They Mocked Her for Riding a Bicycle to School — Never Realizing She Was the Billionaire’s Daughter
The Ride to School
[music]
**Miss Edirin**, your father has two service apartments in Ikoyi. Both five minutes from the academy. Which one should I prepare?
**None.**
None?
**I will stay in the dormitory.**
At least let the driver follow behind you quietly from a respectable distance. My jewel, the Anaborhi name did not suffer three generations of boardroom warfare for you to go to school on iron scrap.
**Daddy, I am going to class, not a coronation.**
Class is where children of rich people behave their worst.
**Exactly. I want to meet them before they meet your money.**
If anybody troubles you, call the principal.
**Then the principal should start packing.**
Take a car, Edirin.
**But Grandpa, the bicycle is fine.**
No, it’s not safe. Take the car.
**I have one.**
[music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music]
—
### The Arrival
You people heard? The board chairman’s daughter is resuming today.
**Really? I didn’t know.**
Yeah, I just heard.
**Wow, wonder what she’s like. Please, let her be my roommate. I am tired of breathing the same air with ordinary people.**
They said she just came back from abroad.
**Oh, really? Then we must welcome her properly. In this Lagos, friendship is investment.**
Uh-uh, is this delivery or admission?
**Maybe staff entrance is closed.**
Hello, registration for hardship is not here, my dear.
**Imagine. Crown Lake has fallen. They are admitting bicycle people now.**
Good morning.
**Good morning. With that bicycle? Please, don’t greet me too close.**
Hold on. That is the Maybach from the Orelia fleet. God, look at the roof. Zima, I have dropped you. Let me go before Oga notices the car is missing.
**Daddy, please. Stop shaking like somebody stole garri. This car is not ours. If they sack me, your school fees will swallow us.**
When I marry into money, I will pay everybody back. Open the door.
**Zimuzo, your mother and I sold everything for this school.**
And I am trying to make sure it was not for nothing. Door. This is her. This must be the board chairman’s daughter.
**Compared to bicycle girl, this one is a swan.**
Hi, everyone. I am Zimuzo. You can call me Zima. I hope we learn together and grow together.
**Your voice is so sweet. Even money has a voice. Please, I don’t like noise. Don’t spread anything.**
Zima. They said the anniversary gala will have over 100 media houses. Is it because of you?
**Let us see what God will do.**
Edirin Anaborhi. This your disguise is wicked. You look like you escaped from a moral lesson textbook.
**Keep your voice down.**
I nearly asked security to give you transport money.
**I am serious. Nobody must know.**
I know. You want to study human beings in their natural habitat.
**Something like that. Why is Teno talking to bicycle girl?**
Men like him get bored. Sometimes they entertain nonsense.
**Exactly. Curiosity. He will soon remember his level.**
Shall we, Madam Loci?
**Behave yourself.**
Is this the limited autumn collection? My auntie in London posted it and deleted it because people begged too much.
**Brands send gifts. My room at home is full. Pick anything you like.**
You are not only rich, you are kind. I am officially your person.
**Madam. I was told to confirm that everything is comfortable.**
Tell them I am fine.
**Even staff bow for her. Ah, God, remember me.**
—
### The Reality Check
Have they started behaving like human beings?
**It is day one, Daddy.**
That is not an answer.
**They behaved like human beings who worship cars.**
Come home.
**No. No.**
You are stubborn like my mother.
**Then you should be used to it.**
Edirin, humility is good. But don’t confuse humility with allowing fools to test God with your name.
**I know where the line is.**
And when they cross it?
**I will call Uncle Tobore.**
You should call before they cross it.
**She looks beautiful.**
She looked at me like I was a driver she did not know.
**She is afraid.**
Of us?
**Of being seen as us.**
I borrowed a car that can buy this whole street because my daughter said one day of shame will spoil her future.
**We wanted her to climb.**
There is climbing and there is flying with another person’s wings.
[music]
Mommy, don’t call me at night.
**Have you eaten?**
I am not a child.
**Your father said you looked worried.**
Daddy talks too much.
**Zimuzo, remember who you are.**
That is exactly what I am doing.
[laughter]
Are you blind? Village girl, can you pay for what you broke? It’s fine. Let us not embarrass her.
**Edirin, since it has happened, choose one item and keep it.**
See grace. She damages you and you still bless her.
**Using another person’s things to impress people is exhausting, no? Excuse me, these are custom orders. The initials are engraved on each product. It says EA.**
Yes, EA. Edirin Anaborhi.
**Please, EA means estate allocation. These brands code things differently for private clients.**
Estate allocation? Do you know more than the owner?
