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There are words that are told to us once in life, whose significance only rises with time. When Abebi was passing on of a cruel diabetic condition, she called up her son Abiola and told him, “Always be trustworthy!” In her weak state she muffled a few other things, the betrayal she had met in life but bore no bitterness because she believed in a just and fair God. Then she breathed her last.

At the time both were living together, having been thrown out of the family home. This was after Abiola’s father, Chikuemuka, had secured a younger wife, Katali. Chikuemuka was a trader in cotton which he would sale largely to travelling merchants. He always bought on credit from peasants but yet would never sell to any merchant unless by cash. Now instead of paying back the peasants what he owed he would use the proceeds to acquire square miles of land for his growing business empire. Whenever his many debtors would call upon him up for payment, he would put them on hold insisting that he had no money. “Come back when I get paid.”

That’s how he became one of the wealthiest men in Umondi county. But Chikuemeka’s fortunes started going down when one day he trusted one merchant with a huge delivery on credit, which he rarely did. He had done business with this particular merchant many times before and when he called him that he wanted a huge purchase, Chikuemuka quickly went back and collected as much cotton from the peasants. “Trust me this time,” he assured all of them of payment.

But once he delivered the assignment that was the last he saw of the merchant. Chikuemuka kept waiting for his payment in vain. Then the peasants started demanding their payments too and for sure this time Chikuemuka had no coin. They got the local authorities involved and started confiscating his land.

As his fortune spiraled down, at his home, Katali the new wife started accusing Abebi of engaging in witchcraft that was the cause of their husband’s misfortune. Chikuemuka sided with Katali and threw Abebi out of the family home with her son, Abiola.

Chikuemuka was eventually arrested and thrown in jail. Once in jail Katali run off with what was left of his property. Chikuemuka died a miserable man, unattended, regretting the pain he had caused to all those peasants he had used to get ahead in life.

After the death of his parents, Abiola, dropped out of school and started doing odd jobs. He would go to rich people’s gardens and plead to be allowed to till for them. But he hated these jobs which exacted faithful hard work for poor pay. Then one day he met a village mate who convinced him to start brewing local gin. “It is easy to make money here because you can easily cut corners and sell people even bad stuff,” said the village mate. “They are mostly drunk anyway and can’t tell the difference!”

Cutting corners involved minimizing contents like molasses, yielding a brew with a high poisonous alcoholic volume. One day several deaths were reported in Umondi. When investigations were carried out the culprit was found to be Abiola’s ginnery. Villagers moved to lynch Abiola. But he caught wind of their advance in time and fled to Kumasi.

Kumasi was a big city where Abiola found he could easily survive by passing with a false identity. Using some of his savings, he started by boarding a nice apartment where he paid for the first three months. Then he stopped. When the landlord showed up, he begged for more time. But after three months he decided to vacate in the night; he was confident of being safe, since in the big city, no one could trace him.

Abiola took up another abode where he paid for the first three months. As before, he disappeared after tossing the landlord up and down for the next three months. “If I can get away in a year by paying only half the rent,” he thought to himself. “This is good saving!”

This became Abiola’s standard way of living and doing business. He would start off by being a good client to someone he was trading with, and once he had the unsuspecting person hooked, he would make a huge transaction on credit, then disappear with the client’s money. From this way of doing business he started buying huge tracts of land in the countryside. He was happy with his progress and started thinking of starting a family.

After sharing his need, a friend in the city introduced him to a young beautiful girl, still in school. They struck a bargain with her agreeing to be married to him, if he could pay her school fees in a beauty vocational school. “I don’t want to be seated home all day!”

“No problem,” Abiola agreed without hesitation and started bankrolling her.

From trading and pulling fast ones on the unsuspecting, Abiola’s business empire kept growing. Aware of all the enemies he was making Abiola acquired a pistol for defense. He always moved stealthily ready to fire back just in case one of those he had cheated caught up with him. He drove cars with tinted glasses and ever at breakneck speed.

