DIARY OF A CORPER — EPISODE 3: HOUSE HUNTING 

“They are not leasing to corpers.”

I blinked.

“I’m sorry… what?”

The agent didn’t even look embarrassed. If anything, he looked like someone delivering breaking news on national television.

“Only people that are working,” he added.

I stared at him, waiting for the joke to land.

It didn’t.

“Am I not working?” I finally asked, my voice calm—but my spirit already preparing for violence.

He shrugged.

That kind of shrug that says, I don’t make the rules, I just enforce nonsense.

I laughed. Because honestly, what else could I do?

So now we have levels to this suffering?

First, it was no single women.

Then, no single mothers.

Now, no corpers.

What next? No human beings?

And somehow, I couldn’t help but wonder—if I were a guy, would he have said the same thing?

But if you talk now, they’ll say, “Ah ah, feminist has started.”

Let me just be calming down.

At this point, NCCF lodge was no longer an option.

I was tired.

Tired of rules.

Tired of sharing space.

Tired of pretending I was okay with things I clearly wasn’t okay with.

I wanted my privacy.

Or maybe… I just wanted freedom.

Even I didn’t know which one it was anymore.

But one thing was certain: I could not spend another week there.

“Don’t worry,” the agent said. “The next one is very nice.”

That sentence alone is a scam.

Because what it really means is: prepare yourself.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Lokoja sun was not smiling that day.

It was angry.

The kind of heat that makes you question every decision that led you outside your house.

As we walked, the agent kept talking—explaining, defending, justifying—but I wasn’t really listening anymore.

My mind was busy doing its own calculations.

Transport money.

Inspection fees.

Agent stress.

Rejection.

All adding up to one thing: frustration.

The “very nice” place turned out to be a lodge.

A hotel, he called it.

Haunted house, I called it.

Because why did the building look like it had stories to tell that I was not ready to hear?

The compound was too quiet.

Not peaceful quiet.

Suspicious quiet.

Even the air felt like it was watching me.

And somehow, I still had to pay five thousand just to look at it.

Let’s break it down:

I pay for your transport.

You take me to a house I don’t like.

I still pay you five thousand naira.

Who designed this system?

Because I would really like to have a conversation.

Honestly, relocation was starting to look like a serious option.

Because how is life this hard when I’m not even being paid?

And please—let nobody come and remind me about ₦77,000.

Everyone talks about it like it’s millions.

“During our time, we were collecting ₦19,800.”

“Some of us even collected ₦7,500.”

Okay… and during your time, bread was how much?

Transport was how much?

Let’s be honest with ourselves.

Inside the lodge, the corridor smelled… old.

Not just old.

Abandoned old.

Wires were scattered across the floor like renovation had started and then suddenly stopped, like the workers just disappeared mid-job.

“See the room,” the agent said, opening the door.

I stepped in.

There was a bed. A wardrobe squeezed so tightly it felt like it was fighting for oxygen. Everything was dusty.

The walls looked like they had seen things.

Serious things.

I checked the bathroom.

Tiny.

Ridiculously tiny.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

I turned and looked at him.

My eyes said everything.

“Do you?” I replied.

He hesitated.

Exactly.

“There’s no kitchen,” I added. “So I’ll be cooking outside?”

He nodded.

“And this bathroom… for a whole human being?”

Silence.

I sighed.

“I wonder how it survived as a hotel,” I muttered. “Or maybe that’s why it didn’t.”

“Let’s go to another one,” I said quickly.

Outside, I inhaled fresh air like I had just escaped something.

Because honestly, that house looked like the kind of place where something bad could happen and nobody would know.

And I was supposed to pay five hundred thousand naira… to die?

All because it came with furniture?

God forbid.

By the third house, my legs were already protesting.

By the fourth, my brain had checked out.

By the fifth, I was no longer forming standards.

At this point, if the house had a door, a window, and didn’t look like a crime scene, I was ready to consider it.

Then we got there.

“This is it,” the agent said, unlocking the gate.

I stepped in slowly.

No weird silence.

No haunted energy.

No suspicious shadows.

Just… normal.

The compound wasn’t fancy.

But it was alive.

There were voices.

Movement.

Life.

I checked the room.

It was alright.

The walls needed paint.

The kitchen cabinets needed work.

But it felt… safe.

And honestly, at this point, safe was enough.

“I like this one,” I said quickly—before my mind had a chance to betray me.

The agent smiled. “Good choice.”

I turned to him sharply. “Please don’t tell me now that the landlord doesn’t accept corpers.”

He laughed. “No, no. This one is fine.”

He explained the fees.

Surprisingly reasonable.

We reached an agreement and stepped out to look around the compound again.

And for the first time that day, I felt something close to relief.

After all the walking, the rejection, the haunted houses, and unnecessary spending…

It finally felt like something was working.

I could already picture myself living there.

Now I just needed to figure out how to explain to my dad that the rent had somehow… expanded beyond the original budget.

Then the gate opened.

Two familiar faces walked in.

Bassey.

Femi!

I froze.

Because no.

No, no, no.

This was definitely witchcraft.

At this point, it was either my village people had followed me to Lokoja, or the universe had decided to turn my life into a full-blown series.

“Good evening, sir,” Bassey greeted the agent.

Then he turned to me.

“Hi, Dewa. Are you moving in?”

“Yes…” I said slowly, already fearing the answer to my next question.

“I live here,” he added casually.

I forced a smile and turned to Femi.

“And you?”

He grinned.

“I live here too.”

I stood there, staring at both of them.

Of course.

Out of all the houses in Lokoja…

This is where you both had to stay?

I laughed softly, shaking my head.

At that moment, I realized something.

Finding a house in Lokoja was hard.

But finding peace?

Even harder.

End of Episode 3

To be continued…

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