**You came to this school yesterday and already you are trying to drag me. Be careful. Lagos can swallow people quietly.**
Then stop standing near the mouth. Don’t form sharp mouth for us. You came here to chase rich men.
**Maybe that bicycle is her marketing strategy. Poor but available.**
Leave her. Some people are born into lack and still refuse to be humble.
**Here, Zim. Nobody should move with this girl. She is bad news.**
Hi. I’m Orete May. People call me May.
**Edirin.**
I know. You caused a little earthquake this morning.
**I was reading bottle labels.**
What is your relationship with Teni Atuwase?
**Friends.**
Just friends?
**Do you need academic help or gossip?**
Academic help, mostly. I am on scholarship, so if you ever need notes, past questions, anything, I can help.
**Thank you.**
See her. Any man that passes, she will throw nets.
—
### The Fundraiser
We have two new students. First, Miss Zimuzor Nwokeke. Our queen. And Miss Edirin.
**Bicycle department.**
Sitting arrangement. Zima, please sit in front. You deserve a good view.
**Ma, can May sit beside me? I hear he’s very brilliant.**
Of course. May, move.
**These were made by children in a rural community our academy supports. We are raising funds for books, school blocks, and access roads.**
I will donate 50,000 naira. Leader.
**That is how old money behaves.**
Make mine 100,000. Nobody can compete.
**Bicycle girl, what about you? 100 naira or moral support?**
Charity is not performance. More or less, love is love.
**Convenient thing to say when your pocket is empty.**
Zima, why not show the 100,000 now?
**My card has a daily limit. I will withdraw tomorrow.**
Responsible spending, queen behavior.
**Money is one thing. Has anyone asked what the children actually need? If they need classrooms, build classrooms. If the road is bad, fix the road.**
Miss Edirin, please don’t come here with empty big English. How much can you give?
**I will take all the paintings. 10 million naira today. Then I will fund two classroom blocks and the access road through the Anaborhi Foundation.**
10 million from where? Tinu’s bedroom?
**Call the person now. Let us see. I am giving you one chance to apologize before you disgrace yourself.**
Uncle Tobore, send 10 million cash to Crown Lake, classroom B3, now.
**If money enters this class today, I will answer your surname.**
Please don’t. I don’t want useless relatives.
**You are mad.**
Not yet.
**Miss Edirin, the 10 million naira has arrived.**
Jesus.
**This is staged. Count it.**
So, Teno is generous. Don’t mind her. Men spend this kind of money when women know how to behave.
**Money earned by selling dignity still smells dirty.**
Then why are you choking on it?
**Miss Edirin, the academy can issue a receipt to whatever name you prefer. Foundation? Parent? Anonymous donor?**
Anonymous for the public record. For the internal record, Anaborhi Foundation.
**Anaborhi?**
Is there a problem?
**No. I just… I thought…**
You thought I was too poor to have a surname worth writing carefully.
**Students joke. You know how young people are. Teachers teach them where jokes are allowed to land.**
She said Anaborhi Foundation.
**Anybody can say foundation.**
But the money came.
**From Teno. Think. Teno’s family can move cash. She’s using his money to form mystery. Maybe we judged that too quickly.**
May, brilliance is not the same as wisdom. Some girls know how to make men spend. Don’t let innocent eyes deceive you.
**Still, 10 million will build something.**
And one scandal can destroy it. Remember that.
**The road and classroom pledge will require board coordination.**
Send the survey report to Uncle Tobore. He will dispatch engineers by Monday.
**Engineers?**
The children need roads, not applause.
—
### The Mother’s Visit
Freshers private hangout this weekend. Lakowe Archery Club. Rich crowd. Proper networking.
**Archery? You play?**
In Europe, I trained with professionals.
**Of course you did.**
I didn’t bring my gear.
**We can buy gloves, jackets, anything. The bow is the issue.**
No need. I have a custom collector’s bow. My butler will send it. I will handle it.
**Zimuzo! My child, I made the special one with extra crayfish. You have not eaten since morning.**
Uh-uh. Zima, who is this woman calling your native name like village announcements? What are you doing here? DID I NOT TELL YOU NEVER to come near these streets?
**I wanted to bring food. Since your father dropped you, my mind was not quiet.**
Your mind should have stayed in your kitchen.
**Just eat small, then I will go.**
Do you know what I am building here? Do you know the caliber of people I am standing with? One look at your greasy face and my life is finished.
**Zimuzo… These greasy hands paid the deposit for the room you sleep in. Poverty is not a curse. We can rise cleanly.**
Cleanly? Look at you. 20 years in Lagos and you still smell of wood smoke and cheap oil. You look like a curse.
