Confront your demon now!

This is a story that a good friend recently told me.

According to her, she met a woman at an overseas airport while waiting for her luggage. She was happy to see a fellow Lagos-based individual in such a faraway land, and they quickly exchanged contact details. She even left her hand luggage with the other lady as she went to claim their luggage, after having collected the other lady’s luggage tag.

Afterwards, they promised to catch up in town. Although both women were there for business, my friend’s nightmare only began when she arrived at her destination (a hotel) and it was time to pay the taxi fare.

She turned her handbag upside down, but her purse was missing. In that purse was her international passport (which she needed to travel to the US from there) and seven thousand dollars.
She told me that her hands kept going up in desperation and anguish, but the taxi driver (who neither spoke nor understood English) was having none of it and was already using aggressive language.

Luckily for her, the five hundred dollars (a last-minute arrangement) that someone had given her at the airport back home to help her buy something fell out from the inner pocket of her handbag. She used that to exchange for local currency, which enabled her to settle the driver (who had already started using expletives) and get him off her back.

She then turned to the hotel staff (who were very sympathetic) and relayed the issue to them. It was they who advised her to return to the airport and report the incident to the airport authorities. She followed their advice and was left to marvel at the wonders of technology. But before that, she had placed a call to her new friend, only to find that the woman’s line was unreachable. She wanted to share her nightmare with someone!
The airport authorities began by reviewing the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from the moment they disembarked from the plane and walked to the baggage claim. The CCTV (now zoomed from various angles) showed when she took out her purse to grab her tags and put it in her unzipped bag.

The shock came when the new friend briefly glanced around before placing that same purse in her own handbag.
Armed with the information they were looking for, the authorities asked if she had the lady’s contact details, and she nodded. It turned out that the phone number was fake!

She told me that she should have known something was off when, immediately after the woman gave the number, she dialled it, and it didn’t go through—yet the same woman had earlier used the airport Wi-Fi to make calls from her phone.

The CCTV also captured the taxi that drove her new friend out of the airport. Calls were made, and within minutes, the taxi driver revealed where he had dropped the passenger. By now, the police had taken over the case, and about four officers (three women and a man) were involved.

At the hotel where the other lady had lodged, the police kept out of sight and instructed the hotel staff to knock on the door. They did as instructed, and the police swooped in as soon as she opened it. On the bed was my friend’s purse, international passport, and the money, spread out as though it had just been counted.

The lady was led out of the hotel room in handcuffs.
Further details about the matter revealed that the other lady’s husband was contacted, but he did not believe it. His words were, “My wife is a pastor. She cannot do such a thing.” The next words he was heard saying were, “What do I tell the children?”

My friend also mentioned that, despite the woman begging profusely for forgiveness, the country’s police made it clear that the outcome of the case was no longer in her hands. It was then that she realised that the authorities were unforgiving when it came to “exported criminality.”

This is the thing about the demons of the self that we are often in denial of. If you don’t seek help and actively confront them, the monster will keep rearing its ugly head, causing maximum damage.

Character flaws like paedophilia, nymphomania, kleptomania, etc., are all demons of the self that should not be swept under the carpet. You cannot even pray away a reality that you are not willing to work on with sincerity. The mistake is thinking you will always get away with demons of the self. They are too grave to not give you the humiliation of a lifetime.