Chapter 53: Chapter 53
CHAPTER 46
Teju could not succumb to the reality of being a prisoner nor could he reach a well-argued agreement with the fact that he was never going home soon enough until he was brought back to jail in a police patrol car. He had spent two solid weeks in the Oluyoro general hospital with drips draping over him all day long, and with nurses parading all over. The doctors checked his pulses and heartbeat regularly and asked questions about how he felt. Even more distressingly, the police had been watching him. They took turns in watching him so that they had their eyes on him twenty-four seven.
He would be in his bed all day, only seldom would he go to the toilet with the policeman on duty keenly on his tail. He had made friend with one of the patients that were transferred to his ward. His name was Lekan. According to him, he had been admitted into the hospital three weeks earlier than Teju. Lekan had been a surviving victim of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of Nigeria’s Police force- SARS. They were a force who lately had given up their prime duties and obligations of protecting lives and properties for terrorising the un-uniformed citizens of the nation.
Lekan was returning from his place of work where he did computer works like a photocopy, typesetting, online registration and other related works when he was halted by three SARS officers. He was confronted with the random, baseless and unlawful accusation of being an internet fraudster, popularly known as yahoo-yahoo. Having denied their allegations, he was ransacked. They found a Dell laptop, a Tecno K7, and a BlackBerry Q10 on him. The SARS officers claimed that the laptop and the two phones were gadgets that vindicated their accusations. Without hearing the accused out or without due process, he was severely beaten up almost to death. He was tortured so that he would confess that he was an internet fraudster. But the last thing Lekan would do was to confess to being what he was not and get cruelly punished for it in the process.
Lekan had countless lashes of koboko, boot-kicks and a tear gas sprayed on his face. When he passed out, they left him at the side of an open road with his body ruthlessly mutilated, thinking he was dead. When he woke up in the hospital, with sharp and deep pains seeping through the pores of his body, he had asked for his laptop, two phones and his wallet. Up to that moment, and even till Teju left the hospital, Lekan had not seen the traces of any of them. It was the most disheartening thing to be robbed by those who should be protecting you from being robbed.
In a society where people both in power and out of power take decisions and actions because their bellies and pockets would be the chief benefactor, injustice rules, it becomes an undisputable commonplace. Lekan was lucky he was not dead. If he had died, injustice would still prevail. Only God knows what would have happened if he did not have relatives who could pay the porpoise fat hospital bills. He would have been left to rot on the hospital bed or discharged with no treatment. In a country where insecurity was as cheap as dirt, it was relatively ironic and confounding that security forces made citizens feel less secure than people who had no security forces around them at all. And truth be told, power, as a wise man once said, is control. It is a very selective form of truth, but not only selective but also an oppressive form of truth which turns out to be abarefaced lie.
The human societies from ages have been very accommodating to oppression. Equality and Justice, they are existing words which theoretically describe a world of fairness that will never exist beyond our mouths. Snow would fall in heavy sheets in Ibadan before there would be more of equity in the world than oppression. On the road, the Okada riders would oppress the pedestrians. The car drivers would oppress the Okada riders. The truck drivers would oppress the car drivers. It goes on and on in that fashion. Everyone goes around oppressing the people they have power over, no matter how little it is. And yet, those who oppress people have those that oppress them one way or the other. We live in a world of oppression, in a world of the oppressed, the oppressors and the oppressed oppressors.
When Teju was not talking with Lekan or was not being attended to by the nurses, he often would see the news on Channels, AIT or NTA. Some other times, he would see Soap Opera on Silverbird or eTV, and on other occasions, he would see music videos on Hip TV, Sound City or MTV Base. It was only on one occasion he was able to see a football match on SuperSport. It was an El clasico, a match between Spanish football club giants, Real Madrid versus Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
Before the match, there had been the usual long-standing and ever-recurrent debate- though not rendered on a high pitch or in a frenzied manner as it was commonly practised - of who was a better footballer between Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi among the sport-loving patients and the policeman on duty. The former was said to be talented and hard-working while the latter was said to be natural and heavenly gifted. Though Teju preferred Ronaldo to Messi, he hardly could tell the difference between their levels of giftedness. They had quickly reached a consensus of what they wanted to see on the TV and that was the El clasico match.
He also enjoyed the meal he was served as a convalescent. Mostly, he enjoyed the yellow pap creamed with Hollandia milk and sweetened with caramel or pure honey. Sometimes, instead of pap, it would be custard. The days flew. They flew so fast that when he finally got discharged, he felt like fainting again so that the days would never end, or probably they would be elongated a little more.
Being new behind bars, his first day in jail was hellish to the brim. It was as if he had been thrown into a pit with packs of ravenous wolves that were never out of hunger despite being fed. As the prison warden shoved him into the half-dark and half-lighted cell, a dead silence blanketed the whole cell. He was in a blue coloured prison outfit. He could feel prying eyes all over him. If their eyes could illumine, his body would have been covered with red dots of light as though he got lasers all over him. He looked up and encountered millions of shrill eyes at a glance. Their faces were expressionless, and it was quite difficult to know if to introduce himself was rational or not.
