Fiction: THE TRAGEDY OF AFOGUNRAN

Kamarudeen Mustapha

- Kamarudeen Mustapha

He was startled awake. He looked all about like he expected to see a thousand demons. The room he was in was dimly lit by weak penetrating rays of early dawn. He could see faintly, very faintly a silhouette of a person with an arm upraised, holding a big headed cutlass known as Jarimode. The cutlass was trained at him, its big head a gleaming doom.

He tried to jump clean off the bed, but his hands and legs were held back tenaciously. Pain shot through his arms from his wrists. It dawned on him that he had been tied by his wrists to the sides of the bed. He struggled to break loose, but breaking loose was  impossible. The more he tried, the more the sharp twines cut into his flesh. His feet also were likewise immobilized. They too had been held down by the merciless rounds of twine.

The jarimode hovered in the air, above him; its heavy head was glistening. It protruded forward at the topmost edge. It looked menacing. He imagined the contact of the protruded edge with his exposed forehead. A certain death! His flesh churned. His blood boiled. He wanted to yell.

He wanted to yell. He wanted to cry out, perhaps for help, but he felt his mouth stuffed full with rags. A stretch of twine ran over the rags and bit at the sides of his gagged mouth, coiled around his cheeks,  and then tied at the nape. Getting help was unimaginable in this situation. He knew he was a goner.

He focused his eye. His eyeballs popped out as if they would jump out of their sockets. They had become fireballs. He realised that the threatening Jarimode cutlass was held by his father. His own father? He was aghast.

“What’s this?” his fear brimmed eyes asked the agitated question.

The father leered at him, fire of anger burnt in his eyes.

“You’ll die today, Akimu. You’ll die today!”

“Why?” he asked in his throat, it didn't reached his mouth but his father could hear him. It was etched in his contorted face, glaringly.

"You know the reason, don’t you? You know you are a disgrace to this family.  You know how you plunged the noble face of this clan into mud. You know all the evil things you have committed. What bad thing have you not been? A thief? A murderer? A conman? A ritualist? A yahoo boy and a prisoner? You were supposed to have been killed long ago. The judge should have sentenced you to an ignoble death. Your sins were far more brutal than the seven year imprisonment you were given, and of which you are now free...”

"Akimu, the judge gave you seven years – I gave you death penalty the first day you were paraded on the television, and all the newsmen of the whole world talked about your many crimes – and called you Mr. Afogunran."

"You Akimu! You soiled Afogunran’s name. Afogunran the noble! Afogunran the saviour of his people…. Afogunran the philanthropist."

“They didn’t call you mere Akimu; they called you Afogunran. You!  Nooo! You were not supposed to be an Afogunran. You are not supposed to be, therefore, you die today. Even now, as you murdered our noble name. Your brothers are no longer called Afogunran in their schools; they are ashamed to bear the besmirched tag. You’ve cast utter shame on the name. they now bear Adetoro, the name of my own father for surname. Adetoro – a common name  - that is what they bear now. There are a million Adetoros, but there is only one Afogunran in the whole universe and you! You banished that name to hell with your lewdness, your laziness, your lust, your cruelty and animalistic relish. I have killed you in my heart long ago and you shall die today."

The man was shaking and fuming. A volcano raging, erupting lava and lava of molten anger, submerging every hope of redemption in the condemned young man’s chest. His bare biceps were bursting. His eyes were burning. His nostrils were flaring. His breathing came out loud and thumping. He was covered in heated sweat. His body was glistening; his anger was monumental and unquenchable.

The condemned young man, lying variously tethered to the bed was still pleading with his bulging eyes, struggling at the same time to break loose. He knew he had erred. The father, now the death looming dangerously over him had spent all he had to educate him. And he was a bright one when in secondary school. People had rightly predicated that he was going to become a celebrity – a guru of whatever good thing he had chosen to be. He was then all good things rolled into one like honey blended with milk. He was handsome like a white rock, dashing and dazzling like an ornamented stallion readied for an emir on the day of an eid.

He was admitted to read computer science at the university. His father wanted the best for him because he was obviously cast in the mould of the best. The father, even thought, he was the noble Afogunran, his great grandfather who had come back to life.
And whenever they said Akimu Akinkunmi Afogunran had done this feat or that, when he was in secondary school, the father would nod his head with a most generous smile festered on his lips. “Yes, Afogunran – the very Afogunran, the owner of the heirloom has returned, not only to rule this sleepy town, but the whole nation. He deserved it once, he shall have it now. The offspring of the elephant is known for its magnificent sway”.

But the joy had retreated like a snail into its shell - the prospect dimmed, the hope died prematurely. Akimu had joined a secret cult group at the university, and no sooner than he became one of their henchmen. A great decision maker and its prime errand of doom – a harbinger of sorrow wherever he showed his handsome face. His innate brilliance and leadership acumen had seen him through. He transferred all his given ingenuity into his avowed criminality, and the activities of his obnoxious group became omnipresent on the campus. It was larger than life, and it soon became synonymous with Akimu Akinkunmi Afogunran, aka Triple A. he had become very famous for his various infamies.

Some people said the reason for his warlike disposition was because of the surname which he flaunted like a prize medal: Afogunran – the one sent to do battle. Akinkunmi, the other name also means – the Valiant one has come to compliment me. These unpaid professionals of name meanings and implications said: “When valour is dispersed in the ways of negativity, infamies are the fruits of its womb. No wonder the valiant hero became the reckless villain.

And they were not very far off the point. Akimu was a saint throughout his secondary school days. He loved been a saint. He believed his intelligence would get him all he wanted as it was doing for him then. He was loved because he was bright.

The teachers loved him and fellow students worshipped him. He had the monopoly of Motola, the most beautiful girl in the school, a daughter of one of the richest businessmen in the town, right from, when they were in form three. No other boy in their school or in the neighbouring ones dared woo her: she was Akimu Afogunran’s girl.

They went to the university together. And whenever they had no lectures, they kept each other’s company. They became more confident of their future together. Motola would in four year time become Mrs. Afogunran. They would become rich and educated elites. They would live in Lagos or Abuja, or if things went very well they might migrate to United States. Happy future, happy life…..”

But before the year ran out, a top member of a formidable secret cult group in the campus became obsessed with Motola. He was the one who always got what he wanted against all odds, and the only odd against him getting Motola was Akimu Afogunran.

The cult strong man must have Motola, therefore Akimu was abducted. He was given an ultimatum: Let go of Motola now. She is meant for better guys, powerful guys and not geeks like you. And that determined him. An Afogunran should not be a push over. His father told him his great great grandfather, the first Afogunran was no push over. He was a warrior of Ibadan extraction, and fought gallantly in many Yoruba internecine wars. He did a lot to checkmate the Fulani jihadists’ incursion into the heart of Yorubaland. How could he be Akimu Akinkunmi Afogunran and lived in perpetual fear of others? No, he changed from being a saintly intellectual to a fighter. A hardy fighter. And very soon, a formidable cultist, who had his way by force and manipulations.

And the rest was history. He went from conquests to conquests. He was always the intimidator – never the intimidated again. The oppressor and never again the oppressed. He hurt people; he maimed people, he even killed. He split blood and made people spill tears, and he detested the easy going ones like he once was, with utmost passion.

