by Femi Kayode
‘Can you see that?’
He points at an impressive, rusty old cannon that takes pride of place in the middle of a roundabout. Chika and I had driven past it before, but I’d regarded it with nothing but the mildest curiosity.
‘For a very long time, all this –’ The old man lifts his cane and uses it to indicate the environs, ‘was nothing but bush and wild animals. My people came here many, many years ago. My great-grandfather told stories of the hardships they had, tilling the land, conquering it, but never once doubting their claim to it. Then, the white man came and took everything but the land. They gave us new laws; we obeyed as long as we had the land. They even gave us new names, a new religion, meddled in our language, but they never took the land.’
I look around at the Inspector who has followed us out of the car and is now standing and looking into the distance, his face impassive. The old man himself speaks without a rush, and looks at no one in particular, even though I appear to be his only audience.
‘Even when the British brought several tribes together, drew a marker around the Niger and the Benue Rivers and called the funny circle inside Nigeria, our people did not worry. What is in a name? What could be so different after all? Our people had lived in peace with everyone from the west, the north and even amongst the easterners, long before the white man came to call us all by one name.’
The Chief starts walking around the cannon. I follow respectfully. I try to ignore the stares of passers-by, the bodyguards behind us and the cars driving by with their blatantly curious occupants.
The old man moves his hand over the cannon, sighs deeply and says, ‘Let us sit here for a bit.’
It takes a while for the old man to ease down on to the concrete platform holding the canon. He looks up at me.
‘Am I boring you, Dr Taiwo?’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘Gooood,’ he drags out the word and takes a moment before he continues. ‘My father said most of them came from Enugu – from that direction.’ He points his cane towards somewhere in the distance. ‘First in ones, then twos, then whole families.’
‘The British?’ I ask.
The old man looks at me as if surprised that I’m paying enough attention to ask questions and pats the spot for me to sit next to him on the sun-beaten concrete.
‘No, the Igbos,’ he continues. ‘Before then, we were all brothers and sisters. No one had any claim to anything. We shared food, names and several parts of each other’s language. But they came with papers claiming the land was theirs because a government we had not chosen told them so. But my people did not fight. We just went further into the bush, conquering other parts, starting all over again.’
He falls silent. He bows his head and shudders as if the burden of remembering overwhelms him.
Inspector Omereji walks over to the old man and places a hand on his shoulder. ‘Papa?’
The old man’s voice wavers slightly when he lifts his head, ‘I am fine.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Inspector Omereji says gently.
‘He came for answers.’
‘You don’t have them.’
‘But I have our truth.’
Omereji sighs resignedly and steps back while his father looks at me with a tired smile.
‘I remember the exact date the war started. The white man had left, but the people he forced to be one no longer wanted to be together. From Omaga to Aluu, the Igbos were going from village to village, asking men to join in the fight to break away and form Biafra. One of their promises was that in Biafra there would be no faceless central government taking our land and giving it away left and right. Those of us who believed joined to fight on the side of the Igbos for Biafra. Those who didn’t, stayed. But still, the war came. Forcing those who remained to become soldiers to protect the women, the children and, of course, the land.’
‘Did you stay, sir?’ I ask to break another long pause.
‘Yes. But my father did not. He went to fight because he said no one knew which side would win. He said it was better to go and be part of the negotiations when the fighting is over. I stayed because, to protect my people and our land, someone had to be in charge of this monster.’
He raises his walking stick to rap it against the old cannon. ‘For six years, we could hear bombs and explosions as close as Warri. Dying soldiers came. Hungry children and women walked miles to get here. We turned no one back. And for all those years, this was where I, my two younger brothers and three other men slept. We stayed here, ready to fire this beast to protect our people.’
I had read horrible accounts of the Biafran war – perhaps one of the most terrible civil wars in Africa, but I must confess, I’ve never been so close to anyone who was part of it, as a victim or soldier. I look up at the cannon. It’s not hard to imagine young men camping around it, ready to fire it in defence of their lives and belongings.
‘When they told us the war was over,’ the old man continues, ‘we waited to be sure the news was true before we left here. I stayed here until I saw my father limp home with one hand and a leg missing, and he confirmed the war was over. We all went back into the bush and brought out our women and children. And we took back our lands. When some of the Igbos came, we showed them the Land Redistribution Decree that the central government had given us in exchange for renouncing Biafra. The Igbos were not happy. We shouted. We fought. But we were also very tired. After all the killing, no one had the energy to fight longer than necessary. For the Igbos, life had become more important than land. For us, because the land had been taken from us before, there was no life without land.’
‘I see,’ I say after a while, but only because this time, his silence is longer than usual.
‘No, you do not, Dr Taiwo,’ he says more forcefully than I expect. ‘You came here to look for ways to punish people who were only protecting what is theirs.’
‘No, sir. The parents of these boys want closure and –’
‘The boys are dead, what more closure can there be?’
‘But how they died … it haunts the parents.’
