Me: When will you stop this nonsense?
Thug: Which of the nonsenses?
Me: So you agree that you are involved in all kinds of shenanigans?
Thug: The fact that something does not make sense to you does not make it nonsense. What I’m doing makes a lot of sense to me. I’ll suggest you mind your business and let me mind mine.
Me: Really? You actually think this thing you are doing is some sort of business, terrorizing people, bullying law-abiding people?
Thug: You tell me what you call a transaction that helps me make money and leaves my client satisfied.
Me: You are a thug, that’s what you are.
Thug: I am a service provider and you my friend are a closet mumu.
Me: Service provider my foot! You help mean politicians subvert the will of the people. You maim, you kidnap. You destroy ballot papers. You make people’s lives miserable.
Thug: You are the only miserable person here. You need to calm down and clear your head. All these big big English words will only aggravate your already high blood pressure.
Me: You are not even repentant.
Thug: I did not commit any sin. Or did God report me to you?
Me: But you do not deny that you work for bad politicians.
Thug: Am I the only one working for politicians? Why are you even harassing me? It is the season of politics. Everybody is politicking.
Me: But you are not a politician. Why are you all over the place, doing unprintable things?
Thug: Did the journalists tell you they cannot print what I do or how did you arrive at ‘unprintable things’? I’m all over the media, social media, political media, entertainment media, television media. I’m a VVIP now in the media.
Me: See how you are advertising your ignorance, political media, entertainment media! You don’t even understand what we are talking about.
Thug: Idea is need.
Me: Is that even English?
Thug: As long as you and I understand each other, that’s all. As for me advertising my ignorance, that is a lie. In my line of business, I don’t have to advertise anything. My clients know where to find me and I give them what they want.
Me: Like what?
Thug: Like whatever they want. I want to call Mama Risi to bring hot amala, ewedu, gbegiri, cowleg, goat meat and ‘assorted’. Should I order for you too?
Me: I’m talking about a serious matter here and you are thinking about amala. Are you serious at all?
Thug: A man who works hard must also eat hard, don’t you think?
Me: I think you are not thinking straight. In fact, you are not thinking at all.
Thug: My friend, you are the one overthinking this matter. I’m just a hardworking businessman, service provider providing solutions.
Me: Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?
Thug: I have no problem sleeping at night at all. I have three wives, remember? And I can take more if I want. If you have three well rounded women at your beck and call, you will sleep well. You should try it. Me: Only you, three women. Your priorities are warped. How can you satisfy three women with your small something? Thug: How do you know my something is small? My wives don’t complain. It is what I have that I use to put them to sleep.
Me: You must be padding your small some-thing with shisha or tramadol.
Thug: If you think I’m a science student, then you don’t know why they call me Chairman and raise two hands to salute me.
Me: Hm, twale sir.
Thug: Ehn ehn, you will live long. Now, you’re talking.
Me: So, you are chairman of which party?
Thug: I belong to nobody. I belong to everybody.
Me: In other words, you are at the service of anybody who can pay.
Thug: Yes o, the highest bidder preferably. That’s why I like politicians. They put their money where their mouth is.
Me: You are worsening the polity with your evil business. It is you that has made ‘inconclusive’ part of our political lexicon. You and your boys have moved from snatching ballot boxes to snatching Returning Officers and abducting youth corpers.
Thug: A businessman has to do what he has to do. Unlike other contractors, I deliver the goods as promised. Where the boys need to burn ballot papers, they do so instead of wasting time on snatching and running and risking their lives.
Me: You sound like you are proud of this thing you are doing.
Thug: There is dignity in labour.
Me: Seriously? Dignity and thuggery occurring in the same sentence is an abomination.
Thug: My friend, gbe body e.
Me: You are telling me to get out of here?
Thug: Yes now. You are insulting me. I am not a thug. How many times do I have to tell you? Did you put your ears in your pocket? You need to get used to what I do. This is a new sector of the economy.
Me: A new sector of the economy, bullying and frightening voters and INEC officials on election day?
Thug: I am an employer of labour too. I have boys who work in my company. I have clients. They give me brief, or is that not what you people call it, and I keep my clients satisfied. Isn’t that what other professionals do?
Me: So we can call you a professional thug, right?
Thug: Look, madam dem-say-and-Iquote, watch what you say here before my boys will come and rearrange your dentition.
Me: Allahu Akbar…
Thug: Exactly.
Me: So, where is your office, your operational headquarters’ address?
Thug: Under this shed where we are now, under the bridge, anywhere. Or are you expecting one big building with effizy?
Me: Why not, you said it is a business.
Thug: Oh oh, you want government to start pursing me for tax and VAT and pension and all kinds of bills? Lailai. Never never. Only people who are not smart do their business like that. Baba Alaye calls me, gives me brief, hands over the loot, I call my boys, they do the job, I give them their share and everybody scampers. End of story. No Ambode or Fowler can come and chase me for tax when I did not put a signboard outside.
Me: Sounds like black market.
Thug: You make the terminology, I make the money.
Me: This business is done only during campaigns and elections?
Thug: That is the high season but we also have other clients for other seasons.
Me: Would you say this is a profitable business?
Thug: Yes ke. I am not a poor man. My children are schooling abroad. The younger ones are in private primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.
Me: Really?
Thug: Yes, really. Sit down there and be thinking you are a big girl because you wear skirt suit everyday doing your white market business.
Me: Hmm, so will your children be joining this business soon?
Thug: What did you say?
Me: You heard me. Your children will inherit this under-the-bridge office and solution provider business, right?
Thug: Don’t bring my children into this…
Me: But you bring other people’s children into it. And some die. Many are maimed. Like the one that was set ablaze like ram suya the other day…
Thug: Other people’s children come to me to ask for jobs. I employ them. They were not forced. If they die, it means they were not prepared for the risk. In this line of business, you must be fortified. You must invest in okigbe, ayeta, aluwo, madarikan…
Me: Aren’t those the fortifications that failed to keep death away from a certain politician who died recently? Do they really work?
Thug: This is not a matter for suit-wearing Editors. Maintain your lane.
Me: So you admit this business is evil and dark and dangerous?
Thug: I admit nothing. If you think what I’m doing is evil, explain what is holy about designing a building with N1.4 billion in a sector that is already making money.
Me: That is why we are investing more money in the sector. It is our major earner industry.
Thug: Really? So, they discovered more oil in the ground where they are building this house? Or OPEC will increase our quota or Nigeria’s oil price because we are building a fine house?
Me: Well…
Thug: And this project is being done by a government that said it cannot double minimum wage of civil servants. Now, who is more evil; me or those who wants to build a shrine for crude oil with money we can ill afford?
Me: The government must have thought it through.
Thug: Hmm. The only good thing about that trillion project is some politicians will make more money which they will spend on my business and me and my boys will be able to build new houses and I will be able to marry Mama Risi’s daughter with the big backside. Ah. Maybe the DPR project is not so bad after all. I’m looking forward to the next high season already.
Credit: Funke Egbemode