WHY DO WE GET MARRIED? Part 2 – DO YOU HAVE TO BE MARRIED TO FEEL COMPLETE?

Read Part 1 HERE

I attended a Catholic Primary School for the last two years of my primary education and back then, I was so taken by the style and methods of the Catholic faith that I wished I could become Catholic. However, at nine years old, I had little or no say in the matter. My parents, especially my mum would never have taken it lightly. I was particularly intrigued with the idea of Catholic priests and nuns taking up the vow of chastity and celibacy, and becoming married to the Lord and as such, not ever getting married to any man (or woman) all the days of their lives. The idea felt good to me back then and sometimes, I still wonder how it would all have turned out had I pursued that notion. One thing I have however come to realize is, it takes a great deal of courage to take up that vow of dedication especially in today’s world where marriage virtually defines the existence of most. That brings me to the question of the day: Do you have to be married to feel complete?


Some of my readers who made inspiring and ingenious comments in the last post have actually done justice to this question in their own ways but I feel obliged to throw in my own submission regarding the subject. For starters, let us define the term ‘complete’. I would simply define the term by the use of its synonyms. Words synonymous with it include: whole; total; perfect; absolute; entire etc. All in all, it connotes a state of fulfillment where nothing more is needed. It’s like the end of a journey of some sort. Now, let’s come back to the matter at hand. Do people actually feel complete when they get married? Yes, they do! At least, most people do. Otherwise, why all the fuss about the idea of marriage? Of course, the achievement of this milestone creates a sense of euphoria and fulfillment in the hearts of the newly-weds. It’s one big hurdle for most and once they cross it, a feeling of completeness just takes you over.


However, I have also come to observe that this feeling of completeness has a semblance to a placebo effect. It’s actually a fleeting feeling and not as real as it seems. For most, the end of the honeymoon period terminates that feeling and you feel like a veil has suddenly been lifted off your face. Reality dawns and you’re like ‘Oh, so what was the big deal anyway?’ Another comparable feeling is what happens when you’ve been on drugs or stimulants and you feel so high before finally making it to bed. Then, you wake up with a dreadful hangover, only in this case, the hangover might not necessarily be dreadful but the fact remains that the ‘high’ just isn’t there anymore. Truth is, for most, it’s just a fleeting feeling that wears off soon enough. For some, it takes weeks or a couple of months for the feeling to wear off; for some it takes a year or two; for some it takes a little longer and yet for some; the honeymoon actually lasts forever! Yes, it’s actually possible to sustain that feeling of completeness for as long as you want. That’s a story for another day.


I’d also like to look at ‘completeness’ from the angle most people desperate to get married look at it. I believe the power you give to someone or something is the power it has over you. If you idolize the idea of marriage and give it so much prominence in your subconscious mind, trust me, you would definitely need it to feel complete and as long as you’re single, you would always feel that terrible void within and until you finally achieve that dream, the void would persist and the longer it takes, the more embittered you become. It is for this reason that most people make terrible mistakes in marriage. They just need to get rid of that feeling of incompleteness and so they jump on the next available bus called marriage and sooner than later, the high wears off leaving them worse off than before.

Source

I believe in the sanctity and importance of marriage but I strongly believe you don’t need to be married to be complete. As an eligible bachelor or spinster, you should hope to get married someday but you don’t need to spend the whole of your days of eligibility day-dreaming, waiting for that day and giving so much power to the idea that marriage would finally make you complete. Once you do this, you become subject to the power of that idea and it begins to control you and determine how you feel and how you see yourself. I believe you are complete as a man or a woman regardless of whether you are married or not; regardless of whether you are well into your thirties or pushing forty and all your colleagues and friends are married while you’re still single. Marriage does not make you complete. It only adds to you.


Let me compare it with this scenario: if I am worth 16 billion dollars, I am a billionaire, right? Then, my business has some nice times and I get richer by 3 billion dollars and my worth becomes 19 billion dollars. Does that make me better? Of course it does but does that actually do anything to change my billionaire status? No! At 16 billion dollars, I was a billionaire and at 19 billion, I still remain a billionaire. That’s what marriage is and that’s how we should begin to see it. It is an important thing to do but it is not a necessary thing. Without it, you are just as good as you are and you shouldn’t feel less of a person. An awful truth is religious houses have further fueled this concept of ‘Marriage makes you complete’ with some of its teachings. FYI, our Lord Jesus Christ wasn’t even married yet he was and is still the most complete and perfect being that ever walked the face of the earth!


