The times I Successfully held on to my Phone(s) Part 2
This piece was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend on Twitter earlier this year. 4 hoodlums had snatched my phone at Oshodi, but I got it back. As it turns out, that was the 7th time an unsuccessful attempt was made on my phone and it wouldn’t even be the last time this year. I promised to write about the experiences, so here’s to keeping my words.
If you haven’t read the part 1, you’ll want to do so before you continue.
Samsung Galaxy S7. Amuwo Odofin, 2016
I had just relocated to a new apartment in Surulere. It was a bigger apartment, I didn’t have a flatmate anymore and I didn’t have any friends in the area so it could get boring during weekends. That was when I got Scoff, a 5 week old golden Samoyed. All my friends from university and NYSC were scattered all over the country and the ones that were in Lagos were literally living along the borders: Berger & Ajah. Hanging out with them was a full weekend long project and had to be planned well in advance.
That was when Changes suggested Tinder to me. Apparently, it was meant to be a “tusher” version of 2go, an instant messaging app that lets you meet new friends based on proximity, which had been rendered obsolete a few years prior. I installed it, set up my profile and noticed a big difference: whereas on 2go, you had to join chat rooms where you’ll chat with a bunch of other random people who apparently live nearby before DMing the ones who attract your attention the most, on Tinder, you didn’t have to join any chat rooms. As soon as you set up a profile, you’ll be bombarded with a steady stream of profiles of people staying nearby. If you find any profile, consisting a series of pictures and a short bio, attractive, you swipe right; if not, you swipe left. If you and your counterpart both swipe right for each other, there’s a match and you’re allowed to chat with each other. If not, you keep trying. I immediately noticed that this was slightly more vain because unlike in 2go, where you decide on who to chat with based on their pictures and their messages on the group, in Tinder, who to chat with is based entirely on the attractiveness of their pictures.
I started swiping. At first, it seemed like nobody was swiping right for me in return and I started wondering if my standards for a “right swipe” were too high and if I shouldn’t lower them slightly to increase my chances of getting a match. In the space of a few short minutes, my standards had dropped so low that it would take over 10 right swipes before I swiped left. Still, nothing seemed to change. After a few extra minutes of swiping, I gave up and exited the application. When I logged back on the next day to try again, I had maybe 50 matches! Apparently, while I was swiftly swiping away right, my profile hadn’t appeared to enough people so that while I thought everyone was swiping left on me, majority hadn’t even had the opportunity to swipe on me. I made a mental note to have more patience in future and never to lower my standards anymore as I unmatched with the majority of the matches. Afterwards, I was left with a handful of about 8 matches. I messaged each of them a simple greeting, adapting it each time to the vibe I got from their profile: “Hello”, “Hi”, “Hey”, “Yo”, etc. some replied, some didn’t.
Among those that replied was Stella (I can’t remember the actual name she used so let’s just go with Stella). From her 6 pictures, Stella was very pretty. Dark skinned, brown eyes, neck length brown hair (she had no weaves on one of her pictures), and in her pictures, she wore little to no make-up. We chatted for some time, we got along pretty quickly: she had just graduated from the university and lived with her parents while she waited to be posted for NYSC. It also turned out she liked dogs as well and owns a German shepherd. After chatting for a few days, we exchanged numbers and started calling each other intermittently. She also had a really lovely voice.
After about a month, we decided to meet up. We agreed to hang out at the Festival Mall in Festac, about a 10 minute walk from her parents’ place in Amuwo housing estate. On the agreed day, on my way back from work, I went straight to Festival Mall. I called her and she complained that her father refused to let her come all the way to the mall. She pleaded with me to meet up with her at a restaurant/bar closer to her parents’ house and offered to have her younger brother come show me the way from the mall to the restaurant. I agreed and about 10 minutes later, I met him: a fair complexioned, slim, tall boy with a lanky frame. She had described him to me so it wasn’t difficult recognizing him. As we walked to the restaurant, he asked me to buy him some snacks: gala sausage roll and a bottle of fizzy drink, which I did. Then he asked for my phone, my Samsung Galaxy S7 that was less than 2 months old, and started going through my dog pictures, apparently really fascinated with them.
