RED CANDLES IN THE DARK
I read FOR THE LOVE OF MAN and the story awakened memories of times past when I was around that same kind of diabolic energy that young gay men like me used to entrap older rich men.
I was in Enugu State University (ESUT) in the early 2000s. In school back then, there was a certain guy who I’ll call Dash for the purpose of this story. Dash was a “big girl” in campus. He drove a Bora to school and lived in a hotel.
A HOTEL!
Gay – as well as straight and down-low – men flocked around him like paparazzi around an A-list celebrity on Hollywood boulevard, because he was the “It girl”.
Dash was dating a white man who supplied all of Dash’s riches in glory, and the news flying about in our circle and the gay community was that he used juju to kolobi (hook) the Angolo (Port Harcourt slang for white man). For the purpose of this story, let’s call this Angolo Dickson.
I eventually got to meet Dickson when he visited Enugu and hung out with those of us who were in Dash’s circle of friends. During that hangout, something not quite right quickly became clear to us. I noticed that anytime Dash stepped away, Dickson seemed to become a different person – more alive and aware. He would complain to us, in Dash’s absence, about how Dash was extremely greedy and never satisfied. He asked us how much our parents gave us for monthly upkeep, and when we told him, his shock was very evident. He said that Dash collects from him close to a hundred thousand naira every week. Sometimes, he’d even demand for the 100 grand twice in a week.
A HUNDRED GRAND EVERY WEEK!
I’m talking about the 2002 – 2004 period; so of course, you know this wasn’t chicken money. We were astonished and yet unsurprised. This explained Dash’s lavish lifestyle in school.
Then, right before our eyes, as Dash returned to our table, the oyibo blanked instantly. It was like magic. The animation went out of his expression and his countenance shuttered. Dash asked him for 90 grand in front of us, and without even asking him what he wanted the money for, Dickson handed him a small bag, from which Dash counted out 90 grand before handing the bag back to him.
This was the same man who’d just been complaining about Dash’s greed!!!
We returned to our hostels now convinced that we’d seen proof of Dash’s diabolic hold on his oyibo lover.
A few months later, while visiting family in Port Harcourt, Dash (who lived in Port Harcourt and was also around) invited me over to Shell residential area. He was having a small get-together in Dickson’s house.
I accepted the invitation, and when I got there that evening, I saw that it was indeed a sedate affair, just like he’d said. Very few people – all guys of course – were in attendance and I was surprised to see that most of them were my circle of friends from school. They had traveled all the way from Enugu for the get-together.
We had lots to eat and drink, and because we partied well into the night, Dickson asked us all to sleep over.
That night, the lovers had a falling out. It was WAR!!! At some point, I knew that every guest was thinking what I was thinking: that the relationship was over. As though to emphasize what we were thinking, Dash stormed out, clearly not intending to spend the night with us.
The next morning, Dickson looked very much like he’d had enough of Dash, even though he was polite and nice to us all. He made us breakfast and urged us to relax and not be in a hurry to leave, all the while repeatedly apologising for the previous night’s altercation that we witnessed.
Well, guess what!
Dash came back that morning as we were all lounging in the living room, watching TV with Dickson. He (Dash) did not say a single word to anyone. He simply went over to Dickson, pecked him on the cheek, touched his head affectionately and went inside.
Dickson didn’t say a word. He didn’t rebuff Dash’s show of affection, even though he looked irritated when Dash came in.
And then, a few minutes after Dash went inside, Dickson jolted slightly in his seat, as though he’d experienced a mild electrocution. Then he stood up, paused for a few seconds, and then turned on us. It was incredible. Our formerly-cordial host suddenly became hostile, ordering us all to leave his house in the next five minutes, otherwise he would send for the estate security to kick us out.
This was the very same man who earlier had pleaded with us stay on for awhile!!!
We were all exchanging looks, utterly gobsmacked, as we pulled on our clothes and shoes to leave.
