People, you will not believe it but I am still in Nigeria and I still have not met Maimuna Abacha. Now for those who did not see this page last week, Maimuna Abacha is this bird that sent me one of those ‘made in Noojiria’ messages expecting me to swallow it hook and sinker and send back my bank details so that she could empty whatever is there.

 Problem is she doesn’t know that my bank account is always in the red because whatever lands there is swept away by the bank’s debt collector due to loans and overdrafts I always owe the bank.

After all, the same bank tells us to live with credit and not in credit. That’s why I am one of the most loyal clients of this bank. However, Maimuna binti Abacha ended up falling in my charms and even revealed her true identity to me.

She said her names are Genevieve Utaka and even invited me to visit. That’s how I embarked on the journey to Igwe!! Land.
It’s true that I have not met the reason of my coming here but I can assure you that I am not complaining.

It’s now a week since I arrived here but it looks like I have been here for only one day. I have been involved in lots of action such that I don’t seem to notice how time passes. What I have been through in the last few days is straight from the James Bond movies.

I am talking about real adventure here. Action started at the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport on my arrival here when I came face to face with this lady actor whose name I don’t remember.

She kind of recognized me and looked genuinely surprised and happy to see me in Noojiria. I told her I was here for a conference which would be starting the next day. Since I had not made any reservation for a hotel she offered to house me at her flat. Who am I to turn down such a fat offer?

Early next morning I left her still feeling sleepy and told her I had to go for the big ‘conference’ that had brought me to her country. As I left dragging my travelling bag I heard her ask whether I would be coming back in the evening.

I hurried out because I did not want to answer this trick question. When I waved down a cab my intention was to go to some cool place, order for breakfast and call Genevieve to find me there. But I did not. I mean, I did not call Genevieve.

I did find a nice place in the heart of the city where I ordered for nice breakfast but as I was getting my phone from my pocket to call Genevieve, my jaw dropped.

A very feathery bird, the kind that you can only find in Kigali and Addis Ababa emerged from nowhere and comfortably perched herself at the table next to mine.

That is how I found myself returning the phone slowly back into my pocket as if to avoid her knowing that I had had intentions of calling some other bird.

The bird must have noticed me staring with my jaw open and I saw her smiling or did I dream her smiling. I shook my head to get myself out of dreamland but thank goodness she was still there.

One thing led to another and before long, I had known her name, her favourite colour and the fact that she was the proud daughter of one of the Nigeria army generals. Now when you want to see the sole of my shoes just bring in anything to do with those boys in green.

Having grown up in the ‘Pearl of Africa’ during the regime of the one and only ‘conqueror of the British Empire’,  DMC, VSO, XYZ, RIP blah blah blah……I have bad memories of those fellas.

But I was not about to give up this bird. Not even at the sight of her father fully dressed in his army uniform, pips and all. I was prepared to die. That is how I found myself at her lavishly furnished and heavily guarded home.

Her compound alone was bigger than Amahoro stadium and the surrounding migina area while the house was more or less a castle. I had to seriously work on my self control because I was dealing with a queen ant surrounded by equally gorgeous ants.

Everywhere you looked, there were birds dressed to kill whose only work in this house was to serve and make happy the generals daughter. Now that I was in the picture as the main guy around, I was also treated like a King.

I could not stand this and since I am only human and a bird hunter, my self control started suffering corrosion every passing minute. That is how I started losing it and that is how the main bird started showing her true colours.

When night came she threw a party to welcome me into her life and that is how self control fuses blew. I apologized several times and even went to the washrooms to quarrel with myself in the mirror but this did not help.

You need to understand that I was a fish swimming in a sea of birds and therefore could not avoid being in contact with them. Hell no!
But then I realized that the main bird had disappeared all of a sudden. That is when I tried to look in one of her many bedrooms.

That is how I found her kneeling down and holding a bottle mumbling words as if in prayer. That is when my senses suddenly came alive. This could only be one thing.

The maximum bottle detention for which the Noojirian sisters are famous for. I immediately put together an exit plan and disappeared into the humid night.     

Ends