My suspicion started when, instead of heading to a restaurant, we headed towards “their house”. It was evening and the sun was beginning to set but it was still bright enough for me to take stock of my environment however, the house was in a somewhat serene environment and not many people were moving about. He asked me to wait downstairs while he went upstairs to call her. With alarm bells already ringing in my head, I asked why we couldn’t just call her number and ask her to come down. He replied that she had given him her phone to call me with in case he had difficulty locating me. I then asked him to give me my phone, which was still with him, to quickly reply some chats while he went to call her. Reluctantly, he agreed, handed me my phone and ran up the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, I quickly hid behind a nearby abandoned shipping container from where I maintained full view of the entrance he went in from. After about 2 minutes, he came back with another, much bigger and fierce looking young man. They discussed inaudibly for a few seconds, looked around a few times and returned into the building, coming back out with 2 more even bigger and fiercer looking men. I observed all this from my vantage spot and as soon as they retreated, I took off, got on a bike and went straight home. On getting home, I called “Stella” over 5 times but she didn’t pick up, I texted her on WhatsApp but she had blocked me, I tried to reach out to her on Tinder but she had already unmatched with me.
A few months later, I read a news article online about a group of boys who had been arrested for allegedly robbing from and raping a young woman who had apparently met one of them off Facebook. They were apprehended in a hotel room after the guest in the next room to theirs noticed suspicious movements and sounds and reported to the hotel management and authorities. When I scrolled to the pictures of the suspects, lo and behold, at the far right corner was Stella’s younger brother. His fair, slim, tall, lanky frame caught my attention while his innocent looking baby face was unmistakeable. I went to bed that night wondering what might have happened had I not been lucky enough to escape and thanking God for the dodged bullet those months ago.
Samsung Galaxy S7. Surulere, 2016
I had just promised my cousin my phone. He had called me a few weeks earlier to explain how student robbers had visited their lodge, dispossessing them of many of their belongings and gadgets including his phone and laptop. They had even tried to hit his head with a machete when he initially confronted them, not knowing they were armed robbers. Luckily for him, he reflexively blocked the strike with his left hand. The machete struck his left palm, leaving a huge gash and destroying many nerves including the nerves in his pinkie finger which he can’t feel till today. At the time, I had 2 phones: the Samsung Galaxy E5 and the Samsung Galaxy S7; so I gave him 2 options: I’ll waybill the E5 to him immediately or if he could wait for school to vacate in about 6 weeks, I’ll give him the S7. He chose to wait for the S7. All these happened about 4 weeks previously so I was in my final 2 weeks of owning the S7 when another attempt was made on the phone.
I had a stockpile of work that day so I left the office really late. Luckily for me, or so I thought, my colleague, Imowo was also leaving late so I went with him and didn’t have to order an Uber. He was headed to the island but I was going to Surulere so he dropped me at Alh. Masha bus stop, from where I should have been able to get a bike straight home. I waited for over 10 minutes and when it was obvious to me that all the commercial bike riders had probably closed for the day, I decided to trek home. The time was past 11pm. On days I went jogging, the slightly over 2km between Masha and my house takes me less than 10 minutes so I figured the trek will take me about 30 minutes. That was going to be a long 30 minutes so I took out my phone and texted Changes via WhatsApp while playing an alternative rock playlist on Deezer. Playing the songs through my earpiece and chatting with Changes made the trek seem significantly faster and about 3 short songs later, I was already at Agboyin, about a third of the distance.
