Clearing my throat with style and trying to build confidence internally, I started with my Lagos-trained British accent, “Arz you have red in our brorchure…

“Good morning,” I sang to the rainbow-faced receptionist.

“Good morning sir,” she sneaked the words out of her mouth like she just got dumped by a man.

“I am Edwin Babatunde Alexander,” I introduced. “A senior partner from El Paso Nigeria Limited, I have an appointment with the chairman.”

“Oh! Yes, yes,” rushing from her desk. “Follow me please,” she said, forcing the words out of her mouth once again. I followed her, shaking my head with a lot of pity for her and thinking, ‘Na one yeye boy go break this one heart again oo, but who go marry dis one sef, with all this Nigerlux and Berger paint for her face. Abegii…’

“In here sir, I’ll inform the chairman of your arrival,” speaking a little louder now as she wiggled away.

I was just admiring the furniture in the luxurious room, when the door clicked.

Three men and two ladies walked in; Madam wasn’t difficult to recognise. This babe looked and smelled like money—white cotton jacket, pink and white striped shirt, a conspicuously short black skirt, beautiful leather shoes and when she turned her behind to sit, dis madam get wetin boys for streets dey call, ‘kakaa toh bahd’.

“Can we start please,” madam said, with her unique western accent. It returned me to reality.

“Mister…” She was trying to remember my name.

“Edwin Babatunde Alexander,” I cut in.

“Ok, please let’s hear you,” she said.

Clearing my throat with style and trying to build confidence internally, I started with my Lagos-trained British accent, “Arz you have red in our brorchure, Client Base Development (CBD), is one of our many specialised filds at El Paso. It is our haven—we leave dere, we have developed tested and trusted mordelsss and strategies that works uniquely to soothe every organisation’s client base development plans. Our clients always thank us for helping them make more mohney than their financial analyst projected.

“You wanna make mohney?” I asked looking at Madam herself straight in the eye with confidence and my “fine boy” smile giving me back up.

She looked at me smiled, nodded her head and gave me a wink with her left eye.

My heart skipped and I almost fell. Singing: ‘Winner oh, oh, OH! Winner!!” -in my head, I managed to continue with improved confidence.

“Yes, you want to make mohney and El Paso is your bridge to the dream land. We will help you make a lot of mohney but you have to trust us and support us so we can deliver, we will be a team. SKS will give us basic information and we will use our world class stratergies and models to deliver your desired result in reasonable time.”

“In conclusion, we have the contact information of some of our past clients on our website. Feel free to do a background check on us. That is if you haven’t done so before you started this talk with us. Thank you.”

I took my seat at the far end of the table, took a sip of my glass of water, and tried not to look at the SKS team as they discussed discreetly.

“You can all leave now,” madam ordered.

I tried to move my chair back and take my leave. Then madam spoke again.

“Not you Mr…”

“Edwin Babatunde Alexander,” I cut in once again with a warmer smile.

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Follow link to Episode 1 HERE

Editor’s note: Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.