And then the waterloo. He was caught after a monumental arson in which ten undergraduates were killed and properties worthy billions of naira were destroyed. It was masterminded and captained by him. After a protracted legal tussle, and the ingenuity of a seasoned advocate, who believed his immense talents could still be steered towards things positive, he was given a seven year prison term. He was released the previous week, and had spent just a night in his father’s house. His father had been so kind and patronizing to him the night before. He had even bought him two bottles of beer - probably laced with sleep inducing substance. And now this!

His father braced himself, raised the broad headed Jarimade cutlass, brandished it in the air and brought it down on him, ten times, hundred times, thousand times; shouting as each deadly stroke sank deep into the glistering heap of flash.

“You are a disgrace! A disgrace! A disgrace! A disgrace! A disgrace! A disgrace! Until Akimu Akinkunmi Afogunran aka triple A, was no longer him, but a horrible slush of red meat and blood and blood and blood.

Setu, January 2020

Abu Siddik interviews Kamarudeen Mustapha

Kamarudeen Mustapha

Abu Siddik in Discussion with Kamarudeen Mustapha

Abu Siddik: Tell me about your childhood, family and share some your eccentricities as a writer as well as a teacher.

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  I grew up in Iwo, a town in the present Osun State in South Western part of Nigeria. My father was Prince Akibu Mustapha and my mother is Madam Rafatu Arike. I lived mostly with my grandmother and grandfather,Prince Mustapha Dankeketa, who was the Moluberin of Iwo at the time till the age of twelve. I went to District Council Primary School, Oke Ola, Iwo, where I was known as Kamoru Akibu. My first taste of literary works were the adventure stories of the eminent Yoruba writer D. O Fagunwa. The books belonged to my father butI appropriated them for mine. They fired my first urge to write. I also fell in love with the literatures of Jehovah Witnesses, especially issues of their 'Awake' and 'Watchtower' publications in Yoruba Language. The Awake in particular opened up for me a vista of exotic world which amazed and fired my imagination. It brought about my first spell of eccentricity. I began to speculate'creatively' that my ancestors were ancient Idumeans. I wrote some imaginary stories of my assumed ancestors' journey to Africa and I even began to formulate what I called the Iduan Language with its own alphabets. I totally believed in my own creation that there was a time I tried to sell the story to a grand uncle who wondered what madness was eating me. The stories of Idumea and Costomaslis, another imaginary settlement of mine near Iwo from where I said my imaginary ancestors came to Iwo formed the bulk of my first writing activities. As a teacher, I have been teaching English language and Literature in English with passion in many secondary schools in Oyo State, Nigeria. I have succeeded in making writers and literary enthusiasts out of  many of my students and colleagues.

Abu Siddik

Abu Siddik:  Why do you write, Mr. Mustapha Kamarudeen?

Kamarudeen Mustapha: I think my reasons change periodically. There was a time I wrote merely because it delighted me to write, and reading stories was like attaining grail to me. There was also a time I write, very early in my life, when the types of treatment the black man received from the Europeans and American slave holders  appalled me and made me want to take a revenge. My writing then were anti- Occidental. There was also a time the apartheid system in South Africa was my concern and things I wrote at that stage were anti apartheid. Then many times I felt like pummeling the ruling elites in my country for their numerous shortcomings and the way they have trampled on our rights and opportunities. Now I think I write to record my contemporary societies in all facets for readers of now and posterity. History records only the physical, the facades; only literature could record the mental and the psychology, the inner workings of man, the real man. I think this is my concern now as a writer. I have this feeling that some strange offspring of modern man in faraway future would be keen and delighted to read of our present frets and cares. Our cultural things. Our emotions.Our escapades. Our struggles. I want to write for them.

Abu Siddik:  The writer dramatizes the story by showing and not telling. What’s your view?

Kamarudeen Mustapha: Storytellers tell stories, the artists in them embellish them. One of the way to embellish is to show. To show is to adorn, to make what you write more interesting and arresting, more vivid and dramatic. To tell without showing would be a boring reading experience. It would be like reading a mere trite. But then, to show without telling on the other hand will as well make the fiction boring as it would be too voluminous and too complex. I believe a reasonable admixture of the two will give the best result. So one should tell when the story needs being told and one should show when showing is the appropriate option.

Abu Siddik: How do you craft a story with a theme? And should the theme be implied or explicit?

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  When a story occurs to me, I just want to write. I want to write the best way I could, I think less of the theme then.Whatever theme emerges is less my concern. I love to write of man in his society. I don't go out hunting for themes. I don't like theme driven narratives.  I see the process as fraud. So I think my themes are implicit. However, there were times it occurred to me that a certain theme had taken prominence in a fiction work I was working on; I went all out then to make such theme explicit by writing dialogues or actions that concretized it. However, I don't believe in building my stories on the need to focus on a particular theme. Perhaps, there were times I did that, in younger days when I was bent on taking revenge for sundry ills meted to black man, for sundry irresponsibilities of our leaders. Now that I only want to write human stories, I believe it will stall the flow of the narrative and make the plot clumsy. I just want to record man literarily in all his glory and folly. Premeditated theme is not the drive, but the story itself. And every story, every deed of man has a message. Therefore a theme.

Abu Siddik:  What makes you write? Or where do you find triggers for your stories and poems?

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  The man and his daily cares, struggles and conquests. The man in his society. Man reaching out to man in his diverse means and manifestations. They inspire me. Literature is no literature without man in ambit of his society. Literature is essentially of man by man and for man.

Abu Siddik: Is message important for a story? What do you think?

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  Every action or even inaction bears a message to the readers. Since stories are made up of actions which culminate in a story line, every story definitely bears certain messages. Life experiences are acquired through particular learning outcomes, learning outcomes are messages to students. Culmination of various receptions of messages give us the experiences to live our lives. When you react to a story in any sort of manner, then you have been impacted. Any form of impact a story makes on the reader, be it entertainment, enlightenment, morals, or any form of emotion is a sort of message. A story is no story when it sends no signal or message to its readers.

Abu Siddik:  Please share for the readers some of the techniques you use in your fiction.

Kamarudeen Mustapha: I try to make my stories as simple as I could. I love flowing narrative. There are often instances of Yoruba and Hausa expressions in my stories, especially when they are cultural things. I also love to describe things. I make use of flashback; it is opportunity to provide reasons for some actions and situations. I make use of epiphany, especially in my short stories. It brings that climax of unexpectedness and surprise realizations. In my poetry, I made use of alliteration and assonance. I love using pun and allusion, especially biblical and historical ones.

Abu Siddik: Why do you think stories need to be told?

Kamarudeen Mustapha: Stories are reconstructions of human experiences and aspirations from the perspective of an artist who is gifted with such abilities to understand man, his environments and those issues that concern him from divergent standing points. Therefore stories are reenactments of our lives. It makes us see our follies without being overtly  bitter about it. It makes us to realize how we react to issue with overblown emotions, and afford us the opportunities to appraise our actions. When we appraise the characters in our stories, we are definitely appraising some aspects of ourselves, for man is basically the same except for those subtle idiosyncrasies. A story enriches man with the vast treasury of knowledge of man. Therefore, stories need to be told for every story read is an added experience to the reader and even the writer himself, and it definitely bears a message or two to the inner man ensconced in him.

