. I also told her that I

had stopped calling my country as well. I didn’t want to get

too involved with them. Getting involved would only mean

sending more money to them and not the other way round.

I eventually got involved with her sister Winnie, but that

was just on the phone. She once said on the phone that she

wanted to come to Europe too.

I added her phone number to the reject list on my phone

and she stopped calling after that.

*************

The day I waited for arrived one afternoon. Nnamdi

Michael Ndifor knocked on my door. I opened up asked

what it was. He knelt down instantly and begged me not

to continue the punishment. He said he was wrong. He

apologised for what he said to Agnes, he apologised for his

bad ego and he apologised for looking down on me. I gave

him a further one week suspension before I opened my

wings to him. A month after I opened my empire to him,

he bought a Mercedes E220.

Sometime in 2004, Agnes had totally cut off John or the

other way round. John had visited our Heim to see his son

sometime in early 2004. I hosted his visit. I took him around

town and bought him drinks and food, and then together

with Agnes, I saw him off, to the train station where he

boarded a train back to whatever German hole he lived in.

However, after that visit, he had stopped coming and Agnes

never said anything about him again. I once asked but she

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109

ignored the question but when I persisted, she cried and I

never asked again. It was me she wanted and she succeeded.

Yes, she finally captured the Boss of Brandenburg and her

life changed.

**********

Stop and Search

It was on a Sunday evening. I had returned from Berlin

where I went to buy African foodstuffs and Nigerian movies

for Agnes and Victor. I had stopped at the Brandenburg

Train Station when I was immediately circled by some

Kriminal Polizei on mufti. Their leader who wore ear ring

on the left ear blocked me from moving as soon as I alighted

from the train. Another quickly grabbed my bag and they

had released their dogs to go after me if I attempted to run.

They searched through my bag and found yam, pepper, red

oil, crayfish and ‘My Destiny’ a Nigerian movie that starred

the popular Nigerian comedian, Nkem Owoh.

From the look on their faces, I could tell that they

were massively disappointed. They had finally tracked the

little drug boss down and all they could find was pepper. I

pretended that I didn’t know what was happening. I pleaded

to them not to steal my food items because I bought them

with my last money. I was almost in tears. They told me not

to worry because they would give the bag back to me. When

the leader finally introduced himself as a police man, I told

him that I thought they were people who had come to take

my food away. I told him that the police had uniforms and

asked why they were not in uniforms. He ignored my silly

question and they entered their car.

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110

I asked them to drop me at the Heim if they were truly

the police but they drove off. Though I knew they would

never carry me but I needed to play my fool’s card. It had

worked for me many times.

A certain Sandis from Cameroun was in the Heim when

I returned. The Camerounians had gathered to celebrate his

return from prison. A kilo of weeds and Hashes had been

found in a room he shared with me in his absence long

time ago. Police had searched for him for weeks before they

tracked him down in Stuttgart. He was thrown into prison

and charged with two offenses.

1- He was captured outside his landkreis. (Landkreis

meant where your papers allowed you to be)

2- A certain amount of drugs had been found in his

official room a day after he left Heim.

Since I was in the Heim, they went for Sandis. He had

spent over one year in Prison because of drugs that belonged

to me.

The Cameroonians had gathered to plot a way to avenge

what I did. They knew the drugs were mine. I had sent their

brother to prison for nothing. He had stolen my drugs first

and denied it, so he had to pay for his sins. It was the law of

nature, it was my law.

Since the return of Sandis, a lot of secret gatherings had

been going on by the Camerounians, they had teamed up

with the Guineans since they all spoke French. My fellow

Nigerians maintained a distance from me too. They were

afraid to remain very close to me since it was obvious there

was going to be an attack on me by the Coalition of French

ex-Colonies.

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111

According to Jordan, I was a ticking bomb that could

explode any moment. Johnson, my mentor who would have

backed me a 100% had travelled to Sweden to marry his

white girlfriend, and when they returned, they found a small

apartment in the city centre, and as such he no longer came

often to Heim. I felt lonely and when I figured I was going

to be attacked, I called Marko, my German friend and told

him that I needed a gun. He said he could get one for me at

€400. I gave him the money.

I stopped sleeping in my room alone. I would go down

to Agnes’ and sleep in her room until morning. On one of

the nights that I went to sleep in Agnes’ room, one thing led

to another and she asked that I sleep on the bed with her. I

had bought children’s bed for Victor so he didn’t share the

bed with her. When she asked me, I agreed and went to sleep

on the bed with her.

