My Name Is Engoi Okafor

My name is Engoi Okafor and I own a chain of filling stations across Abuja. Built them from nothing after my wife died 5 years ago. Three sons — Chukui, Amea, and Kenneth. Thought I knew them. I was wrong.

Last Tuesday morning, I made a decision that would change everything. I called my doctor, Adabio, at GKI Hospital.

“I need you to help me with something,” I told him. “Fake some test results. Make it look like I’m dying.”

Dr. Adabio owed me money. Big money. His gambling debts at the Victoria Island casinos had nearly destroyed his career. I’d bailed him out twice. Now I needed a favor.

“What kind of dying?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“Kidney failure. 2 weeks to live. Need dialysis money.”

I slid an envelope across his desk — 500,000 naira. “Just play along.”

You know what it’s like when you suspect your own children don’t love you? When every visit feels like they’re checking their watches? I had to know. Before I wrote my will, I had to know which of my sons actually cared about their father.

Dr. Adabio created perfect fake lab results. Creatinine levels through the roof, kidney function at 15%, death sentence on paper. He admitted me to a private room, set up the whole charade. Then I made the calls.

The First Calls

First, I called Chukwi, my eldest, 32 years old. Always talking about his big business deals in Lagos.

“Son, I’m in the hospital. Kidney failure. I need 2 million naira for dialysis. Or I’ll be dead in two weeks.”

Silence.

Then, “Papa, I’m in a meeting. Can we talk about this later?”

“Chukwoody, I’m dying.”

Click.

He hung up on me. My heart felt like someone had stepped on it. But maybe he was just shocked. Maybe he’d call back.

I called Amea next, my middle son, 29, works for some oil company in Port Harcourt. Same story, same desperate plea.

“Papa, you know things are tight right now. The economy, the naira. Maybe you should try traditional medicine. My in-laws know a good herbalist.”

Traditional medicine for kidney failure. My own son wanted me to drink bitter leaves while my organs shut down.

But Kenneth — Kenneth was different. He’s my youngest, 25, works as a mechanic in Nana. Lives in a small flat with his girlfriend, Blessing, barely makes ends meet.

When I called him, his voice broke.

“Papa, you’re in the hospital? Which one? I’m coming now.”

“Kenneth, I need money for treatment. 2 million?”

“I don’t have 2 million, Papa, but I’ll find it. Just… just hold on. I’m coming.”

Within an hour, Kenneth was at my bedside. Sweat on his forehead, grease still under his fingernails from the garage. He’d run all the way from the bus stop. In his hand, a brown envelope.

“It’s not 2 million, Papa. It’s only 400,000, but it’s everything I have. Everything me and Blessing saved for our wedding next year.”

I stared at that envelope. My youngest son, the one I’d barely paid attention to, the one who never asked for anything, had just given me his entire future.

The Loan Shark

“Kenneth, where did you get this money so fast?”

His eyes dropped. “I… I borrowed some from a man, Emmanuel. He lends money. I gave him my car as security.”

My blood went cold. Emmanuel. I knew that name. Area boys whispered it in GY Market — a loan shark who broke bones when people couldn’t pay.

“Kenneth, what did you do?”

But before he could answer, three men walked into my hospital room. Big men, scars on their faces. The kind of men who make their living from other people’s desperation.

“Kenneth Aaphor,” the tallest one spoke. Gold teeth gleamed when he smiled. “Emmanuel wants to see you now.”

Kenneth tried to stand, but his legs were shaking. The men stepped closer, blocking the hospital room door. I could smell their cologne mixed with something else. Violence. It clings to men like these.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “This is a hospital. My son is visiting his dying father.”

The man with gold teeth looked at me like I was a cockroach.

“No misunderstanding, old man. Your boy owes Emmanuel 2 million naira. Took a loan this morning. Car wasn’t worth half that much.”

“2 million?” Kenneth had only given me 400,000. Where was the rest supposed to come from?

“I’ll get the money,” Kenneth whispered. “Just give me time.”