Abu Siddik: Please mention two or three writers who had a major influence on your writing?

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  I have definitely been influenced by legions of writers of diverse genres dead and living. But since the questionmandates me to mention only three, the first card goes to the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa thiong'o, I love his simplicity, his logic. His Weep not Child was the first literary novel I read and understood. The second goes to Niyi Osundare, the Nigerian poet whose diction is ever so fresh, so metaphorically correct and precise for whatever topic he writes about, while the third goes to Abubakar Adam Ibrahim whose short fictions are so compelling that I was compelled by them to come back to short fiction which I abandoned more than a decade ago.

Abu Siddik:  Have you ever faced what we call Writer’s Block?

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  A Writer's Block is a situation when ideas dry up in one's head and the flowing of words cease. I face this situation many times and I have discovered that the best way is to fight through it is by continuing writing. The Writer's block makes the prospective literary work a stillborn forever or else the writer knows how to tackle it by calling its bluff. What you write during the spell of the writer's block might not be any masterpiece, but you can always come back to subtract and add things. Remember to fight writer's block by writing on. Write anything, write something, just don't put down your pen, the muse may be nearby to arrest it for you.

Abu Siddik: Any advice for aspiring writers?

Kamarudeen Mustapha: I have discovered that successful writing is not something you do halfway. It is something that takes the whole of you and the whole of your time. Therefore to succeed in writing you need such a burning passion. And when you write don't write for money. Write for mere love of it, write to reach out to people. Understand that you can't get your story to the best it could be with a draft or two, write and rewrite and rewrite until your draft becomes a gem. The writing journey is like space travel, it has no limit or bounds, but there are also lot of prospects, opportunities and pleasant surprises.Be ready to walk it to wherever it leads you, and constantly, and forever.You will arrive at some pleasant Eldorado. 

Setu, October 2019

Interview: Abu Siddik

Kamarudeen Mustapha

Abu Siddik in Discussion with Kamarudeen Mustapha

Kamarudeen Mustapha: Writers are born and writers are made:  which of these assertions is truer considering your development and growth as a writer?

Abu Siddik: I can’t deny that writers are born. However, I am more inclined to agree with your second assertion. In my case certain unhappy incidents, both in my personal and public life, haunt me to write stories and poems or a book.  When a story is finished, I always feel free.  Writing to me is a kind of emotional release.  Obviously there are some masters who come to my rescue in my dark hour. So, real life incidents play a crucial role in my development as a writer.

Abu Siddik

Kamarudeen Mustapha: What is your childhood like? How much does your childhood experience and family influence your emergence as a fiction writer?

Abu Siddik: We are five brothers and two sisters. I grow up in an idyllic village. My father is a hard working farmer. He sent all of us to colleges with his meager means. We have some acres of protean lands, and we survive on that.  Extreme poverty coupled with boundless joy in nature find an expression in my stories. It is because of my childhood background.  So, forests, fields, hills, skies, birds, peasants, misfits, the rural poor folks have an abiding presence in my fictional and poetic world.  

 Kamarudeen Mustapha: You are both an accomplished poet and fiction writer; in which of these two genres do you feel more at home?

Abu Siddik: I am equally comfortable with both the genres. And I am also ambitious to write more critical books in future as well.

 Kamarudeen Mustapha: How old were you when you wrote your first fictional work? What is the impetus for it?

Abu Siddik: You can call me a 'late bloomer' to quote Dr. Subhas Chandra, our loved mentor who also writes for Setu. At thirty eight I write my first story “Sukra Oraon” based on an Adivasi’s life. That time I don’t know anything about publishing. I playfully send it to Muse India, and the fiction editor, Smita Vakkadavath praises it comparing to writing to legendary writer Mahaswata Devi. That is the beginning.

So far I never seriously think of creative writing. I wrote some academic articles and made a book on Faulkner out of my thesis. There are two specific reasons. First, I’m living 500 kms. away from home and family for nine years. So I have enough time to visit places and watch people, mainly Adivasi forest dwellers and peasants in scenic Dooars. The beauty of the land and the poverty of its people have an indelible impression on me. Second reason is the cold reception of my leadership by college authority after the completion NAAC accreditation with B+. First time the recognition comes because of our hard work and sacrifice for months after months. I am hurt. Thus I change my way and make myself busy with poetry and storytelling exercise. And I am happy. If I had not found enough time to watch people and if my college authority recognized my love and sacrifice, I am afraid, I could not have been what I am today.

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  A writer's environment makes him just as the writer makes his environment. How true is this assertion? Relate this to your role as a writer of fiction.

Abu Siddik: In my case I never make my environment. It is always the environment or external reality makes my fictional environment. Behind each story there is a concrete incident which I think unjust. From that sense of emotional injury I try to build a story. Yes, I take fancy and I add colour to that single ill action. As a result it ceases to be a propaganda piece and qualifies for a story.

Kamarudeen Mustapha:  As a writer and a teacher, do you see the two roles as complimentary of one another? Can writing be said to be a furtherance of a teacher's role in the society?

Abu Siddik : Yes. More I read and teach, more I learn. It invariably helps me to have more mastery over the themes, styles, nuances, flavours of multiple authors. Consequently, it lends edge to my creative faculty. For instance, when I read and teach Morrison’s Beloved, I come to realize what lies in store for me both in respect of themes, colours, and language application.  

Kamarudeen Mustapha: You write both in Bangla, your mother tongue and English. Which of these two languages do you feel more comfortable with as a writing medium and why?

Abu Siddik: In writing poetry I am more comfortable with English. But in case of prose I think I am equally qualified to write both in Bangla and English. 

In my mother tongue I have already written a book, Bangalr Musalman which is quite well received by the Bangla speaking readers in general.   

Kamarudeen Mustapha: What is your take on the claim that the themes as the driving force for fictional writing?

Abu Siddik: I somewhat agree with the claim. If there is no happening which burns me, how can I build a story? But I strive to make the theme implicit so that readers will be painfully anxious to find it themselves. Of course there are clues. The readers only need to coalesce them together into a unified whole, and thereby delve into the core of the story.

 Kamarudeen Mustapha:  Talking about writers influencing writers, which writer or writers have given your writing its present shape?

Abu Siddik: A host of my favourites such as Chekhov, Naipaul, Manto, Turgenev, Faulkner, Orwell, Hemingway, and Gibran give me strength to write the way I want to write. In Bangla it is Akhteruzzaman Elias.

Kamarudeen Mustapha: What to you is the major purpose of writing fiction - to entertain, to sermonize, to protest, to record the present for posterity or to teach moral?

Abu Siddik:  Simply put, my purpose as a fiction writer is to paint life in its myriad hues—with its love, fellow-feeling, hatred, anger, bitterness, hope, despair. Entertaining, sermonizing moralizing, or recording the present for posterity are not my primary aims. Yes, a wave of anger, mockery, irony and protest run through most of stories. I have a special liking for the portrayal of the peasants, the daily manual workers, the margins, the odds, the aged, the invalids, the widower and the widowed. My stories are sad, and protest against injustices, wrongs, ills, wounds, and inhumanity is my major purpose of writing. 

Setu, December 2019

Fiction: THE ENGLISH BOY

Kamarudeen Mustapha

- Kamarudeen Mustapha

They say your father christened you Clement. You were obviously a blessing to him when you were born. Now people called you Kilementi. Some were always so much in hurry when they called your name, so you were Kilemen to them.  And you answered to the two names, and believed they were the very correct versions of your name, because you didn’t know a word of English.