She started some sentimental crap about how she would

have suffered without me, how she didn’t know how to

pay me back, how I was her god and all that. Then she

finished, she kissed me. No resistance! She tried again and

left her mouth on mine for several seconds. On her third

trial, I responded and that was it. That was the moment

Agnes had been waiting for, for several months. She was

hungry for me. She kissed every part of my body down to

my joystick. She removed my clothes herself and mounted

me. She fucked me with fury and force. She didn’t bother

about condoms. She wanted to get pregnant for me and tie

me down permanently. She wanted me to take her to Nigeria

whenever I decided to go home. She knew I had money in

Nigeria. She knew I was the king in the city of Brandenburg.

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112

She wanted a permanent protection from the Boss. She

wanted to be part of that drug estate.

I started frequenting Berlin because I didn’t want to

sleep with Agnes all the time. We had somehow started

fucking every night. She would remove my condom half

way through sex; when I would be helpless to protest. She

had seen an opportunity and she took it.

I was eating at a restaurant one afternoon when Solomon

Okoronkwo, the Nigerian footballer entered. He was fresh

from Under 20 World Cup hosted in Holland where Nigeria

had finished second behind Messi’s Argentina. This was

in 2005. He had heard me speak Igbo on the phone and

approached. He was new in town and knew nobody. He had

just signed a contract with Hertha BSC Berlin, a German

division one club.

After eating, I paid for our food and we left together

to the area where Igbo people frequented. I was already a

Hertha Berlin fan before they signed him. I used to go to

the Berlin Olympic Stadium, the venue of the 2006 world

Cup final, to watch Hertha play. After meeting Okoronkwo,

I started frequenting Berlin more. We would go to their

training ground together and drive to his place afterwards.

Sometimes we would go to my own place in Berlin.

One afternoon, Marko called me that my gun would

be ready in a few days. When he had it, I went to his house

and collected it. It was a Smith & Wesson Police Special .45

calibre. When I got it, I called some friends in the Heim and

pretended that I wanted to buy drinks, something I do often

anyway. I brought out the gun while we were drinking and

everybody was jolted.

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113

**********

The Gun

When I brought out my silver gun, everybody was ready

to run but I told them not to worry. The target was the

prisoner who got out after serving my prison term for me.

I leaked the gun information so that they would send a

message to Sandis the ex-convict. He needed to know that I

was ready for war and that I had graduated from an ordinary

dealer to an armed drug dealer.

After showing off the gun, I took it to Johnson’s place

outside the Heim and left it inside my traveling bag which

I had kept in his house. He didn’t know a gun was in it. I

didn’t know what his reactions would be if he found out I

had a gun and that I kept it with him, so I decided not to

tell him. As expected, the news of a gun in the Heim had

circulated.

A certain black man had brought a gun into the Heim.

The Arabs were the most fearful group. They had been

fighting with the Africans for the control of the drug flow

in the Heim. They didn’t know it had gotten to the extent

of getting a gun. Jimmy, a Moroccan had somehow made

friends with me. He had turned loyal. Fadi, the Lebanese

boy had also come to pay his loyalty to me. They had stopped

buying drugs from Berlin and joined my retail outlets. They

had their own contacts too but between February 2005 and

October 2005, they bought from me.

Amidst that entire situation, I was scared too. I was not

a killer. After the police search at the train station in which

they found only foodstuffs, I had stopped bringing in drugs

by myself. My supplier in Berlin had a C class Mercedes

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car. He would drive down to Brandenburg where we would

meet at night, and then I would carry the goods and hide

them in the bush. I would only take the ones I would supply

that night.

Somehow, some kind of fear had started enveloping me.

The money I was making was putting some fear inside me. I

had saved up another €20,000 and left it with Johnson in his

new apartment where he lived with his white wife. Since he

was looking for his papers through the girl, he had stopped

selling drugs especially in the street. He had maintained a

few big boys that he still supplied. It was safer for him. Life

went on. Since I got my gun, I had started sleeping in the

Heim again. The cowards from Cameroun had all vanished

from the Heim less than two days after the gun revelation

show. Sandis the thief who stole my drugs and paid with

prison term was rumoured to have run to France. His friend

Guy was thought to be in Belgium. The only one remaining

was Christie, a lady of about forty from Cameroun; she

would greet me at every slightest opportunity. She had heard

that I had a gun. They all thought I carried it around, a

thought that protected the Ozoigbondu 1.

