Case file — Walextheguru

My landlord thinks I am a banker. I am not a banker. I work in a shop that sells phone accessories on the Island, and honestly, on a good month, what I make does not even reach what he charges for rent.

When I went to view the apartment two years ago, I panicked when he asked what I do, and "banker" just jumped out of my mouth. I do not even know why. Since then, I have been keeping up the act. Any time I am going to pay rent, I will wear shirt and trouser, even though I am literally coming straight from my shop. Whenever he asks how business is going, I just tell him "God is on the throne"

Last December, the man tried to get financial advice from me about treasury bills. I gave him advice I heard on radio. He thanked me, said I explained it better than his actual banker friend.

At this point, I have realized the lie has become too much to handle. If I tell him the truth now, he might think I have been struggling all along and start worrying about rent or even ask me to leave his house because I lied. So the banker will just keep living.

The problem is, the lie has started to have children of its own.

Two weeks ago, my landlord's daughter finished her master's programme somewhere in the east, and he told me she is looking for internship at a bank before she starts full time work. He asked if I could "put in a word" for her at my place of work. I said "let me see what I can do," like a serious professional, and he thanked me like the matter was as good as settled. I have spent every day since then avoiding his calls, drafting excuses in my head, to be honest, I don't even know what to say. Meanwhile the only recruitment happening at my shop is when my oga needs someone to go and buy him lunch.

Then last month, he started sending me screenshots. Real screenshots, from his banking app, asking me why one particular transaction is showing as "pending" for three days. I stared at that message for almost one hour before I typed back something about "clearing cycles" and "interbank settlement windows," thank God for ChatGPT. He replied, "ehen, that makes sense now, thank you oh." I nearly dropped my phone.

The final straw is that he has now started introducing me to people. Just last Sunday after church, he called me over to meet his brother-in-law, a man in genuinely big agbada, and said "this is the young man I was telling you about, he works with the banks." The brother-in-law's face changed immediately; respect just entered his eyes. He started asking me about mortgage rates. I said the rates "fluctuate depending on the CBN's current stance," nodded like I had said something serious, and excused myself to go and "take a call."

So now it is not just my landlord I am managing. It is his daughter's imaginary internship, his transaction screenshots, and his extended family's financial questions. The shop where I actually work has no idea any of this is happening. If my oga ever hears that people think I work in a bank, he will laugh at me first, then dock my pay for wasting time answering rent house questions instead of attending to customers.

Sometimes I lie awake and think, maybe I should just tell him the truth. Then I remember the daughter is expecting a phone call about her "internship" any day now, and I go back to sleep pretending I did not think of anything.