Welcome to Lagos

by Chibundu Onuzo

  He was standing in the toilet, two black bars in the corner of his phone, just enough signal to make the call. He dialed and kept his number private.

  “ẹgun.”

  “Speaking. Who is this?”

  “Chief Sandayọ.”

  “Who? I can’t hear you.”

  “Rẹmi Sandayọ.”

  “Afternoon, sah. You’re still in Nigeria? I thought you would have left the country by now.”

  “Come and meet me in my house tonight, you and your boys. I’ll pay. Trust me. Come with some guns. I have a job for you.”

  “Your house in Lagos? Ikẹja?”

  Of course he did not know this place.

  “Lagos yes, but not Ikẹja. The address is Plot Fifteen, Ekweme Road, Ojodo Estate.”

  “I can’t hear you. The line is breaking.”

  “I said—”

  There was a loud banging on the door. “Who you dey talk to?”

  “No one.”

  He cut the phone and flushed the toilet.

  “Chief Sandayọ, come out. It’s me, Ahmed. The article was published this morning, front page of the Nigerian Journal, and it’s already making waves.”

  “You fool!” He flung the door open. “You absolute bloody fool!”

  34

  Thunder Bassey Beats Jimmy Giant in Knockout Seven Rounds.

  —sports page, Nigerian Journal

  CHIEF SANDAYỌ WAS TALLER and heavier but Ahmed Bakare moved faster. Two strikes to Chief Sandayọ’s every one, but as he did not hit very hard, the two were evenly matched.

  “Oya, separate yourselves,” Yẹmi said, coming in between them.

  “Let me see what you wrote.” The Chief picked up the newspaper from the floor where it had fallen.

  EXCLUSIVE: CHIEF SANDAYỌ REVEALS ALL FROM SECRET HIDEOUT

  He skimmed the prose for names. Senator Okpara, Governor Adeniyi, the First Lady. And there in bold, the number of an account in Dubai.

  “There’s nothing in there that you didn’t tell me.”

  Chief Sandayọ was almost certain that ẹgun had been able to hear him. No matter how much he offered ẹgun, Senator Okpara would double it. The senator was not a man you crossed with only ten million dollars. ẹgun was calling back. He switched off his phone. The journalist’s phone rang.

  “Hello, Ronkẹ. You liked the piece? Thank you. Yes, we need to start holding these criminals to account. I’m just doing my job. Yes, we hope so. Indeed. Thanks again. OK. Greet the boys.”

  The journalist’s phone rang again.

  “Hello, Chidinma. Who is this? What are you doing with my receptionist’s phone? Yes, I want to speak to her. Hello, Chidinma. Chidinma, calm down. They can’t do anything to you. Once I drop the line, I’m going to call the police. Chidinma, hello, Chidinma. Chidinma!”

  The journalist held the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen.

  “They shot her. I must get the police.”

  “Are you mad? You write an article about Governor Adeniyi in his own state and you expect the police to help you?”

  “What should I do?”

  “It’s too late. One of your employees is dead. You don’t know Senator Okpara. She’s just the first.”

  “Maybe they never shoot her,” Yẹmi said. “They just shoot the gun in the air to scare you before they cut the line. Nah soldier tactic.”

  “Shot who?” Oma came out of the kitchen.

  “I have to go to my office,” Ahmed said. “I have to go,” but he remained standing in the middle of the room.

  “Take public transport. If someone is watching for your car, they won’t spot you,” Chief Sandayọ said.

  “I must go,” Ahmed said. He took out a notebook from his pocket and wrote something down. “Please call this number if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow morning. It’s my father’s number.”

  Sandayọ almost felt sorry for this journalist, naïve enough to be shocked by brutality, a fact of life for most in this country. This was how his son, Gbenga, would be if he ever moved back to Nigeria: a bumbling, principled idiot.

  “What happened?” Oma asked, when Ahmed was gone.

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Sandayọ found himself saying. “We’ll sort it out among ourselves.”

