Jilted Nigerian Drug Dealer Died Of Heart Attack In Abidjan Jail

* The month of October will forever linger on my
mind, because it reminds me of the genesis of a
fruitless journey which a friend embarked upon
which later cost him his life. Whenever the
thought of his demise crops up i always find
myself at a low ebb because he was more of a
brother to me than a friend. He was the first child
and the only son in the family. Him and his
fiancee were planing for their wedding and i was
to be his best man. His would-be-wife had just
graduated as an accountant and was about going
for her youth service in Niger State. Nevertheless,
my friend was yet to be gainfully employed. He
was squatting with someone and he works in a
bakery with a meager salary of N17,000 per
month just to eke out a living. “Can you
imagine?” Someone who made a second class
upper in Geology from an elite Nigerian university
working as a bread mixer, “It’s so ridiculous”. For
years he has searched for job in relation to what
he majored in all to no avail. The only opportunity
that came that he would have wrapped up wasn’t
successful, not because he was not fit nor because
his resume was unsatisfactorily, but just because
he couldn’t afford the N100,000 which the person
in charge of employment demanded from him as
bribe before he could get the job.The only asset
the indigent family had, a piece of land has been
sold to train him in school.
The marriage plan was underway, when out of the
blue his friend who was based in oversea breezed
into the country. He has become a “nouveau
riche” and was living ostentatiously. He bought an
exotic car and was building a house. When my
friend met him for financial assistance to enable
him establish his own bakery business he
declined. However, after much entreatment he
only gave him N5,000. He further told my friend to
forget about getting married for now, that it is
better to make money first. He said he would
teach him how to fish rather than give him fish to
eat. He sweet-talked my friend into traveling
abroad with him, he gave him the assurance that
within six months he would be counting millions of
naira. When my friend told me about it, i
oppossed the idea, and i warned him but he
wouldn’t listen, neither did he gave ear to his
fiancee’s advice who never supported it in the first
place.This time my friend was overwhelmed by
the notion of getting rich overnight. His passport
was processed, but he never saw the German visa
which his friend told him he had procured for him
not until they got to the airport there he
discovered that what was in his passport was
Pakistan Visa. When he asked his friend about the
development, he told him that when they get to
Pakistan they will apply for German visa and that
it was difficult to obtain it in Nigeria. Been a new
kid on the block, he was so naive to ascertain the
truth.
However, it was when they got to Islamabad the
capital of Pakistan that he got to know what he
was in for. His friend told him that he has brought
him to introduce him into “fast lane ” and what
was it ? Hard drug business ! He made him to
understand that that was what he does that
fetches him money. He did not tell him the risk
involved. They helped him to call his fiancee via
internet call so that she won’t know where he was
calling from.”Poor girl who really loved my friend.”
Three weeks after a rigorous training on how to
ingest pellets of heroin, he was now set to return
to Nigeria. He had ingested almost a kilogram of
heroin. On that fateful day he was to board with
Ethiopian airline to Lagos en route Addis ababa,
luck ran against him. One of the drug mule had a
misunderstanding with someone in the same
narcotic trade.The latter, out of rancour and envy
tipped off the Pakistan narcotic police that they
should cross examine all the Nigerian passport
holders that were air bound that evening. When
my friend got to the airport he was rounded up
along side three others and they were all taken to
the hospital for forensic search. They discovered
that all of them were having drug on their
stomach. According to him, he said the amount of
heroin you are found with will determine the
number of years you would be jailed. With the
connivance of the corrupt police officer that was
with him, he handed the 500 dollars that was with
him to the man for him to reduce the quantity
that was discovered from him when filing the
report. At the court he was jailed two and half
years at Adiala district jail in Rawalpindi area of
the country. When the news of his incarceration
got to the fiancee, she almost killed herself. She
cried her eyes out. I and other friends tried the
much we could to make her not allow the incident
to weigh her down. After sometime, she was able
to forge ahead. She told my friend that she will
continue to pray and wait for him. This time my
friend was communicating with her on phone
through a concealed network in the jail.