*************

Goodbye Germany

On August 2005, I had another encounter with the

police. They had been monitoring my movements. There

was a man that sold pizza in the city. At exactly 12 pm, every

day between Monday and Friday, he would call me to supply

him with €50 worth of weeds. He was my most consistent

customer and because of his consistency, I had decided to

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115

keep him. I didn’t know that the police had been following

me each time I went to supply the man along the canal. That

fateful day, he had called me but I had only 1 gram of weed

which I had kept for myself. I had supplied everything to

the retailers. I told him I had only one and he begged that

I sell it to him. He was already at our meeting point when

I arrived. Unknown to us, the police had surrounded the

area with dogs. There were about 10 of them, fully kitted

as if they were going to arrest Pablo Escobar of Colombia.

I had learnt not to run whenever they caught me, so I

remained where I was when I heard “Herr Ebot, stay in one

place and don’t move!”.

I stood there until they came and searched me. I had

only one gram of weed with me. They took it, took the name

of the customer and told him to go. He was going to be a

witness in court on the case of State Brandenburg Versus

Ebot Solomon. They took me to my room in full glare

of everybody. The Heim was in panic, the Boss had been

captured. They searched my room and found nothing. They

were disappointed again. I had beaten them once more. The

one gram they found wasn’t enough to lock me up. They just

took me to the police station and finger-printed me. It was

my first drug related finger printing. I spent about an hour

while they processed me. I told them that I was not going to

say anything until I see my lawyer. They called my lawyer in

Potsdam and he asked them not to question me.

They fixed a court for my hearing on November 29,

2005, and released me to go. When I got back to the Heim

after just an hour with the Police, everybody couldn’t believe

their eyes. They thought I was going to be locked away

for eternity. They thought I had been captured with a lot

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of drugs. After the incident, I closed down my business

entirely. Obinna, a guy from Udi, Enugu state had come

two months earlier. I had taken him under my wings and

tutored him. I handed my business empire to him and spent

most of my time with Agnes and Victor. I also frequented

Berlin to stay with Okoronkwo. I told my supplier that I

needed a break. He had bought two bags of weeds and had

wanted to supply them to me before the last police incident.

He begged me to take and supply them before we began the

break. Somehow he had managed to convince me. The day

he brought the drugs to Brandenburg, I divided them and

supplied to the small dealers in the Heim. I hid the rest in

my room and went to sleep in Agnes’ room.

At about 4 am, the Police invaded the Brandenburg

Heim again. They had searched my room and found nothing

but when it was time for them to leave, Fadi, the Lebanese

snitch had told them that I had a gun. They had gone back

to search for it and found the drugs I had hidden inside

the wall. I had opened a hole in the wall and hid the drugs

there, and then I placed a Hertha Berlin football poster over

it. I had also hidden €5000 on the fluorescent holder on

the concrete ceiling. They found the drugs but didn’t find

the money. Fadi told them where I was and they came to

Agnes’ room with dogs. I was on a boxer when they came.

They brought me outside and made a video of me and the

drugs they found.

They also took many pictures. I had bought a Motorola

razor phone a day before the last invasion. I left it in Agnes’

room. I told her my brother’s name in the phone and told

her to call him and tell him that the police had taken me.

When we got to the station, they called my lawyer. He came

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117

from Potsdam and after some paper works, they agreed that

the lawyer would bring me to court on November 29, the

same day I was to appear in court for the previous crime.

Surprisingly, they left me to go. That was it. That was the

one chance I thought I would never have again. My cup was

full; it was time to leave Germany. It was the beginning of

the Life on the Run. It was time to try my luck elsewhere

and it was time to start traveling around Europe.

Thank you Germany,

Thank you Brandenburg an der Havel,

Thank you Agnes,

Thank you Victor for teaching me how to be a father,

Thank you everybody who crossed my life in one way or the

other while in Germany.

The following morning, I called Johnson and gave him

my key. I had gone back to my room and saw the €5000 I

had hidden in the fluorescent holder. I took the money and

went to Berlin. The local Brandenburg newspaper had me

and the drugs on the cover page the following morning.

They bragged that they had finally caught me, that the

evidence was there for everyone to see. They had asked every

kid who knew me as a drug dealer to come to court on the

29th of November.

I hired a resident permit card of my friend Emeka and

bought a one-way ticket to Lisbon Portugal. Around midday

on October 28, 2005, a month to my court appearance, I

flew out of Schonefeld airport Berlin to Palma de Mallorca

with Air Berlin. Then I boarded another flight and flew to

Lisbon.

