Chukwudi Achife
28 October 2009
analysis
IT appeared that I was one of the last persons to hear about it in my neighbourhood. It could also be that I had heard it before only that I paid it no attention at all apparently as part of an acquired defence mechanism against being 419ned.
But the story is getting stronger and stronger by the day and not only in my locality but across the country and I almost sure the reader has heard it too.
Wherever you are in this country now, there is a mad and sometimes deadly scramble for certain kinds of antique electronic equipment from which I am told a certain precious element worth millions are extracted. The element is said to be found in pendulum clocks that had been made in England, old analogue telephone sets and old television sets particularly those of the 'National" brands.
As has always been the case, I am told that hundreds of people have become instant millionaires just by finding and selling the antique equipment to the buyers -whoever they might be. The rush has become so intense that all manner of crimes including murder are being committed by citizens just to profit from the new craze.
The children of one of my late uncles, upon learning that pendulum clocks and old telephone sets were part of the bargain, rushed home to their late father's country home to pick the ones they knew were kept there only to discover that someone had broken into the house and made away with the coveted objects. They learnt that they had just lost about N4 million naira.
Another cousin of mine living in Benin called to tell me that someone has just been stabbed to death in his neighbourhood in a struggle over the old bottle of Coke which I am told can fetch as much as N15,000 per unit.
From Anambra I received news that a man had killed his brother in a fight over the possession of the late father's National Television set and worse still, I am told that armed robbery have resurged in many parts of the country but fortunately this time they neither ask for money nor for trinkets but for old electronic equipment-a request that both bemuses and confuses the victims who had had not heard about the new instant gold.
I am told that the sharp drop in the incidence of kidnapping particularly in the south east has more to do with the new gold rush than with the heavy security presence in most cities of the region. Would be kidnappers have dropped back to the role of armed robbers searching only for the priceless element.
Electronic equipment repair shops are being regularly raided across the country in search the items. In Enugu where I reside, everybody is involved in the search for antique equipment.
Men and women of all classes and even children are now actively engaged in the search for these priceless commodities. One University Professor told me that he suspected that one of his colleagues was the one who beat him to his Faculty's long disused and discarded telephone set and I found a top government official threatening to call in the police if an electrical and electronics repairman does not return an old television set he had deposited in the latter's workshop at the behest of his father in 1998.
The repairman is claiming that thieves raided his shop and made away with the set. The government official understandably does not believe it. I am told that the sharp drop in the incidence of kidnapping particularly in the south east has more to do with the new gold rush than with the heavy security presence in most cities of the region.
Would be kidnappers have dropped back to the role of armed robbers searching only for the priceless element. I took time to investigate this craze thoroughly and I met a woman who had acquired a reputation as a dealer in the trade, told me that the element they are after is a metal that normally came with the equipment.
She refused to say what purpose the element serves but she confirmed that it was in hot demand and that she had ready access to buyers and the cash they provided. She had set up a temporary office in the area and as I spoke with her, scores of youths poured in to tell her what they had. Well, after listening to her and watching her deal with her customers, yours truly decided to try his hands on the treasure hunt.
I remembered an uncle who has a pendulum clock-a gift from my mum on his wedding day in those days. When i called to intimate him of what was on board, he was very excited and decided to resurrect the piece from the storeroom where he had consigned it years ago. We brought it out dusted it very well before calling to invite the woman.
Over the phone, she asked us whether the numbers on the clock were written in Roman numerals or in the ordinary form. She let out a big 'sorry' when we told her that the numbers were in the ordinary form. According to her, the element was to be found only in pendulum clocks with roman numerals. We were naturally disappointed. Who wouldn't be after coming so close to N2 million bucks and watching it slip by. Not be discouraged, I went to another man who was my father's school friend.
I used to spend some of my holidays in his house when I was small and I was sure he had both the analogue telephone set and National Television set. When I got to his house, I met him in a very despondent mood. His son in Lagos had called a few days ago to intimate him of the development and he had immediately stormed his sitting room where the items had occupied space for the over three decades. However to his greatest shock they were nowhere to be found.
He called for his houseboy only to discover that the boy was gone, presumably with the items. By the time I called, he had already rounded up the kids' parents and dumped them in a police station and insisting that they be kept there until the boy showed up.
After much pressure, he had allowed the parents of the boy to be released while he went home to mourn his loss. When I told this story elsewhere, a lady friend told me that her brother had invited a number of suspects to a shrine in her village for it to determine which one of them carried away his father's old telephone set. She said the matter had all but split her kindred into many opposing camps.
As I was chuckling over this story, I was informed that policemen are now rushing to the roadblocks not to catch armed robbers and kidnappers to confiscate any antique electronic equipment found on any motorist with the hope that it would contain the much sought after element. Another person told me that all shrines and traditional worship centres in his town have been raided and stripped of all the old Coke bottles deposited there by worshippers many years ago.
I have also heard that some old generation churches have been stripped of their bells following claims that they were also in hot demand. Needless to say that, vicious fights have broken out and will still break out in many offices especially those with ancient antecedents over the possession of the antique equipment in the offices.
This matter is really serious and the hunt from what I can see may take an even more dangerous dimension in the nearest future. I don't know where, when or how it started and how it will end but I guess that with poverty and want ravaging the populace it may yet take a little while.
One positive aspect of it though is the aspect of it being an alternative to armed robbery and kidnapping. There is also a major lesson to be learned from it: Never throw away any equipment no matter how cheap or poorly performing. One day it might become gold. Well yours truly is searching for a breakthrough or what Americans call pay dirt but I must confess that I am doing so with extreme caution.
My trepidation is informed by new information coming to me that the drug dealers are the buyers of the much sought after element. It was said that it helps them to escape detection by electronic scanners. So it is a high stakes game. Where drug dealers are involved, heads are bound to roll. So, my dear fellow hunters, caution is the word as we join the new craze.
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