I attended another party in Port Harcourt, a lavish gay party – and here, I met a clique that dimmed Dash’s star. This group was the Beyoncé to Dash’s Kelly. These were the “big girls” of Port Harcourt and they were boldly fabulous. I kid you not: these guys showed up in a convoy of five hummer jeeps, dressed in high heels and sparkling clothes. Each of them had a topless, hunky man holding their handbags for them. Dash told me they were the top shots in Port Harcourt, and he introduced one of them to me as IB. The moment Dash said his name to me during the introduction, the guy said loudly, “Yes o! I am the famous IB Juju!” As he said this, his friends as well as Dash hailed him loudly while exchanging high fives with each other.
IB was clearly feeling himself that night, as he went on to brag about how he operates. He talked about how, when he visits a guy, he can see smoke coming out from wherever money has been stashed in the house. He would then command the guy to leave the house and then proceed to go take the money. As he spoke proudly of his feats, his cohorts praised him loudly.
And I just sat there like a village house girl as I listened.
***
Dash and I shared a mutual friend (let’s call him Presley). Presley was a very attractive guy. The problem with him though was his covetousness. Presley was the kind of guy who simply had to have the glory that you have.
After Dickson visited with us in Enugu, Presley could not shake off his growing obsession with the fact that he didn’t have the access to wealth that Dash had. He began to talk about Dash and Dickson all the time. On several occasions, he would be lost in thought while in our company, and then he would suddenly burst out saying to himself, “Presley! No be your mate e be?!” – clearly referring to Dash.
Around that period, he made the acquaintance of a guy named Fukre, a very unsavory character who everyone gossiped was diabolical. I remember back then how his phone was always kept busy by phone calls from men everywhere wanting to meet him. While we struggled to recharge our phones with N200, Fukre would have airtime of up to 5, 6 grand. This was a very big deal back then.
When I noticed Presley hanging around Fukre as much more than a mere acquaintance, I worried for him. Knowing full well how his mind worked, I tried to dissuade Presley from competing with Dash. I told him that he doesn’t know what sort of background Dash comes from; I mean, it was very possible Dash comes from a family where diabolism was as normal as a Christian family holding morning devotion. I reminded him of the night we spent at Dash’s grandmother’s house a long time ago. She lived in the creeks of Port Harcourt, and very early in the morning, around 6 AM, we woke up to see her dressed in white, doing some incantations in front of the river.
But Presley wouldn’t listen to me. He was fixated on having what Dash had, and somehow, we began to grow apart. He became scarce around me because he was now hanging out with Fukre and his people.
We graduated from school, and in 2006, I moved to Abuja. One day, Presley called to inform me that he would be coming to my place from Calabar. In my mind, I figured he was coming to Abuja for runs. A few days later, he showed up with Fukre. I of course didn’t like Fukre, but I didn’t object to him staying over, as I didn’t want to create any more friction between me and Presley than we already had.
That night, we were catching up on each other’s businesses in life when there was a power failure. It was a hot night, and we had to move outside for fresh air. Some other guys, mutual friends from school, who’d learned that Fukre was in town dropped by, and it quickly became quite the gathering as we gisted and reminisced.
As we were chatting away, I realized that Presley was no longer in our midst. I never saw him leave the compound, so I figured he was back inside. While idly wondering what he was doing inside in the dark, I went in to find him.
And lo and behold, there Presley was, seated completely naked on the floor of my bedroom in front of two red candles and surrounded by a circle of some white substance sprinkled on the ground. He was reading something from a rumpled piece of paper, and there were other fetish-looking items on the floor and one in his other hand.
I could not believe my eyes.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” I shouted in disbelief.
Presley looked up at me, and in his eyes, even in the flickering light of the candles, I could see the desperation and self-deprecation. He knew what he was doing was wrong. It was as though he’d been surrounded by the likes of Fukre for so long, that upon confronting my shock, he could see how far he had wandered and didn’t like what he was seeing.
