VIOLA OKOLIE - ABUJA LANDLORDS WILL NOT MAKE HEAVEN

Viola Okolie

When I first came to Abuja from Kano, I wanted to live in the sort of house I had left behind in Kano.

A three bedder all ensuite, in a decent location in the heart of Kano’s GRA and with good facilities and security. So I first asked my extremely helpful colleagues to describe the Abuja locations to me, and then decided I wanted a flat in Maitama.
Come and see maximum respect in the office then. They would announce with a little bit of awe, “Viola wants to rent a three bedroom flat in Maitama o, and you all have been here jonsing all this while. Better respect her”.

*preening*

Anyway, the house hunt started. The first house I was shown in Maitama ticked all the boxes for me, it was almost as if “they” knew I was coming, and knew what would keep me sweet and purring like a pussy cat, and built that house just for me.

After inspection, I was ready to pay.

“Ego ole?” (How much?)
“N4.5m ma”.
“Jesus”.

See ehn, these Abuja estate agents are all murderers in disguise. If not for the fact that I am a lion hearted daughter of my mother, they would have just killed me off for nothing’s sake that day. Even up till tomorrow, sometimes when I lie on the left side of my body, I still feel my heart doing “gullum, gullum” from the mini heart attack I had that day.

Four point five what? I wanted to rent the house ke, not buy it.

The agent looked at me with disdain and asked me how much I had budgeted. People of God, see as my mouth started shaking. I couldn’t even voice out the amount I had in my account all of which was programmed to pay the rent for a three bedder in Maitama. You see, I had been paying N100,000 per annum for the mansion I lived in in Kano so since “they” said Abuja rent was more expensive, I had added like N20,000 on top.

As in, last last, I will grudgingly pay N120,000 for a three bedroom flat in Maitama.

Abuja landlords and agents are dreamkillers – all of them!!!

So, with my location dreams dashed, I proceeded to find fault with the house I was shown and kept finding faults until that agent tired of me and my wahala. Then I consulted a friend who had a friend who told a friend who told a cousin that knew a brother who knew a man who had a dog (actually, another agent now took me to *lowers voice* Karu, on the outskirts of Abuja). Almost at the border of Abuja and Nassarawa state and there, I rented a BQ (that I rebaptised a Front Q because it was at the front of the house), for the extremely prohibitive and wicked rent of N170,000 per annum.

If you are an Abuja landlord and you are reading this, I fear for your chances of making heaven sha. True!

Anyway, I kept this information away from the people in the office who kept asking me when I was going to invite them to the housewarming in Maitama – but this is not about those evil colleagues whom I later discovered had been mocking me all the while, honestly the people on Amadioha’s judgement queue need to take tally numbers.

No, this is not about that…

In the compound I moved to, was a main house that had been partitioned off into miniflats and had about eight different occupants; and my Front Q.

We all shared one meter so when the post paid electricity bill came, everybody in the house would just “bone” as if it didn’t concern them. It concerned NEPA though, so they would come regularly to disconnect the compound from receiving electricity and go away with our cables.

When that happened, a designated occupant would start going from door to door, knocking and asking for each occupier’s share of the electricity bill.

Some would pay immediately, others would start “come today, come tomorrow”, while the rest of the compound suffered. After a couple of months, I could no longer stand it so once I came in from work and noticed that the compound was in darkness, I would quietly go and give my contribution to whomever was collecting and vamoose.

I would just pick a few clothes and go to a friend’s house and camp out there. I could be away for a day, or three, or seven. As long as it took for the other occupants to make the payments and reconnect the light – I no come this life come suffer.

And so it continued ooooo – I had no responsibilities. I was a single, “working class” gyal, who couldn’t be bothered with people that don’t know how to pay electricity bills – until I had my baby.

Lo and behold one day, almighty NEPA came and placed their ladder against the pole. As soon as I saw that ladder, I almost fainted. I ran out and begged and pleaded. I prayed for them and offered them food, snacks, money, whatever they wanted, just to let the light be. For where?

I promised to collect the money from residents myself – wissai.

The NEPA guys were just not smiling. They were not in the mood, they were there to take away our cables and take it away they would.

And they did.

Na wa.

I went back into my Front Q and looked at my baby sleeping peacefully in her crib. I had a massive, fuel-guzzling generator that I could definitely not run all through the night. And I thought back to the days of no responsibilities when I could just pack a bag and disappear and leave the others to sort out the light mess.

Where would I start running from?

Before I pack my daughter, her food, hot waterflask and feeding bottles; diapers, crib, bathtub, the basket containing her grooming items, my mother who was on omugwo, my Nanny… who will even accept a whole family into their bachelorette pad because my neighbours were not going to pay light bill?

What to do? Confused, I did what every normal human being with responsibilities would do, I sat back at home and thought about how to go about solving the problems.

And for the first time in almost two years of living in that compound, I got to know the names and phone numbers of my neighbours.

I went knocking from door to door, pleading that they pay bills. I collected from those who had and even made up the money for those who were not around, all in a bid to ensure that by the next day, we could have electricity restored in the compound. I ate humble pie that day and washed it down with a bottle of reality.

When you have responsibilities, especially when there are other human beings who depend on your actions and inactions, you do not just up and fly because you can afford to or because you just feel like it – you park your bumbum in one place and take care of home business first.

Okay, allllllll this did not pain me as much as what happened the next morning. One iya, who lived in one of the flats upstairs knocked on my window and when I opened it she said:

“Ah aunty Viola, NEPA has cut the light o”.
“I know ma”.
“And you didn’t run”.

I just kept quiet and gave her a side eye but undeterred, she went on.

“Come and run o. Run away and go and relax where there is light now. Runnnnn. If they bring light I will flash you”.

Me still keeping quiet and wondering what was keeping Amadioha so long, she continued…

“To be a mother is not easy abi? Come, let me drop you off where you usually use to run to. God don catch you. Thank God for baby. Come and runnnnn. Yeye girl”.

See, the people that God is helping me to watch in Full HD are plenty o.

Jesus take the car!

Warning: This is not a sub. This is not satire. This is not me using corner corner to ask President Buhari to stay at home and face his responsibilities o. This is just me jisting you all my very very good friends (even when you are cussing me out for writing something you don’t agree with), about a real life incident o.

Because DSS is not smiling these days.

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This article first appeared on Sabinews.

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