Oga Martins - Season 1 - Episode 13

Episode 5 years ago

Oga Martins - Season 1 - Episode 13

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“In life, two things are guaranteed to come
your way: opportunities and challenges.
How you choose to deal with these two
things is what determines your outcome in
life”, his MD had said this morning when he
was exhorting them for the day after the
morning prayers. The quote kept ringing in
Martins’ head, as he mentally took note of
how he dealt with the opportunities and
challenges that have come his way in recent
times. He concluded he hadn’t done badly
but concerning the issue with his landlord,
he was in a fix.

The man had been adamant about giving
him the key to his room, insisting he would
sack Martins before he corrupted the other
tenants but he had finally conceded after
Martins promised he would leave the house
at the end of the month. Martins knew he
wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t afford
to. Getting a new place meant paying for
two years rent with legal and agreement
fees. He didn’t have that kind of money and
even if he did, he would rather buy one of
the landed properties they sold and
complete the payment in instalments than
give all that money to another landlord. He
needed to come up with a way to make the
landlord continue to let him live in the
house until he was ready to leave.

He had thought of asking Deji to front for
him since the landlord rarely came to the
compound and didn’t go around checking
who was lodging who as long as his money
got paid but he had changed his mind
knowing the caretaker would either figure
his plan out and ruin it or one of the
tenants would go and do amebo for the
landlord as they did with the issue of his
complementary card, which was what got
him in this mess in the first place. He shook
his head in self empathy as he realized he
had more challenges than opportunities. He
wished more opportunities would come his
way and he could live the life he had always
dreamt. If only wishes were truly horses
and dreams could materialize with the
wave of a wand.

He sighed as he focused on the work in
front of him. He still had a pile of files to sort
through and wasn’t looking forward to it.
He realized paper work bore him and he
preferred to go on the field. Although his
experience on the field thus far had not
been smooth, in retrospect, it had been
exciting. A smile touched his lips as the
memory of his first day and first task came
to mind. He was still curious about what the
story was between Aisha and Ada but
dispensed with the thought as Johnson, a
colleague of his walked in, his voice filled
with anger. Everyone in the room turned
their attention to him.

“What do you mean he threw your things
out? He has no right to!” he paused briefly
while Martins stared at him, wondering
what was going on. “So what if it is his
house? And legally, he’s supposed to give
you six months notice. He can’t just wake
up one day and throw your things out or
tell you to move out, it’s not done! Where
does he want you to go?”

Martins is paying rapt attention
“You know what, just go and stay at Moji’s
place. I’m going to call Femi to take it up. We
are suing the guy. It is rubbish! He can’t
treat you like that.”

“What happened?” Tinu, another colleague
asked as soon as Johnson got off the
phone.

“Imagine! My sister has been living in a
house for three years. No prior notice,
nothing and you wake up one morning and
tell her to move out the next day or you’ll
throw her things out because you need the
place urgently. Who does that?”

“My landlord!” Martins responded instantly.
Everyone turned to look at him as if just
realizing he was in the room. “He locked me
out two nights ago and said he was going
to refund the rest of my money to me
because I gave my cards to other tenants
and he saw sack your landlord on it”
“You’re kidding,” Johnson stated in
disbelief

“These landlords are unbelievable! So he
wants to throw you out because of that?”
Tinu asked, her voice filled with incredulity
“I can’t say I blame him,” Lola supplied. “If
you are the landlord and you saw
something like that, won’t you feel
threatened?”

“That doesn’t mean they have to treat
people inhumanly,” Tinu argued
“Not all landlords are bad people.” They all
turned up their noses in disagreement. “So
basically you are saying when you become
a landlord, you will treat people badly too!”
“No way!” Johnson protested “I’m not
going to treat people like that. If you want
to throw someone out of your house, the
law offers guidelines.”

“Like…?” Martins queried, curious
“You should give six months’ notice to a
yearly tenant. If the six months expire and
the tenant doesn’t move out, you serve
another seven days notice of owner’s
intention to recover property. If the tenant
still doesn’t move out after then, you go to
court”

“As a tenant, is it not just better to move
out than to go to court?” Martins asked
“What if you don’t have anywhere to go?”
Johnson stated

“Or you don’t have the money to pay?”
Martins rejoined, a plan beginning to form
in his head