Till today, what happened next has stayed with me, refusing to be forgotten.
As I was trying to talk Presley out of whatever it was he was doing by reminding him how much his mother – who I’d come to know as I got close to him and his family – prays daily for him, how his future was bright, how much God has in store for him, Fukre walked into the room and began talking loudly over my voice to Presley.
“No mind am… Na you go reign… You go tuff… You go hammer… No mind am, no mind them… Them go hear your name!” he went on and on, trying to drown out my voice.
It began to feel like those God-and-Satan scenarios you see in horror movies, where two forces of good and evil are trying to win a soul over to either side. And the flickering light of the candles, which gave the room a ghostly feel, didn’t help matters.
“Don’t you want to hear my name?” Presley asked me quietly as he looked into my eyes.
In my heart, I knew he was asking if I was for or against him. The look in his eyes spoke volumes; it was the expression of a child who was lost and needed help. But he wasn’t a child. However much he wavered, his mind stayed resolute as Fukre shouted the things he wanted to hear.
Eventually recognizing my defeat, I left the room. I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom that night, knowing what my friend had done there. The next day, much to my relief, Presley and Fukre left.
Weeks later, Presley showed up at my place looking fabulous and brand-new. His clothes were flashy and he was exuding so much confidence. He’d come to invite me to a party he was throwing in Port Harcourt. At the time, he was doing some sort of internship in PH. He also bragged about how Dash likes to think he was a babe and how he (Presley) had “shown” him. He boasted about how it was Dash’s oyibo (Dickson) who was sponsoring the party.
Okay!!! In spite of myself, I was intrigued. And a day before the party, I traveled to Port Harcourt.
The party was a big deal. It was lavish. There were food and drinks and everything else in excess. The music was loud, and Presley was the coveted centre of attention. Dash also came to the party, but he only stayed briefly. Even he could not steal the spotlight from Presley.
A few days later, people – and I mean gay guys in our circles – began to talk. Apparently, Dash was threatening Presley to return the money he collected from Dickson for the party… Or else.
At this point, my friendship with Presley had become all but nonexistent, so apart had we become that we barely even spoke. This time, I was deliberately distancing myself from him because I didn’t want to be attached in any way to all the nastiness and drama that had started surrounding him with Dash and everything else.
However, one day a few months later, out of the blue, Presley called me and begged me to pray for him. He said he didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was crying on the phone and I did my best to calm him down.
About a week later, a strong urge to call Presley suddenly hit me and without knowing why, I began to panic. When he called me, he’d used a different number from the one I had for him. He’d told me this was the number he could now be reached with, and I wrote it down on a small piece of paper, intending to save it later in my phone. But I forgot, and now, I was frantically looking for the paper. I basically turned my room upside down looking for the paper, as each passing minute filled me with the inexplicably-pressing and frantic need to call my friend.
I didn’t find the paper.
But soon, it wouldn’t matter. About an hour later, the friend who I was flatmates with came home. He came straight to me and hugged me. Then he pulled back and looking at me with great sadness, he said, “Presley is dead.”
My heart broke. I screamed. I wept. I was shattered.
I pulled away from my friend to go into my room to grieve by myself. As I entered my room, I walked past my open wardrobe and something caught my eye. Sitting neatly on one of the shelves was the piece of paper I had ransacked the entire house in search for. It was IMPOSSIBLE for it to just sit there without me seeing it.
I called the number immediately and I could hear people wailing in the background. It was Presley’s younger brother, Chike, who answered the call. He told me that Presley was calling my name before he died. (During Presley’s funeral, his mother kept telling relatives, “This is the friend my son was calling as he was dying.” And they all kept hugging me.) Chike also told me that in his final moments, Presley had begged his mother to call Dash and beg him to forgive him. When Dash was called and told what Presley had so desperately asked of him, he had mockingly said, “Shebi hospital dey there. Make una carry am go there.” Then he hung up on Presley’s mother.
