HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 26)

I don’t think anyone living in Ojo axis is real.

This is my kito (escape) story.

Around the first few days of 2017, I met this guy on Grindr with the profile name, Peter. We exchanged contacts, which resulted in us talking on the phone. He called and sounded really cool. As someone who had been kitoed once, I find it hard to trust any potential hookup or let my guard down when getting to know someone new.

However, this guy was Igbo, and we conversed in Igbo, a familiarity that made me feel a bit relaxed in my interaction with him.

However, after the call, I ran his number through true caller, hoping the app would identify him. But the search yielded no result. This had me feeling one kind of way, but I didn’t think there was any need to panic.

He called again later to tell me I should come visit that same day we’d just gotten acquainted, that he likes me and blah, blah, blah. As part of his introduction meanwhile, he’d told me he owned a shop at Alaba International and that he had people working for him. I got the feeling I was supposed to be impressed by that. I wasn’t. In fact, it was at this time that a voice began whispering in my head: Dude, this guy na set up o.

But I shushed the voice. Then I proceeded to ask Peter for his Facebook ID, and he went off, saying stuff about how “this thing we’re doing isn’t legal or accepted by the society”, blah, blah, blah. And I was there thinking, OK, you need to relax, I didn’t ask for your Facebook ID because I wanted to come and post nudes on your timeline.

I was bored that day and since he’d suggested that we wouldn’t be meeting at his house, I felt it was OK for me to risk it.

And so, I embarked on the journey

(By the way, to my fellow KDians: ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO TAKE YOU TO AND FROM A FIRST DATE! DO NOT LISTEN TO “I’LL GIVE YOU TRANSPORT MONEY!” SIDDON FOR HOUSE IF YOU NO GET MONEY!)

So back to my gist, Peter told me that we would meet at Alaba International Market. I reasoned that it was an open place, and as such, there was little possibility of anything dramatic happening.

Upon getting to Iyana Oba, he told me to take a bus or cab to Iyano School or whatever it was he called the place, and then the directions started to drift.

I cut him off, like, “Hey! You said we’ll be meeting at Alaba International. How come I’m getting all these directions to a different place?”

He replied that his boys were in the shop at the moment and that he was going home for us to meet in privacy. For some odd reason, even though my guard had shot up high and I was positive that this was a kito calling out to me, I felt oddly determined to see where this was going. I felt like I was in an argument with myself and I needed to prove something to myself.

I cannot remember the bus stop I stopped at, and after I got a bike, through the phone, he told me to give the bike man the phone. I did. He told the bikeman the location where he was to drop me – I remember hearing him say something like “Orji Street”. Soon, I was on my way with the bikeman.

I wasn’t born with a silver spoon. In fact, I grew up in a really tough neighborhood in Abuja, and in my teens, I experienced street life and a little thuggery. My background and my alertness had me feeling confident that I wouldn’t fall into any shenanigans.

The bikeman got on this bumpy road, and from afar, I could sight some guys (strategically) positioned further down the road, like they were waiting to trap someone. My street instinct beckoned and I asked the bikeman, “Oga, we never reach?”

The man, who clearly wasn’t in on this, said: “Na for front there.”

I told him to stop me. He said my destination was still ahead. I said that was okay, that I could walk the rest of the way. He stopped. I got off the bike, paid him and he drove off. I called Peter. He said he was still on his way to the house, that he was on a bike, and that I should wait for him at the gate.

Even though our call had ended, I acted like I was still on the phone as I turned back towards the direction the bike came from. As I walked back down the bumpy road to the main road, I changed my gait, added a confident swagger to it. Growing up in the ghetto had taught me never to show fear and weakness in scenarios such as this.

I walked up to a junction where there was a fuel station and hung around. I called Peter again and he was “still on a bike.” At this, I snapped at him, that “oga, I came all the way from Festac to come see you and you’re not even here. If you really want to see me, I’m at the fuel station at the beginning of your street.”

In response, the dude became intense and was begging me to come to the house, that it was the same thing.

Meanwhile, two guys appeared from nowhere and were hovering around where I was. I smiled to myself. They were built like me, and eziokwu, if they had tried anything, walahi, we for down there!

One of them approached me and growled, “Who you dey look for?”

I growled back at him, “I dey wait my bros.”

“No be you bike drop for that side?” he snapped.

“Yes, na me. Any problem?” I snapped back.

He didn’t respond. He went back to the other guy and they began muttering to themselves.

At this point, I realized that it was my village people that were working to pin my legs down there. And one must never trust his village people. So I flagged down a bike, got on it, and I was off.

As I was on my way home-bound, the idiot called. “Baby, kedu ebe ino?”

Baby, where are you?

I replied, “Nna, abum nwafor o. Inweghi ike iri’m o.”

My friend, I’m a correct Igbo boy. You no fit chop me o!

He got mad and started ranting, “Do you know I can give you job” and blah, blah, blah! I hung up on him and then sent him a text message, telling him to go do something with his life.

Honestly though, in spite of all my bravado, I was shaken by the near kito experience. When I got home, my legs were very shaky. And even now, as I’m writing this, it is taking me a lot of self control to recall what happened without sinking into the trauma of it all.

In all you do, people, stay woke!

Written by Ikemefuna