Chilling With The Big Boys

Whenever I feel the need to talk about affairs and happenings in my country, I always have mixed feelings. The reason for this is that majority of what's put on the media about my country tends to be negative and sadly mostly untrue, misconstrued or misunderstood, so when I want to write, knowing this platform houses people from diverse continents and many different countries, I feel the need to only focus on countering all these misconstrued information out there. I've chosen not to fall to that temptation today as I have a pain in my heart.

This article was inspired by a group of teenage girls with whom I shared a public vehicle yesterday. They were having a conversation about a rather interesting topic, and why I try as much to zone out when using public transportation, they were quite loud. The part of the conversation that did succeed in getting them my attention was a particular sentence by one of the girls, and what she said was 'I'll still chill with the big boys'.

The Big Boys

Usually when a Nigerian calls you a 'big boy', you must have some, if not all of the qualities listed below,

1. You are well employed

2. You're rich.

4. You're well to do (successful)

5. You dress expensive

6. Drive the best or recent car

7. Eat really good quality food

8. Moving with the favorite group in town

In summary, you spend money lavishly and recklessly

So basically, in that Nigerian way, you're a big boy only if you fall within a certain category of people who are financially well to do and are quite lavish and extravagant with their lifestyle. Naturally, people who worked hard for their money tend to be more methodical and logical when it comes to money, but not big boys. The big boys spend money like they can pluck it from a tree.

In Nigerian vocabulary, chilling simply means having fun (and enjoying life) and everybody wants that as they should.

......... With The Big Boys

As has been said earlier, there's no problem with wanting to chill, but it gets blurry when you want to do it with the big boys. This is because due to the continuing inflation rate in my country, people are quite reluctant to part with hard earned cash. So to chill with a 'big boy' is to be enjoying money that your 'big boy' didn't work for or earned illegally.

Recently there's been an explosive increase in internet and romance fraud as well as what we call 'money ritual'( A way of getting rich quick that involves killing innocent people and using them for some satanic rituals, so as to get rich instantaneously). These have become so rampant amongst Nigeria youth and teenagers. These people then flaunt this ill-gotten wealth all over the place to attract gullible girls like the ones I shared the vehicle with, only to use them for their satanic rituals. As a result, there has been panic and uproar all over the country as to why this is happening and what can be done, but that's not my focus today.

My focus is this, even with the knowledge of the recent happenings, the killings and satanic rituals, young girls still chase after young guys with unexplainable wealth, knowing fully well that these guys could be dabbling in these satanic rituals which cost human lives, thereby risking their young lives, and for what exactly?

Take the teenage girls I mentioned, they would be at best 14-18yrs of age, in their first year in the university, so what exactly are they looking to get from these kind of guys? What do they need such ill-gotten money for?

How can a reasonable person see a teenager, someone less than eighteen years of age, with no job, no skill, having a house and cars worth thousands or millions in dollars and would still willingly associate with such a person? Do you need a soothsayer to tell you what you already know; that this money been lavished before you is ill-gotten?? That these guy is probably involved in fraud, robbery or satanic rituals? Why are people intentionally blinding themselves(figuratively)?

But again, the kind of girls who run after these guys and most times end up losing their lives at one satanic altar or the other never did claim not to have known the kind of guys they were rowing with. Just like the girls, they just didn't care and just said to themselves, 'I'll still chill with the big boys'. I guess that's how much their lives means to them; not much.

Thanks for reading.