“Time?” The man laughed. “Emmanuel don’t give time. He gives opportunities. And your opportunity is walking out that door with us right now.”

I watched my youngest son, the only one who’d come to help me, being dragged away by loan sharks. And it was my fault. My stupid test had put him in danger.

“Wait,” I called out, but they were already gone.

I lay there staring at the ceiling, feeling like the worst father in Nigeria.

The Fake Illness Exposed

Then my phone rang. Dr. Adabio.

“Ngozi, we have a problem. A nurse saw me changing your test results. Kemi from the night shift. She’s asking questions.”

“Handle it,” I said. “Pay her if you have to.”

“It’s not about money. She’s… she’s one of those religious ones. Says lying about death is a sin. She might go to the hospital administration.”

Perfect. My fake illness was about to be exposed and my real son was in the hands of criminals.

That evening, a woman knocked on my hospital room door. Small, tired-looking, familiar face, but I couldn’t place her.

“Excuse me. Are you Mr. Engoi Okafor?”

“Who’s asking?”

“My name is Agnes. Agnes Okafor. I… I used to be your wife.”

My heart stopped. Agnes, Kenneth’s mother. We divorced 10 years ago after she found out about my business dealings. She’d taken Kenneth and disappeared, refusing my money, raising him in some slum in Nana.

Agnes’s Warning

“What do you want, Agnes?”

She stepped into the room, her cleaning uniform still damp with sweat.

“I heard you were sick. Kidney problems.”

Her voice was softer than I remembered.

“Kenneth came home crying. Said he gave you all his money, borrowed more from some dangerous man.”

“You came here to blame me?”

“I came here to ask you something.” She sat in the plastic chair beside my bed. “Are you really dying?”

The question hit me like a slap. Agnes always could see through my lies.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because I work at Victoria Center. I clean the offices there, including the office of a woman named Chinelo. She handles accounts for some businessman. Yesterday, I heard her on the phone. She was talking about Okafor’s fake illness and how much money was being moved around because of it.”

My blood turned to ice. Chinelo was my business manager. She handled the filling station accounts, the cash flow, everything.

“If she knew about my fake illness—”

Agnes, what exactly did you hear?

Before she could answer, her phone rang. She looked at the screen and her face went white.

“It’s Kenneth,” she whispered. “They’re asking for ransom.”

The Ransom Demand

Agnes answered the phone with trembling fingers. I could hear a man’s voice through the speaker, cold, calculating.

“Mama Kenneth, your son is with us. He owes big money, but we’re reasonable people. You bring 5 million naira to Wuse Market tomorrow or we start removing fingers.”

“5 million?” The amount kept growing. This wasn’t just about Kenneth’s loan anymore.

Agnes was crying now. “Please, we don’t have that kind of money. Kenneth is a good boy. He works hard.”

“Tomorrow. Sunset. Come alone.”

The line went dead.

I watched my ex-wife collapse into that plastic chair. Ten years of hatred between us, but seeing her pain brought back memories. She’d loved me once, before I became obsessed with money and power.

“Agnes, listen to me. I’ll handle this.”

“With what?” she looked up, tears streaking down her face. “You’re dying. Remember kidney failure? Two weeks to live.”

Her words cut deep. She knew. Somehow she knew it was all fake.

The Conspiracy

“I heard more than just Chinelo’s phone call,” Agnes continued. “I heard her talking to someone else — a man. They were planning something about your sons, about inheritance money. She mentioned Chukwudi by name.”

Chinelo and Chukwudi. My business manager and my eldest son working together behind my back.

My phone buzzed. Text message from an unknown number:

“Your boy Kenneth sends greetings. Interesting family you have, Mr. Okafor. Some of your sons are more cooperative than others.”

What did that mean?

I called Chukwudi immediately.

“Papa, I heard about Kenneth. Terrible business, these loan sharks.”

“How did you hear about Kenneth?”

Pause. Too long.

“Word travels fast in Abuja. You know how it is.”