You were an English boy, though you were also half Yoruba, but you were more English than Yoruba because your father was supposed to be English. And here we believe the father has a greater claim to a child.  Not only this, you were milky white, especially on Sundays after you were washed, and had rubbed coconut oil into your skin. And your often short cut, cropped hair was oily and shiny. Your eyes were blue and your nose very pointed. We don’t have our noses like nibs of pen here. The white genes seemed to be more dominant in you. You were white but couldn't speak any white language. You spoke only Yoruba, and it was even the very local one at that. Not the sophisticated one, western civilization toned, they speak at Lagos and other coastal Yoruba towns. You lived in Eletu, far sunken in the forest of Osun State.

Snow white – that was what you were. A great contrast to Iya Agba, your grandma, whom you often trailed after on your way to Saint Michael Anglican Church on Sundays, the only days of the week you bathed, for people said you hated taking baths. You liked to wear your grimes and slime all over your white skin like an outer skin. They said you didn't like your white skin very white. I was aghast, I hated my black skin too, and I could have traded my skin for yours for any amount if I had the means. 

The first time I saw you Kilementi flying kite on the field of the village primary school, I was astounded at your sight. I had not expected anybody like you in the little sleepy village. I was posted there as a teacher just two days before. While other teachers had gone straight home after the closing hours, I had decided to stay behind and write my lesson plans. I hated writing lesson plans too, but for a teacher in public employment, writing lesson plans could not be excused.

Your milky white skin was not very white that day. It was not a Sunday but a Wednesday, your last bath was four days ago. So, your skin was daubed in grime and dust. When I saw you, I little expected an English boy could be so dirty and uncivilized. I thought you must be a Nigerien Tuareg, who are common sights in Nigerian cities where they beg for alms or try to sell themselves to some gullible miracle seeking goons as marabouts. But a boy who was standing near me told me you were an Oyinbo boy. He said your father was from Ingilandi, but added that you couldn’t speak a word of English. He said you didn't know even "wan pa o" meaning: come let me kill you - in English. He also said you hated learning English, and that you often refused to go to school simply because you would be made to speak the language. I wanted to laugh, I wanted my whole being to roar, to bend double and give vent to my emotions.

It sounded very funny: An English boy who couldn’t speak the English language. And everybody’s ambition was to know English. I was eager to hear you speak, so I called you.

“Hey you! hey boy!” I called at you, but you didn’t even pause to look at me. You were busy with your kite, high up in the sky. Perhaps your ambition was to hide it in the clouds. It swished here and there in the air like your unbuttoned tattered shirt below. I remembered Mtshali’s, "Boy on a swing”.

“What’s his name?” I asked my little informant.

“Kilement,” he replied.

I knew an English boy would not be Kilementi. It was the Yoruba tongue interference at play. Yoruba tongue has no patience for consonant clusters and glides. The correct name should be Clement. So I called you what I assumed should be your correct name. I had forgotten how much they said you hated English. 

“Clement! Clement!”

You briefly paused from giving thread to your kite. Perhaps you were not sure my yelling was for you or you simply chose to ignore me. You continued sending your kite to higher altitude.

The boy said, “His name is not Clement. Call him the right way”.

“The right way?" 

“Yes, Kilementi” the boy said." I shrugged and called you the wrong but the right way.

"Kilementi! Kilementi!”

Right could be wrong, and wrong could be right, everything is relative. 

You turned to me now with the type of alertness I had not noticed in you. You were really Kilimenti, and no Clement.

"Se e mo mi ni? " - Do you know me? - You asked curtly in Yoruba. No outlandish accent, no modernity induced varnishing.  Correct diction, correct gestures, and appropriate temperament. You were simply prototype Yoruba through and through, except for your skin and eyes and nose, and perhaps for your hair, cropped jet black, shiny like aloe. I was astounded. There was no Englishness or its pretension in you. You were Yoruba to the core.

“Yes! Come!”

You handed your still ascending kite to one of your play mates and ran to me. You stood in front of me, heaving expectantly. 

"Emi re e.”

“What’s your name?” I asked you 

“But you just said it now. It’s Kilimenti, abi-" you replied.

This is going to be interesting. I thought. I laughed to myself; I wanted to tease you as much as I could.

“Say it in English and in a simple sentence. Your name,” I said to you in English, smiling expectantly.

It was too much for you. Your face became an opaque wall; you merely gaped at me with some subtle hostility in your blue piecing eye. You looked so Caucasian that I thought speaking English should be automatic for you. But you were a sea without a pint of water in its expanse.

“You can’t speak English?” I asked this time in Yoruba. You nodded affirmatively.

“Goodness me! But this boy told me you had English father,” I said pointing to the smirking boy still standing by me.

Your hidden hostility sprang out like a provoked cobra. You dashed at him and threw him a punch. Before a blink of an eye, you had held his shoulders and drew him to you and quickly connected a head butt to his nose. It was so sudden. Blood started oozing out from his broken nostrils. You were a marvelous fighter, I wanted to clap for you and carry you shoulders high. 

“Stop telling people about me or I’ll kill you,” you shouted at him. Your Yoruba was even cruder in anger.

The boy fought back, not though with a punch. He was not as strong as you, he could not trade punches with you. He held your shirt close to your neck and began to shake you. You pushed him away and a large chunk of your thread bare shirt flew with him as he tottered back and landed on his buttocks. You jumped on him again, freshly angered by your disintegrating shirt. You punched him all over, your fists darting forth and back rapidly as if they were being propelled by an engine. And their punches were hard ones, well delivered.  In a second, you had pelted the poor boy black and blue, as they say, and he was red and whimpering. He had totally succumbed to your superior savagery.

I went behind you and pulled you away from the bleeding boy. You struggled to escape from my hold to punish the boy the more, but you were just a child and I was a strong young man. I drew you away and away with ease despite your resistance.

Your play mates on the field had done away with their kites and ran to us. Likewise, some elder people from surrounding houses had also assembled. They all came to appeal to you. They all seemed to like you. All questions were directed at you, not aggressively, but patronizingly. They were all your fans, they loved you, it showed. 

“Kilementi Kilode? Eebo Kilode?"  And you were still fuming, all straining to go back to the boy. “He was telling this man about me. He said my mother was a prostitute of a white man." You ranted and ranted and globes of tears were beginning to gather in your eyes. 

“Ah Kilementi. Fear God. I didn’t say that. I only said your father was English when the man said you look like Tuaregs,” The battered boy said dabbing at his bleeding nose with the sleeves of his shirt.

"It's a lie, you bastard! You called my mother a prostitute. I will still kill you as I promised. Wallahi!” You swore, touched your tongue with your index finger and raised it to the heaven in oath taking.

Some elderly people had gone to look for mint leaves which they squeezed until some juice was gotten. They dropped some of the juice into the boy's upturned nose to stop the flow of the blood.

“Kilementi, it’s not good to fight with your colleagues.” the elderly men kept appealing to you, and you kept sulking ad sulking.

