By Sunmola Olowookere
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Why would a grown man with arrays of ready women prefer to bed a minor? This is a question for the psychiatrists. Residents in our neighbourhood have no answer for it too. The case is reminiscent of Baba Ijesa’s scandal.
Presently, a sixty-year-old man’s world is being rocked by a slip of a girl. The girl is the daughter of his tenant. The parents of Calabar origin have three children. It was the only daughter that was frolicking with the landlord. Unfortunately, it could not be called rape as the young girl was well aware of what she was doing.
Their house is the busiest and the most noisy in the neighbourhood. It has about twelve rooms and six families lived therein. The landlord although a man in his sixties had no qualms “rocking the cradle”.
Despite his age, his virility goes undoubted as the residents of our neighbourhood and the tenants realized following the embarrassing debacle arising from the discovery. The girl whenever she wanted would slip into the landlord’s room and the old man would check to see if anyone was watching before going into the room to meet her.
The sordid affair went on for a while before their secret became exposed.
The lust that envelopes the house makes people refer to it as the ”den of iniquity” in our neighbourhood. Girls flit in and out of the house. The guys living there strut about like peacocks and preen like cockerels. Residents suspect that they are Yahoo boys because they stay at home all day without any meaningful employment.
They pride themselves on being in high demand as girls in our neighbourhood often fought over them. The king of them all is the landlord who was having a love affair with an eighteen-year-old, a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.
Though the love affair between the randy old man and Clara, was kept secret, people had begun to keep tabs on the girl who was seen sneaking in and out of the landlord’s room at odd times.
The landlord was so much enjoying the young girl’s attention that he could no longer control himself. At times, he would be discovered touching the girl’s sensitive parts outside while the silly girl would laughingly slap his hands away. They were so carried away with their affair that they were unaware that people were observing them.
The girl felt no shame in romancing a man old enough to be her grandfather because he was a very generous lover. He bought goodies and gifts for her. He also gave her money often.
The day of discovery and embarrassment dawned just like any other day. The girl’s brother had begun to sense foul play for some time and reported it to their parents. They had confronted the girl and she had denied that she was having an affair with the landlord. So they were watching her so they could catch the duo red-handed.
On that day, the mother had seen her slip inside the landlord’s room and waited impatiently for her son to return from work.
As soon as he came in, she had rushed to meet him.
”Come, come, Nnamdi, she don enter there again. Na today we go catch them.”
The other tenants had stood by while the mother had pounded on the door. ”Open up, Clara. If you know say na me be your mother, come out here.”
The brother who had stationed his friends by the window, sensing that the girl might escape through it pounded on the door. ”You this yeye landlord. You dey use my sister. Una don enter trouble today.”
After some minutes of shuffling about the room. The randy old man sheepishly opened the door to the glare of his lover’s family and the curious gazes of other tenants. Though he was filled with the fear of discovery, he spoke with bravado.
”Wetin be dis now? Which kain insult be dis? Una wan break my door? Your daughter, Clara, no dey here.
“Come inside, come look”.
They all went inside. They searched every corner of the room and even under the bed, Clara was nowhere to be seen. The mother was puzzled. But she maintained. ”I no say she dey here. Even I dey perceive the odour of lovemaking.”
So saying, she spat in one corner of the room, which further angered the landlord. The landlord was blustering and he warned them never to barge into his room like that again.
Puzzled, they turned to leave. They were, however, halted by a fit of coughing that came from inside a metal box in one corner of the room. With triumph, they pounced on the box, ignoring the landlord’s protest.
And, expectedly, Clara was discovered in the box with only a wrapper covering her nudity. All hell broke loose as her mother and brother attacked the Landlord.