Saturday 3 October 2015

OMG!!!!! The Lekki Liar


I know its lengthy, but its a true life story. I saw it trending on twitter somedays back, I had to go and delved on it just to bring it here for you guys..

Hi,
I used to say ‘if it looks too good to be true, it usually is’. My theory was proven right a little more than three months ago.
Let me start with some background information about myself so you’ll get a little acquainted with where I’m coming from.

I’m from a highly dysfunctional family. My parents were living together and did only the traditional introduction, they never married. My mom had constant miscarriages when my father impregnated another woman. This other woman would then call the house and threaten my mother to leave ‘her’ husband’s house. My mom would tell my dad about the anonymous calls and he would brush them off as ‘prank calls’.

You see, my dad was, is and will forever be an accomplished liar. It’s not something I’m proud to admit to anyone, but I’ve accepted it as my cross. I have a liar as a father, I’ll do myself good to work hard and be the direct opposite. It’s not easy, it’s actually a depressing reality, but it’s MY reality.
The other woman eventually summoned the courage and came to the house with a big belly and met my mother. The cat was out of the bag and pops couldn’t deny at this point. My over-understanding mother allowed the woman move in and that was her biggest mistake. 


She had twin boys for my father. Long story short, the new woman and her mother got diabolical and my mom had to leave to save her life. Pops went to my mother some weeks later and convinced her he had driven the other woman away. My mother believed, came back and after some weeks, realised it was a lie. My dad had put them in a rented apartment and had even gone to pay the other woman’s dowry. My mom left for good this time but she was pregnant. With me.


Let me put this out there: I have a big issue with lying. Do I lie? Of course, I’m human. Am I good at it? Damn right! Do I lie often? NO. But you see, my father lies about EVERYTHING. The sky, the weather, his health, his family, his business, my mom even says his birthday is probably a lie. So it’s a big burden when your father speaks to you and you don’t know if it’s a lie or if it’s true. You realise you’d rather be safe to believe whatever he spews is a lie. Most times, it usually is. Not having a father you can believe in, even slightly, is a girl’s worst nightmare.


I grew up with my mom and my half-brother (my mom had tried to re-marry. Didn’t work out). Life was simple and beautiful in Festac till my mother had a stroke shortly after we moved to Abuja and had to move closer to family in Asaba. I came to live with my dad, his wife and my half-brothers during NYSC in 2010 and realised my mom had been fair to him and had kept the bad sides of him from me. Sure, she’d told me some truths but I got to realise how bad he was when I moved in. Anyway, the point here is I know how a lying mind works to an extent now, so let’s fast forward to 2013.


I work in a bank in Lekki. This guy comes in asking for one of those services the bank doesn’t offer. He’s not a bad-looking dude but he acts entitled and pompous so the meeting doesn’t really end well. Fast forward to 2014, I start following this intelligent guy on twitter because I have a weakness for smart asses (I broke up with the hottest, most caring guy because he’s not an intellectual). Move to 2015, I realise the smart ass is the same annoying guy from 2013. So I chip a comment asking him to be less grumpy when next he visits the bank and he says ‘ok, say hello next time’.


He visits the bank weeks later and I walk up to say hello and direct messages (DMs) came in after that. They were totally harmless, I was being friendly, I still have the DMs. We met up outside his house some days later and basically lamented about the fuel scarcity together. It was the first time I’d sit with someone and talk for hours at a first ‘meeting’. Simple, fluid conversations without a lot of effort. I was giddy!
We exchanged pins and numbers that night and the calls started. He invited me to spend the night at a house he had somewhere in Ajah about a week after. I felt that was too early in our acquaintance and told him, so he eased off and said we’d just chill and see movies, then I’d go home.  I thought about it, berated myself for being too uptight and I agreed.