As I turned the corner at the Redeemed Christian Church of God building, 2 men on a bike zoomed past me at an incredible speed. Everything happened so fast. In the blink of an eye, my phone was out of my hands and on the floor, the pair of earphones were with the guy at the back of the bike and the bike was driving away at full speed towards Xxx Street. Apparently, they had tried to snatch the phone by grabbing onto the connected earphones and yanking everything away but fortunately, my chatting grip was too strong for their plan to work fully and instead, the phone just fell to the floor while the earpiece detached itself and went with the thief. Immediately I realised what had just happened, I quickly picked up my phone from the floor and called after them to return the earpiece since they had no use for it now. The thief at the back seat of the bike simply turned around and gestured “waka” (an offensive hand gesture achieved with the palm spread wide open and facing away from the initiator) towards me.
After using the phone for another 3 weeks, I way billed it to my cousin whose vacation had been postponed for a few extra weeks.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Duos. Oshodi, 2018
After giving my cousin my S7, I went back to using just the E5 for a few months until I gave it to a friend who was in dire need of a phone while I replaced it with an S7 Duos.
February 10, 2018, the morning of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon. My dad had decided to reschedule his flight to Lagos with Aero contractors to the next Tuesday. Unfortunately, aero had no option to reschedule a flight online and all their customer service channels were unreachable therefore, I had to visit their office at the Airport to reschedule. The same day, my friend, Shanana, was travelling to Adamawa so we set out together to the airport. We left early, by 7am or thereabouts but so many routes had been blocked because of the marathon, making the trip a rigmarole. I brought out my phone and placed it on my right lap to navigate using Google maps. I also wound down the window so I could ask others for directions since Lagos roads and Google maps don’t always go well together. After almost 2 hours of twists and turns, we got to Oshodi oke, trying to take a bypass to connect Ikeja GRA through Oshodi Isale. As I turned to ask a passer-by, “road dey this side to Ikeja?” some guy swiftly put his hand through the window and snatched my phone.
I had just been using the phone for a few months so no there was no way I was going to let it go without, at least, a bit of a fight. In a rush of adrenaline and instinct, I turned off the ignition right there but left the car keys behind as I jumped out of the car. I told Shanana, “please stay in the car” as I ran after the thief. Turned out to be a gang of 4.
They weren’t even running. The place was packed with people who had obviously seen what happened but everyone carried about their business seemingly oblivious to what had just happened. As I caught up with the hoodlums, they started threatening me: “I go burst your eye o”, “A ma kpa e danu (we will kill you off)”, “E be like say you want make we collect your motor join?”, “them go just tow your car o”, “Oya comot here, you dey mad? I go chook you knife o” were just some of the threats they made as they rained expletives at me. I was unrelenting. I kept on after them.
I remembered a negotiation trick I had learnt to start by asking for something small and easy to get before progressing to increasingly bigger and more difficult-to-grant requests so I started by asking for my SIM cards. They declined initially but after much pestering, eventually agreed. Victory 1. As they were looking for a sharp object with which to open the SIM tray, I switched and started begging for my phone. I was speaking Yoruba throughout to better appeal to their emotions. Chris Voss would be proud as that was another trick I learned from “Never split the difference”. After a while, while they continued to refuse, I switched up again and offered to pay them “Owo wa ‘nu motor mi (there’s money in my car)”. Eventually, the thief gave in, against the wishes of his accomplices. “Oya how much you go give us?” Victory 2 — I had gotten him to entertain the idea of giving me back the phone. I kept my head. I knew the victories meant nothing if I didn’t get back the phone.
We jogged back to the car and I asked my friend, “Do you have any money on you?” “No, nothing at all” she responded. I already knew she didn’t because she had told me earlier that she needed to make a withdrawal at the nearest ATM. I brought out my wallet, I had just under 1k (in change) inside, and opened it so he saw as I flipped through the notes. “Baba no vex, na wetin dey my hand be this. Unless make we go ATM”. I knew he would refuse. Too risky for him and no doubt he wasn’t prepared for that sort of risk. The threats came back: “You dey use me play abi?”, “Be like you no know who you dey deal with”, etc. he re-joined the others. I followed him still, unrelenting in my begging. After about 2 extra minutes, they gave in and gave me back my phone. They didn’t even take a dime!