It was goodbye Germany.

119

PART TWO

121

CHAPTER SIX

Welcome To Portugal.

Portugal is located in the western side of the Iberia

Peninsula. The only bordering country is Spain which

had invaded them and took most of their lands. The

Portuguese were the first people who built ships and started

colonisation and international business. Lisbon is the largest

city in Portugal followed by Porto. Lisbon is located near

the Atlantic Ocean. An 8.5 earthquake had happened in

Lisbon on Saturday November 1, 1755 and cut the area

into two and water from the ocean had surged through

the artificial valley created by the earthquake and formed

the Tagus River. The Vasco Da Gama Bridge across the

Tagus River is the longest bridge in Europe at 17.5km. It is

a cable held bridge. It was estimated that between 10-100

thousand people perished in the earthquake. As a result,

Lisbon became a hilly city without level lands. They have

only one airport, The Portela Aeroporto.

This and other information I found out at the Lisbon

central Library a few days after I arrived. I wanted to know

if the city was worth living for me.

I had left Berlin Germany and landed in this strange

city called Lisbon in a bid to acquire European residence

permit and escape the encroaching German authorities. The

laws in Germany say that one must either have a child with

a German woman or marry a German citizen before you

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get their resident permit. Some of us who never wanted

anything like a child or a woman to tie us down in one part

of this big universe chose to look elsewhere for the papers.

Another reason was that the German police were closing in

on me. They found some illegal drugs in my room and had

fixed a date for my court appearance. It was time to run.

I had the money already, so I could afford to spend even

€20,000 just to get the papers rather than have one woman

holding me down in one country for over ten years in the

name of marriage.

I had left Berlin that warm afternoon through Berlin

Schonefeld airport to Palma de Mallorca Island in Spain

and then Lisbon, Portugal. It took over two hours and at a

time, I wondered if we were going back to Africa. I came out

of the airport and boarded a taxi to the city centre. Jordan,

my Nnewi friend in Germany had given me the number of

a Francis, his brother who lived in Lisbon. I had sent some

money to Francis to secure a place for me in Lisbon before

my arrival, which he did.

Francis waited for me at Madrid Hotel near Elephant

Blanco before I arrived. He shook my hands and motioned

me to follow him. He took me to a three bedroom apartment

where he had secured a room for me. I entered my room and

unpacked my bags, after which I took my bath and joined

Francis in the sitting room. He was playing Poker with two

other men whom I later learnt lived in the same apartment.

Their names were Vitus and Kennedy. Vitus came to

Portugal from Holland for the same purpose as I while

Kennedy was a football player who rented the apartment

with his name. I announced my arrival with “Ekene diri

Unu”, in Igbo which is translated “Greetings unto you”.

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123

They welcomed me warmly and I rightly guessed that they

were anticipating my arrival. I sat down and watched the

TV while they played their poker game. One hour later, I

told Francis that I wanted to go outside and look around

the city, something I love doing each time I visit a new city.

Vitus, a fat yellow guy tasked me to buy them drinks since I

was a new guy on the block. I happily agreed because I had

over €5000 with me.

They packed their game and dressed up for the outing.

Kennedy, the footballer had a small Fiat car which four of

us boarded and headed towards the city centre. We headed

to a restaurant owned by some Brazilian guys. We requested

for Crabs and red wine, and upon being served, we ate and

finished our wine. We drank more wine, and another, and

another. Vitus was a wine tanker that never got filled up. I

got bored eventually and demanded that we go to another

place. I paid our bills which amounted to €411 and headed

to the commerce centre called Rossio. This centre was also

the place where all the sex workers patrolled in the evening

for business

**************

Resident Permit Rules

The following morning, I took my bath and called

Francis to come into my room. News had been circulating

all over Europe that Portugal were accepting applications

for resident permit. The rich European countries such as

Germany, Holland, Austria France, Belgium, Switzerland

and the Scandinavians had only one way of issuing a resident

permit to an asylum seeker; you MUST get involved with

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124

a woman or man. It’s either you wed their woman or man

or in some cases, have a child with their man or woman.

The Eastern European countries such as Poland, Czech

Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and others were

busy trying to join the European Union. Their resident

permits couldn’t even allow you to travel to the neighbouring

Germany or Austria until you have their citizenship. In

Germany and Austria for instance, if you have a child with

their citizens, the government would give you what is called

‘Fathershaft’ or ‘Mothershaft’. The permit was like a visa. It

would be stamped inside your international Passport. It was

a temporal permit which required about seven more years

to mature into a permanent resident permit. In those seven

years you would be waiting for the permanent permit, you

MUST avoid every illegal business.