“Chukwudi, where are you right now?”

“Lagos. Business meetings. Why?”

I could hear traffic in the background, but not Lagos traffic. I knew that sound — the specific rumble of Abuja buses, the hawkers calling out in Hausa. He was lying.

“Son, I need you to come home. Kenneth is in trouble and I’m dying. The family needs to—”

“Papa, like I said, I’m in Lagos. Important deal closing tomorrow. But don’t worry about Kenneth. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

His brother was kidnapped and he talked like it was a minor inconvenience.

After I hung up, Agnes was staring at me. “You’re not dying, are you, Engoi?”

There was no point lying anymore.

“No, I’m not.”

The Plan Unfolds

Then why? Her voice was barely a whisper.

“I wanted to test them. See which of my sons actually loved me before I wrote my will.”

Agnes stood up slowly. For a moment, I thought she might slap me. Instead, she laughed — a bitter, broken sound.

“You tested them. You put Kenneth in danger to test your sons’ love.” She shook her head. “You haven’t changed. Still playing games with people’s lives.”

“Agnes, I didn’t know.”

“You never know. That’s your problem. You make these grand plans, move people around like chess pieces, and then act surprised when everything explodes.”

She was right. But right now, blame wouldn’t save Kenneth.

My phone rang again. Dr. Adabio, panicking.

“Engoi, the nurse Kemi is talking to Father Michael. You know that priest from St. Augustine’s, the one who does hospital visits.”

Father Michael — he’d baptized all three of my sons, including Kenneth.

If Kemi told him about the fake test results…

“What did she tell him?”

“Everything. She said it’s a sin to fake a death illness. That families are suffering because of lies. Father Michael is coming to the hospital tonight. He wants to pray for your soul.”

Agnes was watching me, putting the pieces together.

“Father Michael knows Kenneth,” she said quietly. “If he finds out you’re lying about being sick while Kenneth is kidnapped, the priest will go straight to help… but if Chinelo and Chukwudi are involved, Father Michael could walk into a trap.”

That’s when it hit me.

The real game wasn’t about testing my sons’ love. Someone was using my fake illness as cover for something bigger.

While I was playing dying father, real players were moving real money around — and Kenneth, innocent Kenneth, had become their pawn.

The Investigation

We took a taxi to Victoria Center at midnight. Agnes had keys to the cleaning supplies closet, but more importantly, she knew which offices stayed unlocked for the night security guards.

“Chinelo’s office is on the seventh floor,” she whispered as we climbed the back stairs. “She always leaves her computer on, says she works late, but I’ve seen her. She just plays solitaire and makes phone calls.”

The building felt like a tomb. Our footsteps echoed off the marble floors. I’d built my fortune in places like this, but tonight it felt foreign, dangerous. Agnes led me through a maze of cubicles to Chinelo’s corner office. Through the glass walls, I could see her computer screen still glowing.

“How do we get in?”

Agnes pulled out a master key. “Cleaners have access to everything. Rich people don’t think we exist.”

Inside, Chinelo’s desk was covered with papers. Bank statements, transfer forms, legal documents — all bearing my signature. Signatures I’d never written.

“She’s been forging my name,” I said, holding up a transfer order for 2 million naira. “Look at the date. Yesterday — the same day Kenneth needed money for my treatment.”

Agnes was looking at Chinelo’s computer screen.

“Engoi, come see this.”

Email correspondence between Chinelo and someone called “CEO.” It had to be Chukwudi Okafor.

The messages went back weeks:

“Yes, father’s getting suspicious about missing money. Need to accelerate timeline.”
“Agreed. Hospital story is perfect cover. While he’s dying, we transfer everything to offshore accounts.”
“What about Kenneth?”
“He’s not part of the plan. Kenneth is a problem. Too honest. If he finds out about the fake illness, he’ll expose everything. Emmanuel can handle Kenneth permanently.”

My hands were shaking as I read. My eldest son and my business manager had been planning to steal my entire fortune — and they were going to murder Kenneth to keep him quiet.