  Oma went back to the kitchen and he and Yẹmi were left alone.

  “Nah, who you dey talk for that phone?”

  “My son.”

  “That one is OK but you must bring the phone, sha. Chike no go like it.”

  He handed one phone to Yẹmi, the other in the band of his trousers.

  “Why you go shoot somebody over newspaper? Most people only dey look football section. You look like say you wan’ faint. Make I bring water?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Run and leave them. And where would he go without his car keys, his clothes, his money? His wife would have been praying by now. She would have knelt down and bowed her head; shut her eyes and clasped her hands, prayer by the textbook. But for him, there was no one to turn to.

  35

  The homeless in this city abound.

  —Nigerian Journal

  AHMED RETURNED THE NEXT morning, holding a small suitcase. “They burned my office,” he said after Isoken let him in. “Nothing but charcoal. They didn’t shoot my receptionist, or at least the bullet didn’t kill her. My maiguard saw her being pushed into their car. I can’t go home and I don’t want to put any of my friends in danger. Please let me stay for a few days.”

  He lay down in his suit, his green cotton socks pushing over the leather arms of the couch. Nothing could wake him, not even Fineboy’s swearing when Isoken spilled tea on him. When he finally opened his eyes, Chief Sandayọ was on the other sofa, reading.

  “Is this flat yours?”

  “You’re still asking me questions.”

  “It has quite an art collection. That’s a Glover, isn’t it? My mother doesn’t understand art like this. She’d say too much color and you can’t see the people properly.”

  “Your family is new money? I only ask because I used to be the same. Once I had a bit of cash, I filled my house with paintings of fields and flocks of geese. It was my wife that showed me how to look at art, how to consume it. She was so European in some ways. Ate ẹba with a fork, when she ate it at all, but she laughed at people whose tastes she felt were too oyinbo. People who named their children Diana. Nouveau, she would say. Her grandfather went to Oxford. Three generations of money makes it ancient, doesn’t it. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Your wife will want a smarter job than this newspaper outfit you run. You are like my son. I can hear it in your accent. You would find it difficult to marry someone who doesn’t have the same international experiences as you. Those kind of women have many lofty ideals but they don’t come cheap. Where did you school?”

  “Such sudden interest in my life.”

  “I don’t have a lot of people to talk to. Chike is not so bad but he’s out most of the time with the other girl and that foolish young man that thinks he’s American. This one they put to guard me is an illiterate, obviously. Oma has gotten over her initial hostility to me but she’s forever going to the market or locked up in the kitchen. She refuses to be emancipated, that one.”

  “So Yẹmi is guarding you. This is a house arrest, then. What are they going to do with you?”

  “Eat me, perhaps. Evil, fat politicians make good soup. Where did you go to school?”

  “Charterhouse from thirteen and then Loughborough University.”

  “My son went to America. Still lives there. Funkẹ wanted to send him to England but I would not allow it. It was part of her colonial mentality. Why send him to a dead empire when one is alive? Your parents must have a lot of money to send you abroad for so long.”

  “My father was a civil servant in the eighties.”

  “Name?”

  “Bọla Bakare.”

  “Perm. sec.
in the Ministry of Petroleum?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re disturbing me when you have thieves in your family?”

  “I sent a piece to The Guardian in 2001, anonymously. They weren’t interested in fraud that had happened so long ago.”

  “Did you complain when your father was paying your fees?”

  “Do you know Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of children out of school in the world? Millions.”

  “Stop parroting things you’ve read off the Internet to me. Open your eyes and see what’s on ground. Let’s say this money I allegedly stole was budgeted for primary schools. If it hadn’t disappeared with me, it would have disappeared with my second in command; if not him, then the principals of those same primary schools. Whichever way, the money would not reach where it was meant to go.”

  “So it might as well be you.”

  “Supposing I took the money, then yes.”