You MUST not break any law such as beating the traffic

or even fighting.

You MUST be working with the Father/Mothershaft

throughout those years.

Another way of getting resident permit in Germany was

marriage, which also involved a German citizen. You two

would be required to travel back to Africa and wed, and then

the German citizen would return alone while you wait in

your country until the papers were processed. This method

was dangerous because if the German citizen didn’t follow

up the process as required, you would get stuck in your

country. In some countries such as Holland, having a baby

with their citizen will not get you a permit unless you were

married to the partner.

As I mentioned earlier, Portugal was allowing

applications. The rules include that you must have lived in

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125

Portugal for at least three years before you were eligible to

apply. Some people who lived in Portugal but had gotten

their permits elsewhere and had applied for the permit

too. Whenever their application got approved, they would

contact people from Germany, Switzerland and Austria and

so on to buy the approved documents. In that case, if you

were willing to buy the approved application, you would

be required by common sense to change your names to

the names of the original applicant. You would then go to

any Nigerian Embassy in Europe to get an International

Passport bearing the names of the original applicant. That

meant that you would be bearing another name for the rest

of your life as long as Europe was concerned.

Another option was to send your data to Nigeria where a

new passport would be produced for you but with the names

on the application you had purchased. People from other

European countries also applied in Portugal by sending their

data to someone in Portugal to apply for them or travelled

there to apply in person.

In my own case, Jordan, my friend in Brandenburg had

called Francis in Portugal who said there was an approved

application that was available. That was the second reason

behind my choosing Portugal, the first being that it was

closer to Africa.

Francis presented some set of papers, supposed to have

been the approved application to me. It had belonged to one

Obinna, another Nigerian man who looked and behaved

like a scammer. It was written in Portuguese which made

it difficult for me to understand. I was told to pay €4000

before the papers would be given to me. The deal was shady

and since there was no guarantee whatsoever that it was

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genuine, I refused to pay. Rather I asked Francis to help

me apply for a new one. I wanted something with my real

names anyway and I was not in a hurry to leave Portugal.

I needed rest and Lisbon was perfect. Things were cheaper

there; I was paying €200 a month for my room inside the

apartment where we lived. They sold foodstuffs cheap; half

of the residents were black too. Their transport system was

cheaper.

Francis agreed to help me run my own application after

I promised to pay him €1000. It was a big money for him

since they were all hungry over there in Lisbon. They were

doing Obra jobs (concrete and mason) to sustain them. They

asked me to join them since I was just idle in Lisbon but

when I found out that they were paid peanuts, I refused. I

had money anyway.

The following day, Francis took me to the Nigerian

Embassy to get registered. When we got there, there was

only one old woman seated behind a desk. She demanded

for €€200 before she wrote my names down as a Nigerian

living in Portugal. It seemed they were all hungry, even the

embassy workers. The Nigerian government had refused

to send them International passport production machine

which was the only thing that generated money. People

who lived in Portugal were forced to go to other European

countries to get their International Passports. In my own

case, I had decided to get mine from Nigeria and it turned

out to be the biggest mistake I ever made about resident

permit.

After acquiring enough documents to apply for permit,

I took them to the appropriate office and submitted them.

Then it was time to wait. They didn’t tell me when it would

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127

be ready or whether they would even grant my request. I

just had to wait. There were some hustlers in Lisbon too but

mostly from Angola and Mozambique. I didn’t want to do

anything illegal in Portugal, so I just had to wait. I asked

my brother in Nigeria to make an international passport for

me. I told him to use the passport photograph I left behind

in Nigeria.

When the passport arrived, it looked so good. There was

no way to detect faults in it, or so I thought. Since I had to

wait for an unknown number of days or weeks, I decided to

start making cross border visits to Spain.

Spain was a stone throw from Portugal. I would take

my virgin passport and the application receipt I got from

the office I applied for residence, and then board a train

heading to Spain. During one of such visits, I was stopped

by the Spanish police in Valencia. They used some kind of

glass lenses to check my passport but they found no faults.

They asked for my resident permit and asked me to return to

Portugal. They took me to the train station and made sure

that I boarded a train to Portugal. They gave my papers to

the train driver and asked him to give it to me in Lisbon.