And then, a few hours later, in the hospital, Presley died.
Chike also told me that something unusual had happened when Presley was hospitalized. The hospital staff would leave Presley for a moment and then return to find him covered in dust as if he’d gone out to play or something. And yet, he couldn’t have because he was bedridden.
During his burial, I didn’t have the stomach to look upon Presley’s corpse in the casket. That was the last thing I wanted as a memory of him. He died at 22 years of age.
A few years ago, in 2014, I learned that Dash was selling recharge cards and was a shadow of himself. I couldn’t believe it. I had left Nigeria at this time and the person telling me this was a friend in my living room. Somehow, the news had to be wrong if it was coming from someone outside Nigeria. So, I called home and asked someone who knew Dash and he confirmed that it was true. I couldn’t understand how someone who had all that money and luxury could end up sitting under an umbrella, selling recharge cards to make ends meet.
The next year, Dash passed away. I was too far away to know what the cause of death was.
I also learned that IB Juju is dead as well. Remember the Queen Bee from the party in Port Harcourt who boasted about his diabolical conquests? Yeah, his death was another senseless tragedy that rocked the Port Harcourt gay scene.
As for Fukre, for whatever reason, for the longest time, no one I know ever seemed to know his whereabouts. It’s as though he up and vanished into thin air.
Reading FOR THE LOVE OF MAN reminded me of the past. It also filled me with a sadness over the meaningless tragedies that was a waste of these lives, these young men who had so much promise and could have lived full lives if they weren’t so filled with such avarice in their youth.
Written by Swan Dagger
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34 Comments
Bubu
January 28, 08:03Yes oh!This is a true life event,been told same gist long time ago,the wages of sin is death…All for material things..
S.Freude
January 28, 08:15nawa o … for someone who has never really believed in juju, this is wondrous.
Sideeye
January 28, 09:02Exact same thoughts over here.
Net
January 28, 08:25Omo for this same ph I grew up in? 💀 things dey happen !
Queen Blue Fox
January 28, 08:40Wait what? I’m in major shock right now, shit like this happens in the community?
Zoar
January 28, 08:48I dropped a tear while reading this especially at the point where Presley was calling his name before dying.
I had a near similar case with my Best Friend who I met while in the University and our meeting changed my whole conception about Gay lives in Nigeria. His case isn’t about diabolism but about excessive promiscuity. He’s also dead now and no matter how I try to forget about that guy, I can’t because we were inseparable even though he was wild and untamable.
I pray the souls of all the untamed in our community get rest in their afterlife.
Sideeye
January 28, 09:05Not to be insensitive, but do I smell a story?
These stories need to be told, so we can learn.
Zee
January 28, 22:08Hmmm… Now I’m super scared. The rate at which young queers are dying is alarming… Hmmm
Niii
January 29, 08:46Zoar is saying the truth. Not all that glitters is gold. I am an alumnus of uniport and so I am fully aware (to an extent) of the length some queer folks go. I was shocked when I was told by a friend in 2018 (at this time, I was serving in anambra) that some guys had gone to see a native doctor. The younger ones coming up need to be educated more and made to understand they can still be great men without putting their eyes on others wealth. Dreams do come true when you are ready and committed to chasing those goals. It is even more alarming how must people these days don’t believe in love because what most think of is how to make quick cash.
Pezaro
January 28, 10:04I thought stories like this exist only in Nollywood. To lose your life at just a tender age of 22 just for material things really saddens me. May God rest their souls.
Mandy
January 28, 11:20It is the young age for me. To be so worldly and then have to pay the price at such a young age is what has me shook.