At the expiration of his jail term, the fiancee was
looking forward to welcoming him. She has been
working in a multi national company for almost a
year. She arranged for an in-house party, an
expensive wine was bought to accentuate the
day. After all, it was worth celebrating. It was like
the return of the prodigal son. While in the youth
service she met someone who wanted to marry
her but she refused. She do tell poeple that she is
engaged and that her fiance would soon be back
from abroad to marry her. During when my friend
was in jail, he met quite a number of Nigerians
who were arrested with the same offence and
they linked him up globally. All of a sudden, his
plan to return to Nigeria took a dramatic twist, his
friends adviced him not to return to Nigeria
empty-handed. They said it would be shameful
and unmanly for him to depend on his wife for
survival. That was how my friend bought their
idea and he choosed the wrong path of life that
leads to destruction just like what the bible says in
the book of Proverb 14 v 12 “There is a way which
seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death.” Instead of him to return to
Nigeria, he decided to make a trip to Cote d’Ivoire
with hard drug in his possession. He was linked up
with a man who would clear him at the airport and
also assist him to market the stuff.
When he arrived Abidjan with the ingested drug in
his stomach,after a very long journey. As soon as
he disembarked from the flight, he was picked up
from the line of passengers waiting to be stamped
in. To his greatest dismay, he was taken to the
narcotic control room there it was dawn on him
that all is not well. He made some concerted
effort to get himself off the hook, but they all
proved abortive. Yes ! It was a set up orchestrated
by his Nigerian brother. The Nigerian man’s stock
in trade is to set poeple up, when the drug is
recovered, it will be given to him to sell and he
will give the police poeple their own share of
money in return while the victim will languish in
jail. My friend was reprimanded in prison and the
following week he was before the judge who
hammered him ten years imprisonment with hard
labour.
His fiancee did not believe it when she was called
and told that her man is in jail. She thought it was
a joke. It was when the caller was insisting that
my friend wanted to see her in Abidjan that she
became nervous. She took permission from her
place of work and traveled down to the West
African country. When she saw my friend her eyes
was moist with tears. Her husband -to- be was no
longer the man he used to be, he was just a bag
of bone with white hair all over his head. When
my friend told her that he has been jailed for ten
years it was as if a sharp sword was thrust into her
chest, she collapsed .She was hospitalized and she
spent morethan a month there trying to
recuperate from the shock. My friend gave her a
phone number of someone in town who would
help her take a very good lawyer. She met with
the guy and gave him some money. When she
returned to Nigeria she sent another money to the
guy who told her that he had procured a lawyer
who had started handling the case. By the time it
was dawn on her that the man in question was a
fraudster, a stranded and hopeless Nigerian she
had already committed close to one million naira
of which 75% of the money was loan from a bank.
In conclusion, one day my friend got a parcel from
Nigeria after two years. When he fixed his eyes to
know who the sender was, behold it was the
fiancee who he hasn’t heard from for morethan a
year. With smile on his face, he hurriedly opened
the parcel to know what the content was. His
thought was maybe it would be a greeting card-
but it wasn’t it . The fiancee sent him a wedding
card. She would be getting married to his own
friend, the guy whom he was squatting with
before he left Nigeria and after their wedding they
would relocate to the UK where she has been
transfered to by her company. As at this time, she
was five months pregnant already. She also sent
her pix with baby bump. My friend’s heart couldn’t
stand the shock, he fainted and before he was
taken to the hospital he died.
The reason while i decide to put this gory incident
into writing is to admonish those who have been
bemused with the mentality of getting rich at all
cost most especially our youth. All that glitters is
not gold. This is a true-life story, not fictitious nor
a written script for nollywood purpose. We should
be very careful while taking decision, because our
decision will invariably determine our destination.
Fast lane have fastracked many poeple to their
grave