One of the boys who came from the field was a cousin of the boy you had just beaten. He was not happy when he heard that the boy had not done much to warrant the type of battering you gave him. He came to you and pointed to you aggressively. “I have already known you will end up a killer one day. Even your vagabond Oyinbo father knew that before he called you killmen."

Like spring, you were on him too. You were in fact acting like the village bully and rascal people told me latter you were. But your new opponent was no push over. He was obviously older and stronger than you and he was ready to tackle you punch for punch and head-butt for head butt. But your grandma came and rained cuffs on your back and dragged you away from your opponent. She kept shouting as she led you towards her house.

“Don’t kill me Kilemen. You hear? Don’t kill me at all. Do you hear me? I didn’t kill my mother, and your mother didn’t kill me before she disappeared to God knows where. Don't kill me with your unending troubles."

And the old woman began to cry. People said she cried when anything made her remember your mother. And you cried too, and the men and women of the village shook their heads and dispersed to their various houses. They said you cried because you loved the old woman, and you couldn’t bear seeing her in tears, though they say you often made her cry.

You didn't offer any protest now, you only followed her.

Later that day, I learnt your story: your mother Tunrayo was an indigene of the village. She had travelled to Lagos after her secondary education at a nearby village. They said she was beautiful. They said she was fair skinned like her own father. And Lagos is believed to be a haven for beautiful girls who knew their ways. Success oriented girls must know their ways and Tunrayo knew her ways. She was introduced to fast girls who plied only the night highway. It was while plying these nocturnal pathways that she met your father who was a British businessman.

Your father was a god she never expected could descend to worship mortals like her. When he promised to marry her, she couldn't believe she was hearing well. He pestered her to bring him to Eletu, to her people. She brought him and he followed her all about like a pet dog. She was happy and she happily showed him off:    

"Oko mi re e o....”

"This is my fiancé."

And her people were happy for her. 

“Hee!  Iyawo Eebo”

“White man's wife”

"They lived together for two years. He made her live like a queen. She gave birth to you and he called you Clement, but your father soon disappeared and nobody heard of him again.

You were barely tottering when your mother brought you to live with grandma. Since then, she had not shown up at Eletu, that was fifteen years ago. Some people said she had gone to the northern states and got married to a Hausa man. They said she didn't come back because she feared that Iya Agba, your grandmother would force her to take you away, and she wouldn't like to take you to the home of her new husband. You would definitely rock its peace.

Some people were sympathetic to her: They said she couldn't have left you behind just like that. They said after she left you with grandma, she returned to Lagos to resume her prostitution full time, she didn't know any other business. But she soon contacted AIDS which eventually killed her. 

A week after, I was able to talk to you on the field of the village primary school. 

“Clement!”

“Don’t call me Kilimen again. My name is Kilementi. That's what grandma calls me,” you replied. 

“Grandma is illiterate. She doesn't know how to say your name. Your name is English. You should learn how to say it like your people," I told you.  

“Who are my people?” you retorted. 

“You are English. Your people are English ".

There was a great pain in your eyes. You shook your head and said, “don’t call me English. The people of Eletu are my people".

“But your father is English".

“I have no father. Grandma is both my father and mother, and I only want to be like her ". There was no pain in your voice now that you spoke of grandma.

“You don't know what it means to be English," I told you. 

“What does it mean to be English?” you retorted. “English to me means to be given birth and dump, like my father did to me, like my mother did to me. They both hated me for being this white skinned. If they loved me they couldn't have dumped me. I don't want anything to remind me of them, most especially, English language, and this skin, this white skin, I wish I could peel it off. It is to me a stigma."

There were tears glinting in your eyes, and they were equally budding in my eyes too. You were truly a rejected bundle of joy. But I wished I were you for that very skin.

Setu, October 2019

Fiction: THE MIRACLE OF JOB

Kamarudeen Mustapha

- Kamarudeen Mustapha

His sickness was spiritual, diabolical, and unnerving. He lived every time on the fear of his impending death, and that unsavoury expectation had taken away all happiness and sway from his hapless life.

    He knew he was going to die. He knew he had been dying fifteen years ago when he committed the abomination that had denied him the life of achievement for which he knew he was destined. But that noble destiny had been blown away before him like a powder in the wind. Consequently, he had thrown his parents into an everlasting sorrow and his grandmother into regret and penury after a long spell of prosperity.

    Fifteen years ago, he was a bubbling youth of twelve years in a junior secondary school. His parents believed they had a world beater in him due to his many brilliant feats. He was to be a conqueror that would suppress all adversities and bring the coveted laurels home to them. Because of this beckoning future of glory, they vowed to make every sacrifice possible to launch him on to that space where every spot of opportunity would be laid bare before him and be accessible to him.

     It was the end of the session holiday, Akin who lived at Ibadan had to travel to a roadside bustling little town in Ondo state. The town was a popular stopover for passengers travelling from the south western parts of Nigeria to the northern parts. They usually stopped there to refresh themselves.

     There were different varieties of food and local snacks to eat. Akin's grandmother had a stall in the town where he sold bean cakes roasted in edible oil to the stopping - over travellers, and she made brisk business. From the proceeds from the seemingly increasing sale, she had been able to build two big houses in the town and a bigger one in comparison to the former in the state capital, Akure. She had a car also, and two buses used for commercial transport.

    All the food and snacks sellers that dotted the roadsides were becoming prosperous, but Akin's grandmother's prosperity was more spectacular. It might have been the fact that she was the first of the numerous beancakes makers and sellers to have started plying the trade there, but there was another factor worthy of mentioning.

     Some twenty years earlier when Akin's mother was a student at the only secondary school in the town, an itinerant Islamic scholar was passing through the town. He was an Ilorin man, and was obviously vastly equipped with the knowledge of of Islamic spirituality and traditional magic. He was dressed garrulously in flowing gown, though, brownish dirty, due to his endless wanderings which didn't afford him much space or luxury for laundry. He donned a mammoth turban that strapped most of his face, except his eyes and nose. If not for his coal tar black gleaming skin, one could have mistaken him for Tuareg from the sand spewing Sahara desert.

     He came into grandmother's spacious stall and gave the salaam. The aura of mysticism and spiritual importance which seemed to be oozing out of him like water current from a fall immediately overwhelmed the grandmother. Streams of sweat were coursing through her face and buxom chest at the blazing fireplace where she was busy rolling the massed bean into balls and dropping them into white boiling oil. She was not rich then. She was simply a hardworker who also prayed she sold the few number of beancakes made from her modest bean supply.

     When the Mallam came into the stall, something told her that the visitor was no ordinary visitor, but a benevolent angel primordially programmed to oil her way to prosperity. She stopped stuffing her blazing fire and the moulding of her massed bean into balls, washed her hands and stood up to welcome the man.

     " Alfa, you are welcome," she said. " Please come inside here where smoke will not sting your eyes." She led him deep into her stall to where a table sat surrounded by two sifas.

    "Our mother. Did you stop what you were doing to welcome us? " he asked. He was drawing continuously at his big dangling chaplet that had two leather covered charms sewed into it.

     " Yes Alfa, there is the sign of God in you. And something told me you need a good rest and refreshments," she said. Smile of willing hospitality creased her lips.

    The Mallam smiled too. His eyes were blinking with unremitting benevolence. He said to her, " your inner eyes are not blind like most people's. You are able to identify real men among wee little ones and lions among rodents."