Meanwhile, all the passers-by were just standing about, minding their business as all this played out in full view of everyone. Even worse, as I returned to the car with my phone, grinning widely, obviously unable to control my joy, one random man at the bus stop sneered “and you even dey laugh” I couldn’t understand what was going on in his mind as he uttered such nonsense. I turned to look at him, shook my head at his ignorance and drove off. We still have a long way to go in this Lagos.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Duos. 3 times. Mazamaza, 2018
My mum had come to spend the weekend at my place. About noon on Monday, I took her back home, to Ijanikin. However, on our way home, there was a terrible, terrible traffic jam all the way from Festac first gate to Iyana isashi. A jam so bad, it took us over 6 hours to make a journey that would usually take under 2 hours. The traffic was caused by a combination of the appalling state of the roads and the hundreds of long vehicles (trailers, tankers, etc.) broken down and parked along the road. Finally, we got home by past 7pm.
I had a meeting at Victoria Island scheduled for 8:30am the next morning therefore, I couldn’t sleep over at Ijanikin, I had to return home to Surulere that night. As soon as we got in, I ate, took a shower, a 30 minute power nap and was ready to head back home. The time was already past 9pm when I left our Ijanikin home. Because of how bad the traffic was going to Ijanikin, I was already prepared to be on the road beyond midnight. However, as I joined the Lagos — Badagry expressway, I was pleasantly surprised to meet very few cars on the road. The only thing preventing me from speeding all the way home was the way I constantly had to meander and manoeuvre to avoid the massive potholes littered along the road.
The road remained free until I got to Iyana Iba. I was not surprised. The pathetic state of the road at Iyana Iba meant that there was always traffic there, even if your car was the only vehicle on the road. After the expected Iyana Iba traffic, the road was again free until we got to Agboju. This traffic jam was unexpected and turned out to be much worse than I initially thought, almost a standstill. I joined the long queue of cars as we patiently inched forward, a few metres at a time. Well, not everyone was patient as there were still the ones who continued to blare their horns so incessantly that you’ll wonder why they didn’t just attach wings to their cars and fly. After spending about 30 minutes in the traffic, around mazamaza, the first set of boys came.
My windows were wound down as the weather was cool. The driver’s side was wound all the way down while the passenger’s side was wound just low enough to allow cross ventilation but high enough that a hand would struggle to pass through. It is a precaution I’ve learnt to take, whenever I’m alone in a parked or slow moving car and want to wind the windows down, to prevent louts or corrupt officers gaining unwelcome access into the car through the passenger side window. Because the traffic was a literal stand still, I had got my phone out to reply some messages (probably not one of my smarter decisions, I know) when a young man approached me from the driver’s side. Immediately, my instincts took over: I quickly threw the phone in the pouch between the driver’s and passenger’s seat. Unfortunately, it was too late. He just said, “no worry, we don already see am” as an accomplice joined him at the driver’s side while 2 others simultaneously approached the car from the passenger’s side. So there were 4 of them, 2 flanking me on either side, and all 4 of them were very well dressed in jeans or chinos trousers and polos. They didn’t look the least bit like thieves.
“Oya, bring the phone”, the first one said. He appeared to be their leader.
I decided to try reasoning with them. “Bros, abeg no vex o, no be say I dey follow you argue but if you collect this phone now how I go do?”
He laughed and said simply, “You go buy new one na…”
I cut him off, “My oga, if say money dey my hand now, you know say I for give you but abeg I need this phone. E dey too important”
I think my words must have hit the right cords with him because he responded with, “Oya, wetin dey your hand?”
I had a few one thousand naira notes and some change in my wallet but I had 2 elements of good fortune:
1. My wallet was in the compartment inside the driver’s door, a habit I formed long ago.
2. My wallet had 2 sections, so I arranged my money by putting the polymer notes, which are smaller denominations, in a separate section from the paper notes.
