I was very tired and still had so much to do but based on the recommendation of my doctor, I agreed to go home (Cotonou) to rest for 3 days. I had thought it will be nice, indeed, to go home and be cared for by Lawrenta Omono, my wife and best friend.

Before now, I had been profiling staff of ASCON Oil at their head office and depot in addition to counselling, coaching and running match-making services for my clients.

So, you can imagine how glad I was, indeed, to want to take time out for a well deserved rest where I could switch off from everyone. Little did I know that I was only going to rest for 30 minutes instead of the 3 days prescribed for me!

I was on my bed when my son knocked the door and said that 2 students (females) of CEBELAE were at the Police station. Since I knew them, I had to go and find out what was happening. CEBELAE is not a new place to me because I had given talks there to the students and also run personal assessments on the students; to help them understand their personalities and career paths.

It’s the language school under the University of Abomey, Calavi, here in Benin Republic. Many students from Nigeria school here in Benin Republic now. They believe it’s cheaper compared to going to Ghana, South Africa, UK, USA or even Malaysia – where a lot of young Nigerians have gone to recently to seek for education.

And, so for some of the students here, I am one of those they call on when they get into trouble. And do they get into trouble? The answer to that is ‘yes’ and a lot of trouble too.

What may not count as an offence in Nigeria counts as an offence in Benin Republic. You can imagine coming from a place where someone can come down from his vehicle, open the door of someone else’s car, pull him out and slap him, because he says the one he slapped brushed his car a little bit.

Well, in Cotonou, he will be sent to court and sentenced to jail immediately for slapping someone else when he could have brought the police into the matter. For most of the Nigerian youths who are coming from a place where you can easily take the law into your hands, they find a culture shock here in Benin Republic – where only the Police enforce the Law.

You can imagine how many Nigerians are in either Police cells in prison there. The Policemen in Cotonou are bi-lingual, because most of the people that commit offences and are brought in are mostly Nigerians. So, apart from French and their native language, Policemen here must also speak English or Yoruba. The reason is because, while about 10 percent of cases they deal with are from Beninois, about 20 percent from other countries and the rest 70 percent are Nigerians; many of whom are languishing in prisons there.

Yet, you realize that what they are being prosecuted for there as crime is the same things they do everyday in Nigeria and get away with. Therefore, I advise you, before you take your children or wards to schools in Benin Republic, kindly make them understand that it’s a place that regulations and laws are obeyed to a large extent.

Why were these two ladies in the police cell? Well, that was the same question I asked them when I got to the police station at Tokpa. When I inquired from them, I was told that one of them got a Valentine gift from her boyfriend (a Rolex wrist watch to be precise), not knowing that her boyfriend, who happens to be a student of North American University, Pecadis, had stolen it from an aunt of his that he lived with in Cotonou.

The woman is well placed and had thought since she was Cotonou, there was no need for her nephew to stay in a hostel so, she brought him to live with her family – where he could have the best of everything. To make him feel at home, she allowed him access to her room and treated him like one of her children.

But did he feel the same way? Did he see himself as a member of the family? Well I don’t know. All we now know is that he discovered that she had gold and diamond jewellery at home and decided to help himself with some of them. Like the Bible says in Proverbs 1:17: “they are like a bird that sees the bait, but ignores the trap”.

This boy is like most of us who get into trouble because we don’t consider the consequences of our actions. He only saw the gold but not the prison. By the time he was caught, all he had stolen was estimated to be worth 50 million naira! This is what his aunt had acquired over the past 20 years of her life, hoping she could pass them over to her daughters.

In her own words, she said: “This boy stole to my last ear rings.” He would steal the gold, take them to Lagos and sell them off to one Farouk at the Aguda Market in Suru-Lere. He later made contacts in Cotonou that he sold to. If you go indeed to the ‘mallams’ who change money, you will discover that they encourage young people to come and sell gold jewellery to them – if they have any, because there is a lot of profit in it for both the buyer and the seller.

I need to warn parents today, that young people are embarking on theft of gold and other jewellery in their homes to sell to these ‘mallams’ like never before. I pray your son or daughter is not one of them. After all, most young persons, today, want to drive a car and use a smart phone like Blackberry, Iphone, wear designer clothes etc. but are not ready to work legitimately for them.

I guess these young people are learning fast from us, their parents, because if we steal government funds which should be used to make the life of the common man better and enrich ourselves with such funds, then the curse will continue with the children. Now, you find most young people today committed to things instead of being committed to people!

Because this young lady took a Valentine gift from this boyfriend of hers and it was one of the stolen items, she was made to sleep in the police cell at Tokpa alongside her friend who introduced the boy to her. They were later arraigned at the Palaise de Justice just close to the president’s office in Cotonou.

While the ladies were acquitted and set free, the guy who stole the jewellery worth 50 million naira alongside the people he sold them to, who were rounded up by the police, are now in Prison in Cotonou.

Parents who have sons and daughters in Cotonou without anyone checking on them need to know that there are so many young Nigerians from families with big names in Nigeria who are indulging in hard drugs, doing runs like prostitution with big boys who come from Nigeria during weekends etc.

Some of us are doing our best to get them together, helping those who want to listen to stay out of trouble and seeing what we can do to help those who have already gotten into trouble.

For this, I thank Mrs. Grace Enenmoh, GMD ASCON Oil, for her recent support in bringing some of the young Nigerians schooling in Cotonou together so that they could be motivated to do the right thing outside their country.