‘Those boys were robbing us, they’ve been doing it for years, and no one came to our rescue. And when we said, enough was enough, the whole world is on our doorstep shouting injustice! Murder!’
‘If that’s true, sir, then I shouldn’t have any problem getting the answers I came for.’
‘You came for answers that will serve the purpose of the people who sent you,’ he says dismissively, and in the manner I am becoming used to, he changes track without warning, ‘I shall continue my story.’
He pauses as if daring me to stop him. ‘The war was over. We had our land and just as we were getting our lives back, they discovered oil in Bonny and several other towns. We kept hoping they will find some here too, but they didn’t. When we saw what the oil was doing to the other communities, we thanked the gods there was no oil in Okriki. But the land was no longer enough. The food from the ground could not feed everyone and still have enough to sell in the market. So, when the government came and very nicely asked for land to build the university, we agreed. And for a time, it was the right decision. People came to our village and made it a town, ate our food, rented our land and brought us a lot of money, but they kept knowledge inside the walls of the university built on our land.’
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Look around my town, Dr Taiwo,’ he uses his walking stick to sweep the air in an arc. ‘How many youths do you see from here going to that university? How many people from this town have access to the teaching hospital without paying plenty of money? The list goes on. What has that university brought us but discontent?’
‘But you said it brought money?’
The Chief breathed deeply. ‘Money only breeds a desire for more money. Nothing more.’
‘I don’t follow how this affects why I’m here –’
‘When we gave our land to that university, the people of this town had only one thing to p
rotect, and that was the money they made from its presence in this town. That same money is what those students came to steal.’
‘Is that the town’s excuse?’ I can’t keep the disdain from my voice.
‘It is our truth, so I repeat, no one will help you find the version you came looking for.’
‘Is that a threat, sir?’
‘It is a promise.’
I look towards the Inspector and back at the old man whose faded eyes are piercing as they look at me.
I dare to respond, ‘Even if it means using your own son to obstruct justice, sir?’
Inspector Omereji steps towards me threateningly but halts as the Chief raises his walking stick.
‘Dr Taiwo, go and tell those who sent you that you met the Paramount Chief Kinikanwo Omereji of Okriki. Tell them I will make sure my people are not punished for protecting themselves from those who came to take what does not belong to them. You understand?’
For the life of me, I can do nothing but nod.
BACKTRACK
We say nothing throughout the drive back to the hotel. The driver opens the door for me, and I bid the Chief goodbye. He merely nods, closing his eyes as if I bored him. I don’t bother acknowledging the Inspector, expressionless in the front seat.
Chika is waiting for me at the entrance and, after assuring him I am fine, I tell him I’d like to be alone. He understands.
I go to my room, take off my shoes and lie on the bed.
The day has been a string of disasters, first with Mercy and the ethical lines I’d crossed in the bid to get any useful information that could help my investigation. Then, to return from that only to be confronted by the unrepentant arrogance of Chief Omereji was the last straw.
Recalling the look on the father’s face as he comforted Mercy fills me with remorse. What separates me from someone like the Chief who would justify murder in the name of protecting his people? Am I becoming Machiavellian, devoid of empathy and entirely focused on my goal?
For the millionth time since I followed my wife back to Nigeria, I curse the circumstances that made that decision for me. Despite the game face I had put on when Folake had presented her arguments for us to come back, I know I still harbour a deep resentment for her insistence.
‘Sweet, the boys will turn fifteen this year. I want us to leave before they think they’re the colour of their skin.’
She had a point. Social media had democratised information and reports of violence towards people of colour were everywhere. When we were invited to attend a parents–teachers’ conference where a whole set of instructions were given to black boys on what to do when stopped by the police, Folake had been livid and disturbed all at once. The disaster in Seattle was the last straw, making her determined to leave the States, with or without me. So, yes, I am a reluctant returnee. And this has clouded my acclimatisation in Nigeria. I’ve used my otherness to look in at my homeland as an outsider. I tell myself that as long as I can rise above the chaos and maintain my separateness, I’ll be fine.
Today, my conduct suggests that I may have lost the battle. It seems I have given in to the rush mentality, the tendency to take the shortcut and bypass due process. I have become too involved in a case, setting professional caution aside.
For this, I blame my father. As much as I don’t want to make this all about him, his relationship with Emeka matters a lot. His confession about being in a cult – fraternity – on campus shook me since it revealed a side of him that I didn’t know existed. Ever since that conversation in his study, I have tried to reconcile my strict but loving father with the violence and mayhem associated with cultism on Nigerian campuses. I don’t even know what I hope to find: that the Okriki Three were members of a cult and therefore their violent deaths in the hands of the townsfolk were justified? Or that their deaths had nothing to do with cultism but everything to do with a misguided community set on edge by an insecure environment?
There’s a knock on my door. I open it, and Chika stands there with a full bottle of Jameson whiskey and two mismatched glasses.
‘Usually, it’s when people want to be alone that they really shouldn’t be,’ he says wryly.
This new-found familiarity is just what I need right now. Chika walks in, places the glasses on the table and starts to open the bottle of whiskey.
