Agent’s Diary: Strange cries in the basement

We brought you the ‘FIRST EVER REAL ESTATE FICTION SERIES’ that has been opening our eyes week in, week out to the challenges tenants go through with their landlords and even their fellow tenants. The Brouhaha of Oga Martins is believed to have also created a broader perspective as to the hurdles real estate agents and practitioners have to cross in the business and how all of these affect you and I.

For a while we thought Oga Martins and his brouhaha was all we could offer our readers as regards story telling until we encountered an estate agent from lekki. A 23-year-old man who says he’s been passionate about Real estate business since he was a kid. He said he had something that would interest us, a long piece that could parley with Oga Martins and his brouhaha. Then he brought it out from the parcel in his hands; it was a journal that he tagged “THE AGENT’S DIARY”. However, what he didn’t know was that we had a column on our blog that we had specifically created for real estate agents to share their experiences and thoughts on the job though we were still searching for content. Now this wasn’t just a mere coincidence, you can call it a divine encounter. Agent’s diary creates an avenue for real estate agents in Nigeria to share their thoughts and experiences on the job and possibly aspects of their personal life that has influenced or affected their job.

Our first story in a long series of Agent’s diary dwells on the private life of a Real estate agent who happens to come from a very wealthy home. This is a sojourn into the personal life of arguably the youngest and one of the most talked about agent in Lekki; Kunle Irepodun (real names withheld). We decided to share his story not only because we feel it’s consequential to the said agent but because he is one of our faithfuls.

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In this diary he reveals his persona, life’s struggle, family ties and is struggle for prominence in his real estate job in a society that thinks less of him. He shares with us his innermost secrets. Agent Kunle as he calls himself stumbled on our site a year ago and decided that this is the best platform to publish the diary he has been keeping since 2011. These are private accounts but he doesn’t mind sharing, he was going to dispose it anyways.
The story goes thus…

December 30, 2012 was the darkest day in the Irepodun household; that was the day the bread-winner of the family was fell by stray bullets off the riffle of a trigger-happy ‘MOPOL’.

It was barely two days to Christmas, the city was in festive mood even the rams were seen loitering around churches and a few could be found beside the central mosque. They had only one thing in their minds; getting a chance at the altar or is it to see the Imam? It was only a matter of days before the butchers’ treacherous tool becomes lost beneath their hairy hides. On Christmas day, death is no respecter of rams; they knew this and will only have their self to blame if they left this wicked world without confessing the sins they committed amidst the high and mighty in Lekki; hell is not a good place for a ram, right? .

I had just returned home from an inspection tour of one of the houses under my watch, this was before I took a potential buyer to one of my father’s property to check the place out and possibly seal a deal. Saburi, my mechanic had disappointed me again; For the first time in a long while, I had to transverse Lekki phase one via public transport while my legs did the job for other frontiers that were not motorable

It was a hot afternoon, the intensity of the heat emanating from the rising sun was a death trap for the fouls of the earth, how much more humans. In fact if I had stayed longer in it I fear I could have lost my topmost skin layer to the sun’s vicious rays. The only consolation for the prejudice I suffered from the sun was that I was close to landing myself a 50 million naira deal; I was close to making my first millions in my real estate business. The sun can kiss my ass for all I care but that will leave me with no ass, ba? (Because of how much)What use will it be if I make all the millions then lose my ass? I needed no one to answer the question because there were more unseen forces around me than seen and trust me, those forces were evil. Not after I had made a very arrogant statement earlier against the forces that held the world and the celestial realm bound, for money I had not yet seen, though imagined.

If I waited a tad longer I needed no soothsayer to tell me that, my enemies were at the flanks waiting to put paid to my mouth’s confessions. Even when I lived a quiet life away from the eye of the world, my enemies still came at me with great alacrity, I was the black sheep of the family; an under achiever. In fact many people believed I was adopted because I just did not fit into the equation that made my family the envy of many.

“That boy is just different from the rest,” they would say.

“He’s a bastard” They murmured.

The holy book says the power of death and life lies in the tongue so who says the sun couldn’t have decided to kiss my ass just like my big mouth professed. I had to quickly take back the words.

I walked into the large waiting room close to the pantry in the basement of my father’s mansion. As I tarried towards the age-long 1 Kg silver ‘Haier Thermocool Refrigerator’, I couldn’t help but notice the cloud of dust that had formed a protective layer on the silver adornment of the refrigerator.

Halima, one of the house keepers for that section of the mansion was again missing in action. I sometimes wonder why my father still kept the young lady on his payroll. She wasn’t just suited for that kind of job, her lifestyle was up-beat; a model cum house keeper and she was highly paid. In fact I sometimes wondered if she earned more money than I did.

“Was she here to model for my father’s mansion in other to find potential buyers in the event of his death?” I allowed my imaginations run wild.

No one would believe if I introduced her as one of our house keepers, she was too pretty and had too much ‘swag’ for a house keeper even my glitzy girlfriend felt threatened by her presence in the house. She knew she was no match for Halima’s brazenness (she dey learn where she dey)

I was about settling into the Bianca arm-chair that was adjoining the divan couch in the waiting room when I heard the soft sobs. The glass of juice that had accompanied me after my encounter with the dusty refrigerator looked like it wanted a tighter hold on it.

“Who the heck is that?” I voiced.

I had thought all along that I was the only person in that part of the mansion. Halima usually vanishes into thin air only to re-appear at night, so it couldn’t be her or so I thought. The soft sobs drummed louder, this was not ordinary. My feet navigated towards the direction where the sobs seem to be emanating from. It must have been coming from the kitchen. The sobs got louder as I bridged the gap. In a split of seconds, I made my way to the door of the kitchen.

“Who is there?”I queried the unknown yet again, as I opened the door gradually.
“Holy Christ!’’

I was shell-shocked! Lying on the kitchen floor with a raffia mat around his shoulders was a bush baby.

To be continued next week…

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