Category: Action

Chicken Run

Life comes at you fast and it does not matter how fast or how strong or how smart you are, one day the penny will drop and it will be you. It would be your turn.

Life comes at you fast and it does not matter how fast or how strong or how smart you are, one day the penny will drop and it will be you. It would be your turn.

It was not always like this, you know. Someone said, it is always the law abiding ones you need to watch out for. He was right. He was referencing me when he said this, but that doesn’t stop him from being right. I was a law abiding one. Maybe that is what started this; my love for the law, for order and stability and a proper and just way of doing things. I paid my taxes, had all my complete papers, paid my bills on time, and never as much as made a turn without signalling first. It did not stop me from being pulled over regularly by the police though. It is Bushiria, and every marginally successful looking young person is a potential criminal until proven otherwise.

May 15, 2021. I remember the date as vividly as anything else in my life. I and my girlfriend has been returning that evening from a party. It was perhaps 5pm, so you can tell, it was not that kind of party. One of her girls has turned twenty-nine and they were celebrating her last year before the big 3-0. We got pulled over at the checkpoint. A routine check, they said. After five minutes of going through my papers and licenses, several times and asking countless questions, the lead officer; a Corporal, by his stripes, leaned closer to me and went:

“So, anything for us, young man?”

Being a law abiding citizen, bribery is one of the things I detest the most. I play my cards straight and follow all the rules so I do not have to pay bribes to get anything done. Now, here was this idiot, demanding one irrespective. To make matters worse, if there is anything I hate more than bribes, it is being patronized. It was there, the way the officer smiled, “young man”, the ugly stains in his teeth, the way he leaned towards me, I wanted to burst.

He noticed my hesitation, mistaking my countenance for contemplation or something and he continued, still smiling that stupid, ugly, ugly grin.

“You know say e easy to put exhibit for inside your moto. Na wetin people dey do, but me dey ask. Make your woman no come start to dey cry.”

And that was the moment I snapped.

It was not the threat to place an unlicensed gun or bullets or drugs in my car, or how it would make my girlfriend feel that changed everything. No. It was nothing like that. It was the thought of how easy it was. How easy it was for a police officer to just plant false evidence and indict an innocent person, forcing them to commit a crime, to bribe. How terrible the police force was that such a thing could happen under their watch, within their ranks, and there was nothing that could be done for it.

So, I snapped.

When I wrenched the AK-47 from his hands, it was on pure instinct. I whirled, allowing my elbow catch him in the face. His nose split open audibly. That I possessed enough strength to do that, that the nerve endings in my elbow suddenly erupted in agony barely registered above my subconscious, I was still moving. I shoved the rifle into the arms of the other officer standing beside me, causing him to drop his gun on the floor. Then holding the barrel of the rifle in both hands, I clubbed both men until the crumpled unconsciously to the ground.

I was not seeing their faces as I hit them. It was not Corporal Baboon or the other fellow, whose name tag or face, I cannot recall even now. I was not seeing those indolent, underpaid louts. I was seeing the system, the faceless men behind it all. The ones who did not pay enough, did not hire enough, did not equip enough, and so forced these men into these despicable acts of criminality. I was deaf to the cries at that moment, deaf to the screams of my girlfriend in the car or the passers-by who raced away in the rapidly emptying street. I did not hear anything, did not see anything, not until I stopped.

“Get in the car,” I said quietly to my girlfriend who was now standing beside me, staring at the bloody mess of flesh on the tarmac, her hands at her sides, her eyes blank, catatonic.

She did not argue as she normally would have. She simply entered into the car. Still gripping the barrel of the rifle, whose butt was slick with blood and what seemed like bits of skin and hair, I entered after her and started the car. Then I remembered, there had been three officers at the checkpoint when I stopped. I could see the last man running down the road.

I gunned the car.

***

Burying the gun was out of the question. I simply threw it in a culvert close to the house. Getting the girlfriend to keep quiet about the thing was another matter entirely. By the time she recovered from her catatonia, she kept babbling, begging and threatening me in turns to stop the car and go back to the police.

“I won’t tell anyone baby. I promise. I would never. Not on my life. But you have to tell the police. You have to turn yourself in.”

She, I buried.

I borrowed my neighbour’s car, told him I wanted to drop my girl off at the car park. When I got to Zoobadan Garage, I offered to drive her to Zoobadan myself, ostensibly so we could talk. She believed me. I strangled her and buried her body somewhere in the bushes past the Foresamu overpass. Then I returned to Woodgos.

But it was not enough.

I could not help the boiling anger that still coursed through me every time I saw a police checkpoint that week. Every time I saw another group of young people being mistreated by the police on social media, I wanted to burst. How were they not learning? How did the death of three of their officers not strike some fear into them? How come they were still acting with all impunity?

In the evening of the next Saturday, I drove out. It had been a week and as typical, there was no investigation. Not one single image of the incident had been caught on camera. There was no suspect, no real ones anyway. A bunch of people had been grabbed off the street the day after and paraded in front of cameras, beaten, humiliated, and then coerced to pay bribes to get free. In all, it only served to fuel my ire.

So when I drove up to the checkpoint on that lonely road, wearing a snapback cap, shorts, a tank top and gold bracelet son my wrist, I must have looked like the usual soft target. I was the only one at the checkpoint, surrounded by armed police officers. Another one, ripe for the plucking. Another innocent in whose car they would plant marijuana and extort 15,000 Shakira.

I did not give them the chance.

“Young man, please turn off your car and step out of the vehicle.”

I did.

One officer pretended to engage me in a conversation about my papers, while the other one poked his head into the back seat. The third officer was on the other side of the car.

“Ehen! What do we have here?” the one with his head in my car started. “This looks like igb…”

I shoved the door hard as he was bringing out his head from the car. The door jamb cracked against his skull, causing him to yell. At the same moment, I grabbed for the gun of the one in front of me. He was a smaller man than Corporal Baboon, but I did not have quite the element of surprise as I had had before. He did not let go of his gun.

So, while I grappled with him, his colleague writhing on the floor in pain, I heard a crack as the third officer cocked his gun.

Many education psychologists have theorized the veracity of passive learning. Is it possible for someone, like Neo in The Matrix to simply learn a physical skill like fighting, from countless hours of being exposed to it visually? Maybe it isn’t, but there is no better explanation for what happened next.

No explanation for how, I with no formal military or otherwise offensive training, suddenly twisted to put the officer I was grappling with between myself and the third officer with the gun. The sound of the gun shot was loud and jarring. The bullet thudded into the first officer’s back with an audible thwack.

“Yaaai! Fuck!” the last officer screamed.

I kicked off the dying body, sliding back the hammer to cock the rifle in my hands in the same motion, and fired a short burst into the stomach of the last officer before the first officer’s body hit the floor. To finish up, I returned the rifle’s safety and moving deliberately around the car, clubbed each officer in the head till I was certain they were not breathing. I left the back of weed they had been planning on planting in my car on the body of one of the officers and drove home.

***

This time around, I was famous.

I was not alone on the street that day. Twitter user @Ogbosky_JUJU had been walking home, intent on passing the checkpoint while the officers were busy with me when I had exploded into action. Dropping his backpack of school books, with recessed portions where he hid the pills and marijuana he peddled, he hid behind an empty kiosk and made a video.

I woke at 5am the next morning as a celebrity. Social media was agog with the arguments, left wing and right wing arguing about the extremism of the violence, the tie in with the previous incident and the abundant theories as to the legality of it all. Above everything was the question of who I was. It did not take long for me to be identified from the video. It actually took less than 12 hours and it was not done by the police. Certain individuals, skilled at ferreting information for countless twitter wars, had linked all my social media accounts and found my address less than 2 hours after I woke. Then someone mentioned the police handle on the information.

By the time I was walking out of my house at about 8:30am that Sunday morning, I was more than famous. I was infamous. Getting to my car and driving to an ATM sufficiently far, but close enough, took about 20 mins. I had only the basic essentials in the car, two changes of clothes and a toothbrush. I withdrew 300,000 Shakira using two bank cards, then I started driving. I did not know where I was going, but I was determined to go. I would have disappeared. I think I would have but, the police had some help again. My banks divulged my withdrawal information, then my internet service provider my whereabouts. I heard all this on the radio while I drove but by then, it was too late, they were on my heels.

It had taken a week for my life to unravel, to spill everywhere like a bucket made of sieves. I knew I was doomed, doomed as surely as the devil himself. Not only was my story going to be a mess in the telling and retelling, but if I lived long enough for trial, I would be in the worst pains possible. No, damn it.

Disclaimer

  • Violence is never the answer
  • This is clearly a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, as well as places or systems existing is purely coincidental.
  • Learn, please.

Nwin-Nwin: The Legend Begins

Dedicated to the most self-less man I ever knew and the few stories he could tell me

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In Africa, the sun rises and sets without warning, and the winds blow through the old forests with the songs of legends, the marks of their passing staining the blood-red sands.

And some of those legends are true.

******

In the old Edo, the first true black civilization, the empire was home to many tribes and cultures. Bound together by the Obas who ruled after the era of the Ogisos, the sky kings, it stretched almost five thousand miles in either direction; from the steppes of the Dahomey to the swamps of the Niger Delta. Within were the Itshekiri, the Etsako, the proud Ijaws and Urhobos, the noble Esan, the big and powerful Binis and the Igbos both west and east of the Niger River. All paid homage to the Oba and in turn were blessed by him, for the Oba was more than just a man, the Oba was king, the Oba was god on Earth.

Oba ghato kpe e!

The Bini empire was called Edo and it was powerful, the envy of the neighboring kingdoms to the west and the north. Their trade guilds employed the most skilled of artisans; blacksmiths and hunters, their warriors, soldiers from birth, trained in the knife, spear and hand-to-hand combat, and also in the finer arts of war and strategy and juju. It was strategy that led to the building of the Bini moats and high wall which surround the capital of the Edo Empire at Benin City, till this day. Moats that were built with the aid of giants enslaved and brought from across the deserts. Strategy and wisdom, both physical and spiritual.

The warriors who came from all over the kingdom, all swore allegiance to the throne of the Oba, and whether Esan or Ijaw, all spoke the lingua franca, a bastardization of the Bini language, known as the Edo language. Within this military were special cadres, the strategists, the juju priests and the elite warriors. This is a story of one of those elite warriors, and as with such tales, it began at night… Continue reading “Nwin-Nwin: The Legend Begins”

War

It is easy to ignore what happens around us, in the spiritual. We live on this earth so surrounded by desires and commitments, so overwhelmed by cares of this world, we pay no attention to the war that happens around us, a war that would not stop until the end; until the end of all things. We were born into this war, and it is wise we pay attention, or we would not survive it.