“And the Lord said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him.” Genesis 1:18


This Bible verse has been so terribly misconstrued as one of the Biblical basis for marriage. Yes, I agree it is a strong supporting scripture for the concept but we should take time to examine what really happened here. Who actually decided to get Adam a wife? Definitely, it wasn’t him. God was the one speaking in that verse. Adam was busy fulfilling his purpose and tending the garden that the Lord had placed him in. He was definitely not feeling incomplete whatsoever. He was perfect the way he was. Then God looked at him and said: “Well, Adam is just fine the way he is, but a partner wouldn’t hurt” and that was why he brought in the woman to serve as his companion and his help meet. God was simply rewarding ‘the man’ he had placed in the garden and who was fulfilling his purpose with a partner to help him so they could chart a higher course together. They were to fulfill their destinies together side by side. It’s like a case of two perfect and complete beings coming together to birth a more fabulous destiny and that’s the way I see the idea of marriage. You are perfect the way you are and marriage is only an opportunity to make you better (which is an awesome idea). However, you could choose to remain perfect the way you are.


One more comparison would be a football league scenario where one team wins by 1-0 and another team wins by 7-0. Both winning teams would still have 3 points each! It’s just the goals difference that would be the difference and in my opinion, marriage is like the goals difference here. It is important but it is not a necessity! Marriage must be deserved! It must be earned. Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, it’s not your age or achievements that qualify you to get married; it is what you are doing you’re your life in the present as compared with the purpose the Almighty God originally designed for you. Adam earned the right to have a woman as determined by his Creator who then decided for him. If you’re not on a path to fulfilling your purpose in life, you don’t deserve to get married! Also, the fact that you are fulfilling your purpose doesn’t also necessarily mean that your reward from the Almighty God would come in the form of marriage. It could come in various other forms. It’s hi-time we tuned our minds right especially in this part of the world and stop seeing marriage as the ultimate means to our fulfillment.


Let’s continue this in the next post where I shall examine the question: “Must you have children to have a fulfilled marriage?”


PS - I have been having running challenges with Spam Comments on this blog for some time now and it's been a major headache so I had to deactivate the 'Comments' section while I work at resolving the issue. However, please feel free to email me on: gbengasile@gmail.com and I'll definitely revert.

Read More

THE GOD CALLED 'SHIT'

Yesterday I had an experience I wouldn’t like to have ever again. I woke up around 3 am with a terrible tummy ache. A forced belch jumped out of my mouth and the resulting stench made me feel as though I had eaten seven rotten eggs. Alas, I was experiencing a terrible constipation. I felt a clearly audible rumble in my tummy and rushed to the adjoining bathroom. I jumped on the toilet and my buttocks had scarcely touched the cold ceramic bowl when I emptied my bowels of whatever was making me so uncomfortable. I remained there for about ten minutes feeling more relieved by the minute. Then I washed up and returned to bed. By 7am, I had repeated the trip three times already and I knew it wasn’t going to be a funny day!

Source

My skinny body frame had always been a source of concern for me for sometime now. Of course, I’ve always been slim but my assumption had been that as I grew older, I would put on some weight and alas, most of my colleagues back in college and university who had similar body sizes as mine have since added up considerably. However, I have somehow maintained my boyish skinny frame. I’ll be 30 in a month and I barely weigh 70kg. Worse still, I maintain the worst kind of diet I know. Food just doesn’t appeal to me. I could go a whole day without eating anything solid and I wouldn’t feel a thing. In fact, my wife has turned my case to a prayer point.

Recently, I decided to fix this issue permanently and so I did some serious research on a number of nutrition sites online and got some prescriptions. I began a 30-day plan and yesterday was Day 4. One of the medications was to boost my appetite for food and I think things went a little too far yesterday and I exceeded my body’s food intake limits, hence the constipation.

I kept running back and forth from the toilet and in spite of my eating a semblance of the popular ‘Agege bread’ and taking extra doses of Flagyl to stop the incessant stooling, I continued to visit the loo. In fact, I almost shit in my pants as I drove back home from work later that evening. It was a very narrow escape and if I had been five seconds later than the time I hit the toilet bowl, I would have done the unthinkable. The experience reminded me of some previous episodes I had many years back – experiences that made me agree without any doubt that shit is no respecter of persons and could pass for a god in its own right. It could animate you, constrain you, influence you and do whatever to make you do its very own bidding regardless of your age, gender, social status or even political affiliation for that matter.  Let me relive these crazy episodes:

 

2005

I was about twenty years old at the time and in my second year in University. On that fateful day, I had experienced some tummy trouble in the morning and taken good time in the bathroom to pass out all that needed to be passed out earlier in my room before proceeding for lectures. I was a few minutes away from the lecture hall when I felt a severe pang hit me again. It felt like I was going to give birth to a baby in that instant.

