ENJOY THIS SERIES BY THE BLOGGER BY THE NAME TUNDE LEYE
EPISODE 1

Tooooot! Tooooot! The trailer’s blaring horn cut rudely into Awazi’s thoughts. “Oh my days!” she exclaimed. Today, of all the immeasurable number of days in time, Lagos-Ibadan expressway had chosen to be the meeting point of the world union of traffic inducing demons. As her husband would say, the traffic tie wrapper, come wear bandana join dey dance atilogwu. Even a slither of water would not find its way through this bumper to bumper traffic mess, and expectedly, they had passed a generous sprinkling of vehicles that had coughed and given up whatever ghost cars possessed parked by the roadside. The one hour journey from Lagos to Ibadan on a normal day had taken them four hours today. And they had just barely gone past Ogere trailer park. Her only consolation was that her husband Derin had just changed his car. If it had been their old Honda, the air conditioning would have done nothing to alleviate the searing heat. She balanced in the rear seat (popularly called Owner’s Corner) of Derin’s new Kia Sportage jeep. The fact that this was an automatic transmission car also kept him in high spirits during the trip. Had it been their old manual transmission Honda, he would have been a grumpy grouch by now. Derin had done well for the family. He had finally made that move from his old generation, meager salary paying bank to an oil servicing firm whose name eluded her now. And voila, within a year of that move, they had been able to change the car, and had now moved away from Shomolu to finally go to that nice spot behind E-Center in the Sabo area of Lagos she had always wanted them to go to. Life was looking up.

“Your ogo looks very knock-able from behind” she said, playfully rubbing his clean shaven head now. Derin laughed without taking his eyes off the road, trying to inch ahead of the minibus that was trying to reenter the road from the red sands of the patch between the road and the bush beside it. “You this Eggon woman from the bushes of Nassarawa wants to slap a full grown Yoruba man’s head. Abomination! We Ibadan men require the liver of a male snail as sacrifice for such atrocities o.”

They both laughed as she rose to kiss the back of his head “how about that kind of head slapping, Mr. full grown Yoruba man?” she asked smiling naughtily.

“Haaaa,” he said in mock horror. “This woman, you want to cause an accident abi? And you are doing bad thing in front of the baby, you want to teach him bad bad things?”

As she collapsed into the seat laughing again, the baby chuckled out aloud, seemingly joining her in laughter. She felt a surge of love rise through her being as she looked at him. The baby. Her baby. Their baby. Her, and Derin. It had taken a heart wrenching twelve years for him to come. She had cried, prayed, fought, despaired and nearly given up. It hadn’t been an easy marriage, from the beginning. She was a Hausa speaking, Eggon woman who had spent all her life in Nassarawa. She could hear her father drilling it into her head from when she was old enough to understand the word ‘marry’.

“Awazi, my daughter,” he would say, giving her one of his carefully selected serious looks. “Ours is a small and close knit tribe, and we enjoy peace with ourselves. When you are of age, we will find you a nice Eggon man, and you will marry him.” She remembered rolling her eyes internally, but nodding obediently as she was expected to.

NYSC came and for the first time, it had taken her out of her cul de sac in Nassarawa. Her father had repeated the warnings when she was leaving but she hadn’t heard them. He was the proper Ibadan Yoruba boy and they had met when he came to work in Calabar, while she was serving there. Both parents didn’t want the marriage. Her father had exploded in rage when she brought the matter up. But Derin was a charmer. By means she could never understand, Derin managed to win his affection and his blessing to take his daughter as wife. She was elated. So, marry, they eventually did, and she had settled with him in Lagos. That had been the number one wahala. Lagos was simply too close to Ibadan, and her mother in-law didn’t think much about barging in on them. Shebi she would have preferred her son to marry a proper Yoruba Yoruba woman like her. After three years without having a child, her mother in-law turned the heat up. She visited every weekend, and spoke Yoruba all through her stay. The only English words she spoke were directed at her and they were a sarcastic “one day you will confess what you have used all your unborn children to do, you this man we have married,” or something of the sorts. As the assault got more serious, the relationship between her and Derin deteriorated. It was only a matter of time before the explosion came, and when it did, it nearly blew her marriage to smithereens. She had repeatedly heard rumors that Derin had fathered a child in Ibadan and the child was with his mother, and when the rumors got too much, she had decided to confront him. After all, she had reasoned, there was no smoke without fire. It eventually turned out to be false news, planted by Derin’s mum to incite to act exactly as she had done. Derin had rejected the suggestion when his mum had brought it up, but the woman still found a way to make it hurt. And before it was exposed to be false, it had destroyed the thin fabric that was holding the marriage together.

