CHRONICLES OF A RUNS GIRL EP1

Arrival in Lagos

Deòlu was tired of poverty.

Born and raised in Ìlorin, she had known suffering all her life. Her father was a bricklayer who worked under the scorching sun for daily pay, and her mother sold roasted corn by the roadside. Feeding was a struggle, and school fees were a luxury. The streets had taught her one thing—if you wanted a good life, you had to grab it with both hands.

So when her childhood friend, Teni, invited her to Lagos, promising her “soft life,” she didn’t think twice.

“Lagos no be your village,” Teni had laughed over the phone. “If you sabi package, you go blow.”

Deòlu packed her few belongings—just a small Ghana-Must-Go bag filled with second-hand clothes and cheap perfume—and boarded a night bus to Lagos. The city was a monster, but she was ready.

Apapa Hustle Begins

Teni lived in a cramped one-room apartment in Apapa, close to the port. The air smelled of fish and sea salt, and the streets were always busy, filled with truck drivers, market women, and men with wandering eyes.

“Na from here big girls dey start,” Teni told her, adjusting her long Brazilian wig as they strolled to a nearby bar.

Deòlu quickly learned the game. Lagos was not about beauty alone—it was about packaging, confidence, and knowing the right men. The real money wasn’t in dating broke boys hustling for Uber fares; it was in the big men—chiefs, politicians, oil money guys.

Teni had a plan.

“You go start small,” she told Deòlu one night, as they got dressed for a private party in Lekki. “No rush. Just follow my lead.”

And that was how it all began.

The first time Deòlu entered a club in Victoria Island, she felt like she had stepped into another world. The girls were wearing wigs worth more than her father’s yearly earnings. The men drove exotic cars, sprayed money like it was paper, and ordered bottles that cost more than her entire village’s savings.

She sat at a VIP table, legs crossed, pretending to belong.

Then she met Chief Birds.

An older man in his fifties, dripping in gold jewelry, with a potbelly that screamed money. His eyes settled on her instantly.

“She’s new,” he murmured to Teni.

Teni laughed. “Fresh from Ìlorin. She go sabi.”

Chief Birds smiled. That night, he sent her home in a black Range Rover, with an envelope thick with cash.

Deòlu counted it in the darkness of Teni’s room. 500,000 naira. Just for sitting pretty, laughing at dry jokes, and letting Chief Birds touch her thighs.

Her mother had never seen that kind of money in her life.

She knew then—there was no going back.

Lagos had swallowed her whole.

(To be continued in Episode 2: The Game must change)