ONLY IN NIGERIA

…expectedly at 2:45 a.m., the credit alert of 14k woke me up after the tedious eight days I spent writing the assignment (since I live off academic writing). With my bank (archetypal of every bank in Nigeria), you never know where the charges come from or what they are for so customarily we check the balance once the alerts hit. It was startling that my balance was -47.58 (meaning that I still owed 47 Naira plus on my account). My feelings could best be imagined knowing that my bank could never be owed. At first I thought my friend who sent me the money had joined the growing list of fraudsters in Nigeria. I once heard a story of how a man bought a car with a fake credit alert only in Nigeria. On receiving a transaction-authenticating alert on my mobile banking application, I vindicated my friend.

Like every Nigerian, I gave a sigh of “God forbid” when I saw the mammoth crowed in one of the banks at Bodija the previous day while I was in search of power to complete the said work since I had had power in my area for just two hours in four days and counting. But here I was the next day, waking up at 5.00 a.m. and hitting the bank at 6.05 a.m. because I am agoraphobic. I obviously was the first to arrive at the bank that morning but I ended up with tally number five (only in Nigeria). I waited and watched the bank workers stroll in at different times until 8.45 a.m. when an accident involving three of the many people waiting in front of the bank at the popular Iwo road forced the management to start calling us in one by one. Inside the banking hall the nice customer attendant offered to call someone in position to help when she realized I came with quite a raised temper. After three to four ding ding ding with no reply, she stopped dialing and asked me to wait for another ten minutes. Seeing me leave my seat after twenty minutes, she dialed again and this time, the person picked up and agreed to reverse my money in one hour. I could only wonder why it occurred in the first place.

She availed me her contact and asked me to call after one hour instead of lingering in the bank. As I was strutting home with hope revived that I could still prepare my much anticipated sumptuous meal, my moral dampened when I realized that there had not been power for five days and counting and my phone battery was low. There was no way to know when to withdraw from the nearby POS since ATMs had turned into monuments after the #ENDSARS protest. Trekking down to Basorun area, I zoomed into a shop where I saw a shining light bulb without a foreknowledge of what was being sold in there. I pretended checking out their stocks in a dilly dally manner while my phone charged.

After an hour, I began calling the young lady as agreed but after like ten ding ding at different intervals and no response, I resorted to checking my balance using the new USSD code that the young lady had introduced to me earlier that morning. I could not turn on my phone data since I planned on maximizing the battery usage until I saw my money in my account. For what seemed like a million times I checked my account balance but no changes, then my mobile network provider alerted me that the airtime I borrowed the previous night was exhausted and I couldn’t borrow again unless I paid what I owed.

Having not eaten since the previous night, with no airtime to use the USSD code, no battery power to use my mobile data and with funds stuck in the bank (odds possible only in Nigeria), I realized that my continued stay at home without eating was tantamount to death itself so I left the house for my friend’s shop. With wind determining my speed, I made my way through different estates as I headed to Bodija. Halfway, I got accosted by a group of fierce-looking and AK-47-brandishing policemen who bundled me up to an undisclosed location with the excuse that robbery was perpetrated in that area the night before and they had been in search of the suspects until then. Without much ado, I was asked to bail myself with 50k otherwise I’d be transferred to their headquarters where I’d be tortured until I confessed. With stories about police torture in Nigeria, only a fool in my position would believe there was another way out. I told them with mixed feelings that I would pay if I had the money so they offered to check my account balance.

Their offer gave me a sigh of relief as I was myself eager to see if the money had been reversed. I narrated my ordeal and one of them offered to charge my phone with their car battery since they were also eager to disbelief me because I looked too clean not to have a loaded account. The phone was eventually charged a bit and I was asked to use my banking app to check the account balance under the heat of their quizzical glare. Behold there was already a reversal of 13,800 after charges. With a dirty slap on my face for lying to police officers, I was bundled into the car and driven to an area where I was presented with a POS to transfer 11k and to keep 2k since (according to them) they believed my story and had compassion. I was afterwards dumped back where I was picked up to continue my journey. When eventually I got to my friend’s shop at 5:15 p.m., I realized that ONLY IN NIGERIA would you be screwed over and over by a combination of bank, power company, network company and the police in a concurrent manner.

Ikem Godspower UJENE