Look Mom, I’m on TV!

I am on the fourth date in one month and dating in Lagos is expensive! A glance at the menu lets me know I will go above my projected spend for the date. A round trip on Uber is anywhere from 3 thousand Naira depending on how far from Surulere I end up. Most of my dates are on the island but sometimes I switch it up and go somewhere in Ikeja. There are also some gems in Ilupeju, but why take the risk of asking a first date to Ilupeju? Don’t want her to think I am not taking this seriously — like when Lekan asked to take that Access bank girl he met at The Place to Farm City on a date.

When you’re dating on a budget, you’ll find yourself becoming religious. On a random Thursday night, you’re at Z’s kitchen, hoping and praying your date doesn’t order the wagyu steak.

Yet here I am about to mention how I have never seen a single episode of Super Story just to see what reaction I would get from this girl my friend introduced via Instagram DMs.

“Something interesting about me? I have been on Crime Fighters before.”

For the first time this evening, my date looks at me- I mean really looks at me, the starched native outfit, the manicured nails, the Dior Sauvage knockoff I’m wearing.

“I think you owe me a story”

I got into the University at 18, after spending one year at home to rewrite jamb while mastering my snooker and Mortal Kombat skills. When admission came, I was relieved and excited. Political Science and the University of Ibadan meant I could finally get away from under my parents’ wings — maybe I could start to live as a bachelor like my older cousins.

My mother used to wonder if I had a different life outside our Ilorin house because every time we went out together someone old or young would come over to gist with me like we were best friends.

So when I got into school this continued, if you asked me I think there are a few reasons why I knew so many people, I smoked and I played football, even if it was a bunch of 8-year-old kids knocking around a ball made of tightly-rolled socks, I would join them and play. I was also really good at it, I am small and fast, at least small till I had a growth spurt in 200 level that got me up to a lofty 5 foot 9 inches. Then there is the small matter of my name, Emitonwa. Meaning ‘the one they seek’ when I was younger everyone called me Emi, which should be ‘me’ in Yoruba, somehow someone pronounced it as Emi, which translates to spirit, So when people hear my name, they never seem to forget me.

“You said your name is Michael”

“Yeah, I have had to change to that after the incident”

Our orders arrive, I got a pizza with pineapple toppings and she gets creamy pasta that smells of parmesan and garlic. I know I won’t finish this pizza and I don’t know if this is the kind of girl that approves of men taking away their leftovers.

“You want some of my pasta?”

“It looks divine, but that cheese would wreck my bowels”

“Lactose intolerance?”

“Yeah”

“Just tolerate it! Ok ok, continue.”

I’m in Ibadan and it is going alright. Alright, being I am getting Cs and Ds and an occasional B and F, life is good! Parties almost every weekend and I could join one of the happening clubs soon. One of those days I went for classes and I was done at a decent time, say 5:30 in the evening, the sun has gone down, most students are milling around, the couples securing cosy spots, the athletes heading for the courts and fields, the efikos going to grab some food before heading for night class and me looking for a smoke break before I go play winning eleven till late. As I head out of the gate I do my usual scan to see if I recognise someone around, more often than not I usually spot someone. Across the road are Idowu (ID) Moh and Efe. They are talking to a cabman so I figured they were negotiating for a drop and a drop only means there’s groove ahead. So I hurry across, my evening has greatly improved.

ID is an Ilorin boy, we went to St Anthony’s together, we were on the football team together and our mothers both worked at Unilorin Teaching Hospital, he got into UI a year before me and has been the one trying to get me in the club. Moh and Efe are his coursemates, so my guys by extension.

By the time I am across the road the negotiations are done, I get into the back seat with Moh and Efe, ID is in front.

“Where we dey go?”

“Party”

We drive for a while when I realise we are heading out of town.

“Where be this party?”

“Unilag”

Now Unilag parties were the stuff of legend, the drinks keep flowing and the girls had no inhibitions, the night could go anywhere. This was going to be an epic night!

Lagos does not disappoint, when we get to campus it is already dark. Efe’s point man is Damola and he is a proper sure boy, in minutes we get introduced to a couple of girls who promise they will be at the party, one of them Nana, says her plug has the best weed on campus and he would soon be on his way from Ojuelegba. She didn’t lie about the weed, I’m buzzing by the time we head for the venue of the party at Emily Akinola.

These are the parts of the night I don’t clearly remember, after one too many bottles of Harp and more of Nana’s weed, I am high as a kite. I do remember some cute short girl with dyed hair saying I was cute and if I’d like to dance. We dance for a while, I know we went out to get some air which ended up being a makeout session, I recall there was some hooting from some people who saw us kissing but that was just the vibe of the party, sometime later that night I blackout.

I come to in the morning in the stairwell of the house that still had the lingering smell of sweat, piss, and stale cigarettes. My head feels bigger than usual and there is a throbbing sensation on my left eyebrow. I check for my belongings; wallet, watch and phone, all intact. Moh spots me first as I walk towards Damola’s car.