We didn’t even get to see the first 20 mins of the movie, we made out and he kept trying to initiate sex. At some point, I lashed out and he backed down. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Eventually we did have sex a week later, it wasn’t totally consensual. He used the ‘don’t worry I won’t go in’ line. Stupid me, I fell for it. I felt terrible immediately, maybe because I’m not a fan of casual sex but deep down, I knew that wasn’t it. It just felt wrong, I felt convenient.


I found out the next day that he was married. You cannot imagine how I felt. Sucker-punched. I felt used, abused, violated, manipulated, angry, I’d let myself down. I was almost sick. Why did he have to lie? To what end? Nigga is a successful lawyer (read liar), smart, witty, intelligent, popular. So why?
And why ME? This guy is a successful writer, blogger, radio talk-show guest speaker, political critic, economic critic, the whole works.
I learnt he’d done it to some other girl before; he had lied that his wife was his sister until someone exposed him. I also learnt he’d raped a member of his church who had to relocate to Abuja when the shame was unbearable. I became obsessed with learning the truth, and found out he had a joint account with his wife in my branch. What pained me though was that Google brought up nothing about his being married. I had checked him out on Google when we had first started talking just to be careful. Till now, I still feel betrayed by Google.


I didn’t tell him my findings. I recalled how on earlier occasions he’d ask me if I could date a married man and I’d say never. Then he’d ask if I could date a man who was separated and I’d say never. Then he’d ask if I could date a divorcee and I’d say, it was possible but not an option I’d like to be faced with. The questions finally made sense. I also remember how I’d say to him ‘anything that looks too good to be true usually is’ and he’d lambast me for my pessimism and tell me how I was going to destroy a good thing with my doubts. He’d talk about love and beg me to be his girlfriend and I’d say I didn’t know him well enough yet.


I started planning with my friends on how to embarrass him publicly. I was wounded. I have a couple of friends who are mutual friends with his wife from secondary school and university. That was how I found out about the marriage. I had casually mentioned it to my girls that there was a new guy who seemed like a perfect fit and when I mentioned his name, one of them responded with ‘he’s married to so and so person’.


I showed up at his home in Lekki one day to throw him off balance. His wife was home. I knew because he kept trying to keep me from coming but I wasn’t having it. Then he told me some preposterous story about his neighbour having an accident at home: she’d fallen down the stairs, an ambulance was outside and how he was at her house and couldn’t leave her bedside just yet (all this was to buy time for his wife to leave the house. I was parked outside). After some minutes, he claimed the neighbour was now discussing business and he didn’t know how to get off. I responded with ‘tell her you left something on and you need to go turn it off before your house catches fire. Your house will burn in 10 minutes’. When his wife was finally about to drive out he said, ‘I’m home, where are you?’. I responded with ‘liar, I’m outside your house’. 


As a sharp brother, he responded with ‘I went in through the back gate’ (I knew there was no back gate). Then he went ‘my sis is about to drive out, let me open the gate for her’ and I sat there and watched in disbelief as his wife drove out while he pretended to be on the phone so as not to acknowledge my presence till she left. I watched knowing what he was doing in awe. The part that disgusted me though was when he tried to take me to his matrimonial bedroom. I was sick to my stomach. I hated him in that moment and told him I had to leave. That was the day I knew I had to show him. It was unfair to his wife. It was unfair to me. I’m pretty sure that’s the pattern my father had perfected. This lover of mine was like a mini version of the man.


The plans to embarrass him didn’t work as he never showed for the proposed hangout with my friends and I. He was smart about it. When I couldn’t deal anymore, I made him meet me at work on a weekend and confronted him with his wedding pictures I’d  gotten from his wife’s instagram. His response of ‘I knew you would find out because you’re friends with so and so person, let me explain’ enraged the devil in me. So he knew his wife and I had mutual friends (which was why he never showed for the hangouts. Wise bastard that he is). I was so freaking mad I wasn’t having any explanation so I walked him out.



