The day my best friend called me from a number I didn't know, from a city he never told me he was in

2019. I was still doing small small phone accessories in Onitsha then. My guy Emeka and I, we started together. Two of us, one table for upstairs, selling chargers and earpiece. He was the one that taught me how to price. "If you sell cheap, you attract cheap customers," he used to tell me. That man sabi market.

Then one time, we hear say container of iPhone 7 accessories dey come from China. Cheap. Emeka say make we pool money. I put in ₦480,000. Everything I had. He said he would handle the clearing, that he had a contact for Apapa.

Two weeks. No container. One month. Nothing. His line was off. I went to his house in Awka, the landlord said he packed out. Chai.

Six months later, my phone rang. Unknown number. "Kola, na me, Emeka." I froze. He said he was in Ghana. Said the container was seized, that he was trying to make the money back before he could face me. I asked him one question: "Why you no just call me and tell me say e spoil?"

He couldn't answer.

I learned that day that the worst part of betrayal is not the money. Na the silence. The money you can recover. But when somebody you trust decides that you are not even worth the truth? That one dey follow you.

I never saw Emeka again. But I still use the pricing lesson he taught me. Irony.