WHAT THE NANNY GOAT TOLD HER KIDS (CHAPTER 7)

 CHAPTER 7

 

GRACE REALIZED HOW LONG AFTER THAT Mr Ransom wallowed in his debt-recovery victory.

The fufu sellers loved and trusted him and hailed him as a dependable leader of their union. He too became more active in the business. Those who flouted their bylaws were sanctioned and buyers who showed crooked intents were warned to desist or were banned from buying from the village.

Then Grace noticed Mr Ransom’s enthusiastic activities drew some strange but wealthy-looking men to him. The nanny goat had thought at first they were the cassava processing plant people returning to get done with their unfinished business but these ones turned out a different set of guys.

The new set of men had approached Mr Ransom and charmingly said because of his status in the village, they would want him to be in charge of forms given by Western countries who were concerned about the tough circumstances in the entire length and breadth of the country for they had noticed because of the economic crunch, the rate of suicide was on an unprecedented increase.

The concerned countries, having seen how fraudulent government officials were, did decide to pass through tested and trusted non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to give relief to the mass of the less privileged citizens and the fellows here were from one of those NGOs based in the Federal Capital Territory and good folks they talked to had pointed to Mr Ransom’s threshold that he was reliable in coordinating and disbursing equitably any goodies to the right quarters.

The head of the delegation who identified himself as Mr Hanson (though Mr Ransom liked to call him Handsome) with a charming smile, had placed a large khaki envelope on his knees sitting on the bench in the Ransoms’ veranda and gingerly drew out a printed form with the watermark of what looked like the wheel of a rig (similar to the symbol that the national petroleum corporation used).

Hanson showed the spaces the applicants would need to fill and said that after the screening if any individual qualified, he or she would be invited to be picked, and added: ‘… by us without any hassles.’

A wide beam crossed Mr Ransom’s features when Hanson said: ‘I’m starting first with you, Mr Ransom, to prove that the Western countries involved in this grand project actually mean business.

‘We were known globally not too long ago as the country with the happiest people. So the alarming suicide rate currently does not sit well with these good-hearted people. They know our resources keep fetching us so much but only a few government officials corner the funds for their personal use.

‘The world’s wealthiest person recently was tipped to be standing at that position with his hard-earned sixty-six billion American dollars but a federal minister in this country in the last administration cornered to her personal use sixty-eight billion dollars or thereabouts.

‘The leisure boat the world’s biggest female pop star hired for a day to celebrate her birthday was bought by that same minister to be owned by her for life. But all across the country, the poor people keep getting poorer.

‘It’s for this reason we’re here to help carry out the bidding of concerned humanitarians who would not fold their arms as we keep killing ourselves in droves.’ Hanson handed the printed sheet to Mr Ransom, retrieved a pen from his sleek leather portfolio, uncapped and gave it to him to fill the needed information in the required spaces and urged him, ‘Please, let all your information be factual for any false statement (if discovered) would automatically disqualify any defaulting applicant from the largesse.’

Grace had watched with a bit of disdain knowing if the excitement on Mr Hanson’s face lingered, then a sizable and respected crowd started to form in the compound, no one would be wrong to predict in a jiffy a couple of fowls and eventually a goat might lose their lives.

It happened when Mr Ransom’s mother-in-law passed on. Also, when his eldest daughter recently got married. If that excitement on the visitor’s face hung there for too long, Grace with a heartbreak thought, that could spell danger for the fowls and the goats.

Mr Ransom had written down his name, address, phone number, bank account number, the project he planned to execute with the funds and the amount that would fit his budget.

He was working on a snail farm and fish pond. He added the amount that would help complete and launch them. He wrote five hundred thousand naira.

When Mr Ransom signed and handed the filled printed sheet to Hanson, he got a complaint from the young man after a cackle.

‘These people are not like us with our dark minds; they want to offer genuine help to people that would enable them to find permanent solutions to their age-long financial headaches. Mr Ransom, sir, the amount of money you put down here is plain peanuts. Translate it to dollars and it won’t amount to anything. Five million to ten million naira is what you should put down for your project. With such a figure, our sponsors would know you are serious. They would readily want to help.’

Mr Ransom laughed within. So being humble, which those before him had urged he should be, was quickly getting out of fashion?

He had openly smiled, and collected the pen and the printed sheet again to try, as he had been urged, to change the figure to convince the Westerners desperate to help that he too was desperate to stay alive and enjoy life fully.

What he had written down before, he used the pen again to change to something else but his effort made the spaces look messed up. Mr Hanson generously gave another printed sheet out. Mr Ransom filled out the new form, put his figure at five million naira and did not forget to add at the end ‘only’.

Mr Hanson personally collected Mr Ransom’s form. He put it away in his portfolio, assuring that necessary steps he would take to see Mr Ransom was one of the first set of beneficiaries. Two large khaki envelopes were left in Mr Ransom’s custody so he could inform the poor people in the area interested in the benevolence of the West to get forms (funnily enough, at no cost); fill them and wait for their screening to get paid. The news spread like the fire of a spilling petrol tanker and people, poor and even the assumed rich, trooped out to Mr Ransom’s home to be registered.