After a week of mulling it over and simmering down, I made another foolish decision, I decided to hear him out (I’m so stupid). I needed to know why. There too many unanswered questions in my head. We met up and he gave me a sob story of how he had been having communication issues with his wife and thought that if he proposed, things would get better but they didn’t so he was currently separated from his wife and processing a divorce. He spoke about how a broken marriage isn’t something you’re proud of so you don’t publicise it which explained why people didn’t know (this made sense) apart from his immediate family. I did the next stupid thing, I somewhat could see the sense in what he was saying (they sounded logical) and I decided to believe some of it (foolishness doesn’t get any higher than this). He apologised about not telling me he was married, begged with everything pure on the face of the earth and I decided I was being too judgmental (you see why they call women gullible).



 I even attacked him about the day his wife was driving out and he claimed it was his sister. Guess his version? She lived with a friend around and needed to borrow a car and since they were not enemies, he asked her to come for one. Told some silly story of how she even tried to kiss him and he had a panic attack because I (his wonderful girlfriend to be) was outside and his estranged wife was begging for a kiss (the guy’s tales are legendary).
I told him I couldn’t trust him anymore and we couldn’t be friends but my anger was gone, he could move on with his life while I’d move on with mine. He was allowed to show me divorce papers and I’d consider taking his story seriously. 



Unfortunately, I wasn’t being wise at all. I felt I had found him out, he had apologised and everything was over. I let my guard down again and decided that people couldn’t be that bad, he was probably someone who had made some bad decisions and just needed help. BIG MISTAKE. We were at it again. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. He’d come to visit, we’d talk, banter, argue, laugh. A part of me knew, deep down that he was lying. Sometimes I’d berate myself for being such a doubting Thomas, other times it’d be so glaringly obvious I’d stop talking to him for days. But I couldn’t specifically say what it was he lied about. He was playing mind games and winning, I was losing. I knew.



Imagine my renewed outrage when I found out that even the second phase of the friendship was a farce and it was something he did as a pastime: slide into DMs, be nice and witty just to get some. Me, who lives with the chief of all liars got fooled by a learner. Me, who considers myself smarter than the average doe-eyed female. He didn’t even fool me once, he fooled me TWICE! Even told me another version of the rape story, about how the sex was consensual but the girl claimed it was rape because she had a boyfriend and she was ashamed.
My birthday was around the corner, so I waited to hear the tale he would tell just to avoid celebrating me as a friend. He didn’t disappoint at all. 



He gave one see-through lie of how his phone crashed on that day, he forgot, thought it was the next day, blablabla…that’s when I decided I needed to find out the truth for myself. I stopped speaking to him for good. I knew the numerous lies, but I didn’t know the truth and everything was beginning to mess my head up.
I found a way to meet his wife and ask questions. I found out that there was no separation, no divorce, and no marital issues. They live together, they’ve been married for almost 2 years, their home is his family home which they moved into when his mom died last year (he claimed he rented it himself after his mom died because he needed a bigger house for his siblings and himself just to keep up the Lekki big boy charade).



Some wounded lioness apparently anonymously went to subdeliveryman to embarrass him on twitter but it didn’t work.  I was monumentally shocked out of my senses when other people began to confirm the stories and other women and another house in Yaba. I was dumbfounded. He brushed it off like an unfounded rumour and has moved on, happy with the new followers the publicity has gained him. I remember one time he was upset because of a Twitter glitch that made him lose about 3 thousand followers and the joy he used in announcing when the glitch was corrected. He feeds off his alter-ego on twitter, he’ll probably die without it. He could never miss a twitter organised event, it was always an opportunity to shine.


His wife wanted proof. I had none. I wasn’t asking her questions to give her armour. I needed the truth. Whatever she wanted to do was her own choice, marriages have survived worse. I was just tired of wondering, I needed the full story. Now that I know the truth, and that he has a long list of victims, he has to regret ever looking at me and thinking ‘this one looks stupid enough to be manipulated’. I admit he is skilled at what he does, he deserves either an award or psychological help because he has deep sated issues. The kind we only watch displayed by serial offenders on T.V. Be it serial rapists, killers or paedophiles.
I’m not about to let it go. It has to end and I need help.