“Oh God, help me!” I muttered to myself as I stood still for fear of taking another step lest I mess myself up right on campus with hundreds of people watching.

Source

My legs suddenly felt extra heavy as I calculated how long it would take me to climb up the stairs to the nearest toilet facility which was about two floors away. The thought of the state of that toilet repulsed me. Truth was, I had never used the toilet on that floor before. The only time I ever ventured in, the state of the place had been so terrible that I turned back and endured till I got back to my room off campus. However, this time, enduring was totally out of the question. I was more than ready to sit on maggots if need be just to save myself from the impending embarrassment.

On my wooden legs, I took slow steps and gradually made it through the first floor. By now, I was sweating so profusely that anyone would imagine I was wearing an explosive jacket underneath my clothes. I looked ahead and I estimated that I had about fifty footsteps to make it to the toilet. However, fifty steps felt like a million steps at that moment. Suddenly, someone called out my name. I shook and quickly caught myself. I surpressed a fart that seemed determined to force its way out of me. Allowing a fart at that point was a huge risk I couldn’t dare take.

Okey, a course mate bounded up the stairs behind me.

“How far, Geebee. You sef just dey show?” he asked excitedly, hitting my behind casually with his back pack. I could have died right then. In an instant, all hell was let loose and the fart erupted carrying with it a good dose of excrement. The hot feel of fresh poop on my bare behind was convincing enough. Ironically, I felt lighter and better too. I winced.
“Guy, you don make me shit for body.” I managed to say, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow me right then.

My coursemate looked at me as though I had told him I was carrying a bomb. He backed away slowly as his eyes wandered to my ass.

“Oboy! You dey serious o!” he mouthed, trying hard not to burst out into a bout of laughter. The look of amusement on his face was so annoying and if only I could at that moment, I would choke him. It was his fault as it were. Why did he have to hit me with his pack?

I nodded shamefully as I passed my books to him. “Abeg escort me reach toilet” I quickly said as I tried to walk as fast as I could. I could feel the thick slob threatening to force its way through my boxers on to my pants. The smell was beginning to spread through the air and I spotted some girls approaching. I began to walk faster hardly noticing the eyes that had begun to trail us as we made it to the second floor and headed towards the toilet. Okey had to call my deputy class governor, Chi, a cute lady I had been eyeing for sometime to help me get water to wash up because the water system in the toilet had stopped.

When she brought me the water, I was standing in my messed up boxers but I didn’t bloody care. The surpressed grin on her face and her attempt to shield her nose from the smell didn’t even bother me.

“Look! Shit is no respecter of persons o!” I told her as I gratefully collected the bucket of water. “I can imagine!” she said, still trying hard not to laugh. “Sorry about this.”

“It’s okay to laugh. I won’t be angry.” I said on a final note as I shut the door.

I would bet she almost laughed herself to death that day! After that day, I could never muster up the courage to even talk to her about how I fancied her. The shit episode had officially ruined any such possibilities.

I had to wait in that disgusting place for another thirty minutes as Okey rushed to the hostel to help me get a change of clothes. When I emerged from the toilet at last, a lot of eyes were on me. I simply smiled. What else could I have done? Till date, I believe that day was the most embarrassing day of my life.

I had a similar experience about two years later but for time’s sake, I’ll talk about that in the next post. All in all, these experiences and those of a few other people I know have proved to me time and again that when shit hooks you, you have no choice but to surrender yourself to its whims and caprices. It practically becomes a god to you at that moment. It’s no wonder that Otunba Gaddafi of the renowned DMT Mobile toilets has his tagline as: ‘Shit business is serious business’. Trust me, that dude knows what he’s talking about.

Read More

IF I WERE A B . . .

I remember the first time I heard Beyonce's 'If I were a boy'. That song seemed to make a lot of sense initially but then, in the same manner the most interesting routines tend to get boring over time, the song soon began to irritate the hell out of me. I began to feel like 'If you were a boy and you would do this or that, who cares?' Would it bring down the price of garri? Besides, such wishes or dreams were best left unexpressed. If Beyonce really wanted to be a boy, it wasn't impossible. We have transgenderists all over the place so why sing about it and keep it as a wish. 

