I honestly do not like to get involved in people's personal business because I notice the average human being does not do so well working with other people's advice. They learn better from their own experience when it's usually too late to salvage the situation and there are no second chances. So I thought to myself, why do I need to waste my precious time advising who will not listen? There are people that no matter how polite you might want to seem in trying to communicate, they will still pick offense. Those sets of people usually think they have their whole life figured out and they have sense more than you coming to advise them even when it’s obvious they don’t.
I had this really beautiful coursemate back then in Uni that was always doing me gum-body, she gets involved in my business a lot, we eat lunch and dinner together, she always wants us to attend lectures together, we practically sit together and if for some reason she gets to class before me, she will make sure she keeps my space. We even had a favorite seat that no One dares sit on because everyone knows that is Ese and Queen's chair. We were inseparable and for someone who doesn't do well keeping same sex friendship, I attract a lot of female friends in that nature whom are extremist with their friendship position lol. Then I noticed this girl is a reckless spender. one minute her account is reading hundreds of thousands in Naira and in the next minute she is buying one wrap of fufu and begging me for Fifty Naira so she can buy beef or else she's eating without any protein.
Some times, she will get so embarrassed to go and place order for just one fufu that goes for Fifty Naira because she feels whoever is close by and hears her make such order will laugh at her, so I'd just volunteer and ask her to sit while I get lunch for the both of us.
Sometimes, I'd add my own money and make it two fufu two beef for her. It went on for quite sometime till I decided to do some digging to know what is actually going on because this girl wears the most expensive of clothes and does the most expensive of hair that I could not even afford, why then is she struggling to feed?
It just doesn't make sense so I went through her phone, I checked on her bank transactions and saw her cash flow. This girl receives money in hundreds of thousands and also withdraws in that same fold, so where does all the money go to I asked myself.
I acted ignorant at first but then i stopped buying her food or doing her any favors that involves finance. Whenever we go for lunch and she come with her one fufu no beef emotional blackmail, I pretend like I don't hear her lament. Some times she will swallow her pride to get it herself, other times she'd just watch me eat and not place order at all.
Some times she will ask we eat together but I will decline that it could barely satisfy me. At some point, it felt like I was being too cruel and it was starting to affect our friendship so I had to approached her and asked her what do you use your money for? because I know you are not struggling financially. I mean you own more nice things that I ever would and if you struggle financially you won’t be able to afford these things so what's the problem?
She kept quiet and next she said was, i will not understand make I just leave am. I said ok no problem I didn't push. Exam time came and this girl could not meet up with her school fees, she confided in me and asked I give her my clearance card so she can make a forged copy for her to use and write the exam. I took the risk of being expelled if caught and gave her my clearance card to forge but this girl did not do just one copy for herself, she went and did plenty duplicate copies and started selling it for Five Thousand Naira to anyone who could not afford to pay their fees at the time.
I got to find out but I wasn't mad, I felt maybe she could gather enough money to pay up her fees from there if that's the least I could do to help out. This girl made serious money as she was selling to people from other departments. Some people would even have their fees and not pay up, they will just take five thousand naira from it and buy the fake clearance card she’s selling.
Note, she did not give me a dime from the proceeds and I honestly wasnt bothered. Business was booming and toward the end of the exams, I asked her how far if she was able to pay up her fees from the proceeds of the fake clearance card she sold. She felt uncomfortable with my question and went how much did you think i made that could cover up my fees? me that is a mumu thinking it’s a honest question started doing the run down for her based on the transactions I saw and information I received.
I told her the amount of money you made is more than enough to clear your fees and you have no excuse not to pay up before second semester because I took a great risk helping you out and I would not be doing that again. She got angry and fired back at me that I have no right to tell her how to go about spending the money she made. She went further to say, because of the little assistance I gave to her, I want to start forming lord supreme like my life is so perfect. she said so many things that I got confused if we were still on the same matter. I just told her sorry I will mind my business from now on. From then onward she started avoiding me and I gave her space. Then it got to second semester exams and she was hoping to still cheat her way through but this time it backfired as the school authority made some serious losses, so they decided to be more thorough in their search of who has paid fees and who has not so no one tries to cut corners. They even brought in the police and some expert to identify fake clearance cards.
Immediately she saw them coming to the hall and catching someone with fake clearance card, she hurriedly submitted and left before she could get caught. After the exam she started running helter skelter looking for who will help her get cleared as she could not meet up with her fees. Her mother had to travel down to come plead with the school authority. I felt for her and started asking around what are the chances she has to finish up her exams and how myself and other course-mates could rally round some cash and help her out. But the discovery I got was pretty shocking as the last time she paid fees was in 100 level. The money she owes was huge and the school even wants to penalize her for cheating them all these years.
We were already in 300 level and it was really sad that she would have to not meet up and probably forfeit her admission. I went to her and decided to give her my two cent opinion again, I asked her about all the uncles she told me about that works in big oil companies in Port Harcourt, that was always gifting her big money as per student. I told her this is the time to call them to help her out and she responded she doesn't like bothering people with her problems. At that point, I decided minding my business cannot be overemphasized and there will be no better time to do so.
Above is my response to the
Thinker’s corner contest For week three, initiated by @kenechukwu97.
PS
Thank you for reading this far, your contributions will be highly appreciated.