Episode 2: Oaths, Jazz, and the Rise of a King
(~1,150 words)
I had become a god among men—or at least that’s what it felt like.
By the time I was 23, my face was already a fixture at Quilox, Cubana, and Club DNA. I didn’t enter places quietly. I came with an entourage—boys in matching Gucci fits, girls with bodies shaped like hourglasses, and my Lexus crawling slowly like royalty arriving for coronation.
My business? It was booming.
I was running three formats at once. First was military romance—the classic one. Using a stolen identity of a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, I’d spin tales of war zones and blocked funds. The second was G-Banking. That one involved hacking into clients’ bank logins after we secured their trust. I had one Malaysian man send me his banking token without realizing I’d drain his account in two hours.
The third—Business Investment Format—was my masterpiece. I used LinkedIn, cloned business websites, forged fake investment certificates. I’d pose as a crypto investor in the UAE or a gold dealer in Ghana. The white men loved it. A little African charm, promises of quick returns, and boom—they sent money like pigeons flying home.
I wasn’t alone in this. I had built a small empire.
My crew was tight—six of us. Each with a role. Emeka “Format” handled identity creation. Niyi “Voicemail” was the king of voice calls—he could mimic a Texas accent so perfectly you’d think he was born there. Sodiq “G-Wire” ran the back-end, moving money from shell accounts to crypto wallets. Then there was Chinedu “The Cleaner”—a calm, dark-skinned killer who handled debtors and threats. Uche, my original plug, was now my deputy.
We had codewords. Safe houses in Ojodu, Festac, and even Benin. Our girls were loyal, at least the ones we hadn’t spoiled silly with Benz keys and Bottega bags.
But as the money grew, so did the paranoia.
Yahoo Plus had given us more than jazz—it had given us power. But jazz never comes free. Baba Tunde’s rituals got deeper. One day, he asked us to bury a live tortoise with a padlocked picture of a client under a mango tree.
“His spirit go tie,” Baba said. “Him money no go stop until you loose the padlock.”
We did it. And true to his word, the man sent us $45,000 in four weeks—crying on video call, saying, “I don’t know why I trust you, but I just do.”
That was when I started believing we were invincible.
I built a duplex in Lekki Phase 1. Moved my mother in, even though she kept asking questions I had no answers for. I told her I did crypto, and she smiled, pretending not to understand but choosing peace over confrontation. I bought her a white Lexus. Enrolled my sisters in Babcock. My father? He died of liver failure the week I bought a Rolex. I didn’t shed a tear.
But Razor… Razor was watching.
He wasn’t new to the game—he was just more brutal. A former Eiye cultist turned full-time Yahoo Plus merchant. He didn’t just scam people—he broke them. Made a white woman sell her house and live in her car. Another one committed suicide. Razor didn’t use charm; he used darkness. And he hated competition.
We crossed paths officially at a club in VI. I had just popped my fifth bottle of Hennessy when he walked in with his boys—eyes sharp, dreadlocks dyed red, a long scar across his cheek like a tribal mark from hell.
Our eyes locked. There was no smile. No handshake. Just mutual understanding—this town wasn’t big enough for both of us.
Uche leaned into me.
“Baba, that guy dey watch us o. And him fit run package wey go scatter our level.”
I shrugged. “Let him try.”
But pride comes before betrayal. And betrayal wears perfume and a pretty face.
Her name was Amaka.
She was tall, with chocolate skin that looked like it had been kissed by the sun. She had eyes that could undress a man’s soul, and when she smiled, you forgot your mother’s name.
I met her at a friend’s birthday bash in Chevron. She wasn’t like the other girls—no fake accent, no hype. Just calm confidence.
“I know who you are,” she said, sipping champagne. “You’re Bobo, the boy that makes Oyinbo cry.”
I laughed. “Is that a compliment or a threat?”
She tilted her head. “A warning. This life, e no dey last.”
I should’ve walked away.
But I didn’t. I chased her. Bought her a MacBook the next day. Took her shopping in Balogun, then in Dubai. We rode camels in the desert. She made me feel human. Not just a scammer. She didn’t care about the money—at least not in the way the others did. She asked about my childhood, my mother, my fears.
And just like that, I broke the first oath: Never fall in love.
Uche noticed.
“Guy, dis girl dey enter your head. You dey break street code.”
I waved him off. “She’s different, bro. She’s mine.”
But Amaka had secrets.
One night, while she was in the shower, I peeked into her phone. There it was—an unsaved number. Dozens of messages. Voice notes.
Razor.
“Don’t worry,. He trusts me.”
“Soon, I’ll get the laptop and the ledger.”
My blood went cold.
She had been playing me. For him.
I didn’t confront her. I pretended like nothing was wrong. That night, I lay beside her, smiling as she slept, but my heart was already writing the blueprint for war.
If Razor wanted to play games, I’d remind him why I’m called Bobo the Yahoo Prince.