“There’s more,” Agnes said, pointing to another email. “Look at this one from today.”

“Kenneth took loan from Emmanuel as planned. Now we wait for father to die from guilt and stress, natural causes, no investigation.”

They’d manipulated everything — the loan shark, Kenneth’s desperation, even my fake illness. It was all part of their plan.

A Deadly Plot

But there was something else. Another email chain. This one between Chinelo and someone identified as “Inspector M.”

“Inspector Musa ready to file report. Kenneth will be charged with stealing from family business. Once he’s arrested, Emmanuel eliminates him in custody. Looks like gang violence.”

Inspector Musa. I knew that name — a corrupt police officer from Wuse Zone 2 station. He’d take money from anyone for anything.

“They’re going to frame Kenneth for theft, then have him killed in prison,” I said. “Make it look like he was the one stealing from me all along.”

Agnes was crying again, but this time it was anger, not sadness.

“We have to save him.”

“How? We don’t even know where Emmanuel is keeping him.”

That’s when her phone rang. Kenneth’s number.

“Mama.” His voice was weak, frightened. “They’re letting me make one call. I’m sorry about the money. I just… I wanted to help Papa.”

“Kenneth, where are you? What do you see?”

“It’s dark. Smells like car oil. I can hear generators running. And… and there’s a big sign outside. Spare Parts Plaza. Mama, I think I’m going to die here.”

The line went dead.

Spare Parts Plaza. Every mechanic in Abuja knew that place — a sprawling market in Karmo where stolen cars got chopped up and sold for parts. Dozens of warehouses. Hundreds of hiding spots.

“We have to call the police,” Agnes said.

“The police are part of it. Inspector Musa is working with them.”

“Then what?”

I looked at the computer screen again. One more email sent just an hour ago:

“Father Michael asking questions at hospital. Nurse told him about fake test results. This could ruin everything. Suggest we accelerate Kenneth’s elimination tomorrow morning before priest can investigate further.”

Tomorrow morning — they were going to kill Kenneth at dawn.

A Race Against Time

I grabbed Agnes’s hand. “There’s someone we can trust — Father Michael. If he’s asking questions about my fake illness, it means he cares. He baptized Kenneth, watched him grow up. But if Chinelo knows the priest is investigating, then we get to Father Michael first. Tell him everything. He has connections with honest police officers, with people who can’t be bought.”

As we left the office, I took photos of every email, every bank document — evidence of the conspiracy. But evidence wouldn’t matter if Kenneth was dead by morning.

In the taxi back to the hospital, Agnes grabbed my arm.

“Engoi, there’s something I never told you about why I really left you 10 years ago.”

“Agnes, this isn’t the time.”

“It is the time because you need to understand. I left because I saw you becoming exactly like them — like Chukwudi and Chinelo. So focused on money and power that you stopped seeing people as human beings.”

Her words hit harder than any punch.

“Kenneth is different because I raised him different. Away from your money, away from your business. I taught him that people matter more than profit.”

She was right. Kenneth was the only son who’d inherited what mattered — not my ruthlessness, but his mother’s heart.

We had six hours until dawn. Six hours to save the only son worth saving.

Seeking Help

Father Michael lived in a small house behind St. Augustine’s Church in Garki. When we knocked on his door at 2:00 a.m., he opened it wearing a faded Arsenal jersey and reading glasses.

“Agnes, what are you doing here? And Mr. Okafor. Shouldn’t you be in the hospital dying?”

“That’s exactly what we need to talk about,” I said.

Inside his modest living room, surrounded by theology books and family photos of parishioners, I confessed everything — the fake illness, the test, Kenneth’s kidnapping, the conspiracy between Chukwudi and Chinelo.

Father Michael listened without interrupting. When I finished, he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“So Kenneth is the only one who passed your test — and now he’s going to die for it.”

“Can you help us?”

“I can try. But first, you need to understand something, Engoi. This isn’t just about saving Kenneth. This is about who you choose to be. Are you still the man who tests his children’s love, or are you the father who fights for his son?”