#OST: Linkin Park – Wastelands

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WAR

The night was dark and the wind howled around the treetops, swaying them beneath the starless sky. The scent of danger lay thickly upon the air, a pungent smell easily detected by the more visceral senses, and on the ground and within the branches, creatures hid in nests and burrows, and even the serpentine and nocturnal slithered and crouched deep away from sight.

The dark shapes streaked through the clouds, crackling through the air with lightening in their wake, nebulous forms as of thundery dark and winding clouds, they twisted about each other, moving through the air heading for the forest below. Spiraling around each other, the dark clouds spun in the night, winding tighter and tighter as though to drill into the earth. Sparrows cried in the night, bats shrieked and owls hooted, a cacophony of calls and wails as the forest protesting the intrusion. The shapes tore through the forest canopy with the sound of rushing wings and slammed into a clearing at three distinct spots. Instantly all went silent as the dark shapes resolved into the forms of three women. Continue reading “War”

The Recruit

I initially wrote this for Jeremy Target’s blog,you can see the original post here.

Anyway, I thought about making this into a sort of series, but let us see what we think about this first. If you are a lover of Espionage and spy thrillers and of course, if you are familiar with the awesomeness that is Codename: Ali then you are welcome.

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The Recruit

November.

East-West road, Choba

5:35am

“Move you fool! Is that all you are capable of? You giant lummox of a fellow! Come on, move those feet ma fren! Would you call yourself a champion? Would you call yourself a leader of men when you can’t achieve a single goal? Run fool!”

Cars whizzed past him on both sides in the early morning light, their headlights making wavy yellow lines in the misty harmattan morning. He jogged on the median of the road, the white nylons and trainers a blurry piston to the pedestrians and motorists. At this hour, the sidewalk and the median, which had become a sudden favourite for pedestrian commuters, was mostly empty. As far as he could see in the mist, he was alone on the median, just how he liked it. Ahead of him loomed the big Setraco mile marker. The stone block was his goal, only two hundred yards from him, but still so far. Essien was alone with his thoughts, and his voice to berate him.

“How do you ever hope to be reckoned with? How will you raise your head above your peers? You fat, ugly, un-fit fuck! Run! Don’t stop now, the goal is no further than the next step idiot!” he cursed, the words puffing out his lips with each breath in small clouds of mist as the mile marker seemed to belie his words, retreating further into the mist.

“Now, I have found self-flagellation to be a suitable motivator, but never so vehemently,” came the smooth voice beside him.

Continue reading “The Recruit”

Zelophehad’s seed

So, I was reading the Bible in church the other day – yes, I do study, and I sorta stumbled on this. And a story grew. Enjoy…

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Zelophehad’s seed

Her father stood at the summit of the mountain, his arms spread out as though to fly or to catch a draft of the wind. The base wind tore at his robes, the air smoky and dense with ash and flinty sparks. At the foot of the mountain a fire seemed to rage, the reddish glow a foreboding backdrop to the man who stood with arms outspread.

“No…” she breathed as she ran towards him, the mountain seeming to become steeper with each step. Below she could hear the sound of jubilation, raucous laughter, the shadows of what seemed as waving arms all reaching for her father. Zelophehad grinned in the light of the flames below, the tongues dancing in his eyes, then he stepped off the edge of the mountain, his robes flapping wildly as he fell.

“Noooo!” Milcah screamed, her hands clutching the empty air as she reached for her father, to see him fall into the fiery darkness, and jolted awake.

It was dark. Looking through the flaps of her tent, she could see the sky, billions of lights danced across the dark blue floor of the firmament, Jehovah’s eyes; the portents of things to come. She got up from her bed, her clothes rustling as she made her way through the mess of pans and skinning knives to the entrance. Standing there, a willowy silhouette, she stared at the night sky and wondered what portent her dream might hold. I wonder how long Father has to foray this time. When would he come home?

Then she heard the scream.

*****

Mahlah held the rabbit by the ears and slipping the knife into the flesh at the throat, skinned the entire animal in one cut. She dropped the skin into the bowl, and began to dissect the rabbit to remove the entrails. On the floor beside her was a narrow tipped, red fletched arrow, one of Noah’s. Several other animals lay on the dirt beside her, their eyes almost lifelike that one would almost believe they lived, but for the arrows sticking out of their throats. Thank Jehovah for Noah’s aim, and the extra food. Noah was easily one of the best shots among the people, everyone knew her aim was uncanny. Not once had she put many a boy to shame in an archery contest, her arrows finding mark in whatever she set her sights on. Oh, that she would find a man soon. Already she was eighteen.

The knife twisted through Mahlah’s fingers, her mind absent, yet her fingers deftly skinning the rabbits in expert strokes that broke no blood. Strange how she should be bemoaning Noah’s insistence that the time had not come to find or even be found by a man. She herself was to be twenty come next Hannukah and yet to be joined before the tabernacle. Though for her, it wasn’t a matter of decision, circumstances beyond her control had dictated it so. She thought of Obed then, and that fateful night as he stole into her tent, his scent filling the small space. She had awoken to his smell, the male virility that poured off him, washing wave over wave upon her desire. Her nostrils had flared, drinking him in, as she reached for his body, her body taut and stiffened peaks of need. Oh, how she had wanted him that day. The knife slid into the furrows of the last rabbit’s neck. But for the scream. Mahlah shook her head. And now, she could not marry. Not anytime soon.

It had been four months now and Obed rarely came back to camp, always out scouting the Promised. She knew he avoided her. Mahlah, put the skin into the bowl.

*****

Tirzah sat upon a rock overlooking the camp. It was a favourite spot of most of the teenagers. The cliff-face of the rock gave a birds-eye view of the entire camp; tents and tents stretching to the lip where the earth kissed the sun. At night with the sky dotted with light, and one could see clearly through the crisp desert air, the beauty of Jehovah in the pillar of fire that rose into the sky. Oh hallelujah! Those were the best times. The camp lights flickering below her, the people moving about like gaily arrayed ants, above the angels flitting about the stars making them twinkle and sparkle, and from her father’s harp sweet melodies even the LORD could not ignore. Then they would dance, light feet skipping on the rocks, Zelophehad was the nimblest of men, his feet barely touching the floor as he twirled and spun, dancing from rock to rock. Tirzah blinked back tears. She said she wouldn’t cry again.

“Look! There she is, the sinner! Daughter of a sinner!”

Tirzah turned to see the boys as they walked towards her. It was Becher and Tahen and their brothers.

“Crying again? Your father was an evil man, perhaps your tears might save your own soul,” laughed Becher.

Tirzah got down from the rock, her back stiff as she tried to ignore them and walk away.

“Look! She is running,” it was Tahen. “He has to be in hell now. Only the souls of those whose hearts are pure may go to paradise. But those the ground swallows up are doomed forever. Cursed!”

Tirzah whirled, her plaited queue flying as she spoke. “You are an ugly fool, Tahen, and all your brothers. My father may be dead, but better than yours. Cursed is the man who lies with an animal, and surely your mother must be a pig because that snout you have can belong to none less ugly.”

Tahen reddened, his face contorting into a snarl as he lunged for her. Smoothly, she sidestepped to her left, her right hand reaching to smack the back of his head almost playfully as he sailed into the dust.

“I may be wrong,” she danced on the balls of her feet. “She may be a clumsy goat after all. Who else would fall for an oaf such as your father?”

The other brothers, all growling now, surrounded her, fanning into a semi-circle pushing her backwards towards a large rock that jutted out of the ground. Tirzah backed up. They were all larger than she was, but she wasn’t scared. Dan, Tahen’s older brother, brought out a switch, his evil face in a grin. That was when she knew they must have planned it before coming. Tirzah backed away some more, her heart beginning to race now. Maybe she had pushed them too far. Going into a crouch; all her weight on her left leg which she kept backwards, she kept her right foot forward and ready to be lashed out. Tirzah drew up her dress, exposing toned thighs the colour of warm caramel. Maybe she could take them, they were only seven. At that moment, an arrow whistled through the air and thudded firmly into the ground mere inches from Dan’s toe, the red feather fletching waving in the breeze.

“Don’t you think seven is a bit too much for one girl,” her older sister’s voice drawled.

Tirzah glanced up at the rock behind her, grinning widely. Noah sat there carelessly, a man’s breeches showing from underneath her dress as she swung her legs over the edge, another arrow already nocked almost lazily to the bow.

*****

“You shouldn’t tease them so,” said Noah as they walked home, the line of sullen boys in the distance ahead of them.

“And you should teach me how to shoot, then I may not need to,” replied her spitting image of a younger sister.

Noah was beautiful in a dusky Midianese way, her olive green eyes wide and yet flinty, the long lashes giving them a smoky luster set off by the sensuousness of her lips. She was laughing now, her long limbs swinging as she skipped down the side of the mountain back to the camp.

“Father and I have already taught you Ramses fist, what more would you learn?”

“Milcah says it is more of a dance than an art of fighting”

“With Milcah, everything is a dance or a dream,” replied Noah.

“What has Milcah done now?” asked Hoglah, appearing suddenly from behind a rock outcropping, a basket of herbs under her arm. “And what have you girls done to the band of crybabies I saw walk past me cursing deeper than an army of Amalekites?”

The two other sisters, each a copy of the other, burst out laughing.

*****

“What are Shemida’s men doing here?” queried Noah furiously as she burst into her sister’s tent, her olive eyes flashing angrily. Mahlah silenced her with a look. Noah fell silent, and went to stand behind her sister. The five of them; Mahlah, Noah, Milcah, Hoglah and Tirzah, all stood hands clasped in front of them and watched the man sitting before them being attended by six others in leather jerkins, heavy wooden cudgels in their belts.

Shemida looked up from the ledger being read to him, “Ah, my daughter Noah. Good, you are all here.”

“Yes we are, now get on with it.”

Noah started, staring at Mahlah. She had never heard such intensity in her older sister’s voice. That was usually her line. Suddenly she was afraid, whatever would make Mahlah so angry must be really serious.

Shemida paused for a second, his ingratiating grin never leaving his face. “Your father has been dead four months now, may his soul find embrace in the bosom of our father Abraham, and I have allowed you enough time to put your things together. According to the law, since he had no sons, all that he had, including you girls now belongs to me,” he licked his wet lips. “I have decided to take possession after the tabernacle meeting tomorrow, where I will make my intention known to the people. So do well to…”

“No! Never! You will never!” spat Noah. “Our father did no wrong! He never cursed GOD! He was not swallowed up!”