“Baddest guy! Na only you come party here!” Ahan only you two babes!”

I have no idea what he is talking about, but from the way everyone else was sniggering, I must have been up to no good last night. I pull ID to the side.

“Baba wetin I do gaan?”

“Omo you and that babe and one her friend disappear enter her car, we just they see the car dey rock, dey hear soundtracks”

Now snippets of the night are coming back, she had asked if she could introduce me to her friend and I had not understood she meant it literally, I had thought that was her coy way of saying sex, but when we got to the car, indeed her friend was there. While I don’t remember much about what she looked like, I remember she tasted of coconut liquor that the mint she chewed couldn’t mask.

Now I am thinking I should get her number, but I can’t even remember her name so I could ask Damola. Little did I know that a girl’s phone number would soon be the least of my worries.

ID says he is ready to go back to Ibadan, but the rest of us want to stay in Lagos a bit, what’s there to rush back to in Ibadan, Damola says the girl I was with has friends in this building so she often hangs here, so I agree with Efe and Moh to linger a little longer, besides we need to get some food.

What I had for breakfast that morning was a knuckle sandwich from Officer Blacky, Blacky because I could not make out his name tag because the punch he greeted me with as I opened the door to Damola’s room caused my right eye to shut and the subsequent slaps left the other eye blurry for a few days.

There were lots of shouts, male and female voices, some shrill, some gruff.

“All of you lie down! If you move I will pieces your leg with bullets”

“Na dem go be this!”

“Oga wetin we do?!”

They round us all up into the pack of a pickup truck, all of us in Damola’s room and others. We are squished together. I feel something wet and sticky on the side of my arm, my right eye is completely shut now. When we get to the station, everyone gets a slap or kick as we get out of the truck.

“Which of you bastards piss for here?”

“Na una go wash this thing, yeye children, dem go send una go school na armed robbery una go dey do to fit buy fine car. Me wey don work for 15 years I buy Toyota Muscle?”

We are all booked for armed robbery, they take away our wallets, and ask everyone to take off their pants. Efe has sweatpants with no underwear on, they don’t care, he has to take the sweatpants off.

I am awake for the next two days, between the mosquitos, smell of sweat mixed with urine and heat I can hardly doze for more than an hour. ID consoled us that at least we weren’t getting beaten by other cellmates since we were the only ones in our cell.

On the fourth day they bring us all out, finally, Efe’s calls to his Uncle has yielded fruits. They ask us all to sit in a row in front of the police station and then they start to place charms and weapons in front of us. The gun in front of me looks like I would need to get tetanus dared touch it.

About 25 minutes later the Crime Fighters bus drives in and the cameras get shoved in our faces.

“How many operations have you done?”

“How many people have you killed?”

“Who is the ring leader of the gang”?

The DPO speaks to the reporters with us in the background, he explains how his men got the tip that our gang operated out of Damola’s hostel and we had a party to celebrate our latest ‘largesse’ (his word, not mine). According to him, our latest victim was beaten nearly to death after we jumped the fence from our hostel into his on the night we were apprehended. When they are done recording and taking pictures we are marched back into the cell.

A week after we got rounded up, Efe’s Uncle shows up with a lawyer. We eat soup for the first time in seven days. The lawyer asks the police for the evidence they arrested us on, they say the victim recognised us, so he asked if the victim went with them for the arrest, they retort that that isn’t protocol, besides the victim was still recuperating at the hospital, but he is better now and they can get him to point us out in a lineup if Efe’s Uncle would give them fuel money to go bring him to the station. Efe’s Uncle pays them fifteen thousand Naira, we sit and wait.

Almost two hours pass before they return with a short light-skinned boy, Tobi. Couldn’t be much older than me, thick-lensed glasses and a baby afro, he looked like someone I would have enjoyed talking Harry Potter with if we met under different circumstances.

The lawyer asks Tobi if he would recognise the people who robbed him, he says yes, that he has seen some of them around the mechanic shop on Emily Akinola so he knows them. They line us all up and ask him to point us out when he sees his assailants. He squints and moves closer, scanning our faces one by one. After what feels like the longest thirty seconds of my life, he says:

“They are not the ones, I don’t know these people. My neighbour said he still saw those guys in the area even yesterday, that’s why I haven’t gone back to my hostel”.

Now everyone’s tone changes. The lawyer from demure to demanding and the police from cocky to contrite. The police insist that there is payment for our upkeep, the cost is negotiated down to ten thousand Naira per person and we are free to go.

The news of our arrest had reached the school, so despite our exoneration, we were indefinitely suspended, while technically we were still students of the school, our panel sitting kept getting adjourned. After a year of waiting for a decision, a family friend suggested I go start somewhere else, I chose Ghana.

“You want to know what’s wild?”

Tobi, the guy who got robbed? He is the co-founder at the startup I work at now, we gist about Harry Potter and football, he has Hufflepuff energy so you know he is a Chelsea fan. Ha!

My date looks up from her phone.

“Wait, Why did they arrest you guys?”