**But I raised you. I did not beg you to bring me into this world to sell akara at my school gate.**
Aunty Fey, are you okay?
**I am fine, my dear. I slipped.**
Zima, apologize to your mother now.
**My mother? This woman is a common caterer. She has been stalking my family for years. Edirin, because you are poor, you are quick to identify with servants.**
Exactly. Look at Edirin, patron saint of roadside akara. Zima, let’s go. The smell is starting to affect my hair.
**Bicycle girl, play your level. If you look at Zima with those dirty eyes again, I’ll make sure Lagos becomes very small for you.**
People only make noise when they are too weak to stand on their own ground.
**Edirin, I won’t expose you. Just stop attacking me. You are lower than the poverty you are running from.**
Please don’t fight her. She’s my only child.
**Then someone should remind her she has a soul.**
That girl is obsessed with you. She cannot stand that you are above her. She’s always there.
**Always looking at me like she knows something.**
Then finish her. The freshers hang out. We invite her. She will refuse. May will invite her. She thinks he’s harmless. What will happen there? Enough to teach her that reputation is easier to drown than a body.
**You are wicked.**
No, I am surviving.
—
### The Archery Club
May. Did you ride from poverty? Zima invited me. I came for Zima.
**Short skirt to archery. This girl is always advertising. She knows rich boys are here.**
Since you came, play with us. Experience high society properly.
**I am not interested.**
Because you don’t know how. Winner gets 100,000 naira. Are you afraid?
**That bow. Beautiful, isn’t it? Very familiar. You have seen one before in a magazine, maybe.**
Fine, one round. I choose Edirin. Please don’t embarrass her too badly. Let her go first. I don’t want my shot to intimidate her.
**Oh, please, you wish. We’ll see about that.**
See her posture. Somebody call an ambulance before the string cuts her hand. She’s delaying because village people did not teach archery.
[snorts]
**10.**
Lock. Foolish [clears throat] lock.
**Your turn.**
Zima, it’s too heavy. Let go. They’re watching. We have to go.
**Zima, return that bow today. I took it from the trunk. If they find out, I am finished.**
Go away. The wind shifted. There is no wind. You distracted me.
**Me, Zima? You kept talking.**
Calm down.
**No. She planned this. She always plans disgrace. Throw her into the water.**
Zima, don’t be foolish.
**Take pictures. Post it everywhere. Let Crown Lake know what happens to girls who insult their betters. Stop. This is too much.**
Do you want to defend her? Look at her now. No tongue, no mouth.
**Let me go.**
Are you hurt?
**No.**
Mr. Teniola, with respect, Edirin insulted Zima. You cannot offend everybody because of this girl.
**I can offend a graveyard if it stands between me and her.**
She’s not worth it. She sleeps around with rich men.
**Say one more word. You think only you have people? Dogo, thank God. Handle this. Idiot. Young Master Teniola. Everybody here, leave. Now.**
Give me permission to end this nonsense today.
**No.**
They ordered men to drag you to the water.
**I know. I was there.**
Don’t joke.
**I am not joking. But if you crush them now, they will say you did it because you are sleeping with me. Or because you are proud. Or because rich boys cannot take insults. They will never see themselves.**
Why do you need them to see themselves?
**Because punishment without revelation creates martyrs. I don’t want Zima pitied. I want her mirror clean.**
You always make strategy sound like mercy.
**Sometimes mercy is strategy.**
And sometimes you give people too much rope and call it observation.
**Rope reveals direction. Some people climb, some people hang themselves. Zima’s mother works near the gate. She sells food. She looked at her daughter like all her suffering had a name.**
And Zima pushed her.
**That is what scares me. People who are ashamed of love can do anything.**
Come home. Let your father handle the school.
**If Daddy handles it, the lesson ends before the exam.**
This is not school, Edirin.
**Everything is cool. Especially high society.**
When we were children, you used to hide your sweets to see who would steal them.
**And you always stole them.**
To prove your experiment had results. This time, if anybody touches you again, the experiment is over.
**Agreed.**
Official contract.
**Witness by Lagos traffic. Nobody expected Teno to appear. That girl has something over him.**
Let us just leave it. That bow is not balanced for your frame.
**I have not practiced in a while.**
May I? Who are you touching?
**He’s teaching me. Tony Elumelu Karibo. Elumelu Karibo Holdings?**
My father’s group. Yes. Zima’s on Okeke.
**She is the Anaborhi board chairman’s daughter.**
Then Lagos has been hiding treasure. Keep it. If you accept dinner with me.