       He sat down. He gazed at her. " Feed me, wise woman as much as God direct you. I'm sent to someone here. If you were that person, your fortunes shall surely change for the better. You will prosper, and this town also will because of your gift of insight.,"

     Grandmother didn't think she was about to be conned as most people would think because she was a generous woman. She went to the pot on her blazing fire and scooped five big balls of her beancakes, wrapped them up in a paper and gave one of her two girls to take to the Mallam who was busy muttering prayers and pulling at the seeds of his chaplet in unsparing velocity. She gave the other girl some money to go and buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of Fanta.

    The Mallam broke his supplication and said, " this is what Allah requires of good people. Hospitality from the heart -- from the core of your heart. A good woman. Hmmmmm...... A good woman. And Allah will come to your aid. I know you don't pray like we do, but you are generous.Wallahi! And Allah loves he that gives generously of what he gives him." The Mallam patted his turban and readjusted its lower rump that held closely to his chin. He whispered a bismillah and began to eat his loaf of bread and the beancakes. He washed it all down with the soft drinks.

      Grandmother took him home as he required. He spent the night alternating between prayers and counting his chaplet to the accompaniment of divine mantras. The following morning, he asked the woman to bring two fresh beancakes. She rushed to her stall and brought them. They were still hot and drippling oil. The Mallam prayed over them for a very long time and put them in a thick chinaware. He covered the chinaware and gave it to the grandmother and told him : " Keep this very safe in your wardrobe for as long as you want to remain in this beancakes business. And when you decide to abandon the business, throw the cakes into a pit latrine or bury them deep in the ground. As long as you keep these beancakes with you, your business frying and selling beancakes will flourish. You will become a success. You will make money, you will make fame. This is the little way I can help you. "

     Grandmother knelt down before the mysterious Mallam and said her gratitude. She took the chinaware into her bedroom, opened her wardrobe and put it behind and underneath her clothes. She rummaged through the recess of of the wardrobe and brought out her whole saving ---- ten thousand naira. She divided it into two and took one half of it to the Mallam in the sitting room.

    " Take Alfa. It for you," she said.

    The man regarded her and laughed. " A true alfa is a single man who is equal to a thousand. The word alfa is taken from alf which means a thousand in the language of the people of the leader of men. There is still another half of this where you brought this." He said and regarded Grandmother who stood trembling in front of him. He smiled and told her, " relax, good woman. Go and bring the other half. "

     Grandmother turned meekly and went to her bedroom. She opened the wardrobe and brought out the other half. She took it to the Mallam, she knelt down and gave it to him.

    " Good! I'm not fleecing you dry. I just want to go with relics of your days of want because your days of plenty begins tomorrow. "

    True to the Mallam's prediction, the following day marked the beginning of Grandmother's fifteen years of abundance. It was during this period that the fortune of the roadside town where she lived also peaked. It began two months after, when a new four lanes road was constructed over the erstwhile old one lane old road. The road became a popular one that linked the South western parts of Nigeria to the north. It brought more road users, it brought more cars and commercial vehicles and more passengers, and thus more patronage to Grandmother and her fellow roadside traders. More than anybody else, Grandmother became a great success.

    In the fifteenth year of grandmother's successful turning point, Akin, who had been born twelve years earlier came from Ibadan to spend the end of session holiday. He was bubbling with life. He was exceptionally happy because Grandmother had promised him a lot of things. Grandmother promised him all these goodies because of his impressive performance in school. He regarded himself as a special breed who could tread on the pavilions of the titans.

     Wherever he was alone at Grandmother's house, he ransacked every part of the house. One day, he opened grandmother's wardrobe. He rummaged through the assorted clothes Grandmother kept there, they were mostly the traditional types his mother didn't have. He wondered how most of them would look on his mother's slender figure. He continued his exploration and he came upon the fifteen-year-old ritual chinaware. Without a thought, he opened it, and the two beancakes kept inside were as fresh as if they were just fried, and they sent out such sweet aroma he never knew exist. As if he was being compelled by a higher force he fell on the beancakes and began to eat them like he had not eaten for days.

     The moment he finished eating the beancakes, a million tragedies began to assail him, Grandmother and her little flourishing roadside town. For him, he went into a trance and started foaming in the mouth. While he lay there with twitching limbs and nobody to help him, his spirit was roaming the wastelands of Mars which was dry and hot as he read in his junior encyclopedia. He ran and ran until he was tired couldn't run again. Soon he began to feel choked until he couldn't breathe freely again. His breathing came out with panting and hiccups. And as he coughed and hiccupped, he thought he was vomiting some unseen components of him into thin air, and his body shriveled until he became a rack of bones and ragged skin. His bones, muscles and veins seemed to have been hiccupped and coughed out. He lay there unable to lift an arm or a leg. He had become even in that dream state, a helpless vegetable. That was what he woke up to be.

    For Grandmother, a car lost its control and rammed into her stall. It swept straight through the cooking stones, upturned the giant flat pots in which the beancakes were being fried, four benches and two tables at which six people were eating. The car caught fire and the whole stall was afterward set ablaze. Three people including the driver of the car were killed and Grandmother herself sustained a fractured leg.

     For the roadside town, the Government evacuated the thriving roadside market and relocated it to about six hundred meters away from the former place. Many of the proprietresses of the stalls and shops, after dismantled their former establishments were not keen to set up again, they moved to another roadside town about ten kilometers away. They began another thriving market that soon catapulted the new settlement to another bastion of prosperity. The former roadside town quickly went out of reckoning.

     Akin was still a living dead fifteen years after. He could walk about, albeit like a gasping chameleon, he could discuss fairly intelligently, albeit haltingly -- words didn't easily drop to his tongue, but he seemed to have no flesh inside his wrinkled acne infested skin and brittle bones. There were also times he was rendered immobile by excruciating pain that seemed to be constant in every part of his body. And then there was also that unremitting stomach ache that throbbed within him forever.

    All these had made him to stop going to school twelve years ago. Likewise, he couldn't pursue any occupation to earn him a living. At twenty-seven, he still depended on his parents for sustenance. The parents themselves had become impoverished as they had always spent all their earnings in pursuit of cure, both orthodox and non-orthodox for him. The sought-after cure remained elusive.

    In the last three years however, the parents put a stop to their unrewarding search for cure for him. The education of his three younger siblings had always suffered in the past because of him. Now they made up their minds to do something towards giving the long-denied children strong footholds in life too. Thus, they resigned themselves to the uncharitable reality that Akin could not be helped again.

    Akin himself had resigned himself to his fate. He was expecting himself to die anytime. He had often been told in his many trances that he would surely die, and he was ready for it to come whenever it would come. He had also become a born again Christian. He thought he had nothing at stake in life again except his life which was forever ebbing away. Whenever he felt his pain, he would open his bible and read and read. Many times, also, he would talk to himself: " I know you this pain will go away like you always go away. But it would have been better for you to kill me so that I will go and rest." At times he would say: "This life is always a tragic affair, and everybody feels his own type of pain. This is my own type of pain. One has to be a living being to have a pain. Thank God for my life, thank God for my pain."  When the pain became very intense and the urge to cry was so great, he would say in between sobbing. "Heaven is our true home. We are mere sojourners here. One can never be happy in exile. That is why I suffer this much. I'm a prince of heaven, that's why the principalities of this world hate me so much and torment me so great. One day death will come to redeem me of this pain. My sweet Jesus will send me temporary but sweet death to rid me of this painful body. He will give me another healthy and beautiful one instead of this wrecked one. Then he would feel happy in his pain. He would even have smiled at the prospect of death. He had learnt to be valiant and happy when the pain subsided.