“It is the law child,” smiled Shemida as he sauntered out, his men in tow.

Milcah collapsed on the chair, her head in her hands. Her two younger sisters sat at her feet, eyes all turned to Mahlah. Noah opened her mouth to speak, but Mahlah raised up a finger. “Milcah, go make sure they’ve all gone, then come back. I have a plan.”

*****

Eran crouched in the olive basket, his ears trained to detect the slightest sound. He had watched from the shadows as the little Zelophehad girl scouted the perimeter of their tent, then doubled on her to sneak into the basket. Heard when she announced triumphantly that there was no one about. Eran giggled to himself. No one indeed. Everyone knew who was the lightest footpad in all the people; trained by Caleb himself. He giggled again and listened to hear even further. They were hatching a plan just as Shemida had thought. Silly girls. Eran had to marvel at their bravery though, he almost felt sad for what Shemida would do to them.

*****

The tabernacle of the Ark of Jehovah stood in the middle of the camp, the other dwellings radiating from it for miles around. It was a large structure, the huge tent which housed the ark surrounded by heavy wood pillars which fenced off an area around it within which the white-robed priest and blue sashed Levites could be seen moving. It was the law, upon a certain day, all were to gather at the tabernacle as they made their offerings unto Jehovah and asked for forgiveness of their sins and received instructions on what to do next. Shemida gave his orders quickly to his men, each of them placing a hand on the ram as they filed away. There would be no sin and whatever might be committed, the ceremony started soon and once the priest took the ram, their sins would be absolved as the ram was slain, and with it all ties to the Zelophehad line cut from the world. He could remember his joy that night when the scream had woken almost the whole camp; Zelophehad under all those rocks, not much more than his arms the only things showing.

“He has been swallowed up!” he had screamed too, first in genuine shock, then in earnest as he realized what that would mean.

The Hebrew man drew his kaffiyeh across his mouth as a wind blew from the west kicking dust and sand. Oh, he could not wait to leave this godforsaken desert and live in a city again. It had been forty years now, and though he remembered little of Egypt, he had been little more than a child at the Passover, but it had to be better there. Oh, look what the girls were making him think. Jehovah forgive me. He slapped the head of the ram. Take my sin. He would not be swallowed up.

Take my sin.

*****

Hoglah walked in between the tents, through the back alleyways of the camp. Mahlah’s instructions had been explicit. For no reason were they to walk in the thoroughfare where they would be seen by all. As they made their way to the tabernacle, they would each go singly through the side ways in the shadowy corners, easy prey for those who would attack them. Or so it would seem.

Hoglah could understand. She had understood Mahlah’s motives without explanation, like Noah with her warrior’s mind, Hoglah thought herself to be adept with strategy. It had been their father’s bane to have no sons, but daughters. After their mother died, not long after the birth of Tirzah, he had begun to train them in the arts of the warriors and priests, and also feminine arts of music and dance, for Zelophehad had been a skilled dancer. Each of them could stalk a rabbit up to two paces, and could skin a bear if they had to, and kill a man when the occasion called for it. Her father, their dear father, all he had ever asked in return for the doting he showered, was obedience. Simple obedience. And that was where Hoglah had failed.

“Go get the herbs Hoglah.”

But she had wanted to play with her friends. It wasn’t like she couldn’t get the herbs and return. She had been stubborn. Disobedient. She hadn’t gone. And then there was no light left, and father had climbed the cliff face alone in the dark, so dark he hadn’t seen the crumbling handhold he had hewn in himself so long ago. So dark he didn’t see the fissure that had been growing in the rock. So late had he been climbing, so angry had he been at his stubborn daughter, it had been too late when he saw. And father fell, the landslide toppling rocks upon him, one after another, as his screams rent the night. Cursed is he who the land swallows. But it was the mountain who fell on father. And now, she would pick herbs all the time, for all who needed, all who asked.

Out of the shadows of one of the tents a figure leapt out, a tall man in leather, holding a cudgel and a wicked-looking knife. “Now girl, all you have to do is go back home, and I would not hurt you,” the man smiled.

Hoglah just kept walking towards him. The man lifted his cudgel to strike her. Moving with the swiftness of a cobra, she darted under his arm, the skinning knife flashing out from under her basket of herbs, striking him under his right arm. Twisting around his back, she tore the sharp knife across his back, ripping open leather, flesh and sinew. The man arched his back and neck as the beginnings of a scream began in his chest. Hoglah slit his throat from behind.

She was walking away, knife once more hidden in her basket of leaves when his knee thudded to the ground, his throat a gurgling mess.

“Make sure they attack you first,” Mahlah had said.

*****

Tirzah slid between his legs, her knees scraping the dirt, and reached upwards as her knife sliced off his manhood. The man made to scream as Milcah leapt into the air, the flat of her fingers slamming into his throat paralyzing it in an Anubis strike. The man’s face went blue as he suffocated on the scream of pain his lungs tried to force upwards through the constricted trachea.

Across the tents to their left, the people thronged on the thoroughfare, none looked in their direction.

“Make sure they make no sound, we will not call for attention,” Mahlah had said.

*****

Noah danced.

The five men came at a rush, their eyes furious, mouths open in silent yells. Maybe someone had told them about their fallen comrades. Good. They were afraid. Slipping an arrow out of the quiver strapped to her side, she gripped it in her hand like a dagger and waited. The first man came and she lashed out with her right foot, kicking him to the side, her left arm blocking the thrust of the second man, the arrow in her hand plunging into his neck. She retrieved the arrow, already moving before the blood spurted. She sidestepped the next blow, got under the arm of the attacker and using her shoulder, she broke it and twisted around to stab at his neck from the other side, before dancing in again.

“Whatever happens, leave them dead,” Mahlah had said.

*****

Mahlah walked into the congregation, her head bowed. The black shawl she wrapped around her head doing little to hide the determination in her eyes. Behind her, she led a small goat, the neck bound with sacrificial hempen. Two men dislodged themselves from the crowd and came at her from both sides. Giving no indication that she had seen them until one of the men made to grab her arm, she twisted her hand suddenly like a snake, her nails digging into the man’s flesh as she pulled him close. The force of the pull jerked him downwards and her knee caught him at the underside of his throat in a sickening crunch. The other fellow produced a knife. She dodged his thrust, leaning backwards, letting the knife hand sail in front of her. Then using her left knee to the small of his back, propelled him forward and yanking on his knife hand, plunged his knife into his throat. The man fell.

The crowd scattered, some running to the side, most yelling for Moses. Mahlah stood still as a loose circle of space opened up around her. She stood still even as her sisters joined her and the soldiers surrounded them, spears leveled at the ready. Her sisters seemed uninjured, though their clothes were bloodied and Hoglah was without her bag of leaves. All the while she had not let go of her goat. Moses stood before them, his eyes an angry white storm. “What have you done?” his voice was thunder.

“We have committed no sin here,” answered Mahlah, her voice cool. “We were attacked by men who would kill us and steal from us, would we not defend ourselves? These men were hired by him!” she pointed at Shemida, who had been trying to disappear into the throng. “And we have brought a sacrifice to plead for mercy.”

One of the soldiers, the son of Nun, grabbed Shemida out of the crowd and threw him at Moses’ feet. The white bearded leader ignored the pleading man. Moses glared at them for what seemed to be an eternity, then he gestured for Eleazar the priest to collect the goat.

“We also come with a grievance before the LORD, and we shall not enter the tabernacle to say it,” added Mahlah.

Moses raised a white eyebrow.

From the fourth book of Moses also known as the Book of Numbers, what comes next is found in chapter 27 verses 1 – 10.

Disclaimer

  • This is a work of fiction, all characters however are based on actual persons though dead, as recorded by the Bible
  • All events may or may not have occurred however, depending on if one would attribute the source of my inspiration to the Holy Spirit of GOD
  • I have never been accused of feminism, and in fact may be the most chauvinistic man alive

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GOD bless you, and GOD bless Nigeria. Peace.

Codename: Strike Back [a Mrs Adebowale story]

The Beggar got up and stretched. The sun was still shining, but the road was so empty. He had heard gunshots a few seconds ago, but there was silence now. Probably started loading the merchandise. He retrieved a black handgun from his Ghana-must-go bag. It was a Glock P29, the dark green polymer grip belying the fastidiousness of the owner. He checked the magazine. It was full. In his pockets were two other magazines. It was usually enough.

Ehm..first of all, lemme say it has been a while since I wrote here. Been uber-busy, started a strategic solutions company this year and with Masters and stuff there’s hardly ever any time.
But I have some stuff for us. Right Teleola?

T-baby: Yelz…

So just be ehm..expectant. In this story, I revive and bring in proximity two of my favourite characters: Mrs Adebowale and the enigmatic Codename: Ali. So ehm..I want you to do me a favour, while dropping your comments, do mention any of mine or Teleola’s more popular characters you would like to see again. Fastest finger or most mentioned character gets it.

Deal? Correct. Oya enjoy…

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CODENAME: STRIKE BACK! [A MRS ADEBOWALE STORY]

Thursday, 6:05am
Upper Siluku

Mama Dotun didn’t look like what anyone would call motherly. Her surly mouth with its downward corners and the constantly disapproving glint to her eye, marred at the edges by the scarred lines of native BIni tribal marks gave her instead a look that bordered on gargoyle. But when the well-dressed young man apparently on his way to work that morning stopped to help her carry one of her coolers into the taxi, she almost smiled; an expression which took her wizened face to full gargoyle.

They shared the taxi, she and the young man, and he helped her bring down her coolers when they got to her stop; hopping out of the vehicle and over to the boot before she could lift her 123kg bulk out of the taxi. Out they were, and neatly arranged in a row, five coolers and she could even smell a whiff of the beef stew she had prepared coming from one of them. Before she could turn around to thank him, the young man had disappeared. So she simply mumbled a small prayer for him, wishing him success his endeavours and a pretty wife who would be obedient and bear good, respectful children.

“That boy just now, na your pikin?” asked one of the soldiers breaking into her thoughts.

Mama Dotun looked at him, the force of her baleful glare at full beam. “Ehen na! I have children everywhere. You no go do go marry, Sule,” she replied without missing a beat. “Make you for get your own pikin.”

The other soldiers guffawed at how neatly Mama Dotun had slammed Sule.

“Haaay! Sule see how Mama Dotun just finish you. No levo! Go marry oh!”

Sule for his own part just grinned. “Oya Mama Dotun, give me rice and stew with plenty beans and  kpomo oh!”

“AH! I no dey sell kpomo again oh! You no know say government talk say make dem no dey sell kpomo?” she replied with her gargoyle smile.