Source

She's got the money to make that happen anyway so why not get on with it and spare me all that crap. Anyways, that was just my anger talking . . . my anger at JayZ for being the one to sweep a princess like Beyonce off her feet when there were finer looking guys like me out there. Yes! I reiterate. I am way, way, way finer than JayZ! (Like, the guy is even fine at all!) But then, like Beyonce's wish wouldn't likely ever happen, that wish of mine (if it ever was one) was definitely a wild dream. 

Well, I heard some news sometime last week that I'm still yet to recover from. Now, y'all know normally I don't do gossip and all of that (If I ever tried that, it would take me several lifetimes to get to where the likes of Bella and Linda are) but I just had to talk about this because it affected me personally. In fact I haven't been the same ever since. On a positive note however, the experience taught me one or two things about life and the fact that no one is invincible. I wouldn't necessarily call myself 'overly religious' (Like, the word even exists) but I am someone who believes in and loves God with all of my being. In my little time on earth, God has shown me what it truly feels like to have a father. He's been a father in more ways than I can imagine. Well, that's a story for another day. However, if you've followed 'The Geebee Chronicles' series, you'd be able to have a little understanding of what I mean. Now back to my personality. I have always craved the knowledge of God in more ways than I can remember, right from the days of my childhood when I did so blindly and in my naiveté even till the days when I went so far away from him and indulged myself in the most unimaginable vices possible. Yet, deep inside me, I constantly felt that longing for him and that call of a father to a runaway son. Thankfully, I found my way back and keep finding that path that shines day by day.

In my quest for God, I have had cause to study the Bible, volumes of Christian literature, religious books and listened to teachers of the word of God. In fact, I have a few preachers I label as my special ones - both here in Nigeria and internationally. These men and women have helped in a great deal to shape my understanding of deep spiritual things and while I wouldn't claim any of them to be perfect, I make bold to label them as my mentors of some sort. Pastor B happens to be one of my top ten in that regard. I have sat under his ministration a number of times and even in absentia, I could spend thousands of naira buying his tapes and CDs and I never ever feel the same after listening to him even when I have to listen over and over again. He is one of the men of God I respect, and trust me, there ain’t too many of them. Now, imagine my shock when I read Ese Walter’s story and the follow-up stories and buzzes all over the social networks. All I could think to myself was ‘Why Pastor B?’ ‘It shouldn’t be him’. ‘Wow! This is sad!’ ‘No, it can’t be true’ etc. I guess I felt and still feel this way because of the sentimental attachment I have towards him. Now, I’m trying to put myself in his shoes and imagine what I would do if I were in ‘the eye of the storm’ as it’s been touted around hence the title, ‘If I were a B . . .’

The first scenario of course would be if the stories being peddled around were not true. If I were a B . . . I would:

-     Cry my eyes out for hours days asking God ‘Why me?’, and like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, plead with God to let this cup pass over me. Haba! If this was supposed to be a trial of faith, mehn, that’s pretty tough, don’t you think?

-      Come out openly to deny the story and not ‘decide to keep silent’, well, except if God actually tells me to. After all, God told the children of Israel to ‘stand still and see his salvation’.

-       Comfort my wife and stay strong for her. Y’all know women are so chicken-hearted in situations like this and they tend to feel the shock more than men. Even Sarah, Abraham’s wife got to a point where she was ready to give up and take the easy way out through Hagar, her slave. Come on! Don’t stare like that. Go and read your bibles joor! lol

-   Keep praying to God for my accusers (now, that’s a difficult one) that God should touch their hearts and make them repent of the evil they were doing. Remember, on the cross, our Lord, Jesus Christ asked God to forgive those who crucified him for they know not what they do. Although, in the deepest recesses of my heart, I would want to be like Elijah and call down fire from heaven to consume those false accusers.

These are a few of the things I would do if I were a B . . . and the stories aren’t true! But then, like Beyonce noted, I am not a B . . .

Now, on to the second scenario. If the stories are actually true . . . deep sigh! I wouldn’t even want to be a B . . . in the first place in that case! If I were a B . . . then I would:

-  Act like David did after he had Uriah killed, and took his wife and was rebuked by       God’s prophet. I would cry out to God for days the rest of my life if I have to, for his mercy. I would spread before him in sackcloth and ashes and fast and pray for as long as my spirit can bear for him to have mercy on me and restore me to right standing with him.