  36

  Two days ago, before a thousand praise singers and breakdancers, General Wasiu Akinpelu donated N20 million to build a hospital in his hometown in Oyo State. General Akinpelu has unresolved corruption allegations hanging over his head from past military regimes. No matter how hard it tries, the soup a vulture cooks will always smell rotten.

  —Victor Ehikhamenor, columnist, Nigerian Journal

  CHIKE COULD NOT DENY he gave in too easily to these Lagos traders that greeted you warmly and then proceeded to fleece you. Yet he disliked Fineboy’s aggression, his trampling of bargaining niceties, ignoring the vendor’s pleasantries in his haste to knock down a price. The returns on this roughness were meager.

  Isoken was by far the best pricer but she became combative if the vendor was a young man, her arms militantly akimbo. They were steadily dribbling their way through Chief Sandayọ’s money, $100,000 gone already, on four blocks of toilets, a trailer of textbooks, and various odds and ends, microscopes, Bunsen burners, lightbulbs.

  Chike was uncomfortable carrying large amounts of cash. Trips to the black market were frequent. They would find the northerners who handled foreign currency, discreet in their white kaftans, counting money into neat stacks, forefingers moist with spittle, lips pursed with concentration. And all the while, Fineboy behind him, mumbling that they’d been cheated.

  “One dollar for one hundred twenty-six naira is too low. Ask him for one hundred twenty-eight.”

  Two naira difference: for that the boy’s veins stood out in his neck as he whispered through his teeth. It would have been more efficient to split up, each person with a lump sum of cash, trusted to find at least two items a day. But Chike was wary of leaving Isoken alone with Fineboy, he did not want to go with Fineboy, and he did not trust Fineboy to go on his own. So they remained locked in a triangle of uneven angles.

  Until the Chief announced one morning that he would be going with them.

  “Why?” Chike asked.

  “Because I’m tired of sitting in this flat. And I want to see how you’re spending my money.”

  They might as well try Sandayọ, Chike thought. The Chief had the skills and knowledge for the work they were doing earnestly but haphazardly.

  “This is inefficient,” Chief Sandayọ said once he heard their routine.

  “What do you suggest, then?” Chike asked.

  “First of all, why change money so often? Change one hundred thousand dollars once and for all.”

  “It’s dangerous. You leave the market with that kind of money, you’ve become a target. We use public transport.”

  “Take a taxi.”

  “We’re keeping costs down.”

  “Well, we should still split up. Let’s go in twos so we can close twice as many deals each day. How can all three of you be going to one vendor? Even the ministry was not this inefficient. Isoken will go with the buffoon and you and I will stick together, Chike.”

  “Who you calling a buffoon?”

  “I want to go with Brother Chike,” Isoken said.

  Chike had taught Isoken enough to defend herself. Not that he believed Fineboy would attack her. The two would probably never be friends but they were no longer enemies. She had trimmed Fineboy’s hair the other day, her scissors snipping close to his arteries and leaving him unharmed.

  “No. This way works better. Fineboy will hold the money, and Isoken, you’ll hold Chief’s phone. I’ll be calling you throughout the day. Any problems, call me.”

  “CHIKE DIDN’T SAY WHO was in charge,” Fineboy said to Isoken when they got on the bus.

  “Of course I’m in charge. I have the phone, ọdẹ.”

  “And I have the money. I could just disappear into Lagos right now.”

  “You think I won’t stop you? Don’t try me. I’m a ninja.”

  “Ninja kọ?”

  They were no longer enemies now, Isoken and Fineboy. How could they be, living and working so closely together? It was not quite forgiveness. She would never know if he had indeed been one of the men, or if it was hearsay he had repeated so flippantly in the forest. She would never trust him as she trusted Chike, never seek him out to talk, but she could work with him, could appraise him dispassionately and see that there was much that was valuable in Fineboy.

  “I would never do that, you know,” Fineboy said.

  “Do what?”

  “Take this money and run. If not for Brother Chike, I would have died in Bayelsa. If he says no, I won’t do it. For real, man.”