Since I had nothing to do in Portugal, I used that

opportunity to learn about cocaine business. I had a friend

in Valencia Spain who was involved in the trade. I only saw

cocaine once in Germany but I wasn’t ready to deal on it

then. A man from our village who lived in Brazil had told

me to learn about cocaine so that he would be sending it

to me in Europe. I would sneak out of Portugal and go to

Spain without my friends in Portugal knowing what I did.

They wanted to know of course but I wasn’t interested in

telling anybody anything. I would tell them that I was going

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128

to Spain to watch football. A lie they all bought. It was also

a lie I learnt in Germany.

I was able to transport drugs in Germany easily because

I was a fan of Hertha Bsc football club in Berlin. I used

their home games to move my drugs. Each time they had

a home game, usually every two weeks, I would wear their

jersey which had my name printed at the back. I would also

take their small banner and their back pack to watch the

matches. Then after the match, I would load drugs inside

the bag and mix up with their thousands of fans. It was only

Johnson who knew what I was doing. He found out on his

own anyway. In the game of drugs, be secretive as much as

possible.

***************

Princess, my daughter was growing fast in Ghana

according to Efuah. Against her mother’s wish, I would

buy toys and clothes and send to her in Ghana. A suitor had

come to marry my Efuah but she refused. It was causing

problems between her and her mother. The suitor had

returned from London and he had money. The pressure

was getting too much. Efuah had asked for my opinion, I

told her that my movement was still uncertain since I had

no traveling documents then. I also told her that even if I

got documents in the next one month, it would still require

many years to turn into a permanent permit or red passport

which was the only way to be able to bring her and Princess

to Europe. I had told her to marry the man if she believed

they could live together. She got married to the London

guy in December 2005. After the marriage, the man left

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129

for London to process their papers for them to be able to

live in London too.

After my two months in Portugal without any news of

my papers, I decided to start sexcapades.

I had found out where the prostitutes stood in the

evening for business. The place was called Rossio. It was near

the port where slaves were sold during the slave trade era.

The first time I went there, I saw many Nigerian girls, some

girls from Ghana and some from Angola and Mozambique.

Since the Angolans and Mozambicans didn’t understand

English, I decided to start from them. I had left Germany

with my post bank ATM card but since I didn’t want the

Germans to know where I was, I had travelled to Spain and

withdrew the whole €1200 in the account.

I was the only asylum seeker in Brandenburg with the

bank card and even bank account. I had gone to the bank

one day and told them that I wanted an account. They

asked me to get permission from the Heim authorities. After

pleading and lying that my Cameroonian roommate had

been stealing my monthly allowances, they had agreed to

help me open the account. Every month, I would pay in

€100 into the account. When I withdrew the money in

Spain, I went back to Portugal and decided to use the money

on women alone.

The game began one evening. I went down to Rossio

where the sex workers stood and called one of them. She

was Angolan and didn’t understand a word in English.

I followed her up to where she lived and since there was

nothing to talk about; she removed her clothes as soon as we

got in. Her body was very smooth and young. Her breasts

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130

pointed out like the head of a rocket propelled grenade.

I started squeezing them and it was such a pleasure. The

normal price charged by illegal sex workers was €20 but

since I had flashed a €50 note in her face, she was ready to

do some extra work on me.

When we finished, we went back to Rossio. We got to

where she worked and I motioned a Nigerian girl to come.

“How much is for one night” I asked.

“€100” she replied.

I priced €80 and she agreed. She asked where I lived and

I told her. She followed me to the house and that was how

Jennifer came into my life.

************

Jennifer

Jennifer, a beautiful Nigerian girl had just arrived from

Africa. She was from Ekpoma, Edo state. Her Madam had

brought her to work in Portugal. According to her, she didn’t

know the kind of work it was until she arrived. Her madam

had demanded that she pay back €45,000 before she became

free. How she was going to pay her was still a mystery to her

but she was told to join the street sex workers. She had been

able to raise €2000 so far but the huge balance of 43,000

awaited her. After I heard her full story, I offered to sneak

her into Spain but she refused. She was scared of death. She

said she was taken to a shrine somewhere in the bush in

Benin, Nigeria to swear an oath, an oath that would hold

her until she paid up the money. It was a complicated issue

for me and despite my belief system; I didn’t want to get too

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131

involved in sketchy deals. She had followed me back from

Rossio, a busy commercial area in Lisbon.