-  Make an open confession and ask for the forgiveness of my wife and for her prayers and support too. In fact, it would be at a time like this that her support would mean the world to me.

-  Ask for the forgiveness of my false accusers (oh, they wouldn’t be false in this scenario,    would they?) and make any appropriate restitution.

-  Ask for the forgiveness of my followers and like the prodigal son, tell them I am no longer worthy to be their Shepherd and they should also pray for me that God would have mercy on me.

-   Hand over my church to capable hands and proceed on a soul-searching journey of at least one year, preferably outside my immediate location to go and get myself back on track with God and await his directives on what next to do.

These and much more are some of the things I would do if I were a B . . . but then, I am not a B . . .

As the wise ones say, it is he that wears the shoes that knows where it hurts the most. Like Beyonce’s song, all I have noted above are just gibberish. I have to be in the shoes to know what I would actually do. However, I need to stress the fact that we should understand that no man regardless of how powerful and anointed is a superman. We are mere men (and women) and are susceptible to vices of all sorts. It is only the grace of God that keeps us from falling. Let he that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he falls. 1 Cor. 10:12

How was that for a comeback post? It feels good to be back in these parts again. I hope to stay around for a while. I promise to drop the concluding parts of ‘TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH’ in subsequent posts. Thanks for keeping faith with a runaway blogger like me. Cheers!

Read More

EPISODE 48 – IDENTITY ISSUES

One Bible story that has never ceased to amaze me is the story of Abraham. It was my favourite story as a child and the song ‘Father Abraham has many sons . . .” was one of the earliest songs I learnt. The story of this Biblical father of faith is very extensive but I’d like to focus on part where he was first introduced. God simply called him and asked him to depart from his father’s house and from his kindred. Now, this was a guy who was more or less a prince in his own right. Everything appeared to be going on right for him but he was
instructed to move. The story gets much more twisted as God did not even specify where he was to go. He was told to go to “. . . a land where I will show you”.

Source

I would like to relate Abraham’s case here to the starting up of a new business venture and not knowing where the road leads. You don’t know what to expect but you keep moving anyway. The frightening bit about this situation is the strong possibility of getting hit by unexpected events at anytime. I can hardly imagine what could be worse. It is almost like a case of a blind man walking alone on an express road and hearing the sounds of speeding cars as they race past. He knows he could get knocked down at any minute. However, in Abraham’s situation, there was a clear difference because he was sure that God who had instructed him to move had his back. Now, what do make of a situation where you decided to move on your own without any such divine instruction?

I was chatting recently with someone I have come to admire and respect very much and we got talking about the ways of God. This discussion was prompted when I reminisced on the days while I had my brief stint in the ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ business and said God probably allowed me to prosper in it for some reasons. She however objected saying God could never have been responsible for my success in the venture because He never supports anything bad. I proposed that God sometimes allows some things even though he doesn’t necessarily cause them, stressing on the ‘permissive’ and ‘causative’ will of God in my opinion. I assume the permissive will of God comes to play when He allows some things happen without directly influencing the occurrence. For instance, I strongly believe it was the permissive will of God that was in action when Job, faithful as he was experienced hell and went from grace to grass. The Lord simply allowed Satan to hurt him even. A situation where bad things happen to ‘good’ people or good things happen to ‘bad’ people in our world today could also be a function of the permissive will of God. On the other hand, I believe the causative will of God is manifested when He directly causes something to happen. Such instances would include God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah or his judgment on the house of David and Israel for the dual sins of his adultery with Bathsheba and later for numbering Israel or I daresay, for the bad things that happen to evil people in our world today (Look who’s talking. Lol) and the good things that happen to good people. I still remain resolute on my opinion until someone convinces me otherwise. The fact remains however that God is unquestionable and He does anything as He sees fit. There is no searching of His understanding and an attempt at such would be like, in Solomon’s words, chasing after the wind.

Within a week of my venturing into the ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ business, I had made three steady contacts whop had already made some financial commitment to prove how serious they were about me. Miles Peck sent me three hundred dollars the following Monday via Western Union. I was almost certain I had to be dreaming. In April 2007, three hundred dollars was equivalent to about thirty six thousand naira at an exchange rate of about N120 to a dollar. That was like the total money I made in three months after a lot of hard work working as an Office Assistant at an Art Gallery, taking private lessons for two kids and writing short stories for a magazine! Now, I was making that at a go! It had to be a miracle. Dean Flank and Luke Pine promised to send me some money during the week so I could apply for my passport (I told them I had none).