As a tycoon he decided to invest in real estate too. Once he had set up rental units, he had no problems in having them taken up. But something strange started happening to Chukuemuka soon after. Every now and then came those tenants, who started by paying well, only to disappear into the middle of the night after keeping him in suspense for three months or more. He was furious, seeing all the damage they had caused to his property and without paying.

Abiola decided to report the culprits to police. “Why are people here untrustworthy!” The police knew he was a wealthy man. All they did was to extract as much money as they could from him, pleading they needed all to carry out investigations. Frustrated for lack of progress Abiola gave up chasing delinquent tenants and suffering more losses. “You can’t trust anybody here!”

One day Abiola needed to secure a loan from the bank for his business. When he offered some of his titles as collateral the bank upon verification found the land was encumbered. Abiola couldn’t believe it. He recalled how the seller had given him all assurances that the land was unencumbered. But here he was discovering he had been sold air. “You can’t trust anybody here!” he spat.

Just then he got another blow. After paying school fees for his girl fiend, and as she was about to graduate, she sent him a chit mentioning that the friend who had introduced them had all along been her lover. The two were planning to wed. Abiola was crushed. He felt like the end of the world had come after all his investment in this girl. “Why me!” he moaned. He took out his pistol ready to end his life.

Down and disheartened, wanting to end his life, it is then that Abiola recalled his gentle mother, Abebi’s last words. “Always be a trustworthy person!” The pistol still pointed to his head Abiola saw that all along he had been riding on other people’s back to get ahead, and his sins were finally catching up on him. “She said this to protect me!” Trembling, he lowered the pistol in deep contemplation….

In any society there are those who decide that to get ahead theirs would be a life of pulling a fast one on those whom they deal with but who happen to have fallen asleep. The consequence of that is theirs is always a fast life one of constantly looking over the shoulders, fearing that perhaps one has met their match, and it is now game up! And, perhaps for that reason, is why some have suggested preaching virtues like trust and honesty is literally in one’s interest, because otherwise you are living on borrowed time!

Lulu had joined a Diploma in Education course at Kyambogo Teachers College, which he didn’t like. So, when the opportunity came and he heard the government of Japan was availing scholarships to study engineering he applied. He found his application needed to first be vetted and supported by his home district. However, when he presented his papers to the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Embatta, a man who had seen him grow up, there was opposition.

“But we are expecting you to come back as a teacher!” Embatta protested. “Let those who are able to become engineers!” Lulu felt insulted; was it that the CAO didn’t think of him as engineering material! He started courting the support of councilors, but most who had seen him grow up and dropped out of school early were not enthused. “Why is that boy so ambitious,” so they queried. “I know he wants to go out and come back with big titles and boss over us.”

As a last-ditch effort, Lulu decided to appeal to a local white priest, Father Lourdel who had paid his school fees and of many district leaders. Father Lourdel was very excited. “We already have enough teachers,” he mused in the local language which he was fluent. “What we need here are engineers to fix roads and help improve the transportation of goods from the fields to the market. This will make our district prosper.”

Father Lourdel took up the matter to the CAO and because he had educated him too, he finally yielded. “After completing your studies make sure you return and bless us with your skills,” Father Lourdel prayed with a sign of the cross for Lulu before he jetted out for a four-year degree course. Lulu promised to do so.

True to his word, upon completing his degree course, Lulu returned to the country as a civil engineer. Immediately, he reported back to his district and applied to become a District Engineer. But the CAO kept throwing him off that there was no money for this job, even as he pleaded that it would be good for the district to have a homeboy as District Engineer. Discouraged, he turned to the central government which hired him. But he didn’t last there; he soon quit to join a French-owned company, Bozac. The country had a huge infrastructure development programme and it was Bozac doing most of the road construction. It was often said there were no local companies that could do such jobs.

