In all of human relationships, friendship has been the most beguiling and baffling to me.

Some people get friendship very right, and their friendship will be like that of David and Jonathan, which continues to wax stronger even after they have both been parted by death

Those who enjoy this kind of friendship are very few compared with those who have found themselves betrayed by their friends or even led astray or destroyed by their friends.

Take, for example, a Christian brother who got a job as soon as he graduated from the university, and he did everything in his power to help his friends secure a job in the same institution. He got to the office one day to discover that the owner of the company had been meeting with four of his colleagues behind his back to discuss the sloppy nature of his work or his dissatisfaction with his work and his imminent sack.

All four colleagues were his friends. These were his roommates and classmates at the university who reached out to him after he got this job, and he didn’t hesitate to employ them.

Some of the sloppiness and tardiness the owner of the business was complaining about were a result of the quality of work his friends were doing, which he, as the General Manager, had to cover up because he could not scold them the way he would scold strangers, but they had the audacity to sit on the panel that decided his fate.

While the investigations and panel sittings were going on, none of these people deemed it fit to call him and warn him that he was being investigated.

He was sacked and walked off the company’s premises in shame by security men.

This was the last time he ever had a friend.

He said he discovered that flying solo made him go higher and further in his career and life without having to carry others on his back or deal with the constant comparison friends are fond of doing to each other.

I asked a Christian brother this question a few days ago. Why have friends?

We were having a discussion, and he mentioned that one of his close friends got a contract of nine hundred million naira to build staff quarters for an organisation. The friend reached out to him in his professional capacity as an architect and asked him if he could help with the design of the staff quarters. He did the design, and it was immediately approved. Then the friend asked him to send the AutoCAD file of the design so that he could commence work on the project. He told the friend to send the payment for his work. The friend said he would send him one hundred thousand naira. He laughed. The friend said, “You did this work as a favour to me, and based on our friendship, we should not be treating each other like strangers.”

He told the friend that his fee for the design was forty-five million naira. That had always been the official rate. The friend said he could not pay more than three hundred thousand naira. He rejected the offer. The friend then said that, since he wouldn’t accept the three hundred thousand naira offer, he would also call the organisation and tell them to give the job to another contractor.

He would rather lose the contract and claim he did so because his friend refused to accept three hundred thousand Naira than pay his friend the full fee for the job.

When you ask him what happened, he would say he lost a 900 million naira contract because his friend of over thirty years was greedy and couldn’t take a few hundred thousand naira for a job worth millions for the sake of their friendship.

A lot of people who claim to be your friends are actually your closeted enemies who are jealous of your progress, envious of your success, and rooting for you to fail.

I travelled to Ibadan once, and I reached out to an old friend so that we could catch up over a meal. When we were done eating, I was seeing him off and asked him if he drove down or if I could drop him off somewhere. He said he would like me to drop him off. We both walked towards my car and i pressed the key to open the doors of the car. As soon as he saw the car blinking and the model of the car, he stopped and said, “Is that your car?” I said, “Yes”.

He bent over, stood up with tears in his eyes, and said, “I never in my wildest dreams thought you could ever be more successful than me in life”, and then he turned around and walked away.

I stood there, stunned by his outburst.

For his peace of mind and mine, that was the last time I ever reached out to him or set my eyes on him.

My father never had good stories to tell about his friends, my mother too never had any good stories to tell. I don’t either.

I have friends who are lucky with the thing called friendship, and I know many who have landed in prison as a result of friendship.

When I weigh the pros and cons of friendship on a scale, can we truly say it is worth it?

My question remains: why have friends?