“Na lie!” the soldiers chorused in their early morning ritual as Mama Dotun opened one of the coolers to reveal a steaming bowl of kpomo, glistening in red stew. The same cooler Sule could swear he saw Mama Dotun’s son open earlier. But it was her son, so no problem.

“Na me ask first oh!” he grunted, setting his rifle down and moving forward.

******

Across the road, the tattered umbrella above his matted bushy head throwing a shadow across his dirty face, a beggar sat on the walkway pavement, in the shadow between a small hedge and the abutment of the wall behind him. Clutched tightly among his rags was a dirty Ghana-must-go bag, his black gnarled fingers curled around it in a powerful grip. His only possessions, he would die if any tried to take it away. The soldiers ignored him and so he watched the drama in front of him, keen, intelligent eyes missing nothing.

He had been sitting in front of the building for two weeks now and the routine rarely varied. And he didn’t miss anything. He had seen the young man slip some droplets of an odourless, tasteless liquid into the stew. But he had made no sign.

The plan did not call for it.

2:12pm
Sapele road

 

Mrs Adebowale drifted.

The Rav-4 slid around the bus and into the Ring road. She had been thinking about work again. These blasted people would not kill her. The Managing Director had goofed again, but rather than admit it, he had called her phone and told her the payment she had authorized at the Bank that morning had to be rescinded. He had just discovered the Senate committee was coming to review the projects on Monday and the project had not been completed. If the contractor got the money, the backlash would come to them. So could she rush back to the Bank before end of work so the payment could be stopped before it was approved, and be a dear about it. Thank you. Like he probably hadn’t collected a bribe from the contractor to approve the payment and was only now trying to cover his ass.

She had been thinking about what words she would need to convince the accountants at the Bank to stop the transaction or to rescind it if it had already occurred when the bus in front of her had stopped abruptly, close to the junction. Without thinking, she had yanked her steering to the left and then all the way to the right while slamming on her brakes and somehow the SUV slid to the left and away from collision with mere inches to spare.

Mrs Adebowale kept driving without sparing a word for the driver. Maniac! Only immature people exchanged retorts on the road anyway. She had more important things at stake. She wondered if the man had ever seen five hundred million naira before, even in words. Nonsense! That one no just be person.

She kept driving, rolling into the Akpakpava road just after Sakponba and the first gate there. She horned before the soldiers came to open the gate, which was odd. They were usually so alert. Well, look at that sun. Who can blame anyone? She drove in.

 

2:54pm
Ring road, Benin city

 

Situated at the centre of the modern Benin city, the ring road has always been there since 1472 and the advent of the Portuguese who first called Benin a city. A massive roundabout, the biggest in Africa, it was connected in a radial pattern to the major roads which ran like arteries through the city, serving abutments as streets and minor roads. Behind the ring was the palace of the Oba, royal and spiritual leader of all Benin, giving life to the saying that all life flowed from the Oba who was the centre and all life flowed to the Oba who was centre. Aerial views of the city showed cars scurrying back and forth and around the ring in their hundreds and thousands like cells in the vessels of the huge organism that was Benin City.

One of such cells came to an abrupt stop on its passage around the ring, right in front of the Prince Aruaran statue that dominated the Sakponba road junction. The Toyota Tundra with closed-bed truck, emitted a groan and a sputter and belched out enough smoke to rival your average Asian volcano, then shuddered to a still. Two men exited the vehicle, their stocky, well-muscled physiques and loose-fitted t-shirts making them almost identical. They began waving their arms and arguing indistinctly obviously trying to blame each other for the car’s mechanical failure. One of them proceeded to open the bonnet while the other protested in alarm. In an instant, the air was filled with the steam which issued from the bonnet in a whoosh engulfing the vehicle. Other commuters negotiating the ring quickly gave their distance from the vehicle which looked like it wanted to explode any moment.

“Okay, that might have been a little too much,” one of the men muttered under his breath, his hands still gesticulating wildly.

But it was almost time anyway.

2:59pm
Akpakpava road

 

Fifty-nine…fifty-eight…

 

The well-dressed young man strolled down the road at a steady pace. Above the sun beat mercilessly upon the pavement. Benin city at the end of the rains was always the worst. The heat threatened to drive one mad as it heat up body, soul and mind. This afternoon, the streets were almost empty as most hid themselves in the cooler indoors beneath barely stirring fans and air conditioning units, the only commuters; students and parents just done with school run and scheming excuses not to go back to the office. Artisans and traders crouched deep in their stalls enjoying their quiet lunch while prepping for the evening rush when the sun had gone down in the horizon.

The young man kept walking, his left hand holding his backpack to his side, striding past the Total fuel station, with its frontage of empty yellow and red taxis and buses, passengers preferring to wait under the shade of the fuel station or the umbrellas of the women selling Bole, than to swelter in the burning hot metal boxes. With mere seconds to the top of the hour, he walked past the UBA bank with its front of Bole sellers haggling with customers on the prices of the dry roasted plantain and groundnuts. He walked up to the food stall where he had left Mama Dotun earlier in the morning, her stall now long since locked up as she sold all her food and went to the market to buy more ahead of the next day. He rounded the armoured tank parked beside the stall on his left side, his mind doing a mental count down now.

Five…

The Central Bank of Nigeria, Benin city branch loomed in front of him, the magnetic gates manned by a quintet of guards all in various stages of dozing. To a side, under a shade in front of the main building which the young man knew housed the banking hall, he could see two other guards.

Four…

“Hey you!”

Three…

*****

Sule looked up from the shade in which he sat through bleary eyes. His eyelids felt so heavy and he was so tired. He couldn’t explain it. He had slept early yesterday, so why was he so drowsy this afternoon. Curse this stupid Benin sun! was that Mama Dotun’s son? What was he doing here?

“Hey you!” yelled one of the soldiers at the gate, his voice rough and cracked with sleep. “You can’t walk here. Go back and cross the road”

Mama Dotun’s son simply reached into his bag and retrieving an already cocked Uzi, shot the man in the chest.

Then everything broke loose.

2:59pm
Ring road

 

Odion was driving his father’s car for the first time. Since passing his driving test on Monday, there had been little else on his mind. He had been waiting since he was six for a chance to drive the Mercedes AMG, and now the government had finally agreed that he could. The problem was, the Mercedes was his father’s pride and joy, and possible heir. Odion and his sister often debated quite seriously who would get the last third of their father’s wealth after two-thirds had been willed to the Mercedes. So it was surprising when his father summoned him to the office that afternoon, handed him the keys and after buckling up in the front passenger seat, pointed the way to Ring road. It was a test, Odion knew.

As he negotiated the ring, his head and shoulders hunched forward, his eyes peeled and darting about in careful glances – rearview, side mirror, left, right, forward, repeat, he noticed on his right a man standing beside an obviously faulty truck, smoke or steam issuing from the bonnet. As Odion gave a wide berth, he noticed the man suddenly check his watch, give a sort of signal to his companion across the car from him and both of jump into the car. The truck started up immediately. If that wasn’t odd enough, the men drove off immediately without waiting to put down the bonnet.

What the hell? “Dad, did you just see that?”

“What?” asked his father, absent-mindedly.

Odion watched the truck as it swung into Akpakpava road, pedestrians on the Ring road screaming and jumping out of the way. Crazy people, he thought as he turned his focus back to the road. Then, he heard the gunshots.

3:00pm
Akpakpava, road

 

Sule watched in astonishment as the sergeant dropped to the ground, blood issuing in bubbles from his chest. Mama Dotun’s son? No he couldn’t be Mama Dotun’s son, continued to shoot the ill-prepared soldiers, the Uzi fast against his hip as he made his way into the premises. No, this man was a thief! He was an armed robber! The soldier beside Sule who had recovered, tried to pick up his rife and was instantly felled by a fusillade from a truck that swung out of the Ring into the road. A man was hanging out of the passenger side window and firing an AK-47. One of the bullets took Sule in his side, slamming into his flesh and tearing out the other side into the intricate brickwork of the building behind him. Sule moved then. His body responding slowly to his commands, he grabbed his rifle and tried to run into the building. His body protested as he moved, bits of flesh and gouges of blood splattering to the tarmac. He fell. He didn’t even bother to try and turn and aim and shoot. There was no point.

The well dressed young man sprinted down the ramp towards the main building, as he ran he slung his backpack across his back. On the ground, he could see a soldier trying to crawl towards the building, the well dressed man drilled three holes in the back of the soldier’s head without breaking stride. He needed to get to that door fast. It had taken fifteen seconds since the first shot and all seven soldiers at the gate were dead. He could see a guard through the bulletproof glass racing towards the door to shut it.

They got to the door at the same time.

The well dressed man pulled the door open before the unarmed guard could get purchase, causing the latter to stumble out the doorway and into his waiting knee. The powerful knee slammed into the guard’s gut, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to grunt, the man crashed the Uzi against the guard’s head at the same instant. The guard went cold. The well dressed gunman ran into the banking hall.

*****

Mrs Adebowale was with Thomas Ossai, the Assistant Director Operations, in his office when the first shot rang out.

That was a gunshot!

“Was that a gunshot?” asked the director.

“I don’t know,” she replied. Please find that transaction fast let me leave this place.

The Director’s hand strayed unconsciously towards a spot on his desk obscured from her view by the picture of two smiling girls at a matriculation or convocation in some foreign school. She could see a lot of white people in the background and foreign looking trees. Maybe it was her unconcerned mien as she focused on the picture, but as she glanced up, the director was focused again on his laptop. Then the other shots came in quick succession.

At that moment, the Assistant Director of the CBN made a move which doomed the day. In retrospect, what he should have done seems like something common sense would dictate, but hindsight is always 20/20 and he hadn’t gotten to that position without caring in some respect for his staff.

So it was that Tom Ossai stepped out of his office to the balcony overlooking the banking hall and yelled, “Na here the gunshot dey come from?”

At that moment, the gunman from the Tundra shot the fusillade that crippled Sule, some of the bullets slamming into the bulletproof glass front of the building, and he had his answer. Then, he made his second mistake.

A button on his desk activated security protocols which shut down the entire complex, locking all doors – rest rooms, vaults and offices, for 24 hours, enough time for the authorities to arrive and establish control and uploaded all vital documents to the central database while scrubbing the computers at the branch. He should have run for that button, shut the doors; all the doors.

But sometimes, human reflex is a foolish instinct. “Get away from the windows, take cover under your desks and call or message your friends to inform the police!” he yelled, his hands on the balcony, his neck extended over the edge, his mouth open in a huge bellow. At that moment, the guard who was trying to manually lock the door fell through it and was replaced instantly in the doorway with the well dressed robber. The metal detector squealed.

