Scarcity of Want - A Story

After a long day's labour, i had retired back to the discomfort of a shared one room apartment, somewhere at Ikorodu, one of the outskirt towns of Lagos. With a damaged drainage system, absence of any plumbing systems at all and a stretch of crooked mud road, with time, i came to realise that the only good thing about this apartment was my roommate Dami.

Although we had been previously been acquainted with each other during our Polythecnic days, the relationship between us was very threadbare and skeletal back then. However, since circumstances has bound us together under the yoke of one roof, he has made himself not only a roommate to be desired, but also more of a brother than an almost total stranger.

We were both fresh Ordinary National Diploma graduates of Moshood Abiola Polythecnic. Due to a marked lack of funds to further our education through to the HND level, we had been forced to overtly appreciate the OND degree we had acquired, although right now, the fact that many employers have rejected our applications seems to lend weight to the fact that we must have overestimated the value of such a certificate.

Every other day spent searching for the ever elusive jobs on the busy streets of Lagos left me more disillusioned than the last. I had transversed the length and breadth of Lagos searching for any Job at all, so long as it came with a monthly pay cheque, but all to no avail. I came back everyday angry and tired with Dami being my only source of positivity and encouragement. Several times, he would admonish me not to give in to frustration and its attendant dejection.
Other times, when his carefully rehearsed words of advice did not seem to lend its appeal to my quickly dissipating faith, he always had a bottle of cheap Alcohol with which we could quickly drown my already drowning belief in ever being successful in life.

To worsen the whole situation was the constant bickering and verbal attacks by Mum, who never stopped reminding me of my financial duties to the Family. Mum had a point though, i was not only the most educated of all my siblings, but i was also the eldest of ten children. She never failed to remind me of the enormous sacrifices and hardship the family went through just to barely see me through the Polythecnic were i acquired a degree which was as good as useless when securing jobs is concerned. The worst of the matter had not even been heard yet. Since the painful demise of Father, who had been careful enough to feed his hands together with the concrete into the grinding machine at the construction site where he worked, all the responsibilities of taking care of a large family comprising of a contingent of mum and 9 other siblings had naturally reverted to me; the eldest Son.

I thought my troubles had been totally put in perspective, until i came back home one day to the absence of Dami. I immediately had cause to Panic because in the nine months we had spent together, Dami had never stayed out beyond 8pm. Therefore when all my attempts to reach his mobile number proved abortive, i became even more distressed. I called his Uncle at Ikotun who was his only relative in Lagos and was told that he had not set his sights on his Nephew for over a Year.

When there was still no word from him until 12am that night, I became frantic, I felt like praying, calling my Pastor or some church members, but the truth was that i had never fancied religion, i was not a member of any church, and found it very awkward and strange to utter any word of prayer. Maybe i could Google it to learn how it is done, i thought to myself.

Throughout that night, i could barely sleep and whenever i came close to drifting away, images of different forms of gruelling death flashed through my head. Maybe he had been used for ritual purposes, i dreamt of a native doctor tying a red cloth with white chalk decorating his face. I imagined he had been involved in a ghastly motor accident, but i could not bring myself to even consider his body mangled up beside the wreckage of a car wreck in some side streets. Throughout that night, i felt tormented. At some point, it seemed that the walls were even conscripting on me, other times, it was the house drowning in a mighty sea.

By mid-morning, the idea suddenly hit me and that was when i knew that my troubles were yet to begin. Soon, the Police would be involved in this case, and who better to make a scape-goat than his jobless, desperate roommate, who had a million reasons to do away with him. To the police, this case would be a piece of pie, one suspect, one victim and one convict. There would be no need for an elaborate investigation exercise or courtroom drama, they were just going to throw me in a dungeon somewhere and i would be forgotten for eternity.

End of part 1