We got to my apartment which I shared with three other

people at about 7 pm on a Sunday evening. I introduced

her to Francis, the only guy in the house who welcomed

her warmly. Then we proceeded to my room. She started

removing her cloths as soon as we entered my room but I

halted her. She was a pretty little girl, probably 18 or 19.

How her parents allowed her to leave for Europe baffled me.

I asked her how she came to Portugal and she told me

about her madam and their syndicate which spanned the

entire West African coasts. She had been taken to Cotonou

where she spent three months. Then they moved her to Accra

where she spent some weeks before heading to Abidjan. It

was in Abidjan that she had a hint of what she was going to

do in Europe. The gang leader in Abidjan had consistently

sent her to different men to sleep with. She never saw any

money as the men would pay the gang leader. She only

received tips from some of the men after sleeping with them.

She didn’t even know where she was since they spoke a

strange language.

She was not allowed to venture out alone during her stay

in Abidjan. After another three months and a week, she was

taken by road to Bamako. It was in Bamako that they finally

boarded a flight to Spain. On arrival, they were smuggled

down to Portugal at night. They were three of them but she

didn’t know the whereabouts of the other two.

“Why didn’t you run to the police and report the case?”

I asked her. Her response was the same, “Scared of Some juju

in Benin Forest”.

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132

After her long story, I removed her jacket and hung it on

my door. She thought it was time for action as she stood up

to remove her trousers but I motioned her to leave it. I had

lost my appetite for sex and I wasn’t going to be a heartless

beast after hearing such dangerous adventure of hers.

I used to think that my German experience was the

worst adventure one could go through in Europe but after

her story, I knew that I didn’t even suffer. I took her to

the bathroom and told her to have her bath. After that,

she returned and sat on the only chair in the room. I was

compelled to do something about her situation but the point

was that there were hundreds of them passing through the

same situation and anything I chose to do for her would cost

a lot of money. The first option was buying out her €43,000

clause but I wasn’t going to do that. That was a lot of money

and I had no guarantee she would change after that. The

second option was sending her out of Portugal but she was

afraid to run away. The last option was to sleep with her and

send her out to the streets where she belonged. I decided to

give it time first. I took my bath and took her downstairs to

a Chinese restaurant. We ate some vegetables with fried rice

and chicken laps. Then we drank wine. After the food, we

took a taxi to Benfica Stadium and walked aimlessly inside

the museum. She was constantly asking why I was being

nice but I had no answers for her. I just liked her but I knew

it was not going to last. I was in Portugal for a purpose and

the money I kept for leisure was running down. I knew that

as soon as it got down to about €3000, I would cut down

on expenses.

We later took a taxi back to my apartment. The other

two guys had returned when we came in. I introduced her

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133

to them as we played poker in the sitting room. When she

got tired, I asked her to go into my room and sleep. At about

1:30 am, I retired into my room only to see her lying naked

on my bed.

The spirit of resistance always becomes weak when it comes

face to face with a naked woman. That was how I felt when

I saw her naked.

She smiled as I loosened my belt.

After the first round of sweet sex with Jennifer, she

offered to dispose of my used condom. I reluctantly agreed

but I followed her to the toilet. Since the moment she

mentioned voodoo, I had decided to be at alert. I knew there

was nothing like voodoo power in Europe but I decided to

be at alert anyway.

We returned to the room and lay on the bed quietly. She

asked who I was, why I took her out, why I was nice and why

I was sympathetic to her plight. I had no concrete answers,

so I just told her that I liked her. I did not make any more

moves for another round of sex and she gave up after just

one attempt at raising my manhood again.

The following morning, she woke up and prepared to

leave. I brought out a €100 bill and offered her, she refused.

She said I spent more than that on her the previous night.

She just asked me to pray for her since she didn’t know how

to get out of her situation. I wanted to argue over the money

but since I came to Portugal, I stopped being extravagant

with Euros. I put the money back in my wallet and gave

her my phone number. I took her downstairs and watched

her walk slowly down to the underground train station. I

went back upstairs and thought about her. She was the first

teenage sex worker I had met in Europe. She seemed to be

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134

regretting her line of work but one can never trust those

girls.

An hour after she left, she called me. She said she was

feeling bored outside and that she wanted to know if she

could come back to my house.

Was that why she rejected my €100? Was this girl trying to

play me or what? Maybe I should give her that benefit of doubt.

Ozoigbondu, who conquered the German police, cannot melt

for Jennifer. Bring it on Jenny.

“You can always come to my place if you want” I said,

knowing that it was going to be a gamble.