The Bank officials and customers started screaming.

*****

The gate of the premises opened and the Tundra drove in, as men appeared from the passenger windows and put bullets into everything that moved. As they drove down the tarmac to the rear of the complex they met with half a dozen soldiers near the Vault building that put up a withering counterattack from behind a sandbag blockade. The bullets slammed into the Tundra, hitting the bonnet and pockmarking it. Instantly the driver swung the big truck around, opening the bed at the same time. A man hidden in the bed suddenly rose a six-round M32 grenade launcher shaped like a revolver in his hands. He fired once. The grenade tore apart the blockade, the sand and stones inside having long solidified over years of rains and hard sunshine, peppering the soldiers behind with shrapnel bits of sand and large boulders. The soldiers cried. Quickly before the sand settled, the three other gunmen had disembarked and made short work of the survivors. The Vault was theirs. It had taken ninety-three seconds.

*****

Mrs Adebowale grabbed the stunned Tom Ossai and pulled him backwards into the office as the gunman sprinted up the stairs to the side, heading for them. Heading for them. Mrs Adebowale began to feel the all too familiar stirrings of panic. Slamming the door shut behind her, she whispered frantically, “Do you have a number to call in time of emergency or a panic button?”

Realization dawned in Ossai’s eyes and he pushed her to the side of the door as he turned to round his desk. Bullets suddenly tore through the door, the automatic firepower shredding the door and the desk behind. Ossai jumped to the side, smacking his head against the wall in the process, the hit left a bloody smear. Mrs Adebowale shrieked, curling her legs under her and screaming as the splinters fell. The door banged open and the robber strode in.

“Who is the Assistant Director?” he asked.

Tom Ossai looked up from where he had fallen, his eyes still groggy. The robber just shot him pointblank, the sound of the single bullet echoing even in the noise. He walked to the laptop on the desk. He set his submachine gun down beside the laptop, the barrel pointing uncomfortably in Mrs Adebowale’s direction and within easy reach of the killer. The man’s fingers flew over the laptop at amazing speed typing in specific keystrokes. Then he straightened up and retrieving a flash drive from his backpack, inserted it into the laptop, before checking his wristwatch and smiling. All these he had done in a matter of seconds without even glancing in her direction.

“You bastard,” Mrs Adebowale whispered, adjusting her position among the wood fibres. “you could have just told him to shut up and done what you needed to do. You didn’t have to kill him”

The man finished his work and glanced at her, his face expressionless. Then he grabbed his Uzi.

*****

The Vault entrance slid open, revealing a long corridor with shelves of boxes on both sides of the aisle. One of the men from the Tundra, shoved his Kalashnikov to his side and strode purposefully into the corridor. He knew exactly which shipment he was after, which box to look for. The job was done.

****

It had been less than three hundred and sixty seconds since the operation started and Ring road and indeed the whole of Benin city was in chaos. The area in front of the CBN from the Ring road junction to the PHCN and Forestry road axis was a graveyard. Nothing moved. In the distance, he could hear sirens, but he knew they would get there late. The sheer destructiveness that the robbers had employed had left abandoned cars on the Ring and on the other side of Akpakpava road. He didn’t know how they planned to escape, but he bet on motorcyles. They probably had some stashed close by. Enough to get them far away from here. They were after the shipment. Pity. Everybody was always after the shipment. The Beggar got up and stretched. The sun was still shining, but the road was so empty. He had heard gunshots a few seconds ago, but there was silence now. Probably started loading the merchandise. He retrieved a black handgun from his Ghana-must-go bag. It was a Glock P29, the dark green polymer grip belying the fastidiousness of the owner. He checked the magazine. It was full. In his pockets were two other magazines. It was usually enough.

Ali walked across the road as the shooting began again.

*****

The robber whipped her across the face with the Uzi. The force of the blow snapped her head back so fast, she felt her neck creak. Dragging her by her hair, he tossed her into the glass partition of the balcony. The glass broke as she crashed into it, the shards ripping into her skin and falling down to the now empty banking floor below. All the officials had taken cover, hiding in the smaller offices and restrooms.

“Idiot,” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear, as she tried to scurry away. The robber grabbed her from behind, his arms encircling her waist as he pulled her to her feet. Bent over, Mrs Adebowale pushed backwards to the right to try and pull out of his grip. But he held on. Then she pushed to the left to do the same. The robber grunted, his grip tighter now, feet placed forward to steady himself as he tried to lift the woman and toss her over the balcony. At that moment, Mrs Adebowale remembered a technique from the self-defence class her daughter had started her on since her ordeal last year. Twisting around, she reached down and grabbed the feet of the man and lifting him, slammed him into the ground in one quick motion. As they fell, the man held on, his finger twitching on the Uzi’s trigger released a burst of gunfire before she fell on him, her head crashing into his and driving it into the tile floor. The Brazillian weavon absorbed most of the shock for her. The cracked tile beneath the unconscious head of the robber told a different story for him.

Mrs Adebowale fled.

*****

The men from the Tundra had finished loading the truck when the gunfire started again. Which was surprising, but not alarming. The plan called for each of them to finish their parts without bothering about the other. It was the only way they could be in and out in less than ten minutes. He was probably wiping off a bit of resistance. He would be waiting at the gate, and if not, he knew where the rendezvous was. Piling into the truck, they started on their way out, the bonnet down this time. The job was done.

*****

Mrs Adebowale stumbled out of the main building, her dark suit in bloody tatters, her hair frazzled and her face bruised. She didn’t want to stop to think, to wonder. To ask if she had killed him. She just needed to get out. Then she heard the engine of the Tundra start up. Ducking behind a pillar, right in front of where Sule’s body lay, the blood now beginning to congeal, she watched, her heart beating again, the tears welling up in her eyes. Oh God, let it just stop!

The Tundra reached the gate, pausing briefly, as one of the occupants stretched out his head and glanced in her direction. Me! Oh God, they’ve seen me! They know what I did! Then her mind told her, they were probably looking for their gangmate. Pity, he won’t be joining you, she thought with an odd sort of satisfaction. For a second, she wondered if they would come in to find him. In which case, she was sure they would kill everyone. But the man put his head back in as the truck drove out the gate.

The armoured tank slammed into the truck without warning. Pushing into the side of the Tundra and crashing it into the side of the fence. One of the tires exploded with a bang. Without giving them time to orient, Ali leapt out of the tank and climbing onto the bonnet of the Tundra, aimed his Glock very carefully. Once, twice, five times. Two shots for the driver who tried to escape through a window and got one in the bottom for his trouble. The others had messy holes in their heads, chests and necks. One of them was already dead where the right-hand back-door jamb had plunged into his neck as the tank hit the truck. Jumping down, he walked around to the side started pulling the boxes out.

Mrs Adebowale just kept watching in disbelief as the sirens started to get louder.

*****

Epilogue.

The Police showed up a few minutes later. But by then, the boxes and the Beggar were gone. A deep blue Hilux truck had appeared just before the Police and picked him up. A uniformed Naval officer had helped the beggar pile the boxes into the back seat of the Hilux. The well dressed robber did not die, which was fortunate as he had uploaded a virus into the mainframe that deleted the entire video log for the past year which would have made it otherwise impossible to identify him. He had started to regain consciousness but was not able to get to his Uzi before being arrested by the Police. He wouldn’t have found it anyway. Mrs Adebowale had subconsciously grabbed the weapon as she fled. The National Intelligence Agency took over investigations of the robbery, though they reported nothing had been stolen. A situation which baffled Mrs Adebowale greatly, especially given her testimony about the Beggar, until she was advised by her friend in the Department of State Security to desist from questioning things she should rather not know. Mrs Adebowale was offered a job with the State Security service again. She declined again. However she was placed on a list and invited to take a course at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Kure, She did not decline that.

The beggar never sat in front of the CBN again, even after they reopened in a month. All mention of the beggar have been removed from public records. Mama Dotun now sells at Ibiwe junction in front of the Bob Izua park.

Mrs Adebowale shall return.

Disclaimer
* This is a work of fiction oh!!!! Products of this writer’s very free don’t-want-to-go-jail imagination. Abeg. .na joke I dey..abeg
*I have been in the CBN. Not for mission abeg. Abeg. .
*Ignore the above disclaimer. WordPress for Android won’t let someone be very great
*The actions and tinz depicted in this lengthy tale are obviously near impossible and were carried out by highly paid stunt men hidden in the writer’s mind. Forget how close it may seem to real life scenarios, you cannot do it
*This writer disavows himself of any nefarious use the contents of this post may be utilized for

Follow on Twitter @Janus_aneni and @tele_ola

GOD bless Nigeria.

Retribution: Sambisa

I wrote this today after church, after thinking of the foolishness of these insurgents to think they could bully Christians. And then, with anger and idk..wishfulness, I penned.

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“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty…casting down everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of GOD” – 1Cor 10:4-5

 ________________________________

Akin Prayed.

Lifting into the air in a push that shook the earth, he twisted his body in a half spin and barreled straight into his attacker, the bullets whizzing past his horizontal frame. The attacker fell. Without pausing, he pushed off the fallen man with his hands, using his speed to twist again to his left, his left foot connecting with the head of the attacker. The man fell.

Akin turned to the other two, his eyes blazing.

Both men dropped their rifles and turned to flee.

Not so fast.

He Prayed again.

Below the feet of the running men, the grass seemed to move, algal growth on the blades causing them to become slippery. Both men fell. Stretching his arms out, Akin closed his eyes and Believed. The men suddenly jerked backwards as though pulled by an invisible force. The Avenger grinned, his teeth the only white in the gloom of the forest. As the men sped towards his, their clothes fluttering in the speed, their cries loud in the stillness, Akin opened his eyes and leapt forward. His sleek form tore through the air, and as he passed their middle in mid-air, he turned, whipping his legs backwards, causing his arms to come forward and slapping their heads together with his palms.

The forest of Sambisa echoed with the crack of their skulls as they fell to the ground, several birds taking to the air in fright. The Avenger landed a half-second later, his flat, naked chest heaving, his anger still unsated.

*****

“We will soak the land with the blood of Christians”

GOD heard. GOD Answered.

*****

The Avenger picked himself out of his crouch. The men were still alive, very much so, but in so much pain. They could barely cry or pass out. Which is as it should be.

*****

A few hours ago, Akin had been in his house in Maryland, Lagos. The bible had been open, and he had been praying. The Boko Haram  had just issued another threat against Christian students in other schools outside Chibok. The words had been simple in themselves.

