Dr Freaks Journal - The Little-Minded One Who Was Stealing From "Himself" -

Unknown to many, I was once a "cement boy".

 I sold cement for over one year of my life.

 I did my mandatory NYSC programme in Shell, Port Harcourt, thanks to my brother who made it possible. Long before I completed my NYSC, I had perished the thought of getting retained by that Anglo-Dutch company after my encounter with one of my bosses  who had advised me to go back to school and study Law and forget about haggling over a non-existent space thereat.


I completed my NYSC programme around May 1998 and I think sometime in July 1998, my brother got me a job with one of his friends who had just resigned from Shell and was starting a medium scale cement business. I was recruited as a sales executive and on a very serious note, I must state that my then boss was an angel in human skin.

 I had access to three (3) of her cars 24/7 and my lunch was guaranteed from Monday to Friday. She made it a point of duty to prepare at least a meal per day for me. Guess what, she is not Yoruba. She is Isoko from Delta State. So why won't I be detribalised today? I had access to her house and facilities 24/7 as well and she never made me feel any less human for a second!

 May the good Lord bless her tribe.


The salary was a paltry sum of N5,000 and I think it was later increased to N7,000. I gladly sold my cement until I went back to school in January 2000 to study Law. 

The meat of my piece is the story of her Brother -Mr X. 

Mr X was a teacher in Delta State. Great guy! He was well lettered, but he was the black sheep of the family. They had done all that was humanly possible under the sun to alleviate his poverty but he was bent on frustrating every string of their efforts. 

He had impregnated more than one woman in the village and his appetite for alcohol had outweighed his lean resources over the years, so his account was forever in deficit. Grudgingly, Aunty Y, my boss bowed to pressure and elected to bring Mr X to come and join the "family" business in Port Harcourt.

 Before bringing Mr X in, Aunty Y did the most honourable thing by sitting me down and preparing my mind ahead. Not as if she owed me any explanation though, but by that singular move, she further earned my respect and endeared herself to me.

 Mr X joined us shortly after. His designation was not defined. He was just Mr X. He was was actually reporting to me, even though he is older than my boss. Initially, Mr X saw me as a threat because I was an outsider and I was by far younger than he was. He must have been in his early 40s at the time while I was in my mid 20s. He was a chained smoker and a "drinker" of any liquid with over 40% alcoholic content. He never took lager beer. He preferred "local gin" or any other "heavy drink" (in his voice).

 I drank beer and I smoked Benson and Hedges, AT THE MATERIAL TIME. We had the smoking habit in common, but I never went near "heavy drinks" and the "senior cigar". I never graduated to that level. We bonded under a few days. 

The sister never gave him any of her cars but he could not be bothered because I always had cars and we were always together. He kept late nights. I never did. He drank "heavy drinks". I never did. He smoked "senior cigarette". I never did. He womanised. I never did. All we had in common was that bad habit. However, despite the areas of divergence, we still bonded because we marketed and travelled together. 

On few occasions, I indulged him by driving him to his numerous girlfriends' homes. The women were not only old and looking haggard, they looked so broke and I was not ready to even get involved with Mr X or those old hags.


Mr X had his own customers in Elele, Isiokpo, Eneka etc, and those far places. I never went beyond Port Harcourt metropolis and Onne was my farthest. Three months into Mr X's stay, he had made even more customers than me who had been in the business like six (6) months earlier. Great marketer he was! It was time to reconcile accounts and Aunty Y called for all the deposit slips.

 She received all and approached her banks -None of the deposit slips lodged by Mr X tallied with the figures recorded by the banks in their legders. For every N60,000 that was received by Mr X, N54,000 of it went to his personal account.

 All he did was to simply alter the N6,000 to read N60,000. Aunty Y brought in her auditors and they were able to track above N300,000 fraud in less than three (3) months. He bought me fish peppersoup on few occasions sha. He also paid for my beer on few occasions. But I reciprocated too now!


After the revelation, Aunty Y simply gave him transport fare back to Delta State and she simply moved on. He could not even say goodbye to me, his "Omo Yoruba" friend. Did they make up? Was she able to recover the stolen funds? Not to my knowledge. Was I linked to the fraud? Never! Aunty Y had even vouched for me before the auditors before the report came out.


Guess what, on a daily basis, most of us actually steal from ourselves like my big Egbon "Mr X". Sad.

Stay safe,
Its Kunle