It's the kind of thing you watch in the movies(Nigerian movies
obviously) or hear on the news but you never for once imagine it will
happen to you. And for a long time I have sort of repressed the memory
of the events of that day because even as I write, I still somewhat find
it hard to believe. In fact up until now, I've only ever told this
story to two people.
During one of my brief layovers in Lagos before returning back to school after the summer break, I was asked to run an errand to the University Of Lagos.
Mind you this was my first time out on my own in Lagos and the only directions I knew was from Gbagada to UNILAG and back.
So on this fateful day I boarded a taxi at the junction with another passenger in the back seat. We drove a short distance and the taxi driver stopped by the road side to pick up a woman standing with a brown carton which was placed in the trunk of the car.
Soon after the woman( who was sitting in the front seat) started quarreling with the driver about the cab fare. Apparently she wanted to pay a lower amount. The driver who obviously didn't want any trouble stopped the car and told the woman to come down if she wasn't going to pay the standard fare.
The driver then stepped out of the taxi to open the boot for the woman so she could retrieve her carton.
Next thing I know the driver comes back inside the car with the woman in tow and we entered the road again. I exchanged puzzled looks with the other passenger beside me.
The driver then turns to the woman in the front seat and asks "Madam wetn u dey carry for carton?(what are you carrying in the carton?). If police catch us now, wetn you go talk?"
The woman, who is now very much subdued starts pleading with the driver, "Oga abeg help me...."
Ok I think I should explain a few things here cos I can tell you are already wondering. The woman had run away from her "Alhaji's house" who she claimed used her for prostitution and also forced her to sleep with dogs for money. According to her, there were other girls in the house like her.
And before she ran she stole a big carton of money which contained dollars from them. So it was this carton of money she was carrying when we picked her up.
Before I could say Jack Robinson, the driver and the male passenger beside me started negotiating with the woman how to split the money between all of us "for her own safety". The woman now explained to them that there was a charm which was put on the money by the Alhaji and so needs a pastor or spiritualist to break it before anyone can touch the money.
They started discussing between themselves where they will go to to break the charm. The driver then turn around to ask me which church I attend and if my pastor is strong enough to break the charm, and if I was interested in splitting the money with them. To be honest, I was just there mute and oh so very confused. The funny thing was that all of them confessed to be Christians.
At this point so many thoughts were running through my mind like, "This has to be a joke right? Is this a setup? Where are the cameras? Oh God, so this is how I will be kidnapped and nobody will know where I am" Believe you me, I imagined every imaginable thing that day.
I didn't want to make any wrong move lest any harm come to me. Part of me was like "are you seriously considering taking part in this"?, and the other part of me was just very curious to see how it will end.
The other passenger beside me apparently knew a spiritualist who could break the charm so he gave the driver directions to her place.
Like play like play they passed my bustop and we drove a very far distance, over an hour's journey to an area of Lagos that till this day I am not familiar with.
When we got to the street where the spiritualist lived, the car broke down. They started speculating that this was a "sign". So someone now suggested that when we get there, we should tell the spiritualist that we live together in the same compound and that in the morning we found a charm in the middle of the compound that we wanted her to break.
When we got to the house, a middle aged woman came out to greet us. The person we came to see was dead(her mother) and she was the new person in charge. She now asked us why we came and the driver started narrating the fictional story. Before he even finished talking, she got very upset and told us to get out of her premises that we were lying.
They started panicking and apologizing (I say "they" because in all this, I was very calm/mute, alarmingly so). After telling her the real story, she told us that she knows that our taxi broke down and that the lady should go and bring the money from the car where she kept it while we waited.
It was like an out of body experience for me. Like I was on the set of a badly scripted Nigerian movie.
The spiritualist started chanting and saying incantations and ringing her bell. She was of course dressed in white(she didn't disappoint there). She started asking each of us personal questions like names and stuff like that. When she got to me, I know I lied. Just to test her and see. She didn't realize a thing.
After all the theatrics, she concluded that in order to break the charm, each of us needed to bring all the money in our bank account to conduct a ritual, which was supposedly chicken fee compared to the thousands of dollars that we will each receive once the charm was broken.
But the highlight of this story is what I'm about to say next. She made us all agree, abi swear, that if any of us told anybody about what happened that day, that person will run mad or something bad like that. She also told us not to look back as were going no matter what. So we left the woman and the spiritualist with the carton of money and went on our way.
At this point, I just wanted to get out of there because a lot of time had elapsed and I was sure they were waiting for me at home with lots of questions.
As God will have it, I made it home safely. No I didn't go back to that place. And I always wonder how it ended for all of them. I'm sure if I met any of them on the street I won't recognize them.
