The dusty container yard at Apapa Port smelled of salt, oil, and hot metal. Chinedu stood beside Tunde as a crane slowly lowered the first of the second-hand Chinese food-processing machines onto the waiting flatbed truck.
"Six containers," Tunde said, reading from the manifest. "Two for canning, one for freezing, one for milling, one for packaging, and the last for the generators and spares."
"Good," Chinedu replied. "Let's get them to the site before the rains start. I want Imperial Processing running in three weeks."
It had taken barely a month from the moment Ireti reported the wastage problem to now. Land was cleared beside the main farm depot, a warehouse shell had gone up, and the internal fittings were waiting on these machines. Soon, every excess tomato, cassava, and mango from Imperial Farms would either be sealed in cans, frozen in bulk packs, or milled into flour before they could rot.
In the background, the airline lead continued to simmer. Brokers kept calling, hinting at urgency. Chinedu was cautious—air travel was a capital sinkhole if mishandled—but the strategic advantage still tempted him. If he moved, he would need a war chest.
That was when a quiet notification on his betting account lit up his phone.
Long-term wager settled.
Months ago, almost as an experiment, he had staked a sizable sum on the winners of both the Premier League and LaLiga—an accumulator bet with ridiculous odds. The pundits had called those seasons unpredictable, but he had run the numbers, followed the form sheets, and placed the bet without telling anyone. Now it had paid off, and the payout was… obscene.
By the next day, the bank had confirmed the transfer—more than enough to push Imperial Processing into overdrive and still leave a thick reserve for whatever opportunity came next, airline or otherwise.
That night, as he was closing his laptop, his phone buzzed again—this time a video call from Temilade.
She was smiling, wearing her UNILAG hoodie.
"Big brother, guess what? I got the internship I wanted—with a corporate law firm in Lagos. The senior partner knows people in government. This could be… important for us."
Chinedu's mind ticked instantly. "Good. Keep your ears open, Temi. Opportunities don't always come through business meetings—they come through corridors, lunches, and overheard conversations."
She laughed. "Always the strategist."
By the end of the week, the Imperial Processing site was alive with sound—hammers, welding arcs, the heavy thud of machines being positioned. Ireti was already in talks with supermarket chains for the first distribution run.
Chinedu stood on the platform, watching the last machine being installed, thinking about the irony: his empire's newest chapter was being funded partly by rotting vegetables and partly by two football clubs thousands of miles away.
And somewhere on the horizon, there was still an airline waiting for a buyer.