**Dinner sounds simple enough.**
—
### The Preparation
Miss Edirin, Chief says this designer made it privately after the Paris collection. Only one exists.
**I have dresses I have never touched.**
Chief says those are last year’s.
**Tell my father fashion will not kill me.**
He said you would say that. The Academy Gala committee confirmed your guest George Card. Your father also approved your veto authority.
**He approved too quickly.**
He said if they want Anaborhi money they can survive Anaborhi standards.
**Director’s too. If you enter that gala stage, Nollywood can notice you.**
Nollywood, really?
**Zima, this is Paris finale material. Is it not almost 10 million?**
I picked it randomly. My closet is too full.
**That dress looks tired.**
Meaning?
**It has been through too many lies.**
What right do you have to judge? Have you worn anything beyond market cotton?
**Who says Zima needs approval from people who arrive on bicycles? For you.**
Tony, you didn’t have to.
**I had to. Beauty should never stand unsupported.**
Thank you.
**No offense, Miss Edirin, but taste is not something poverty teaches.**
No offense taken. Poverty did not teach you manners, either.
**Bring my dress.**
Your dress is trekking from Oshodi.
**That is a private Gautier commission. I saw it in a closed catalog.**
Which man bought it for her?
**Clothes cannot wash a dirty body. This is an anniversary gala, not a beauty contest. What talent do you have? Will you ride a bicycle on stage?**
I am not auditioning. That invitation is for Zima.
**Is it?**
Of course it is. Who else deserves center stage? What is this? You people are now dating?
**Kene, don’t embarrass yourself.**
—
### The Gala and The Deal
Zima, be my girlfriend. Eko Atlantic extension, private placement. 1 billion naira now, 10 billion in 3 years if approvals land.
**Interesting.**
Your father’s signature and corporate seal will move the banks. The Anaborhi name gives oxygen to dead concrete.
**I can speak to him.**
Not speak, stamp. Once the mandate is stamped, the consortium releases bridge funding. After that, everybody eats.
**Tony, that project has a litigation hold.**
Excuse me?
**The waterfront title is contested. Any bank that touches it will inherit trouble.**
Look at this girl. Now you are a property lawyer?
**This is a private conversation.**
It becomes public when fraud enters it.
**Fraud? From Zima? You really don’t fear God.**
You are jealous because Zima has a man who can buy your entire street.
**Zima, you have already stolen perfumes, a dress, and a bow. Don’t add a corporate crime to your wardrobe. You hate that I am noble and you are low. You hate that the anniversary stage, the judges table, the best man, everything you dream of comes to me easily.**
The stage means nothing to me because you cannot reach it.
**This invitation has my name and the academy seal.**
Printed in computer village, anybody can emboss rubbish.
**Since when did Crown Lake choose student judges?**
Check the forum. It says judges, but it doesn’t say you. Drag this liar out before she infects the event.
**Touch her again and your father will need a second son.**
Teno, thank God you are here. Edirin forged a judge invitation and threatened to veto my performance.
**We were only protecting the gala.**
Shut up. I looked for you in the changing room.
**I got delayed by a public exhibition of stupidity.**
[laughter]
**Then let us leave before it becomes contagious.**
So… invitation is real?
**You people ask too many questions for people who ignore answers.**
She has bewitched him.
**Then show me something stronger than witchcraft. Get the seal.**
Good evening, Edirin. Good evening, Jolomi.
**You look respectable.**
That was your best sentence?
**The board members are watching from London. Investors are logged in. Once your performance lands, I present the Eko Atlantic prospectus at the private reception.**
Edirin is on the judges’ table.
**She is one vote out of five.**
No, she has board veto. If she slides that red button, the live stream cuts my performance and marks it as disciplinary disqualification. My name disappears from the gala reel.
**Why would they give that kind of power to a girl who came here on a bicycle?**
Because she is not what we thought.
**Listen to me. You are going out there. You will look directly at her and perform like your life depends on it because mine actually does.**
You are hurting me.
**My creditors don’t send reminders, Zima.**
[music]
**They send men. If this deal dies tonight, they will not stop at my office.**
[music]
**They know my parents’ address. They know my sister’s school. Kene and Jolomi are ready. If Edirin moves her hand toward that console, we upload the cropped sugar daddy photos to the academy server and the live comment… We say her name before she can veto yours.**
She looks so quiet. How can someone so quiet be so heavy?
**Even the heaviest mountain can be blasted open. Get on that stage.**
Zima, you look beautiful.
**Who is this?**
One of the caterers.
**Tell them backstage is private.**
You heard him. Go. May the crown you are chasing not cut your head. Go.
**She spoke to you like family.**
Poor people are familiar by nature.