  “You and this your Americanah phonetics. I am also capable of speaking English that would discombobulate and incapacitate you with its erudition and sophistication, but of my own volition, I choose not to. In short, abeg, speak normal English let somebody hear word.”

  “I’m keeping the dream alive. I know one day I’ll get into a radio booth and wow them. Till then, I keep practicing. What about you? What’s your dream?”

  “I want to go back to school.”

  She had been away from her textbooks for so long. She wondered if she could still read the secret language of chemistry. She had made up her own mnemonic for the elements of the periodic table, from Ac to Zr. She had also cheated every time she sat the JAMB. At the last minute, she would grow afraid, unsure of her working, and she would copy from a sheet moving through the room, shading answers that she discovered were false on results day. She was more confident now, better able to see that she could have made the pass mark for Pharmacy without expo, as she could survive in Lagos without her parents.

  Today she and Fineboy were buying louvers for a school that had gone windowless for years, rain blowing into the classes during the rainy season and flooding the students out. She hoped these glass slats would be treated with care. It might be a decade before they got such a chance again.

  At the window shop, she let Fineboy speak to the vendor. He was not so nervous now Chike was not there and he relaxed into a conversational style that got them a good price. The phone rang. It was Chike.

  “Hello. How are things over there?”

  “We’re fine, thanks. We’re just rounding up,” Isoken said.

  “OK. We’ve also closed our deal in Computer Village. We’re going to go to the carpenter now to check on the desk orders. Where next for you two?”

  “I want to buy some sanitary towels. For the school nurses to keep and give to girls.”

  “Iyama,” Fineboy said. “I’m not following you to buy pad o.”

  “Yes, you are. I’m in charge,” Isoken said.

  “Give him the phone, let me speak to him,” said Chike.

  “OK. Please tell him I’m in charge.”

  IT HAD COME NATURALLY for Chike to delegate to Sandayọ once they got to Computer Village. The Chief knew his way around, striding ahead into the melee. Men hawked monitors as you would fresh fish, thrusting the blank screens at you for inspection. There were one-room stalls, computer mice dangling, tied together by their tails like real rodents. Spare parts for every machine, butchered technology, stock spilling out of stores and onto the s
idewalk, cash and carry.

  “We can’t go to any of these smaller shops. They won’t be able to fill the order but they’ll lie and say they can. They’ll quote a good price but they’ll either disappoint or make up with bad stock from somewhere else. The big shops are no use, these modern ones that have air-conditioning and automatic doors. They pass on all their running costs to the consumer. We need something medium.”

  They had chanced upon Obianwu Computers, larger on the inside than out, computers and modems stacked from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, cooled by standing fans. Obianwu reminded Chike of his uncles, who visited once a year when he was a child, walking through their small flat in Ibadan, acquisitive as ants, looking at everything they saw with greed. Obianwu sitting on his high stool with his thick gold chain and bright red shoes reminded him very much of Uncle Vincent, who had built on land in Mbaise that should have been Chike’s when he came of age.

  “Good afternoon. How can I help you?”

  “We’re here to buy computers.”

  “See computer here. Have a look.”

  “We want two hundred.”

  Obianwu stood up.

  “What exactly is it that you’re looking for?”

  They were paying cash. Ten percent today. Sixty percent on delivery. The rest if the schools were happy with the merchandise. A good discount was expected. Twice the Chief began to walk out. Twice Obianwu called out before he reached the door.

  “You did well,” Chike said when they left the store, deal closed.

  “You know, if we were running this thing like the ministry, we’d have had to split that order. Ten computers to an Igbo man, ten to an Ijaw, ten to a Hausa, ten to a Birom, and so on and so forth. You don’t know all the ways government can frustrate you. Where to next?” Chief Sandayọ asked.

  Numbers had been dialed on the Chief’s phone that Yẹmi confiscated. Not only to a son in America but to a certain ẹgun, who continued to text: “Where are you, sir? What is your address?” Sandayọ had tried to betray them. For whatever reason he had failed. Almost certainly, he would try again.