So the best he could do for himself was to have his own investment because, per adventure his father dies, to avoid the fight for property and all of that.
He listened to me and so, he decided he wanted to build a filling station.
The author
That was how our days of hunger and starvation started. We toiled for days that rolled into weeks and months and years, to bring the structure to fruition.
At some point, to feed was a problem because before any little money will come, we had already spent it on building materials.
Time came, people he owed were calling from left right n centre; his phone was always hot; his blood pressure was beginning to rise.
I checked, I didn’t have cash as at then to help him but I had jewelries that were worth good money. I told him I was going to sell them.
But he refused and told me that those were mine. That how can I not wear my trinkets?
I told him that we should b thanking God we r actually selling them to invest and not to eat not to cure any illness.
That I believe that when we finish and start our business, he will buy me jewelries that are bigger and more expensive than those ones.
That was how I sold my jewelries even to the smallest pin I had and gave all the money to my husband.
The only money I removed from that gold money was my younger sister’s school fees, whom at the time, was to write her exams, and was being threatened in school that if she didn’t pay her school fees that they would not allow her write her exams.
As at then, my father was not buoyant enough to pay her school fees as he had just had a major surgery, plus the fact that his gratuity that was paid to him by university of Lagos as he retired, was given to my husband to still add to build the filling station.
[We considered] that when the station stood, we all will benefit from it.
The money I got from the sale of my jewelries was almost a million as at then, I took out only 60,000 naira which was my sister’s debt to the school.
The rest and even the ten naira the mallam gave me, I gave all to my husband who added to the money to buy the first truck of fuel to start business because by then, we had managed to finish building but no money to start.
It was when I gave my sister this money and she asked me how I got money, I told her I had to sell my jewelries.
That my hubby needed money and since she too needed to pay her school fees I had to sell them.
Part 2 will continue tomorrow…
By Emeka Ugwuonye