Mandy
January 28, 11:19From ‘For the Love of Man’ to ‘Red Candles in the Dark’, these stories are simply wild, and would have been surreal to me if I didn’t have my own brush with diabolism. There was this guy I dated when I was in uni. He was older and well-off. He also had this thing where he didn’t like to kiss. But the more the intimacy between us grew, the more open he was to kissing me.
We got serious, everything was fine for a few months, but because school was keeping me away for much too often, he started stepping out on me. I actually didn’t know. It was him who confessed to me that there was a period when he was hooking up with other guys behind my back. Then, I think, about a week after he opened up to me, one guy came to see him while I was in his house. This guy was apparently a close friend of one of the guys my bf shagged. The friend came to confess to my bf that when he was shagging this his friend (lemme call him X), X had tried to kolobi him o. I don’t know what sort of juju he made, but apparently, the condition for it to work was for him to kiss my bf.
Unfortunately for him, my bf had that aversion to kissing random hookups. And according to my bf, this guy tried very hard to get them to kiss. During sex, after sex, he always reached out to try to force a connection between their lips, even though my bf had told him he didn’t like kissing.
The unnerving part of this story is that his friend told us that there were times when X wanted to invite himself over to my bf’s place to spend the night. His plan had been to kiss my bf in his sleep. Of course, my bf never agreed to any sleepovers, hence that plan didn’t work.
Kiss that is supposed to be a sweetly intimate act is what somebody wanted to use and juju somebody else o!
By the time that friend left that day, I felt chills all over. In fact, the fear of how close he’d come to having his free will taken away from him kept my bf faithful to me for the rest of time that we were together.
It’s just a wawu the ends people will go to secure a total commitment from someone else in a romantic relationship. Nollywood programmed me to think it was only straight people who went to such absurd lengths. But mehn, juju has no gender apparently. Anyone can sink that low just to have the power over another.
Delle
January 28, 12:11It’s the way this tale has made me resolve not to kiss randos
Hian!
Pink Panther
January 28, 15:47🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 But what do you have that they’d possibly want to juju you for?
Eddie
January 28, 11:50The paranormal is real as fuck. Do not dabble in what you know little about. There’s always a day of reckoning. When you use magic to harm or manipulate someone, you will reap it threefold. Ever notice how all these “tuff” pikin dey always die very young? Greed and covetousness is not peculiar to sexuality. Be contented with what you have!
Blackie
January 28, 15:44Hey Guys, beware of magic wealth because it leads to nowhere (gba ta nwou echi) it has been there and it will always be there, in the life of people that wants it so much. love of money is so real. Check out that viral Video of Onye Eze Jesus where our youths both gender bathing naked in a river all because of money.
Jo
January 28, 18:51Wawu! Dis is crazy ooo. And I ws saddened by the fact that Presley died.
McDuke
January 28, 21:34#shudders…and I thought we were meant to be the smart, hardworking and sensible ones… what a shame!!! May the souls of the dead RIP.
Fred
January 28, 22:55I’d like to read about the “Enugu goddesses”, biko.
Whatever became of them?
Did they transfer their titles to a new crop of young gays?
2002 to 2006 was full of drama for me
Kobe
January 29, 11:13I studied in Enugu at that period I don’t know how I didn’t get to hear about them.
I must have been under the rock 😃😃.
Experience
January 28, 23:33Regarding diabolic things there’s alot going on in the queer world that we aren’t aware of especially with older men, although I have had my fair share from these encounters the one that terrified me to my bones was of a man I met 3 years ago ,first thing you should know growing up I had some kind of ogbanje stuff (thats what I was told though) but now I know better it’s out of body experience,
I would sleep and suddenly get consciousness standing and I would walk around and would even see my body then I got help from an eckankar friend on lots of things and we even did astral sex once (it was mind blowing by the way) to cut the story short during the OBE you see yourself as light literally glow and I was told that the darker the glow the evil the person is blah blah but I didn’t pay much attention to it
so I went to the man’s house after a persistent hookup pleas and we tried having sex but we couldn’t both ways and it was weird so we decided to sleep and try in the morning half way through my sleep it happened I was outside my body then I noticed the man wasn’t in his so I was excited about another mind-blowing astral sex.