Looking back I see it is God who protected me from my young and foolish self.
This is my testimony.
During one of my brief layovers in Lagos before returning back to school after the summer break, I was asked to run an errand to the University Of Lagos.
Mind you this was my first time out on my own in Lagos and the only directions I knew was from Gbagada to UNILAG and back.
So on this fateful day I boarded a taxi at the junction with another passenger in the back seat. We drove a short distance and the taxi driver stopped by the road side to pick up a woman standing with a brown carton which was placed in the trunk of the car.
Soon after the woman( who was sitting in the front seat) started quarreling with the driver about the cab fare. Apparently she wanted to pay a lower amount. The driver who obviously didn't want any trouble stopped the car and told the woman to come down if she wasn't going to pay the standard fare.
The driver then stepped out of the taxi to open the boot for the woman so she could retrieve her carton.
Next thing I know the driver comes back inside the car with the woman in tow and we entered the road again. I exchanged puzzled looks with the other passenger beside me.
The driver then turns to the woman in the front seat and asks "Madam wetn u dey carry for carton?(what are you carrying in the carton?). If police catch us now, wetn you go talk?"
The woman, who is now very much subdued starts pleading with the driver, "Oga abeg help me...."
Ok I think I should explain a few things here cos I can tell you are already wondering. The woman had run away from her "Alhaji's house" who she claimed used her for prostitution and also forced her to sleep with dogs for money. According to her, there were other girls in the house like her.
And before she ran she stole a big carton of money which contained dollars from them. So it was this carton of money she was carrying when we picked her up.
Before I could say Jack Robinson, the driver and the male passenger beside me started negotiating with the woman how to split the money between all of us "for her own safety". The woman now explained to them that there was a charm which was put on the money by the Alhaji and so needs a pastor or spiritualist to break it before anyone can touch the money.
They started discussing between themselves where they will go to to break the charm. The driver then turn around to ask me which church I attend and if my pastor is strong enough to break the charm, and if I was interested in splitting the money with them. To be honest, I was just there mute and oh so very confused. The funny thing was that all of them confessed to be Christians.
At this point so many thoughts were running through my mind like, "This has to be a joke right? Is this a setup? Where are the cameras? Oh God, so this is how I will be kidnapped and nobody will know where I am" Believe you me, I imagined every imaginable thing that day.
I didn't want to make any wrong move lest any harm come to me. Part of me was like "are you seriously considering taking part in this"?, and the other part of me was just very curious to see how it will end.
The other passenger beside me apparently knew a spiritualist who could break the charm so he gave the driver directions to her place.
Like play like play they passed my bustop and we drove a very far distance, over an hour's journey to an area of Lagos that till this day I am not familiar with.
When we got to the street where the spiritualist lived, the car broke down. They started speculating that this was a "sign". So someone now suggested that when we get there, we should tell the spiritualist that we live together in the same compound and that in the morning we found a charm in the middle of the compound that we wanted her to break.
When we got to the house, a middle aged woman came out to greet us. The person we came to see was dead(her mother) and she was the new person in charge. She now asked us why we came and the driver started narrating the fictional story. Before he even finished talking, she got very upset and told us to get out of her premises that we were lying.
They started panicking and apologizing (I say "they" because in all this, I was very calm/mute, alarmingly so). After telling her the real story, she told us that she knows that our taxi broke down and that the lady should go and bring the money from the car where she kept it while we waited.
It was like an out of body experience for me. Like I was on the set of a badly scripted Nigerian movie.
The spiritualist started chanting and saying incantations and ringing her bell. She was of course dressed in white(she didn't disappoint there). She started asking each of us personal questions like names and stuff like that. When she got to me, I know I lied. Just to test her and see. She didn't realize a thing.
After all the theatrics, she concluded that in order to break the charm, each of us needed to bring all the money in our bank account to conduct a ritual, which was supposedly chicken fee compared to the thousands of dollars that we will each receive once the charm was broken.
But the highlight of this story is what I'm about to say next. She made us all agree, abi swear, that if any of us told anybody about what happened that day, that person will run mad or something bad like that. She also told us not to look back as were going no matter what. So we left the woman and the spiritualist with the carton of money and went on our way.
At this point, I just wanted to get out of there because a lot of time had elapsed and I was sure they were waiting for me at home with lots of questions.
As God will have it, I made it home safely. No I didn't go back to that place. And I always wonder how it ended for all of them. I'm sure if I met any of them on the street I won't recognize them.
Looking back I see it is God who protected me from my young and foolish self.
This is my testimony.