As we were talking, I had already slipped my left hand inside that compartment to discreetly remove the one thousand naira notes in the paper section so that I could show them the polymer notes as proof that I didn’t have money on me. While I was still trying to buy time by pleading, he asked me to raise my butt up so he could search me and immediately, I knew Jesus had taken the wheel: I didn’t even need to show them the wallet anymore. I obliged and lifted my butt, propping myself up with my hands. He searched me all over and when he found nothing else, they bade me a safe trip and we shook hands like old friends then they left and moved on to the next target about 3 cars behind on the lane to my right.
After they left, I immediately removed the one thousand naira notes from my wallet and hid them elsewhere in the car, leaving only the polymer notes in my wallet, wound up all my windows and stashed my S7 in the compartment with my wallet while I let my much cheaper Wiko phone remain in plain sight. Barely 10 minutes and a few meters later, another set of guys came. There were 3 of them this time and they looked much rougher. They wore dirty, tattered clothes and walked with all kinds of limps.
They banged on my window, threatening to break it. I wound down slightly and tried reasoning with them like I did earlier but these ones were more difficult to deal with as they kept shouting and threatening. When they asked for my phone, I showed them the Wiko phone but refused to give it to them as I explained to them that I really needed the phone and that it was useless to them in any case as it won’t command a good price. After a while, they obliged and asked me to give them money instead. I was ready for this request. I told them I didn’t have enough cash on me but naturally, they didn’t believe me and resumed the threats. Then I brought out my wallet (with just some 50 naira notes left in it) to show them. As I opened it to them to confirm my statement, one of them quickly made for the 50 naira notes in the wallet (broke thieves eh). As he grabbed the notes, I stylishly pinched the notes as well such that he was only able to make away with 1 note. A few seconds later, they were off to their next target, 2 cars behind mine. I noticed that both sets of thieves conveniently avoided the rickety looking car right behind me. ‘Bad market’, I guess.
I had over an hour of peace of mind as we continued to inch forward through the traffic but when I got to mile 2, another thief came to knock on my window. I had just climbed the ramp from mile 2 towards Oshodi when he staggered to my window and spoke in a slurred mixture of thick, heavily accented Pidgin English as well as Yoruba. He was obviously very high but he was the easiest to deal with. As he staggered towards me, I thought “here we go again” and wound down the window before he even banged on it. He flew out of the blocks, asking for money and simultaneously spitting a steady stream of threats in a slurred version of the usual husky ‘agbero’ voice. I simply hailed him and repeatedly said, “Alaye, Kosi nka kan l’ówó mi” meaning that I have nothing on me. In the few minutes he spent outside my window, he steadily reduced his demands from ‘Wetin dey your hand’, to phones, to 1,000 naira, all the way down to 20 naira (to buy water) with a steady rain of expletives and threats in between. I turned him down each time with pretty much the same phrase, only making slight adjustments in my facial expressions or hand gestures each time.
A few minutes after the last thief left, as the traffic was beginning to clear up close to Fatgbems, I saw one of the members of the initial group. I don’t know if it was the ‘operation’ that brought him there or he was just heading home. I wound down and honked at him him, he smiled shouted “Chairman” & waved. I shouted “Oloye” & waved back. I finally got home just before midnight, really glad to be safe and to have only lost 50 Naira to the thieves.
Moral: apart from the usual keep your phones & wallet out of sight/reach, when in such situations
1. Please don’t panic. That’s when you make mistakes
2. Please don’t use ‘agidi’. You’ll only endanger yourself
3. Please talk to them. Don’t be in a hurry to give into their demands. Humans are more reasonable than you’ll realize & (almost) everyone loves a new friend even if only for a few seconds.
4. If all else fails, then you can give in. Remember, your health/life over properties
Stay safe out there, Kings & Queens.
If you enjoyed this, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee or perhaps pepper spray for my next encounter with hoodlums 😎
