Business is booming. Look at them devouring my food like starving kids. They are all seated at the greasy tables with flies perching on top of their plates, ordering and eating, rice and stew, jollof rice, afang soup, egusi soup, editan soup, nkong soup, yam and stew etc.
My name is Eka udo and I run a restaurant or buka as they call it in this town. My restaurant is a beehive of activities and is swarmed with customers at all hours of the day. It is a local watering ground where people meet to discuss and gossip about the latest gist in town. Its not a fancy place at all. Its just a large enclosure constructed with plywood and roofed with aluminium sheets.
My customers love me because of my tasty meals. I cook the kind of food that would make you lick your fingers and lick your plates clean.
“Ekaudoh, mbok give me efere afang ye fufu, I dey hungry bad!”
“Eka udo, shebi you get beans and bread today? Your man dey die of hunger for hia o”
“Eka udo, I need rice and stew with pomo!”
“Eka udo…eka udo..eka udo….everyday! They can’t seem to stop calling my name. Sometimes I get tired and want to scream at them, “Leave me alone, I am tired!” but I can’t do so because they are my customers and I dare not dive them away. They are very loyal to me. Some days, I meet them waiting for me to resume so that they can eat. I have to realize that I play an important role in their lives. I give them quality food at a cheap price. Without me, the young men in this town would die of hunger.
You would be surprised by the caliber of people that troop to my restaurant. They are people from all walks of life.
Motor-park touts, agberos, keke drivers, traders, students, graduates, workers, single men and married men. There is Ekemini, the uniuyo undergraduate who eats breakfast and dinner at my place. There is Mr Idorenyin, the big headed guy who works in an insurance firm. He doesn’t cook and eats all his meals at my place. It’s a pity that a guy like that who is earning a fat salary can’t cook, but I am not complaining tho, he pays for his meals and never owes.
Wizzyman comes around to eat thrice a week. He has a love interest in my shop. He is eyeing Inyene, my new bootylicious sales girl. Wizzyman at the initial stage had first showed romantic interest in me before I shouted at him to respect himself. How can a man in his thirties be eyeing a 45 year old widow like me? My female customers love my moi moi. They say that it is the best in town. Better than the ones they sell at fast food joints. Many of my female customers cannot cook. They come to eat with their boyfriends. Sometimes they buy soup from me in their food flasks and take home to serve their boyfriends. Lazy bones!
I hate it when Ikpa Eto comes around. The tout is a loudmouthed fellow who talks at the top of his voice. He always picks up fights with my customers and refuses to pay for his meals. He likes eating afang-melon-draw soup combination. He is heavily indebted to me. I tolerate him because he has his uses. When these useless levy people and taskforce come to harass and extort money from me, I always call on Ikpa eto to come to my rescue.
Business had not always been this good. This buka used to be scanty and i used to struggle to make sales. I remember the day a customer offered to help me. He always came to eat pepper soup with Champion lager beer every day. He is a short middle aged man, always dressed in a brown shirt on top of a black oversized trouser with a dirty fez cap sitting on his almost bald head. I noticed that he would stare at me and look away when I make eye contact.
One day, I was very frustrated at the low sales and was looking for someone to confide in, when he walked in as usual. This time, he didn’t order for a meal. He walked straight to me and said, “I know that you are frustrated with poor sales today. I can help you get more customers and make more money”
“Please show me the way!” I implored in a desperate tone.
He began talking to me in low tones. He said he could link me up with a powerful dibia who would help me. He said that the dibia uses water used in washing dead bodies in the mortuary to concoct a magic potion that restaurant owners use for cooking for their customers in this town. He said that the potion makes the meal very delicious that the customers would be charmed and become hooked for life. He told me to give him N150,000 to connect me with the dibia.
I was shocked. I shook my head defiantly.
“Please don’t say that again! How can you suggest such a thing? Please leave my shop immediately!”
I chased him out.
He came back two days later with a 5 litre gallon.
“This is a small sample of the magic potion. Just give it a trial and you would see the amazing result. After then you would follow me to meet the dibia for the full sacrifice. Don’t you know that everybody is using something to make sales? Do you want to be left out? I like you, this is why I am doing all this for you” he stated with a coy smile.
I snapped at him.
“Don’t you have a conscience? Are you not a Christian? How can you be so diabolical? Leave my shop!”
He left and never came back.
Right from that day, I resolved to put my whole heart and strength in building and growing this buka business. Over the years, the business began booming. I have now made so much money from this Eka udo business. I have just finished building a block of one bedroom hostels for rent to students in this town. All my children are being trained in the best schools from the proceeds of this business.
I know there are many people who are envious of my progress. They want to pull me down. From time to time, they keep saying all sort of negative things and spreading wild rumours about me. But I don’t care because my conscience is clear and my hands are clean.
Business is good! Oh I can see some new faces coming into the buka, "Inyene! Atim! Uduak! What are you people doing inside there? Go and attend to my customers!"
#TrendingFiction
© Leroi
30/12/2016
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