He walked silently to the left corner of the cell and squatted beside a young man who was sitting on the floor. His eyes were sunken and were looking horizontally at the uninviting vacuum set before him as if he was high on reefers. Teju watched him as he squatted beside him. Probably he was the only person who was not staring at him. Teju remained conscious. He could feel their eyes following him to that spot, and they were still on him. He tried to concentrate on the strong concocted pong of excrement and urine, which had first dimly welcomed him immediately he stepped into the prison yard. But the image of the mean-looking men of the cell beat him out of it.
The reek of night soil sailed freely and gaily from a recessed corner of the cell with an air of having eternal longevity. It gave Teju an impression that the stink would remain even if the prison was hewed down and a perfume or an incense factory was pulled up in its stead. He would complain about the strange bad smell, he thought. But on further consideration, he dismissed the thought. He was choking on the stench of course, but who would give a damn about his complaint when everybody in the cell seemed to be cool with it. It would only make them laugh at him, calling him aje butter or ajebo, which means a spoilt brat or a weakling. They wouldhave an aversion to him for acting like a posh person when he was just like another criminal in the cell.
He tried to look hard and bold so that he would not be attractive to bullies who would take him as a duck-soup, a weakling or a loser. But deep down inside of him, his tongue was dry, his throat was coerced and his heart was pounding hard and fast that one could follow the fast rhythm of his heartbeat through his uniform. He started having goosebumps on his body. Some beads of sweat started converging on his forehead. He had a glimpse at his passive frighteners and saw a number of them standing up from the floor. They started coming towards him. He did not bother to look at the size of these men, or he might be horrified to death. He kept his gaze on the floor. He felt like running to the bars and screaming out to the prison wardens to have some mercy on him and have him shoved into another cell less hellish than the one he was in.
“You no dey greet?” a baritone voice echoed over him.
He looked up and saw a muscular man of about forty-five years old standing and looking hard at him. He had about six other younger men around glowering at him as if they would devour him.
“Good evening,” Teju said silently and stared back at the floor.
One of the men made to rush at him but the muscular man held him back. He must be the cell leader. Probably Teju had not shown enough respect and one of his boys had decided to hit him to teach him.
“Stand up!” the baritone voice echoed again.
Teju stood up slowly and looked at the man in the face. His eyes were red-shot. Teju wondered if he had been drinking and if they allow something of that sort in the cell. It seemed his face had never known laughter all his life, right from infancy to his present age, as if he never smiled. It was obvious he was the oldest in the cell, both in age and in time spent in prison. He was mature. He had that air and charisma of control over all the inmates in the cell. He seemed to have grown muscular that he looked fuller in his uniform, and his uniform seemed torn, worn and faded.
He introduced himself as DS. ‘District Superintendent’, overstressing each syllable as though calling it in that manner would decrypt another meaning encrypted in the words. He introduced his so-called ‘officials of Progress’. They were just two. A stout, short man with brownish beards, slim lips and a large nose was the Special Adviser, while a tall and petite man with a long neck was the Information Agent. He also introduced his ‘officials of Discipline’. They were four. One of them was introduced as DPO while the other three were called Sergeants. Those were the men who made up the government of the cell, so said DS.
And just like their leader, the ‘officials of Progress’ looked well fed than other officials and inmates, while the ‘officials of Discipline’ were second in the ranking. Teju wondered how and why it was like that. He enjoyed the introduction ceremony conducted by DS. He enjoyed the way the officials lined up according to their order of ranking. How they came forward to reintroduce themselves and their portfolio. How they bowed out after their introduction and how he reciprocated. It was simply enjoyable.
The occasional squalid thought of how the initiation ceremony would go flitted through his mind during the introduction ceremony. It made his heart pump faster. It made him no longer at ease. He had heard of how new inmates were beaten to a pulp in the name of initiation. He was still hurt emotionally by the regression befallen him in the name of true love, and he was not willing to undergo any physical agony in the name of frivolities such as initiation either. After they had introduced themselves, he was urged to introduce himself. He did, telling them he was a graduate of the University of Ibadan and his position in the company he was working. On the faces of all his new inmates was the burning question, if you are a graduate of UI and a Senior Marketing officer of a company, how the hell did end up here? Hope you didn’t miss your road.
Teju chose to ignore the surprise and the questioning eyes on their faces. He commented on how impressive the level of organisation and unity was where it was least expected. He emphasised his comment by saying that if DS was the president of Nigeria, it would have been a better nation. His officials and inmates seconded with hailing and shout of affirmation, making his head leaven like a lump of yeasted dough. Such comment from an educated person, a Masters Degree holder for that matter, was cherished. Only if they could see that it was one of Teju’s antics to make sure he was on the good side of the cell leader. Ultimately, he did not want to get beaten up.
The smile that slinked to the face of DS was alien and aberrant. Teju loved the way the wrinkles on his face momentarily lost their lines. His face flattened up like a cobra’s head as he chuckled and shone his half-rotten teeth. DS put his hand across Teju’s shoulders as though he had known Teju all his life and laughed. He told his officials and inmates that he liked him. Teju was thankful that his trick was working perfectly. He would not only be left alone, but he would also become part of the cell’s governing body. Suddenly, a bass voice from a dark corner of the cell spoke.
‘Se you no go initiate am?”