**Miss Zimuzo, you are up.**
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Miss Zimuzo Akachi with a dramatic monologue titled The Crown I was born to wear.
**They told her to bow. They told her to shrink. They told her greatness had a gate and her name was not on the list, but a woman does not need permission from those who inherited chairs. If the world refuses to call her royal, she will build her own throne with bleeding hands. I was not born to kneel. I was not born to smell of kitchens, gutters, and other people’s leftovers. I was born to be seen.**
If you press it, she is finished tonight.
**I know. And if the world calls her nothing, she will answer with a crown so bright their blindness will burn.**
[music]
**Why?**
Revenge is too easy. Revelation lasts longer.
**She has fire. You are kinder than people deserve.**
No. I am accurate. You passed. Zima, you passed.
[music]
**She thinks she can spare me.**
What do you mean?
**Spare me, as if I need saving.**
That’s not what she meant.
**It is, and I resent it.**
After tonight, people will ask questions. Your name is hot. If we move the property deal now, investors will follow the heat.
**Can we not talk business for one night?**
We are talking about survival.
**My survival or your debt?**
Both, if you are smart.
**She has everything.**
Then take something.
**The truth will come out, Zima.**
What is it?
**The lie is hungry.**
Then feed it consequences.
**Soon. This jacket, those heels, the silver clutch. Wrap them.**
You have a fearless relationship with money.
**Money fears me.**
—
### The Fall
I told Chief I need more time. Do not go to my parents’ house. Please. I will pay the 500 million. I have a 1 billion mandate coming from Anaborhi.
**48 hours.**
48 hours. No, leave my sister out of this. She is in school. She has nothing to do with me. Tell Chief I am not running. I just need the seal. Once the mandate is stamped, the bank releases bridge funds. I swear on my father’s name. Hello? Hello?
**Lagos business.**
The kind that parks outside in a black Prado?
**You saw them?**
I see more than people think.
**Then see clearly. Those men are not bankers. They collect for people who do not write reminder emails. If I default, they will make an example of my family before sunset.**
And what am I supposed to do?
**Be who you say you are.**
Meaning?
**Bring your father’s seal. Stamp the mandate. Let Anaborhi’s name stand in front of me until the money lands.**
You want to hide behind me.
**I want us to win.**
No. You want my imaginary father to stop real men from breaking your real bones.
**Zima, love is beautiful, but power is what protects love. If you cannot move one document, then what exactly are you bringing to this future? Take a cab home. About the document, sweetheart, hurry. Timing is survival.**
Auntie Faye, Mrs. Edirin, it is nothing. Who brought you here? I came by bus. I slept in the kitchen.
**You were meant to report any injury on estate duty.**
Please, sir, don’t remove me from work. It does not affect my cleaning.
**Health first, work can wait.**
You are kind, miss. Too kind. My daughter says kindness is for people who have money to waste.
**Your daughter is wrong about many things.**
She was not always like this. When she was small, if I cried, she would bring water in a cup with both hands. She wanted to be a doctor. Then she entered places where people measure life by labels.
**Labels fall off, but shame can stick. Bill everything to the estate and rest for one week. That is an instruction.**
One stamp, one life. Zimuzor.
**What are you doing here?**
I work here.
**What are you doing in the chairman’s study? Move.**
No. You want me poor forever.
**I want you free. This is prison you are carrying with your own hands.**
Free? You call your life free? You kneel to people who throw away food with your monthly salary. I kneel for work, not for shame.
**Same thing.**
Give me the seal.
**If this deal lands, Tony will marry me. I will enter the family I deserve.**
Any family that needs you to steal before they love you will bury you alive. Zima, please. My child, don’t ruin yourself.
**Auntie, I slipped.**
Don’t talk. Tobore.
**Let’s see who looks poor now.**
You got it?
**My mother almost died.**
But you got it. You don’t even pretend well.
**Pretending is for people with time. I don’t have time.**
Beautiful.
**Say thank you.**
Thank you.
**When this money comes, we make it official. I don’t want whispers. I don’t want girls laughing that you are just using me.**
I understand, Zima.
**Good. Make sure of it.**
When this money comes, everybody will respect you.
**I said us.**
Us, of course.
—
In Lagos, they will measure you [music] before you speak. But a name can open a door that your character should open first. Banana Island, gold gates in the morning [music] sun. A roar of shining engines, she walks past everyone.
“Take a car,” her father said. [music]
She only shook her head.
Pedaled a rusty bicycle, climbed the squeaky frame [music] instead.
The true heiress of the empire rode [singing] out small and plain.
The saddle worn, [music] the green paint gone, a weak bell.