I was at my bank the following Tuesday morning. I previously stopped by at a Computer center to get a wait-and-get ID designed with my alias. I had chatted again with Miles the day before.

“AY I have sent the money. You see how serious I am about you?”

“Oh, Miles. You really didn’t have to.” I replied. “I really don’t need your money. Let’s build our friendship first.”

He sent a ‘sad smiley’ on the screen. “I know AY but I want you to trust me, okay.”

I chuckled to myself as I registered the irony. This old man was trying to win my trust whereas I was the bad guy here.

“Okay I do but please let’s not rush things, okay?” I assured him.

He sent a ‘smiling smiley’ this time. “You just go get your money okay.”

“Alright Miles. Thanks again. I appreciate.”

“You didn’t ask for the secret question. You’ll need that to claim the money.”

Truly, I hadn’t known that. I had never collected money via International money transfer before so I had no idea.

“Oh really? Sorry I didn’t know that” I replied, consoling myself that I was making a honest statement at least.

He spelled out the details and further educated me on what it would take to retrieve money on a Western Union platform. I was thrilled and again I wished I was really the model in the picture. I felt sad at the inevitability of the fact that I would have to break his heart someday.

“You have an ID, right?”

I had none. The only IDs I had were my working ID at the Art Gallery and it bore my real name. I shrugged as I realized it wouldn’t be a problem. All I had to do was make one and there were a million and one computer centers that could create one for me in minutes.

“Yes I do.” I replied.

“Good. Now, please send me another sexy picture of you.”

“Okay Miles. I’ll do that right away.”

“So you’ll get the webcam once you get the money, right?”

I shivered again. In one of our earlier chats, Miles had requested to see me on webcam. He had even turned on his own webcam to reveal a video of a fat, hairy Caucasian man waving and smiling on the screen. I had to think fast. Webcam? The system I was using had a webcam but I would never dare turn on the device and show my ‘maga’ a black guy instead of a sexy black goddess!

“I don’t have one on this computer.” I had told him.

He had not brought up the subject again until that Monday night.

“Okay I will.” I simply said this time, deciding we’ll cross the bridge when we got there.    

At the bank, I went straight to the Western Union section and the banker attending to me asked me to fill out a form which I did. I smiled when I saw the part where I was to fill the question and answer and I gladly did. I passed the form back to the banker and he perused it for a few seconds.

“Can I see your ID please?”

I smiled and reached into my wallet. The ID was still fresh and I hoped the man would not smell a rat. For a second, I wished I had scratched it up a little just to throw off any suspicions. I summoned courage and passed the plastic ID card to him. He collected it and smiled. Then he shook his head. My heart skipped a bit.

“Sorry, you can’t use this, sir,” he said, still caressing my card.

“Why?” I asked dumbfounded. “That’s where I work.”

I had produced a replica of my work ID but simply changed my name. Truth was, I cashed my salary cheques with my work ID and used it as a form of identification all the time so I wondered why the ID bearing my alias could not fly.

The banker gently slided the card to me

“For Western Union, you require any of these three; your drivers’ license, your international passport or your national identity card.”

I had none of the three required IDs. I retrieved the card and sighed.

“What do I do now, sir?” I asked the banker stupidly. My three hundred dollars was disappearing right before my eyes before I even had the chance to touch it.

He still had the smile on his face. Was he mocking at me or what? I wondered angrily. Did he know my secret?

 “You just go and apply for any of the IDs. Your money would still be available for sixty days. Better still, you can contact the sender to retrieve the money and resend to another person with the required ID and the person can come and pick the money. However that would require extra charges for the sender though.”

I thought about the suggestion. Applying for an International passport would cost me about twelve thousand naira. I assumed that was about hundred dollars. Lol. A drivers’ license would cost me about six thousand (about fifty dollars). I had no such money. Besides it would take at least a week for either of the IDs to be ready. I thought about the second option. If I dared tell Miles Peck about the situation, would he not suspect foul play and immediately severe all ties with me? I couldn’t take that risk. Besides, I still had sixty days. I remembered my other two 'magas', Luke and Dean. They had also promised to send me money that week. I realized it would be a disaster if they sent the money to my alias again for which I had no ID. My heartbeat accelerated as I left the bank. I headed for the café immediately. I had some money to rescue. 

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES

Read More