What I saw wasn’t human, I heard my name behind so I turned what I saw was a shadow or the man was/is a shadow and I got scared and immediately woke up and I ran out of the house and the man woke up too and followed me, this was about 3 am and he kept asking me to come back inside the house so we can talk about it , how we are both strong spiritually blah blah and how he won’t try anything I knew deep in my heart I no strong anything I no even dey pray talk about go church, I stayed outside ooo till morning awake when it was about 7 am the persons in his compound came out and was asking me questions I couldn’t talk I just sent a message to my eckist friend
he came with a cab , he was the one that went inside the house to get my belongings from there I went to my father’s house oo for like a week my mum kept asking why I wasn’t in school I didn’t know what to say I couldnt sleep not because I was feeling sleepy but I was too scared to sleep
Later after some weeks when I was getting my self back I heard a rumour through my eckist guy about the death of a guy who had hook up with the man and they allegedly dated for weeks and how maybe the decreased guy might have be infected that was when I was able to open up to my friend about what happened that night and that one forming I’m spiritually strong went to the man’s house and was told he had packed out of the flat and I never heard or saw him again
until last year February before the full blown pandemic in an eatery with a friend and my brain fried for like 10 minutes I wasn’t able to order food I was blank all I could say was I wanted to go home and my friend with me got confused and we went home and I instantly called my eckist guy cause he was the only one I told and later I had to tell the other friend and heard more gist of a guy who graduated recently and dated the man for 2 weeks and how the guy fell ill for weeks and later died and I knew this guy
For the record this happened in Benin City Edo state and the man is still around and he is very wealth now so I heard so be careful. Just saying
Eddie
January 29, 10:48I astral travel too lol… This your story seems interesting
Experience
January 29, 12:28You do? can we do some astral fun it’s been a while I have done such
Eddie
January 29, 13:23Lol…. Not as adept as you apparently
Push n Pull
February 03, 02:07I’m lost here, but the Astral thing is all new to me , you had me surfing the internet for meaning , Id really like to know more , can it be practiced intentionationally by Non astral members or there are spiritually gifted people specialised for such sexual experience?
Peaches
January 29, 00:54They NEVER end well.
EVEREST
January 29, 01:50maaad o…..lol…Everybody has something that another desires
Kerni
January 29, 08:53To be contented is a virtue most lack. In as much as poverty lurks and the fear of being poor or broke can tempt one to go crazy lengths, let us try be contented and work hard. Most often than not, the end of these crazy lengths one may venture on is always not beautiful.
Black Dynasty
January 29, 10:16Na wa! Things are happening o
Phyneasphuck
January 30, 13:59Quite an interesting read, touched on a lot of things i didn’t talk about in my story, but just to confirm a few things, Dash and Dickson in this story are the same as the white guy and his Nigerian lover in my story, and more than one person actually died over Dickson, also heard of a guy that was crippled from diabolical fights over Dickson. Was pretty sad to hear about Dash’s death, those girls rocked Port Harcourt… But they had it coming
Jacob
January 31, 15:35I am quite satisfied with the ending of this story..lol..it’s scary to think about..Guess I wouldn’t be sleeping properly tonight or other nights…horror really hits different when it’s a True story..omo
V-fest
January 31, 22:50Lol so juju is real? Mad Ooooo,this story was low-key scary
CHUCK
February 01, 12:31Were natural causes (AIDS, cancer, etc) actually ruled out as cause of death? Because someone lit candles in 2003 doesn’t mean that caused his death in 2007.
WICKED GAMES – KitoDiaries
May 31, 07:38[…] I read a story here on Kito Diaries, Red Candles In The Dark, about how gay guys used diabolic means to entrap the affections of their love interests. I was […]