Before I could answer, his phone rang. He looked at the screen, frowned.

“It’s Nurse Kemi from the hospital.”

At this hour? He answered.

“Kemi, what’s wrong?”

I could hear her voice, high-pitched and panicked. “Father, something terrible has happened. That man you asked me to check on, Mr. Okafor — he’s gone, vanished from his room, and there are men looking for him. Dangerous men with scars and gold teeth.”

Emmanuel’s people were at the hospital looking for me.

Father Michael hung up. “They know you’re not there.”

“Which means…”

“Which means they know I’m not really dying,” I finished.

The whole plan was falling apart.

Agnes was pacing. “If they can’t find you, they’ll kill Kenneth immediately. No point keeping him alive.”

My phone buzzed. Text message from Chinelo:

“Where are you? Hospital says you left. This complicates things.”

I showed the message to Father Michael. He thought for a moment, then smiled — not a happy smile, but the kind a chess player makes when he sees a winning move.

“Text her back. Tell her you’re at home getting your affairs in order before you die. Ask her to come over with the inheritance documents.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re going to set a trap.”

The Trap

While she’s distracted with you, I’ll contact Inspector Adamu from the central police station. He’s one of the few honest officers left in this city.

I sent the text. Chinelo responded immediately.

“On my way. Bring the boys, too. Family should be together at a time like this.”

“The boys.” She meant Chukwudi and Amea.

They were all coming to my house — probably to kill me and make it look like I died naturally from kidney failure.

“Father,” Agnes said, “what if Inspector Adamu can’t find Kenneth in time? That spare parts market is huge.”

“Then we make sure they tell us where he is.”

Father Michael opened a drawer and pulled out something I never expected to see in a priest’s house — a digital recorder.

“I use this for confession sometimes when people want their words documented. Tonight, we’re going to get a different kind of confession.”

We drove to my house in Maitama, a sprawling compound with high walls and a gate. As we approached, I saw cars in the driveway — Chinelo’s silver Honda, Chukwudi’s black Camry, and a third car I didn’t recognize.

“They’re already here,” Agnes whispered.

Through the living room window, we could see them sitting around my dining table like they owned the place. Chinelo had papers spread out. Chukwudi was on his phone. And a third man, tall, thin, wearing an expensive suit, was examining my family photos.

“Who’s the thin man?” Father Michael asked.

I squinted. Then recognition hit like a fist to the stomach.

“That’s my lawyer, Barrister Okonkwo. He draws up wills, handles inheritance cases.”

My voice cracked. “They’re not just planning to steal my money. They’re planning to make it legal.”

The Confrontation

Agnes grabbed my arm. “If they have a lawyer here at 3 a.m. with inheritance documents — they’re planning to kill you tonight. While you’re supposedly dying from kidney failure, you’ll have a heart attack from the stress. The lawyer will witness your deathbed will giving everything to Chukwudi.”

Father Michael was already dialing Inspector Adamu. “We need backup now.”

But before he could connect, my phone rang. Emmanuel’s number.

“Mr. Okafor, I hear you’re not as sick as you pretended to be. Interesting development.”

“Where’s my son?”

“Your son is fine for now, but I’ve been having conversations with some mutual friends. Seems there’s been a change in the payment plan.”

“What change?”

“Instead of 5 million for the boy’s release, we’re now looking at 20 million for your life and his. Package deal.”

“20 million?” They were planning to extort me for everything, then kill me anyway.

“I don’t have 20 million in cash.”

“But you have filling stations, property, business accounts. Bring me the deeds and transfer papers, and maybe we can work something out.”

The line went dead.

Father Michael had been listening. “They’re not just stealing from you, Engoi. They’re auctioning you off. Emmanuel gets the business assets. Chukwudi gets the inheritance. Chinelo gets her cut.”

Through the window, I saw Barrister Okonkwo pulling out official-looking documents. The will was already prepared.