THE ENEMY WITHIN: A Kito Story

His name is Ehis Raymond Bassey and goes by the nickname Billz. I met him through a female corper friend of mine in April in Abuja. She’d come to see me to ask me to help her accommodate a guy from her dance school who needed someplace to stay for a while, two weeks precisely. She couldn’t accommodate him because she was staying with her sister. When I asked her his name, she said she only knew him by his nickname, Billz. She basically just wanted to help him since it seemed he was in desperate need of accommodation. And her asking me was a test. You see, I’m not a very accommodating kinda guy. I hardly let people in because I have a need to protect my private space. My friends have noticed and criticized me on a number of occasions about it. And because I was stung by what I felt was their unfair criticisms, I promised I was going to change and be more accommodating this year. And then comes this friend of mine, asking me to do her this favour as a way to prove to everyone we know that I’d changed like I said I would. And so, when I agreed to accommodate this Billz guy, I wasn’t really doing her a favour; I agreed because I wanted to show that I’d changed.

Unfortunately everything that happened with Ehis Raymond Bassey only went a long way to strengthen my determination to never be who I’m not or try to prove anything to anyone ever again.

When he moved in, in a bid to know some more about who I was living with, I asked him his name and where he came from and what he’d come to do in Abuja. Apart from telling me that he came from Lagos, every other response he gave was vague or nonexistent.

This only served to make me very curious. I mean, I was living with the guy. I had to know who he was. So one night, I decided to go through his phone, at least to know who he talks to and glean from his conversations the kind of person he really is. And on his phone, I saw love text messages. I copied some of the numbers, three of whom he was constantly exchanging texts with, and searched them on truecaller. And – boom! – the people who owned the numbers were guys. This startled me a bit, the fact that he was exchanging love texts with guys. I am gay by the way, but I never suspected him to be the same. On several occasions, I’d gotten home to meet him with different girls. After I got the identities behind the numbers from truecaller, I checked out the guys on Facebook and added them and went on to make their acquaintance. Then I began quizzing them about Billz and they were like, yeah, they’d met him on several occasions and did stuffs with him. I mentally filed away this information.

As time went on, as two weeks slowly dragged by with him showing no signs of moving out, he must have noticed my growing impatience with him and promptly began to act like he liked me, as in, liked me liked me. To be honest, I was a bit attracted to him, but I didn’t let that on to him, because honestly, I’d started getting tired of having him around. He had a very bad attitude and had quickly acquired a poor reputation in my neighborhood. He would borrow money from people around and owe them for so long, they’d come complaining to me. He would visit people, borrow clothes from them and return the clothes unwashed. It was reflecting poorly on me and I had to do something. I couldn’t forcibly evict him because I didn’t have the stomach for that kind of confrontation.

Besides, I didn’t feel the need to send him away. About a month before he came to my place, I’d been entertaining plans of moving to a new place, but I’d been procrastinating, shifting and shelving the plans. And then Billz came, and my frustration with him came together with the period of my rent being due. And so, I had double reasons to move out.

So instead of asking him to leave, I quietly looked for another apartment. I didn’t let this on to him. I found a new place, and told him of my intentions to relocate the night before my moving out. I told him I was moving the next day and that he won’t be moving in with me. He told me he was fine with it. By this time, he’d ended up staying about three months with me.

A month after we parted ways, in August, he texted me out of the blue, saying he really missed me and would like to visit me. He had things he wanted to tell me, to do with me, and simply had to see me. This was clearly an intimation of his intent to get sexual with me.

I didn’t reply his message though. The next day, he called me to tell me he was within my estate and that it was the perfect opportunity for him to know my house. He added that he was with a friend. I gave him directions to my place. The two of them dropped in. I had female company too, and we all gisted and ate, and nothing remotely sexual happened. When it got late, they left. This day was Sunday.

The next day, he called me again in the evening to ask if I was back from work so he can come over again. He also added that at least this time, we’d have our privacy. Now I have to mention that on the previous day, before he came with his friend, my mother had called me to inform me that her MFM 70 days fasting was starting the next day, being Monday, and that her spirit was telling her that I must join her in the fasting, and in that period, I should do away with my drinking and every other carnality I might want to indulge as long as the fasting was going on. I promised her I’d give it a try.

So when Billz came to my house that Monday evening around past 6pm, and he opened up about his intention to get intimate with me, I told him that while I wouldn’t mind getting it on with him, I couldn’t because I was doing a fast. He said he understood and agreed to hold off.

And then, as we hung out, he picked up my iPhone and asked for the password. I told him to give me the phone so I can open it myself. And acting a bit offended, he asked whether I didn’t trust him. I said it wasn’t about trust, that I prefer opening my phone myself for people.

And then, it was around 8pm and I wanted to go take a shower before walking him out to the junction. I had just gotten into the bathroom when the electricity went out, and so I walked back into the bedroom to get my phone so I could use the light.

And the next thing I knew, someone had grabbed me from behind, his arms encircling my neck in a chokehold. Billz was strangling me. My instinctive reaction was to think he was merely playing. But then he wasn’t letting up no matter how much I resisted. Then I began to fight to break free but he had a firm hold on my throat. My head began to swell as the delivery of oxygen to my brain diminished; my legs were shaking and my eyes were swimming. As I fought to break free, I realized that I was literally fighting for my life.

At some point in our struggle, I lashed out at his groin, hitting his dick, and he recoiled, lessening his grip on my neck in the process. I broke apart from him and dashed to my window and began hitting it frantically while screaming for help. My neighbour’s house help had been about to turn on their generator when she heard me screaming. She ran to call her madam who knew where my extra key was outside my apartment. The woman used the key to open the door from outside, blessedly intruding on Billz struggle to snuff out the life from me.

In the commotion that ensued, with my neighbour calling the estate police and all, this fellow broke free and fled with my laptop bag inside which were my laptop, ATM card and wristwatch, and some other miscellaneous items.

I reported the case to the police. Even though he wasn’t caught to answer for what he did to me, two weeks later, I heard he was caught by Air Force officers in Kano; he’d stolen an officer’s car in Abuja, and had been tracked all the way to Kano and arrested.

Only for me to see from a recent Facebook post that someone else had fallen victim to his evil tricks. And so I had to tell my story with his picture below, for anyone reading to beware.

Pass the word around: Ehis Raymond Bassey aka Billz is not someone to be trusted. He is queer of course, but he is scum – an enemy to the community.

Written by Boluwatife