For Lulu, the major reason in joining Bozac was pay, as he could hardly make ends meet from his government salary. Bozac, on the other hand tripled his central government salary. But as he would soon find out, it was not for nothing.

After the European owners of Bozac would snap up huge multibillion-dollar contract jobs, they would get back to their capitals, having spent a few days patronizing the five-star hotels. Locals like Lulu were left to sweat it out. He was always in the field, supervising construction. Sometimes, having spent much of the day out in the sun, he would drive across the country back to the capital to meet with his bosses in their rented air-conditioned offices. They would quiz and harass him, threatening not to renew his contract for whatever was amiss. Disgusted, Lulu started thinking of starting his own firm.

“It is our country,” he talked to fellow engineers. “Yet there are the ones getting the best deals. Can’t we start our own local firms, bid and get these jobs. “Try your luck,” Lulu was rebuffed to those he appealed.

Now back in school, Father Lourdel had always preached that to succeed in life one had to persevere. Recalling that, Lulu decided to quit Bozac and start his own engineering firm. However, whenever he did bid for major road construction jobs, rejection slips would quickly come his way, noting “lack of experience and capital.” Lulu was hurt that it was mainly his local people who were rejecting his company, and who were not willing to give him a chance.

“We have the expertise but our own people want us to be permanent slaves,” Lulu would be agitated each time he would face rejection. “All these conditions they create against us are to discourage the emergence of home-grown companies.” One day Lulu noticed a tender to build a bridge in his home district. Lulu applied proudly specifying in his application that he was a homeboy well-known to the district leadership.

This time there was a new CAO. Although Nkejje had gone to school with Lulu he presented Lulu’s tender papers with lukewarm support. “This Lulu we know,” he told members of the tender committee. “Can he do a big job like this!”

Lulu was invited to come and share a presentation along with another company that had a European name, Quimax. He arrived on time, quickly presenting his prior job contracts and going even further to share designs. After he was done, a man Lulu seemed to recall having met once asked, “we hear you never reached Japan but bought that engineering degree of yours from a Japanese supermarket as you were just doing kyeyo jobs.”

“I take exception to that line of questioning!” Lulu picked his papers, stood up, and stormed off. Quimax had sent a white manager with a black officer who came carrying bags. The white manager let him make the presentations. After they were done the tender committee immediately awarded the job to Quimax. “These people from outside know how to do these jobs,” the tender committee reasoned against Lulu’s bid. They have a muzungu on the team.”

Upon securing the job, Quimax demanded to receive half of the sum as an advance to start works. The district quickly wired off the monies. But after over six months there was hardly anything on the ground. After writing many letters Quimax sent a few trucks and bulldozers that commenced works.  But what eventually came of their efforts was some shoddy structures, far from the original presentation. In the meantime, everyone noted the muzungu had never shown up in the district again. It was rumored he had taken much of the money back to Europe and was sending a pittance back.

The bridge constructed was so poorly done that due to local complaints the Inspector General got involved. When a technical team was set to review the works, it recommended the job be retendered. Lulu did bid again and this time with a more technical committee formed of senior officials he won. Indeed, he was able to do the job at half the cost of what Quimax had quoted.

On the day of opening the new bridge, Lulu was given a few minutes to speak. Dressed in a rare black suit, he decided to use the opportunity to vent something that had long bothered him. “All you people here know me well as I grew up among you. But I fail to understand why you never support your own or wish them well. If it were not for Father Lourdel who educated most of us here, none of you was willing to support me.”

He paused, as guests nervously shifted in their seats. “When I first asked to do this job you questioned my education. But did you enquire into the muzungu’s education? I want to help us develop but until we people here learn to love ourselves and our nation, with each other well, have pride in ourselves, as I saw back in Japan, tell you what, we have a long way to go!

Lulu walked back to his seat. He loosened his tight collar and gulped down water from a mineral water bottle. Then he looked at the bridge he had just erected for his district. It filled him with pride.