    And now his youngest sister, Lara came to him, and sat on a chair facing him on his bed.

    " What now, brother Akin? Are you thinking of the future? " she asked.

     " Future? No, my dear Larry girl. I'm thinking of sweet death and Lord Jesus, " he replied with a smile on his spent lips.

     " But death is not sweet. People don't want to die."

    " And life is not sweet either, especially mine. It has been constant pain, and occasional relief like I'm having now. Death must be an elixir. "

     "What is an elixir? "

      A relief....  a solution ... a panacea."

     Lara laughed. " Panacea. Another big one. Brother Akin, you are a brain. It is a pity you couldn't go beyond junior secondary school. "

     He took Lara's right hand and squeezed it. He laid the hand on his chest and said, " Lara. Elixir and panacea are not big words for a twenty-seven years old man like me. I shouldn't be here if not for my sickness, I should be at the right place where I could use bigger words than elixir and panacea. And I could conveniently give you all that you need, my little sister. "

     " But you can still give me. When there is life there is hope. " She stared at him with big unhappy eyes on which traces of tears were beginning to form.

      Akin said with slow flat voice. " I'm going to die, Lara. I won't be able to give you anything like a big brother. I won't also be able to give our parents anything in return for their sacrifice and love. But Jesus is always there, he will reward them. "

    "But brother, why won't you stop thinking of death for a change? Think of life. There is possibility of it. You have been like this for fifteen years and you are still here. Many with lesser degrees of sickness have died." She continued to stare at Akin with wide unhappy eyes. Akin looked at the roof from the bed on which he lay. And Lara continued. " Pray to God --- Pray to Jesus too. We are born to live and contribute our quotas to make the world a better place than we met it, not to die. So, think of life. Jesus can give it." Lara said, close to tears.

    Akin smiled. "Lara, think of this. Now you are thinking of life and almost crying while I'm thinking of death and smiling. Do you see, life and death are two sides of a coin, the important thing is to be happy…"

     "And hopeful. "Lara put in. " You've been like this for fifteen years, two years after I was born. Wallahi, you may not die. "

     Akin sighed. " Do you know why I pray to die? I don't want to remain like this - an invalid who siphons our parents' meagre resources and deny you and my two brothers the chance to go up in life. Without my sickness draining our parents' purse, Dare and Tayo could have graduated from university. "

      Lara dashed to his table, ransacked the books piled on its top and brought out a copy of bible. She opened it to the book of Job.

     " Have you ever read the book of Job? "

     " Yes, many times. "

      " Don't you believe in his type of miracle? "

     " I have never thought of it. "

     " Think of it now. Claim it for yourself. The miracle of Job can still be repeated in your life."

     Akin looked at Lara and smiled. "You this girl sha!"

     " Yes brother. It shall happen to you! "

     "Amen. "

     " It shall be your lot! "

      " Amen. "

     And that night, Akin thought of Lara and the miracle of Job till the day broke anew. That day, he stopped thinking of death. The possibility of life filled him to the brim. He dismissed the voices from his dreams that told him he would die and proclaimed to himself every time: I will not die but live.

     Another day in the afternoon, he woke up from a troubled dream in which he was told he would die again, and he answered. " I shall not die but live. "

    "You will die because you have no discipline. You ate what you were not supposed to eat. "

     "I have learnt my lesson. "

     "It is late. What you ate was poison, it has done its damages. "

    "Every damage can be healed if God wills it. "

     And he woke up, and the Mallam of thirty years ago who made the fortune charm of fried beancakes for Grandmother entered into his room. He was very old and shrunken now. But the big turban still sat upon his ancient head. He lay his shivering right hand on Akin's spent chest and mumbled some prayers. Akin sat up like a spring released and threw up. Two fresh beancakes like the ones he ate fifteen years ago fell on the floor of the room. He fell asleep afterward.

    When he woke up, all his ailments were history. 

Setu, March 2018

Fiction: I Helped a Boy in Need

Kamarudeen Mustapha

- Kamarudeen Mustapha

The rain threatens to fall. The heaven billows with a rush of wind. The sky looms dark as if it is going to cover us up the next moment and the crowded city spills to the roadside bus stop like a ebbing sea after a deluge of twenty four hours. It is 14:30 pm. Schools have just closed this hot afternoon that has suddenly changed to this moody threatening monster. The roadsides are jam-packed with hordes of students and assorted makes of grown-ups who want to board passenger buses to their various destinations.

It is always hectic in these rush hours when the roadside bus stops overflow with an avalanche of crowds rushing to and fro, but it is usually heavier when it threatens to rain and people are in haste to board buses to avoid being drenched by rain. Passenger buses come and go; we struggle to board them by pushing and tugging. Then the strongest, the most persistent and the most fortunate ones make the entry. And as they attempt to sit down and relax and heave out the accumulated stress in jubilation, the bus conductor announces their fares, already inflated by ten to fifty percent, according to the distance of their destinations and the exploitative whim of the conductors, who know the stampeding passengers have no alternative but to go homes or wherever their needs take them.

As such, destinations that hitherto cost thirty naira have become fifty naira. Those that cost fifty naira have become eighty naira, and those that cost hundred have become one hundred and fifty naira. Conductors are powerful authoritarians, they are touts with fixed jobs, and they rule their fiefdoms with a notion of little gods who can do and undo. Only the drivers have some powers over them, but even these drivers want them to use their powers in these types of situations maximally to maximize their joint profit. They announce new fares arbitrarily without consideration of the passengers' plights and conditions, and without a whiff of courtesy but through harassment and blatant daring. It is the rush hour, factor number one. And the threatening rain, factor number two. Nobody wants the rain to beat him. And nobody can predict its volume and duration. Rains do fall for hours and even days here without a stint. Moreover, rain could be disastrous around here too. Our drainages are often shallow and haphazardly built and kept. Houses are built without respect for the courses of rivulets that are often dry when there is no rain, or the volume of rain is insignificant. But these dry river courses become roaring Mississippis whenever the rains come with any intensity.

“If you can't afford the fare, just go down! Go down! Go down! Me I no send anybody O...” the conductor would declare defiantly. And those that truly can not afford the fare would struggle and fight again to go down. Those who can afford the fare and the strains that go with it would be clambering up amidst renewed tugging and cursing.

Those who eventually make it are happy like they have made the grail. They heave sighs of relief and sit back to begin their own lambasting of the conductor. They called him an oppressor, an exploiter, a devil and a hell bound Shylock as if they hold the keys to hell fires. The conductor himself would not like to be outdone, he would reply with far demeaning epithets. The driver on his own may decide to be civil this time around and try to appease the passengers by looking for whipping boys --- the greedy area boys who extort money at every bus stop from New Garage, through Mokola, Bode, Bere, Oje, Gate, Iwo Road to Olodo. Or the government whose lack of priority makes nothing works. Or the people in government who know nothing except draining the government coffers to grow their private purses. Or the American dollar that is now six hundred naira to just one dollar which invariably makes vehicle spare parts very expensive “since we import everything with dollar and nobody outside the country will take naira for a mean of trade or exchange.”