“LORD, they have threatened Your name, they have poured scorn and insulted the name of the LORD, answer if you will oh LORD, the same GOD of  Elijah, answer your call and answer with fire”

Then…”Use me Oh LORD”

Right from his little table, a crack ran across the wall to the roof, the sheets of asbestos in the ceiling shook and fell to the floor, the room vibrated with a Presence, in the kitchen the knives rattled in their shelves, all across the walls a blue light seemed to shimmer as a shortage blew out all the appliances.

“And you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you…”

*****

And he had known what he needed to do. It did not concern him that he wore only a pair of boxers and a singlet. The Power of GOD was at his disposal. A quick Prayer and he appeared at the mouth of the forest. The dark yawn beckoned him. Behind, he could see the perimeter formed by the Nigerian Soldiers. He considered going to them, but his Spirit rejected the thought, and so he walked in.

It hadn’t taken time for the quartet of militants to find him.

In the distance, a US Military Strategist with the UN stood with a Nigerian Colonel as he swept the forest with his binoculars. The strategist gasped.

“Wetin…what is it sir?” queried the Colonel, his hand flying to the pistol in his belt. He had been jumpy since getting this close to the forest, and calling the US Captain ‘sir’, seemed to be the least of his blunders at the moment.

Signing up at the NDA was probably top of the list.

“Oh nothing, for second I could almost swear I saw a twelve or thirteen year old boy walk into that forest shirtless,” said the US Captain.

“Oh,” replied the Colonel, his hand still on his well-polished Sig-Sauer. “It is probably one of all those children of the mammy-market sellers. Maybe he wants to sh…to defecate. I will send someone to drive him out.”

He bounded through the trees, running as fast as his legs could go – which was very fast, he leapt over fallen branches, weaving in and out of the trees without slowing. By now, the Army might have poured into the forest, the sounds of the gunshots having drawn them. He didn’t wonder what they will make of the bodies he left behind, he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was rescue those girls and punish the impudent.

*****

From the nest of branches in a tree, he saw something glint in the last of the evening sun that seeped through the dusky foliage. Akin focused and Believed. His vision sharpened and narrowed, giving the illusion of looking through a narrow tube with blurry edges. At the end, he saw the terrorist hidden behind the sniper rifle, a radio transmitter near his lips. Even with the distance, he could see the fear and surprise in the eyes hidden behind the kaffiyeh the terrorist wore to hide his face. Instinctively, Akin knew he must not let the terrorist use the radio. Only seconds remained. Too few for him to reach the trees in time, yet enough, while the terrorist remained frozen in shock. Without pausing in his race, his eyes still focused on the sniper, he scooped some stones from the ground into his hand.

“You come with bombs and killings and the terror of children and women and men. But I come with the Power of GOD!” he yelled as he flung the stones.
They shot upwards, miniature rockets, the first stone tore through the radio in the man’s hand, severing first the speaker-phone, then the entire circuitry. The others shredded the branches the terrorist perched on, the force of impact rendering them into splinters. The terrorist fell in a cloud of matchsticks and kindling.

Before he reached the ground, Akin was there. Catching him in mid-air, his tiny arms bearing the weight easily, he stopped the man’s descent momentarily, then turned and slammed him into the ground with so much force, the man’s vertebrae broke, paralyzing him forever. Beneath the body a spider-web of cracks ran across the forest floor in a small crater.

Akin kept running, the Praise never ceasing from his lips.

*****
The man who called himself Abubakar Shekau hadn’t always been crazy. Raised by his mother, he had learned his first Arithmetic and English in a Christian missionary school just outside Minna in Niger state. The circumstances that led to his crack and final descent down the slope into despotic insanity are not for this tale. That day however, he sat in his room, the wrap for his turban tied around his waist, his legs propped on the table as he used his Android phone to search the internet for ‘Hot sexy anal girls’.

The sudden eruption of gunfire in his camp shocked him out of his pornographic  meditations. Slipping on a jalabia robe, he arranged the turban over his shaggy hair and made for the door, as it burst open in an explosion of splinters and gravel.

Akin landed in the camp in a frenzy of Prayers.

*****

On sighting the camp, he had increased his pace, putting on a burst of speed and at the last second Believed in a jump that sailed him over the wooden-stake fence and into the sentry post near the gatehouse. Two terrorists stood inside, gleaming machetes at their sides. They had seen him over the fence coming in, and had been expecting him. The first man took a swipe. Akin jumped over the attack, planting his feet into the man’s chest using the momentum generated to fly backwards into the second man. He extended his fingers, rigid rods of steel, and plunged into the eyes of the second man. The man let out a yelp as both of them fell, his eye sockets bleeding a mess 0of blood and vitrous humour. Akin turned to see the first man pick himself from the floor and lift a pistol. The man grinned.

Akin grinned.

The man’s grin faltered. But he shot anyway, the automatic pistol set at burst, his finger tight on the trigger. The first bullet missed Akin by a mile, slamming instead into a tree on the other side of the sentry post.

Akin Prayed on the Gospel of peace. His feet moved.

Sliding forward so fast, he seemed to be a flurry of figures, the half-naked boy weaved in between the bullet paths, their trajectories slow and obvious to him as he moved into the shooter’s space. He shoved the flat of his right hand upwards to knock out the spent pistol from the terrorist’s hand, the other hand slammed into the infidel’s solar plexus, shocking the air out of him and smashing him through the bamboo wall of the sentry post to the ground fifteen feet below.

Akin jumped into the camp, the Power of GOD radiating all around him.

*****

Shekau sped down the dirt road, the Jeep Wrangler screaming in protest under his ministrations. He had to get away. He was bleeding from a gash in his forehead, the injury resulting from a stone cutting into his head when the side of his room blew in from the impact of having an Armoured Personnel Carrier tossed into it. Tossed in a by a small child who probably weighed less than 50kg.

Jesus! He exclaimed in his mind, his shock overriding his awareness in the singular outburst, he needed to get away fast.

In the open-roofed Jeep, he heard a whine such as you hear when an object falls from a great height. Shekau looked up to see an object, the boy, fall out of the sky directly in front of him.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed outright.

You’re almost right, thought Akin the Christian, as he slammed feet first into the bonnet of the Jeep. The front tires imploded as the springs burst, forcing the front of the vehicle to collapse downwards so forcefully it flipped the back over the boy. Akin reached upwards and grabbed the terrorist leader as the Jeep flew over, his hand curling around the matted beard and yanking downwards. Shekau fell out of the Jeep, his yell cut short as he was yanked out unceremoniously. The Jeep somersaulted into a clump of trees and exploded, showering the air with shrapnel, none coming near them, but falling merely to the right and left in their thousands.

Shekau whimpered before the bloodstained boy, tears and mucus mixing with the blood on his face.

“Please…”
______________________

I want to write that he was dismembered. That he had his toes cut, or his fingernails pulled out or a million other things that are painful and whatnot. But Jesus, wouldn’t I guess..so..idk..

Maybe when I type this I will or would not..idk..

Follow on Twitter @janus_aneni

GOD bless Nigeria.

Mrs Adebowale helps a Stranger

I apologise that it’s been a while since we put up anything. Been busy, life and its works. But you know us, always ready to kill you with awesomeness. Right Tele?

 Teleola: *giggles sheepishly while reading text from lover*

Anyway. If you ever read the Mrs Pollifax stories by Dorothy Gilman, about the straw-hatted, grandmotherly, sexagenarian CIA superspy with a penchant for deadly judo, then you’ll know what to expect.

Enjoy abeg.. 😀

Introducing Mata Hari in 'I Spy - the movie'
Introducing Mata Hari in ‘I Spy – the movie’

____________________________________________________________________

Inspired by True events from the life of the greatest woman I know.

****

The figure darted out of the dark bushes to her right and right into the glare of the headlights. Mrs Adebowale slammed her right foot hard on the brakes, the 2004 Chrysler 300C, pistons charging angrily, slid sideways into a crushing stop.

Who the hell was that?

Forty-six year old Christina Adebowale was no stranger to danger. Born in Onitsha, Eastern Region at the onset of the Biafran war, her instincts had been honed from birth. And right now, her instincts urged her to lift her foot off the brake and zoom off.

Christina Adebowale pressed a button that locked the doors. The reassuring click as the locks all snapped shut buoyed her. Then she glanced at her rearview mirror. The road was dark and empty. Where was the person? All the way down for where she was up until perhaps Lagos, the Benin-Lagos expressway looked as empty and dark as the plains of Mor…

A figure slammed against her driver-side window. Mrs Adebowale let out a shriek. Her hands flew to her gear lever, and she almost zoomed off then. She wondered why she didn’t later on. But at that moment, something stilled her hand, and her heart.

The figure outside the window was a woman in her late thirties, (young by Mrs Adebowale’s standards). The woman was dressed in a dark green tracksuit, and she looked about to die. The suit was torn in several places and dark red blood stains coated her face, her clothes, and matted in her hair alongside a bramble of twigs and leaves and sand.

A madwoman?

“Please help me! Please!” The woman said. Mouthed more like, because the heavy density glass partition between them, allowed very little sound to filter through.

If one had asked her, before now, if she would stop on the road for a random stranger, Mrs Adebowale would have replied in a vehement negative. But here she was at 8:05pm, parked right in the centre of the Benin-Lagos expressway, at the section that leads through the Ovia forest, considering whether to wind down her glass to talk to a total stranger, who not only seemed mad, but was also probably dangerous.

But then Mrs Adebowale never did anything ordinarily.

Only a few hours ago, she had been rounding up a lecture on ‘Mis-accountancy and the future of Nigeria in the Global market‘ in Akure. The lecture had started later than scheduled, and at the end, she had to choose between sleeping in a hotel in Akure and entering her car for the two hour drive home.

Mrs Adebowale had driven into a hotel and asked the manager if they had a room with a big TV. The surprised manager had replied “Of course!” She had then asked if they received TVTV, to which the even more surprised man had replied “No. But we have DSTV”

Mrs Adebowale had walked out. Bad enough she wouldn’t be able to watch her TV show with her daughter in the comfort of her home, but not to watch Jumong at all?

She had entered her car, and called her daughter. “Hey, I’m on my way. In case I don’t get back on time, record the Jumong oh!”

Then she put her headlights on full beam, and drove into the road.

*****

Mrs Adebowale wound down her window.

“Please, madam! Help me! Kidnappers!” The woman in the tattered tracksuit blurted out, tears and mucus running down her face.

At that moment, a shot rang out in the darkness. The report all the louder in the stillness that was the lonely night. The woman in the tracksuit let out a short squeal and made to dart across the road to the other side. Mrs Adebowale made her decision.

