CHAPTER TWO: HOW TO ROB A BANK

CHAPTER TWO

Ayobanj’s football age was 25. Officially, he was 24 when he started working in the department of Information Technology Services.

And if you are wondering what is a football age? Well, football age is the age you declare on a sworn affidavit. Most times, your real age is 5 years (or more) plus X. In this instance, you don’t need to find X. Your football age is the X.

At 32 years old, Ayobanji was married with two children. He had finished his HND 7 years earlier. And after serving for one year in the National Youth Service Corps, he started working with his father. His father owned a bakery and a poultry farm. He had joined his father’s business because he felt obligated to. After all, it was the business that paid for his schooling and been the only son of three boys that was resident in Lagos and unmarried at that time, he had no good excuse to hide behind.

He got married 2 years after graduation and his father died 6 months after his marriage. For the next two years, Ayobanji struggled to keep the business going.

He had graduated with an HND in Computer Science and had obtained several certifications from online courses. His plan after graduation was to work for some years and further his education before setting up his own business. But life had other plans. He was stuck with a business he had no interest in.

After his father’s business closed down. Ayobanji went job hunting. But without the requisite experience in his course of study, many were the rejections he got. The only jobs he was able to apply for were for contract employees with lower educational qualifications than he had. Thus, he had gotten his current job at the bank using his OND certificate.

It was the use of his OND certificate to secure the bank job that necessitated using a sworn affidavit to affirm his football age.

Within 3 months of resuming at the bank job, it was pretty obvious to his supervisor and colleagues that he was over-qualified. And given his natural diligence, he got more work and responsibilities than other contract employees in the department. Also, he was often sent to other departments to resolve IT related issues. He loved the work, but the pay was not commensurate to his workload.

“I can’t continue like this,” he thought to himself as he drove to the office. “This every Saturday work no be am at all. I need an upgrade in pay and status.”

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He had hoped and prayed that he won’t fall in love with a lady who was the first born of her family. He was the first born of his own family. He knew, felt, experienced and did not enjoy the burdens, financial and otherwise, that came with being the first born in a middle class family.

However, we often never choose the one we fall in love with. Love just happens.

When love happened to him, his wish was partly fulfilled. He fell in love with a lady who was the 2nd born child of her family. But the first born of her family had died at a very early age, so she had naturally assumed the position of the first born.

After three years if courtship, they had had to shift their family introduction ceremony twice in order to raise enough money for the wedding proper. But there was always something that came up, either in terms of school fees for their siblings, sickness of parent or some other unexpected expenses that ate into their savings.

But this year Silas was determined to get married no matter what. He was not getting younger and unlike his father, he didn’t want to use his pension to pay for his children’s school fees.

He had rented a two bedroom apartment and moved out of the family house. He had also taken a car loan from the bank where he worked at a marketing executive. It was the money left after purchasing his car that made up the N500,000 he had saved.

He looked lovingly at his fiancee, Chinwe, as she slept naked beside him. They had met up at his office for their usual “Thank God Its Friday” hangout and then ended up at his place in the early hours of Saturday morning. She worked as an administrative officer in a private secondary school. Her work hours were flexible but the pay was small. Her father had died 10 years ago when she was about entering the university. He left behind her mother, Chinwe and her younger siblings, a sister and a brother. Upon graduation, she had joined her mother in financing the education of her siblings. Her mother was a trader in Balogun market.

In his own case, both parents were still alive and both were retired. Thus , he was officially responsible for them and his 6 younger siblings of 3 sets of twins, 2 sets of male and a set of female.

He glanced at the wall clock and saw it was 15 minutes past 8am. He contemplated whether to wake her up so he could drop her off at her place. so he can go on his usual weekend marketing runs at the Gym. She adjusted her sleeping position from laying her side to lay on her back. The duvet shifted down and exposed her right breast. He stared at the naked rounded mound of flesh for a minute. Then he placed his hand on her exposed right breast and gently massaged the nipple into the ample flesh. She stirred a little, adjusted her body and moved her arms, so that the duvet slipped away, which exposed both boobs.

He glanced at the wall clock again. “Marketing will have to wait, I need to feast on this beautiful body,” he said to himself. He moved his body closer to her, circled one of the boobs with his lips and softly nibbled the nipple. He then grabbed and gently kneaded the other breast.

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Emeka woke up abruptly. He stared around the room wondering what woke him up.

Then his phone rang and he picked it up.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi love.”

“Hey, whats up?” He replied and bit his tongue before calling out a name. He was unsure of which one of his many lady friends was calling him.

“I’m fine. And you?”

“I’m doing well. It was your call that woke me up.”

“You went clubbing without me, abi?”

“No. I was too tired to go anywhere. Besides, I had nothing to celebrate. The bank did not promote me again.”

“Eeeyah, so sorry love. Do you want me to come over and cheer you up?”

“Maybe later. Just want to be alone for now.”

“Ok love. I will call you later to let you know I’m on my way.”

“Ok, no problem.”

“See you then. Don’t think to much about it, ok? I love you,” she said gently.

“Same here. Bye,” he muttered and cut the line.

He laid back on the bed.

“I need to do something. I can’t continue to be treated like shit by people who don’t appreciate my value.” he thought to himself. Then he said aloud, “ If only there was a way I could get back at them.”

To be continued

Signed

Olumide Holloway (King Olulu)

Twitter @olulu4ever, Instagram @olulutheking, olulu4ever@gmail.com, +2348025070892

Originally posted on https://wordup411ng.com/