By Emmanuel Ebimoh
As a Nigerian Youth who’s hoping to hit it big financially and be ranked among the richest dudes in the world like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in an air-conditioned office behind a computer system will definitely not do the trick. You can’t possibly be working 9am – 5pm every day in your job at a bank, earning a cool monthly salary of 60k and expect your bank account to hit a million naira in a day. Who does that? There has to be a faster way; a single effort; a one-hit target.
Just April this year, your friend told you of a guy on the next street who won N10million with only N100! You used to know this guy; he was the normal guy who didn’t even have a job. The last time you saw him, he looked a little underfed as he hailed you with his usual ‘’bros how far!’’. You decided to help ‘his ministry’ with the dirty N200 note the bus conductor gave you on your way back from work. One week later you heard the surprising news that the guy is now a millionaire. He played a game with just N100 – probably out of the N200 you gave him the previous week – and won a whooping 10million naira. Ah! Your village people have done their worst. They cannot make you die poor in this life.
You almost wrecked your bank account at the first quarter of this year when the European season was on and hot. All your game tickets are still folded under your bed in your one room, face-me-I-face-you apartment. The last time you calculated the total amount you played in 3 months, it was N252, 000, still you didn’t win a single kobo! And one small boy like Neymar Jnr will be making $34million after a single transfer move; yet you go to work every Monday morning with a cracked voice after raising the roof the previous weekend screaming your lungs out for him to score a goal. No! You must also make millions every weekend. Your peanut 60k salary must yield fruits. If you play with 1k every weekend, one day you shall also make N50million. After all, who Nigerian government don epp?
You heard that the new jackpot season would begin soon and you prepared your mind to slay your enemies. The first sets of games were played last weekend and your total stake from three game tickets was N6, 000. Two of the tickets almost won but for Chelsea who lost surprisingly to an underdog. You’ve cursed the living daylight out of them for spoiling your ticket. The same Chelsea team you pitched all your hopes upon. ‘’Dem no fit lose!’’, you boasted while arguing with one random guy on a bus during the week.
You remembered how you almost committed suicide early last year when every game on a particular ticket of 5million naira had played successfully according to your predictions and it was left with just one game – one game and you could be 5million naira richer. You closed down the beer parlour in your area and asked everyone to order whatever they want. The outcome of that last game was as certain as day and night. Then one village demon entered into the mind of your favourite player as he was about to take the crucial penalty kick that would earn you the money. He hit the ball away to the sky and for five minutes you stood unconscious like someone who has just been electrocuted by 500MHz of electricity. Your friends had to sleep in your room that night to be sure you would not commit suicide. For one week you neither ate nor drank anything. You became as thin as a broom stick; a shadow of yourself. Your village people must be behind it. Wicked people who don’t want you to progress have hit you again. But you won’t give up. You must hit the millions or die trying.
There’s no winning strategy you’ve not tried. In fact, if there’s any permutation and combination that you haven’t done yet to win your games, then that probability doesn’t exist. Your monthly salary of 60k that usually takes care of your feeding and daily transport to the office has now become too insufficient for you. Before the 3rd week of the month, you’ve already accrued debts higher than your salary. You can’t even afford to send the usual 10k to your mother in the village every month. ‘’Mama no worry, I go soon build house for you’’, you’ve continuously reassured her for more than one year without sending anything.
You’ve increased your betting stakes from 1k to 2k per game so as to get heavier returns in winning. But each time one useless team or another breaks your heart. Any team that impedes your game ticket not to go as predicted will feel the wrath of your curses. You’re now a serial curser. People around you have become your enemies because after every weekend of failed game tickets, you take your anger out on them. Even your jovial landlord is now your arch enemy because you’ve refused to pay your outstanding house rent. These bet houses have killed you many times. But one day you shall kill them too.
As a Nigerian Youth aiming to reach the financial heights of the world’s richest men, regardless of how much you’ve lost to the different betting and gambling houses, you must never give up until you wreck them out of business and recover all your lost monies or you die more wretched than the village witch that has been chasing you all your life. After all it’s a game for the strong in heart. You need money to make money. The struggle to become a millionaire overnight without working genuinely for it is real. It’s in your blood. If the government can’t give you the luxury you deserve as a citizen, then a virtual weekend to England on a hot Saturday afternoon could yield the millions you deserve.