“Get in!” She hollered.

The tracksuit lady needed no further cajoling. Jumping in through the open back door, she lay flat on the seat.

Spinning the car around in first gear, Mrs Adebowale once more pointed the nose for Benin as she stepped hard on the accelerator. The vehicle jumped forward, and not a moment too soon. In her rearview mirror, she could see two men run into the road, long, dangerous looking weapons in their hands.

Mrs Adebowale flashed instantly to the Korean TV series she watched with her daughter. What was that action one? Bridal Mask? Twisting the steering as she saw the muzzle of one of the guns flash, she tossed the nimble car to the left and then back to the right. The gunshots seemed louder and more ominous. From the back seat, the tracksuit lady was sobbing and praying, but it seemed they were unhurt. The kidnappers kept shooting, but the car was out of range.

The speedometer needle climbed up to 100mph, then 110mph. Mrs Adebowale held it there for five minutes. Then as the adrenaline supply began to taper off, she eased to 70mph.

“So talk to me! Who are you? What happened just now?” Her normal calm voice came out as a high-pitched cry.

“My name is Mrs Roberts, and those men kidnapped me.”

Jite Roberts told the story of how she had come back home from the gym after work (Mrs Adebowale nodded appreciatively), and while horning at her gate for the kids to come open, a trio of gunmen had suddenly appeared at her side. Wrenching open the door of her vehicle before she had time to react, they had forced her into theirs and drove off.

“They blindfolded me. My neighbours couldn’t help me! Everybody was scared. The kidnappers shot into the air.” Jite Roberts said.

While she talked, Mrs Adebowale listened, and kept a sharp eye on the rearview mirror. While she had no fears that the kidnappers couldn’t run her down, not while she drove this six-cylinder monster at least, she was however concerned that they hadn’t given chase. There were no tell-tale headlights in the rear. It raised questions, and whatever raised questions didn’t go well with Mrs Adebowale.

“Have they demanded a ransom?”

“Fifteen million,” Jite replied succintly. Her voice clearer now as the sobs subsided.

They had extracted her husband’s international number from her and demanded the sum. The man, his voice breaking in panic, had insisted he needed time to wire the money from the UK. So they had roughed her up, while he listened, till he almost cried over the phone. Satisfied he was going to pay up, and that she was comatose, the kidnappers had retreated to a corner to smoke a joint. That was when she crawled away.

Mrs Adebowale admired her courage, but a question nagged at her.

“How many of them where smoking when you ran?”

“The three of them.”

“But only two were shooting at us earlier.”

“Maybe the other went into town to get…” Her voice trailed off into despair.

At that moment, the roar of a powerful engine tore through the quiet night and powerful headlights, beaming at full intensity, cut a swathe in the darkness barely ten metres away on the right shoulder of the road.

There was no time to react, only action. Old age they say blunts one’s reaction time, but intuition is honed by years of experience.

After lifting her foot off the accelerator just a moment, her naked instincts urguing her to stop the vehicle, Mrs Adebowale stepped harder on the throttle. The big car lurched forward, the HEMI engine churning sparks from the exhaust. But it wasn’t fast enough. The front end of the Toyota Hilux slammed into the back of the Chrysler with enough force, it seemed like the clashing of rival Transformers. The Chrysler spun in a screeching circle, the women inside screaming for dear life. The Hilux went on, the engine barely clacking now, to smash into the median. The force of the impact caused the truck to roll back, headlights casting crazy shadows in every corner. Instantly two men jumped out. One of them, the one on the passenger side, was cradling a rifle. He stepped right up to the driverside window and smashed the glass in with the butt of his gun. Mrs Adebowale tried to drive off, but the crash had totaled the rear axle and some function that caused the vehicle to rise on its haunches had been disabled. The Chrysler merely groaned.

“Get out now!” The kidnapper yelled.

In the back seat, her passenger side door mangled from the crash, Jite had powered down the window and scrambled through it, all her thoughts on escape.

“Hey!” The gun man yelled to his accomplice who rather than be dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, was wearing a stylish-looking blazer over plain trousers. “She wan’ run!”

His accomplice darted around the car in pursuit of the rapidly fleeing Jite.

In the moment his attention was split, Mrs Adebowale had another of her Korean flashes. Unlocking and opening the door in one smooth motion, she slammed all of her 98KG weight behind the heavy steel door and into the knee of the kidnapper. She heard a satisfying crunch as he yelped in pain. Quickly, she drew the door back as through to shut it. The kidnapper, his gun harmlessly at his side now, reflexively bent to massage his hurting leg.

“I go kill you to…” He never finished the sentence.

Propelling forward again, all of her fear and anger, at the smashed Chrysler no less, converted into fury. Mrs Adebowale let out a war cry as she swung the door into his head. The sound was like the thud you hear in a gym when the weights are dropped unceremoniously to the floor.

Gboom! That’s the sound that best describes it.

The kidnapper crumpled to the floor. Stepping out of the vehicle, operating on pure instinct and healthy doses of epinephrine now, Mrs Adebowale picked up the fallen rifle. He assumed it was an AK-47, being the only rifle she was familiar with from the movies. On the other side of the car, dragging Jite by her hair was the well-dressed accomplice. His face slightly sweaty from the chase and oddly bewildered by the turn of events.

“What are you doing with that gun?” He asked stupidly.

In the spill of lights from the reflections cast by the powerful headlamps of both vehicles, it was easy to read the shock and confusion on his face.

“Let her go!” Mrs Adebowale stammered. “Please, for God’s sake, let her go! Or I will shoot you!”

Her words, perhaps the faltering nature of them, seemed to have an awakening effect on the kidnapper. Her tightened his hold and dragged his captive closer to himself. Jite yelped in pain.

“Let her go!”

“Hand over that gun.” He said calmly. “You don’t even know how to operate it.”

From his calm, measured tones, Mrs Adebowale surmised he was the leader of the operation. She panicked then, and very nearly dropped the gun. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Why are you doing this? Why? I don’t want to die,” she sobbed. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with this.”

In instant solidarity, Jite burst out in fresh tones of brand-new tears.

The man inched closer, oblivious to their cries, his eyes on the gun. He was around the boot of the Chrysler now, still holding Jite, barely five feet away.

“Just give me the gun, and then you can go your own way. This is not your problem.”

Jite started wailing. “No! Nooo! He will kill us!”

Mrs Adebowale gripped the gun by the barrel, her knees shook, fear in every fibre of her being. She extended it slowly, her hands unsteady, ready to hand it over to the kidnapper. At that moment two things happened, without which this story would have ended quite differently.

The first one. The kidnapper, in a definite state of amplified hubris, said; “No. Nothing would happen to you. Too much wahala this night sef. I just want to take my man and go. Both of you can leave too.”

Now, Mrs Adebowale held a position in Management at her company, and she had heard just about all the usual lies. And that statement was right up the charts with, “My car broke down” and “I think I came down with something last night“.

The second thing that happened was; the partner on the floor, the one with a broken knee and a crack in his skull wide enough to fit a Tecno Phantom®, suddenly stirred and muttered something. His well-dressed colleague glanced down and Mrs Adebowale’s hand swung up and sideways.

Now, the kidnapper had solid reflexes and a well-built physique, and his gaze was in the direction of the gun. So he saw it coming well in time. Time enough to raise his left forearm and absorb most of the (painful) shock on his bicep. He pushed Jite to the ground with his other arm and took a step towards Mrs Adebowale before the woman had time to take another swing, after all, she was probably in her fifties and a rifle is quite a heavy toy. It was impossible for him to know Mrs Adebowale plays squash every weekend at The Benin Club.

The rifle flew backwards and swung back in a two-handed swing that had all the ferociousness of a Nadal serve. 120 pounds of pure motive force swung into Kidnapper no 1, shattering his left radius and gouging a deep crease into the side of his skull. The man slammed against the side of the Chrysler and slid to the floor unconcious. Whirling around, before she had time to reconsider her options, Mrs Adebowale knocked the butt of the rifle into the groggy, unbelieving head of Kidnapper no 2 in a very familiar pounding motion and shut his lights out for the last time that night.

It was over. Eight minutes and forty-three seconds from crash to rifle-butt-in-head-of-woman-kidnapper.

Adrenaline still surging through her veins in quick bursts, she almost slapped Jite when the woman grabbed her from behind, and in between prayers of thanksgiving, began to cry and weep profusely.

“It’s alright. It’s alright, Jite. It’s alright.”

***************

In GRA Benin City, Candy Adebowale tapped a button on the remote control and the PVR TVTV decoder started to record the lates episode of Jumong. She wondered how long it will take her mother to get home.

Mrs Adebowale notified a friend at the Department of State Security (DSS) over the phone, about the events of the night, and a team was immediately dispatched in assault gear, and armed with FN F2000s, to the scene at the Benin-Lagos expressway, where a nervous and drawstring taut Mrs Adebowale stood sentry over two slightly comatose bodies of well-built men and a weak-at-the-knees, completely relieved ex-hostage.

After some cajoling, Jite Roberts directed the men of the DSS to the spot where she had been held captive, where after a very brief gun-battle, the kidnappers surrendered, bullets haven been exhausted anyway. The rifle found in Mrs Adebowale’s possession was found to contain only two shells in its clip and was identified as an AKM.

Mrs Adebowale got home safe the next morning at about 3:00am, haven been escorted home in an unmarked white police Hilux, her statement received and sent to Abuja. The Chrysler was taken to Lagos (causing a two hour traffic jam the next morning at it was lifted by crane) where repairs are currently ongoing. Jite Roberts began preparations to move with her family to the UK from where she would maintain a steady correspondence with her saviour. Both Saviours.

Mrs Adebowale looks forward to her next adventure!

THE END..for now.

___________________________________________________

Disclaimer

  • Based on actual events
  • I do not aim to make light of the situations depicted in this story. Kidnapping in Nigeria is a very real and present danger, and my heart goes to any and all who have experienced or known someone who experienced a kidnapping. We’ll get past this scourge I tell you.
  • The Chrysler 300C has been renamed the Lancia Thema but still remains the car I drive in my wettest fantasies
  • The constant repetition of the name ‘Mrs Adebowale’ is deliberate, a throwback from the old Mrs Pollifax stories and my amusement with Lee Child’s Reacher novels.
  • Mrs Adebowale drives a Toyota Rav 4 while her Chrysler is being repaired.

Don’t forget to follow the blog by clicking on the button at the top of your screen. Also follow on Twitter @janus_aneni and do well to like our Facebook page.

Peace to Nigeria.

PS: Abi you see now, nobody died in this story! Before you people would be commenting on my psychopathic tendencies.