After the driver has relayed all these ills and put the blame at what were to him the appropriate quarters, a hothead may reply him: “Shut up your mouth, Mr. Driver, the fare to Iwo Road that was forty naira about thirty minutes ago, how come it has become seventy naira now? Is that government's doing or you people's greed and wickedness?”

No conductor allows a passenger to have the last say. He lashes out from where he perches in the bus on the battery compartment. He is so greedy he doesn't allow himself even a seat.

“Look, don't trouble us here, Mr. Know-all. If you can't pay the fare we charge, you are free to go down, and trek to Iwo Road or wherever your ill luck carries you, and see how many sachets of panadol you will swallow tomorrow to ease your pain.”

Another passenger would answer him: “You conductors, and even your drivers, you are all rogues and thieves. If your types were to be in government, you will steal the whole country and hide it in your inner pockets where nobody will see it again. Useless people!”

“Thank you. Just go down and see how your ugly body will dissolve like mud when the rain begins to pelt you.”

Since I'm not the fighting type, I hold my peace and allow those with the fighting genes in them to slug it out among themselves. Thankfully, the rain is no longer threatening. The dark clouds are fast evaporating and a slight yellow curtain has been drawn in the heaven again, hinting that the shining face of the sun would soon reappear. I know the rush hour would soon be over, and it doesn't look like it would rain again. But come rain, come sun, I have my umbrella with me. I only have to hitch it up and cast it overhead. Let its spikes pierce whoever's eye, I don't care. I hiss and draw further away from the throng.

Then I take notice of a boy, no more than twelve. He is a pupil of a junior secondary school, but conspicuously, a poor one. His shirt is torn and patched at various places. His knickers also are tight and ragged and he wears a pair of slippers instead of the brown school sandals others wear. He approaches standing passengers with cowering apprehension: “Please daddy, kindly help me to Iyana Church. I have no transport fare. Please mummy, kindly help me to Iyana Church. I don't have the transport fare ....”

But the “daddies” and the “mummies” only scowl and look away. The boy is never deterred, he has to go home, and going home can only be made possible only after somebody has agreed to carry him on his lap to Iyana Church. So, he keeps on approaching prospective good Samaritans.

“Please daddy, could you help me to Iyana Church. I have no transport fare. “He asked another man.

The man storms at him. “Ehnn? Wetin concern me? I be your papa? Please comot for my face an let me see something." The boy scampers away from him.

The last man he approaches is another pent up frustration, but the needy boy does not seem to discern this. His face is crying and everybody that cares can see that life is not treating him with any iota of kindness. He clutches a big soiled envelope which presumably is filled with application letters and photocopies of his credentials and curriculum vitae. The soles of his old shoes are half eaten due probably to endless trekking through the streets of the hostile city in rains and shines --- glaring indications of veteran job seekers. The man glares at the supplicating boy as if his eyes would drop out of their sunken sockets like two hot embers and burn the boy up like a piece of petrol - drenched rag. Then he shouts and hisses: “Vamoose from my sight now! Rotten contraband!” The boy retreats sharply again and almost steps on my shoes, but I hold and steady him. He glares at me and wriggles himself out of my hands as if I was an electric fish.

“Sorry sir!” he apologizes and retreats sideway again.

“Don't worry.” I half-smile at him. He contemplates me from afar now and quickly deduces I can be friendly. Obviously, my composure is not stern and forbidden. He makes up his mind.

“Daddy, could you help me to Iyana Church.”

I contemplate him too, but with any venom. I admire his quick mind and tenacity. Or perhaps it is no tenacity but desperation to go home. He is a strong boy despite his poverty. He holds my gaze; he sees the prospect of a free ride home. I don't disappoint him either.

“No problem lad. I will help you,” I say.

He half-prostrates. “Thank you sir,” he replies. Then, he embarks on a torrential rendition of prayers for me and my family.

“You will never die young. Your star will continue to shine. You will never lack for good things of life. Your wife and your children will never die prematurely. Your children will become great men and women. They will be known throughout the world for great things.”

“It's okay. Thank you.” I try to put a stop to his marathon round of prayer.

He comes to stand by my side. He watches as passenger buses come and go, and as people struggle to get inside them, and the conductors smiling at the kill.

Some thirty minutes after, the obnoxious rush hour is over. The bus stop and the adjoining roadsides are empty except for the ever trickling -in passengers and the roadside traders making brisk business, unmindful of the illegality of what they do and the risk involved. I had witnessed a scene where the driver of a truck lost the control of his charge due to faulty brakes. It ran over some roadside traders and killed over a dozen of them.

Now, when buses come, there are no more overzealous passengers fighting themselves to board them. The conductors are now the deprived underdogs they should be, no more kings. They have to shout themselves hoarse to get enough passengers to fill their buses. So, when the bus I decide to board comes, and its conductor howling: Olodo! Iyana Church! Olodo! Iyana Church! I step in like a king, no human encumbrance. The transport fare to Olodo has reverted back to seventy naira. There are now too many of them but few passengers. The boy comes in after me. I sit down and he perches on my lap. Other passengers start to come in, intermittently. Ten minutes later, the bus takes off.

Half a kilometer from the bus stop, the boy turns his head up and looks into my eyes. He forces a tortured smile. His teeth are colored and his lips are dry and lacerated. His many lacks are obvious. I wish I can do something to ease his pains, especially in areas of his education -- going to and fro school, pocket money, good uniform and textbooks.

“I have not taken any food today,” he said. It is not a lie; I can see it in his eyes despite his efforts to look cheerful and happy.

“I know," I say to him.” When we get down, I will give you some money to buy food.”

He mumbles a thank you and turns his face away. I find myself thinking about him now. Perhaps his parents are dead. Perhaps they are not dead but divorced. Perhaps they are neither dead nor divorced but unemployed and therefore poor. I will ask him when we alight. I don't like talking in public buses. It is crude. I congratulate myself for not having married at forty. I don't want to give birth to children that would live this wretched because I can't provide for them. Let them stay back in God's heaven and continue enjoying the paradisiacal bliss or look for more deserving parents who have the means to pamper them. It is too hot here. For me I may not marry if things don't change for better or I find means of leaving for Dubai or South Africa or USA.

We are now approaching Iyana Church, we are at a place called Bizengolf, named after a dysfunctional agricultural company, I discovered that the boy is becoming heavier in my hold. I draw him to me and his head lolls sideway. I shake him roughly: Wake up! Wake up! I don't even know his name. I look all about. My heart is palpitating.

We are now at Iyana Church, and the bus has come to a stop. People are rushing down and the boy does not get off my lap to jump down. He can never jump down again. He is mute. He doesn't breathe again. He is dead. Just like that. My God! What can I do?

I do nothing, except telling the suspicious world my gory tale. Nobody pities me. Nobody believes me either. Nobody believes anything here again because people can do and undo any conceivable thing. The thronging tormentors believe I have killed the boy for some money making rituals. There are many ways people use now to use people for rituals. They are very negatively creative and ingenious. I end up spending five years in detention for my tragic kindness. But throughout my period of incarceration, I don't regret what I do: I help a boy in need, I will do it a million times again.

Setu, February 2018