‘I’m afraid I wasn’t the best version of myself today,’ I say, as I close the door.
‘Neither was I.’ He pours the golden liquid into the two glasses and hands me one. ‘But it has happened. Can we find something in the whole experience to make it all worthwhile?’
He’s right, of course. Perhaps the best way to make my mistake count for some good is to reflect on the information Mercy’s interview has yielded.
‘Well, for one,’ I say, as the whiskey burns down my throat, ‘if Kevin came visiting Mercy earlier in the day, then we can confirm that he didn’t leave the campus with Bona and Winston.’
‘But they could all have met up later in the day.’ Chika knocks back his drink and starts to pour another.
‘Yes, but if it was a sting, and it was planned carefully enough to select Kevin as a lookout guy –’
‘But as you said, if Winston and Bona were cultists, they wouldn’t need a lookout guy –’
‘Yes, but work with me here …’ I pause as Chika pours more whiskey into my glass. It might be ungracious to tell him that while beer is okay, hard liquor is my real undoing, so I take the glass and hope to nurse it long enough to avert dancing on the ceiling. ‘If this was all planned and Kevin was a part of it from the beginning, would he complicate things by visiting his girlfriend, and add the pressure of meeting her father for the first time, on the very day he is planning a robbery?’
‘Not a robbery. A shakedown.’
‘Whatever. One of them felt the need to bring a gun to the scene. That’s a strong indication that whatever was going to happen at Godwin’s place was not a courtesy visit.’
‘So, you don’t think Kevin would visit Mercy on the same day he was planning to shakedown Godwin with his pals?’
‘I’m just not sure it’s something anyone will do.’
I walk to my wall of Post-it notes. I’ve pasted newspaper clippings of the Okriki Three alongside some of the facts corroborated by the police reports. They’re in the ‘what we know’ section of the wall. Next to the notes are pictures of Winston, Bona and Kevin. Young, handsome and smiling. Under Kevin’s picture, there’s a lot of information, but I’ve also put a large question mark against the word ‘cultist’.
I stare at the photo for a while. Everyone has described him as wonderful, kind and smart. To be honest, until I met Mercy, I took all these descriptions with a pinch of doubt. Parents especially can be quite biased when describing their kids, generally overselling their skills and attributes. Add the cultural tendency not to speak ill of the dead, and one can see why I tended to avoid basing my composites of the victims on hearsay. But, somehow Mercy’s portrait of Kevin resonates. He seemed like a truly well-brought-up boy, kind, respectful and well liked.
I consider Emeka Nwamadi himself. Well educated. A gentleman by all standards and a success story. A conscientious self-made man who has risen to become one of the most respected bankers in the country. It’s not hard to picture him raising a son who would have, for all intents and purposes, become an asset to society.
My father’s reason for wanting to disprove the idea that Kevin was a cultist comes to mind. Perhaps I have it all wrong, focusing on whether the boys were in a cult or not. So far, the best explanation I have for Kevin being attacked together with Bona and Winston is that they were in a cult, but there’s no shred of evidence supporting this theory. Nothing but the words of players whose motives I can’t trust. I had hoped to leave this membership theory behind but finding an alternative line of enquiry is proving elusive.
‘The Chief insists the boys were killed by his people in self-defence.’
Chika snorts. ‘Evil man! You know i
t’s on record that he told his people to hunt and kill any robber? How can he say that, especially if locals who steal are punished with public humiliation at the community hall? It’s the strangers they burn alive.’ He gives a long hiss. ‘Xenophobic bastard!’
‘The Chief’s not our focus –’ I try to remind Chika.
‘He should be arrested, nonetheless. He has a big role in this.’
‘Chika, focus.’
Chika flashes a rueful smile and lifts his hands up in mock surrender.
‘If we can understand the relationship between the three young men,’ I continue, ‘we might be able to work out how they came to be together in Okriki on that day.’
‘Mr Nwamadi is pretty sure his son was not friends with Bona and Winston.’
‘Yes. But what about this Tamuno that Mercy says Kevin was going to see? Is he a student too? How close were they? What can he tell us about that day?’ I stop walking around the room and look at Chika, watching me from the sofa. ‘Remember when we went to the scene of the burning and the compound?’
Chika nods.
‘I think we should’ve backtracked a bit further.’
‘To where?’ Chika asks with a frown.
‘To when the boys left campus … If we want a realistic timeline of what happened that day, we’ve got to start from the beginning. From before they got to Okriki.’
‘What will it tell us?’ Chika asks, sceptical.
‘Well, for one, premeditation. If this was a planned sting, then someone must have known they were planning a visit to Okriki. Who saw them leave the campus? At what time? Did they get a lift or a taxi?’
‘I don’t know how that will help.’ Chika is shaking his head. ‘They were here. How they got here or who saw them can’t make much of a difference.’
‘But we can piece together what their possible intention was, what made this particular shakedown different from the ones Godwin claimed they’d done to him in the past. Did they always have a gun? Had anybody ever seen them with a gun? Had they ever used it before?’