She came to my place twenty minutes later. This time,

she wore a different outfit; a sexy short skirt over tight

trousers. She wore Chanel perfume too. She looked good.

As usual, I became alert. Why did she decide to show up

in a sexy outfit, something must be in the air; something I

would find out sooner or later.

“You look sexy,” I commented as soon as I opened the

door for her. She flashed a sexy smile and came inside the

stairwell.

“Are you not working today?” I asked. She ignored the

question and walked ahead of me towards the top floor

where I lived. I sensed that she didn’t want to talk about her

work, so I decided to change the topic slightly.

“Why did you decide to come back here today?” I asked

again. She stopped and turned to me.

“If you don’t want me here, I will go” she declared. She

was still a teenager anyway, so I pretended that her statement

was in order. We walked to our flat and headed straight to

my room. She settled on the chair and grabbed a magazine

I kept on my small table.

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135

“Do you need something to eat, Jennifer?” I asked.

She said no and kept turning the pages of the magazine.

I left the room and went into the kitchen. I wanted to

cook fish pepper soup before she called. Since she was more

interested in the magazine, I took the opportunity to start

the pepper soup. When I returned to my room, she was

crying. I became alert again. This Jennifer situation was

becoming suspicious. I made a mental reconnaissance of

where all my money was kept. Majority of it was safe in the

Federal Republic of Nigeria. A big chunk was in Germany.

There was no immediate danger to my finance, so I decided

to play the emotional game too.

“Baby girl tell me what it is,” I cooed, sounding

convincing.

“I want to go back to Nigeria,” she murmured amidst

tears. “I am tired of this life, I cannot continue. I called my

brother in Lagos and he said I could come back and go back

to school” she continued.

“Is that why you are crying” I said for the sake of saying

something. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

She said she could find a TC (travel certificate). I asked

how much it was, and she said about two thousand euros

could be enough for the entire process, including tickets to

Lagos.

Her demand was not outrageous, so I decided to take

up the challenge but she had to work a little for the money.

That was how Jennifer came to live with me.

My apartment friends thought that I was just being

extravagant with Jennifer by inviting her everyday but when

they started eating deliciously prepared meals every day for

at least one week, they began to realise that she wasn’t going

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anywhere soon. It was my plan and my money to make her

cook every day for the boys. We had hardly cooked food in

the apartment before her arrival but as soon as she came to

live with us, we were partying with food on a daily basis.

I gave her €400 to buy foodstuffs and store them up in

the kitchen. She bought large quantities of fish and meat

and stuffed them in the freezer. She would cook with beef

on one day and the next day, she would use fish and cow

head. Everybody in the apartment was happy but before

they knew that she was there to stay, they had already been

bought over with food. I felt one or two of them would

someday ask me to tell her to leave. They didn’t know her

well enough to leave her alone in the apartment. The only

way I believed would work wonders was through food and

it worked.

I also took her to the H&M clothing mall where

she bought new cloths. She had decided to abandon her

belongings wherever she kept them. She had come with

some money, I didn’t know how much but it was enough

to buy her five types of clothes. I on my own part gave her

extra €100 to buy more clothes. She bought two pullovers

and a trouser more.

After one week, the food ration began to reduce. I wasn’t

going to feed them forever even if I brought Lucifer into

the house. I owned the room where she slept and I already

had a bargaining chip; food. After two weeks, the whole

Jennifer affair changed. Her Madam who brought her to

Europe had been looking for her. She couldn’t report to

police since she brought her illegally into the country. She

told few Nigerians. They suspected that she had run out

of the country. They had even called Spain and Napoli to

There and Back on Time

137

check if a new girl arrived over there. One afternoon, a lady

stopped me in Colombo business district of Lisbon and

asked if I was Solomon. I nodded and asked who she was.

She said her name was Grace and that she was the madam

of one Jennifer whom she heard was with me. There was no

need denying her accusation, so I maintained my composure

and asked who told her she was with me.

When in a difficult situation, ask silly questions to buy

time.

“If she is in your house, please tell her that I want her

back this evening” she said. “We have searched everywhere

for her but couldn’t locate her”, she continued.

I stood there and fast tracked my thoughts on how to

manage the situation. Suddenly an idea came; attack with

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There and Back on Time

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SAMSON AKPAKA

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GLOBALRUNS

There and Back on Time

Series

GLOBALRUNS SERIES

Publisher Name

SAMSON AKPAKA

Country

Nigeria

Submit Your Review