Peace.

Raymond’s challenge

So I discovered I had a Youtube account last night. I mean, you have no idea what feeling this gives. I can upload videos and..and..share! I’m so happy. I love the internet. GOD is wonderful.

Anyway, I was err..reading and listening to music, when out of the corner of my eye, I…hell, whatever, this is amateur video time. please enjoy.

NB: The following video was filmed with the utmost seriousness. [I had my glasses on]

Disclaimer

  • I actually filed this under the ‘Action’ category

Peace.

A Series of Oddly Fortuitous Events

It was one of those days that bear no remarkability. The sun rose at the proper time, the day’s noises had started at 6:00am and First Bank Choba opened for business at exactly 8 O’clock. It was a typical Tuesday much like any other. Workers had settled into the rhythm of the week’s activities and students of the University of Port-harcourt were finally ready for the week’s round of lectures.

The dark-tinted Peugeot 405 slowed down as it approached the entrance of the bank. Here are several things to note. The First Bank Choba, located at the junction of the Ikwerre and East-West roads, is recessed 50m behind a high gate and a bank of ATMs. It is bordered by high fences with the FCMB on the right and a cobbler’s stall on the left. Usually, the ATMs are crowded with workers and students all vying to withdraw a few hundreds from their savings accounts.

That day, being a normal day, had the usual crowd of would-be ‘withdrawers’ and the front of the bank had the look of a cinema theatre on opening day. Such it was that, Agnes Okoroahu, shifting her weight from one foot to the other out of impatience, happened to glance at an angle into the slowly approaching 405, and saw within, a thickset man with a black bandanna across his face, slam a cartridge into an M-16. Of course, she didn’t know it was an M-16, but the sight of a rifle was shocking and recognisable, and the 34-year old mother of four girls and one two-year old son, let out a shriek that was heard within the Choba campus of Uniport.

“Armed robbers!” She screamed.

As is to be expected, hell broke loose.

The robbers, for they were truly, jumped out of the vehicle and began shooting into the air immediately. The ATM crowd dispersed quickly as the screaming people fell over each other in their haste to escape. Agnes herself, abandoning all decency to self-preservation, fled at top speed, her scarf falling off her head to reveal the badly burnt hairdo that had failed to retouch properly on her last visit to the hairdresser. A visit she had spent arguing with the hairdresser about which actress was more stately, between Eucharia Anuobi and Liz Benson, an argument which might have accounted for the badly charred nature of her hair, and refusal to pay the hairdresser. Events which propelled her to order for a length of artificial human hair, and occasioned her arrival at the ATM this morning to withdraw.

Rushing into the bank complex, the robbers climbed the stairs and through the open security doors into the bank hall. Their entrance, properly facilitated by the presence of a daredevil ‘inside man’ disguised as a customer, placed within the bank, who had physically subdued the badly trained security into opening the doors.

“Open your safe!” the robber growled, his eyes angry above the bandanna covering his face.

From all indications, the robbery was moving according to plan. The robbers had however failed to calculate for all eventualities. Which is not surprising, considering, it is impossible to calculate for all eventualities.

Forty kilometres to the left and thirty minutes ago, down the East-West road, in the direction facing Warri and Benin, Group Captain Isaac Boniface, had been going through a bit of a dilemma. The Group Captain had credentials which labelled him as an Officer of the Navy in charge of a fleet consisting three Gun-class ships and a tug-boat, none of which however existed. Captain Boniface, if anything, was a spy in the Nigerian Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and in his possession was a secret document which needed to be hand-delivered by secure courier to the Director, Office of Strategic Manuevers, located in a nondescript building on Evo road in GRA.

There was only one problem. For reasons unknown to Boniface, his vehicle, a late-model Toyota Tundra, had broken down just before the village of Emuoha. And with his transportation disabled, the Captain was a sitting duck. An incorrect euphemism, considering he didn’t know how to swim despite his credentials, and he was pacing.

Calling ‘Support’, he requested a replacement vehicle to be delivered to his position as soon as possible. Unknown to him, the same Support Officer who had delivered the Tundra he had just scuttled half-way into the bushes at the side of the road, who was supposed to have detailed another officer to tail the Captain at a respectable distance, to provide support, should assistance be necessary, and who was now supposed to organise a new vehicle for him, was still in bed, head throbbing from a terrible hangover occasioned by the copious amounts of alcohol and weed consumed the night before. Alcohol and weed which had of course, caused the Support Officer to make the mistake of detailing a vehicle scheduled for maintenance to the Captain the evening before. As it was, the Officer was in no state to think clearly, and so, when he received the text message of instructions, he simply dialled a contact at the Emuoha Police Station and succintly requested an escort of two Hilux trucks to ferry the Captain to his secret meeting.

When the escort arrived at the Tundra, sirens blaring, Captain Boniface thought to himself, what could be worse?

If only he knew that, at the moment, he shared like thoughts with Alex Greene, a Kalabari student of the University of Port-harcourt whose Toyota Corolla had immediately after quenching on the road, been rammed from behind by an irate bus-driver in a Mitsubishi.

The accident had occurred at a particularly bad spot on the East-West road. Suffice to say, both drivers, Alex and Emeka, who was the bus driver, instantly jumped out of their vehicles and began to trade insults at the top of their voices. Soon, a queue began to form as cars manuevered the potholes, trying to navigate their way around the two vehicles parked at the only good spot on that particular stretch of East-West road, at a place called Alakahia, not far from the University of Port-harcourt Teaching Hospital.

Soon there would be a gridlock.

But for Bayo, robber extraordinaire and protegé of Anini the Legendary, the day was moving smoothly.

“Oya load the boot make we dey roll,” he yelled to his cronies, making his voice heard above the sound of sporadic gunshots.

So far, they had spent only ten minutes since entry. Soon they would be off. No way the police could get here this quickly. All his dreams were finally going to be realised. You see, Bayo was a student once. A student of Uniport even. For years, he had struggled part-time against the Academic system, from one menial job to the next, struggling to pay his school fees and fend for himself. Then one day, he had hit on a brilliant idea. There was a motor park right there at Choba and for all he knew, nobody supplied the drivers with cheap, adulterated ‘Black market’ petrol and oil, while they did their jobs in a state that supplied the country expensive and well-refined petrol and oil. So he had scrounged a few thousands and set up a stand to sell just that, Petrol and oil. Soon, the money was pouring in. Not exactly Caeser’s court, but he had become more comfortable, so that he was even able to employ a sales girl and attend more Political Science classes. Then one day, the Bank people came. After building right beside his stall in less than three months, they refused him a loan, and got the Police to not only evict his “nonsense dirty shop” from their entrance area, but also to fine him N120,000.

Oh, revenge is a sweet cold dish, he thought to himself, remembering a quote from ‘Marx’.

“Make we dey move!”

Jumping into the car, they zoomed out the bank to the East-West road, junction. Then they heard the sirens.

___________________________________

Captain Boniface sat up in his chair at the back seat of the lead Hilux. “Is that gunfire?”

The Nigerian police is divided into many departments. Some of which overlap. Of all the departments, the Traffic Police, the CID and the Mobile Police (MOPOL) are the most popular. Of these three, the MOPOL wear the crown. Armed with CAR-15s, semi-formal training and careless bravado, they insist on asserting their importance to Nigerians, their worth to the Military, and their difference from the average police. An assignment to guard a Naval Captain tested these assumptions.

“If that is gunfire, we’ll have to turn back,” warned the Captain, his thoughts on preserving his package, rather than heroics.

“No Oga, we don accept mission to carry you go GRA. And we go carry you,” said the Police officer in the front passenger seat, with a grim face.

“Yes sah! Na true” concured the driver, a foolish grin on his face. Already, he could hear the story he’ll tell his friends at the Officer’s mess. How the Captain was scared, but he gunned his vehicle as he faced the enemy.

Stepping hard on the accelerator, Private Osunde, the driver, gunned the powerful Hilux and switched on the siren as the truck climbed the Choba bridge. The grin on his face, the death-head grin of Kamikaze pilots as they flew to their deaths humming “Battle cry”.

Once again, hell broke loose. Well, looser than before.

Bayo ordered his boys to shoot through the windows. “Drive the police back! Dem no get levo!” As they sped down the East-West road heading towards Alakahia and Rumuokoro.

The first shot to hit the police escort, tore through the windscreen of the lead vehicle to punch a hole in Osunde’s grinning mouth and slam into the head rest where the Captain’s head would have been had he not ducked at the first sign of danger. The lead Hilux instantly swerved out of control, it’s driver dead and dripping blood like a leaky pipe. Grabbing the steering wheel in his left hand, a daring move reminiscent of a dozen action movies, his CAR-15 belching bullets out the open window in his second hand, the Police officer in the passenger seat managed to get the truck to a standstill and kill 15 innocent bystanders in the process. The Hilux behind, instantly provided professional, better aimed, cover fire, chasing the Peugeot down the road at breakneck speed.

Alex and Emeka the driver of buses, all the mediators who had stopped to settle the arguments, the TIMARIV officials, who are always quick to sense such disputes, all the owners of the different cars on the queue behind and in front of the accident, and just about everybody in that environment had all disappeared. Scampered and run off, leaving their cars, as the sounds of gunshots had drawn closer. So it was that Bayo and his crew, operating in fear now, adrenaline haven burnt out all the marijuana and Alomo and bravado from their system came up against the log-jam of vehicles across the road. There was no time to even brake.

The Peugeot 405 bounced as it hit the first pothole, living up to it’s legend of being a car built for Nigerian roads. However, it was not a car for accidents because as soon as it hit the first vehicle, the Peugeot exploded in a huge fireball that caught onto the vehicles in closest vicinity, resulting in an explosion that showered glass and metal in all directions.

The Police in the pursuing vehicle, skid to a stop at a safe distance, their guns almost empty, as they stared at the explosion in the middle of the road, their minds on one topic: the promotion which would definitely come of this, and how best to exaggerate the story to blame the robbers for damages and place the heroics squarely, humbly, on their shoulders.

Captain Boniface placed another call to ‘Support’.

Disclaimer

  • I don’t like Fir.. I have nothing against First bank nor any of it’s branches oh!
  • This is a supreme work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any living or dead individuals, except they be subjects in an alternate universe in which this Writer is regarded as God and ruler and Ultimate Being.
  • I know I should have gotten a better title for this.
  • The East-west road really is in a state of ruin, and presents quite the harzard for fleeing robbers.
  • Any typo is regretted, and blamed on the persistent pings and phone calls from my adoring fans.

Follow on Twitter @Janus_aneni

Peace.

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