The Vatican
Chief is a celebrated businessman known all over Nigeria. He decided to celebrate and chose the Vatican for this mother of all celebration. He brought a plane load of his family and friends to Italy for this celebration. Among his friends was one politician who by his own admission he had mentored. This Honourable member of the Nigeria’s House of Representative once presided over a probe of billions of dollars stolen from the national coffers. As the probe went on it became clear to Nigerians that “Honourable” was taking bribes running to millions of dollars from those being probed. When the bubble burst the probe collapsed but as you read Honourable is still in Nigeria’s House of Representatives. In fact he’s warming up for next month’s general election.

So, Chief lodged himself in one of the most expensive hotels in Rome where celebrities such as Madonna and the likes lodged when they are in town. Honourable was also lodged in this same hotel. Chief wanted to see me regarding the celebration at the Vatican next day. I went, as I waited in the hotel’s foyer to be summoned by Chief to his penthouse lodging, guess who sneaked into the foyer on his way out into the warm Rome’s evening – Honourable! I used the word sneaked with free spirit because you could tell Honourable was looking about him as he hurried through the foyer with one huge dark young girl by his side – his concubine of course. The moment he saw me he was disconcerted. He looked from me to his concubine. After an interval of silence he regained himself and asked me if I had seen Chief. My reply was no. He quickly walked away with his concubine behind him.


At Chief’s palatial penthouse I was ushered in to meet the old man who seemed to be bubbling with life. When he was done with instructing me about the celebrations of the next day, he asked me if I had seen Honourable, I replied no. He fumed and wondered aloud what the Honourable could be up to that evening in Rome. During mass the following morning as part of the celebrations in one of the chapels inside the Vatican, Honourable was no where to be seen. After mass the congregants were mingling inside St Peter’s Basilica, and there was Honourable all by himself taking photos with his cell phone. He had left his concubine in his suite at the hotel. At the party in the hotel’s ballroom in the evening Honourable was nowhere to be seen. 


In the end Honourable who told his family in Nigeria he was coming to the Vatican to attend Chief’s celebrations never appeared at any of the events rather he was fully engaged in his suite with his concubine. The Chief wasn’t happy that Honourable never showed up at his celebrations. However that did not stop Chief, he announced gleefully to me of how he kissed the ring of the Pope as if that will take him to paradise. Few days later on his return to Nigeria Chief died. His funeral hadn’t been done when the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria AMCON, published the names of some dozen Nigerians whose collective debts were impacting the Nigerian economy negatively. Chief name was preeminent on the list. Knowing full well his death was near, he had recently borrowed billions of Naira from Nigerian banks. Some of that loot he squandered on his  Vatican celebrations – just another story of a conman, celebrated as saint, gone to his grave with our patrimony!