Heavy knocks for your money! (1)

By Segun Durowaiye

Barrister Phillips Langbodo was such a wicked man that everybody feared him, despite the fact that he was very wealthy. He was the devil incarnate. He was a multi-millionaire and legal icon in the society. He was amazingly rich that he spent millions of Naira on a daily basis. But that is not the end of the story.

Barrister Phillips always employed drivers almost every month because they couldn’t cope with his weird, wicked and inhuman behaviour and attitude towards them. Once he started showing them his true colours, they always ran away instantly. Some would abscond without even taking their accrued salary. He had a strange habit of given his drivers heavy and painful knocks on their heads if they didn’t drive his car to his satisfaction. He often found faults with the way they drove. No driver could satisfy him on wheels. For one whole year, he had changed close to 30 drivers. So, instead of correcting them by word of mouth, he would descend heavily from behind ( the owner’s corner) and give them knocks that sounded like earthquake, thunder or atomic bomb!

He was such a big, fat, tall and dark-skinned man. He had an imposing, huge and gigantic stature. He was in his early 50s but he looked fresh and younger than his age because of the wealth factor.

That very month of October, Barrister Phillips had just employed another driver by name Sanjo Oluwanishola, who was in his early 30’s. Sanjo came from a very humble background as he was an orphan who lost his parents at an early age. So, he had endured poverty and penury for many years. If being poor had a title Sanjo should be crowned king of all poor people. The very day, Sanjo started work with Barrister Phillips Langbodo he received 10 heavy knocks on his head. The young man cried and wept like a baby when persistent headache hit him as he got home. His amiable wife asked him what exactly was the matter but he couldn’t disclose it. His two children wept along with their poor dad as he lamented his gloomy and sad fate.

That was the agonising story and heart-breaking experience of Sanjo Oluwanishola. He had to endure such pain, such injustice and inhumanity for three years since there was nothing he could do because he was poor and couldn’t find another job. Most times when he received his meagre income he would go to a nearby pharmacy shop and buy drugs that would heal him of persistent headache and excruciating migraine. He was a thin and gaunt-looking man with a frail stature.

One day he cried, “When would this hardship and pain end Almighty God? I’ll commit suicide very soon because I just can’t bear it any more…” He was shedding sorrowful tears as he lamented his unfortunate plight in the presence of his immediate family. Sanjo continued to endure the pain and sadness for a couple of years with no solution or end in sight.

The third year, still working with him, Barrister Phillips ordered Sanjo to drive him to Victoria Island, Lagos for a crucial business meeting. It was exactly the month of July and the rains came in high torrents. The heartless Barrister lived in Ikeja GRA, where the rich resides in their splendour and opulence. After the all-important meeting, the heavens opened and thus came a torrential downpour. Sincerely, it was a heavy and thundery rainfall.

They were moving on the long, Third Mainland Bridge amidst the heavy rainfall when the demonic Barrister suddenly gave Sanjo five heavy knocks in quick succession! The knocks came just like lightning. “Don’t change your lane you, son-of-a-bitch!” growled the despotic Barrister…

To be concluded.

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