Ngozi lowered her head. Tears filled her eyes.
The girl did not move.
She was ten years old, thin, dark-skinned, and dressed in torn clothes that exposed a body marked by hardship. But her eyes were steady.
Abubakar leaned forward. “Do you know what one million naira means?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Then say it.”
She swallowed. “It means more money than my mother and I may ever see.”
“Exactly,” he said. “The kind of money that separates people like me from people like you.”
Then he looked at Ngozi and smiled cruelly.
“Tell your daughter how much you earn scrubbing toilets.”
Ngozi’s lips parted, but no words came.
Adanna—because that was the girl’s name—turned toward her mother, pain flashing across her face. Then she looked back at Abubakar.
“If it is impossible for you to walk,” she asked softly, “then why are you offering the money?”
The laughter stopped.
Abubakar frowned. “What?”
“If it is impossible, then there is no risk you will pay. So it is not a real offer. It is only a joke to shame us.”
A silence fell over the courtyard.
One of the businessmen shifted uncomfortably.
Another muttered, “The girl has a sharp mind.”
Abubakar’s smile faded. He had expected fear, begging, or foolishness—not clarity.
“And if I truly wanted to walk?” he asked.
Adanna studied him. “Then I could help you.”
The words landed like a thunderclap.
Dr. Kunle Adebayo, who owned a chain of private hospitals, laughed first. “Help him? You?”
“My grandmother was a healer,” Adanna said. “She treated pain, paralysis, sickness. She taught me.”
“Charlatan nonsense,” another man scoffed.
But Adanna’s voice did not waver.
“My grandmother was Mama Amara Nwakanma.”
Chief Emeka, one of the businessmen, grabbed his phone and searched the name. His eyes widened.
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