They had been separated for six months, but Derin (bless him, she thought) came after her, and won her for his wife a second time. It was then they agreed to the ruse that preserved their marriage. They had gotten a new apartment in Shomolu, far from the Abule Egba where they had been staying. Derin then told his mum that he had been transferred to the bank’s regional office in Abuja. They had forged a letter on the bank’s letterhead that Derin brought home, and she had coined the letter to mean a promotion. Overjoyed at her son’s promotion, the woman believed they were really moving to Abuja. They then arranged for some correspondences to be sent to her from a friend in Abuja to her impersonating Derin, sealing their ruse completely. And so they had lived, more happily for five years, while searching for a child.

There had been pregnancies in all those years, but she had lost them all. Seven times, she had had miscarriages. Seven times she had hoped, only to have her hope shattered when she had begun to find hope in her hope. When she had become pregnant for him, she had refused to allow herself hope. As the pregnancy had advanced, the fear and foreboding within her had grown, expecting to see the now familiar telltale blood between her legs at anytime. But the months had passed and he had grown within her. One day, within the eight month, she felt a sharp spasm run through her body. She instantly recognized it for what it was – labor pains. She was beginning labor premature. Forgetting everything she had been taught in antenatal, she panicked. “No,” she had said. “No!” she had screamed. No, it couldn’t not go perfect. Why would she be having a premature child?

Thankfully, it had been a weekend and Derin had been at home. He always hovered around her protectively when she was pregnant anyway, so he wasn’t far off. He had rushed in when she screamed and assessed the situation without a word. With quiet efficiency, he gathered the kit he had practiced putting together over and over again with her, and then gently led her to the car.

The calmness he exuded didn’t translate to his driving though. He drove like a cheetah in pursuit of prey through the free roads and they were in the Surulere hospital Derin used for his HMO in no time. On the way to the hospital, the contractions had gotten more frequent, more intense. When they got to the hospital Derin’s composure was nearly gone. He hurried her in and the nurses who were familiar with their story saw what was going on and quickly took over from him, stretching her to the labor room.

They had endured a grueling two weeks after his birth before the doctors finally pronounced the baby okay. Coupled with the huge bills incurred on the incubator, they were on the edge. They were so unsure, and their faith so battered by years of loss that they chose not to share the birth of their baby with anyone, not even close family and friends. They waited to be sure, and it had taken two weeks. Those two weeks had been the longest in her life. When the doctor finally told them that the baby was out of the woods, she had seen Derin shed silent tears for the first (and the last time) in their marriage. After that, they had called and told everybody. Her whole family, including her father had flown in from wherever in the world they were. Derin’s mum too had come, along with his only sibling, his younger sister. Their father was late by then. Awazi relished the look on her mother in-law’s face when she held the baby. It was a priceless look of someone who now had to eat very big, hurtful words she had said over the years. But she couldn’t deny the pure love she saw shinning through the old woman’s eyes whenever she looked at the baby. In that, they were together. So, after toying with all manner of names of exceedingly great length in her head (she even came up with OluwaVindicateMi), she simply named her baby Isaac, like the biblical Sarah.

“Finally!” Derin exclaimed, bringing her back into the present. “The annoying thing about all this traffic is that you get to the end of it, and find the road free.” True to character, the rest of the journey to Ibadan was smooth. It was when they got to the outskirts of Ibadan that Isaac began to cry uncontrollably. Not the normal baby cries. Piercing, ear shattering cries. But for the mother, it was more than ear shattering, every cry ripped at a shred of her soul’s fabric. Suddenly, he became quiet, and she noticed he stiffened and his little arms and legs began to twitch spasmodically and his breathing became irregular.

Letting out a low gasp, she picked him out of the baby car seat he had been in. She nearly dropped him back into the seat. In the short time it had taken to get to Ibadan from the point where they escaped from the traffic, his temperature had risen dramatically. He was blazing hot. Ever vigilant, Derin had heard her gasp and noticed his wife’s reaction through his rear view mirror and he quickly pulled over. A mob of youths selling all manner of breads and chargers mobbed their car in the hope of making a quick sale but he ignored them all, unshackled himself from the seat belt and twisted around to face her. The baby had started crying again by now, even louder than before.

“What is wrong with him?” he asked, above the cries of the baby.

“I don’t know,” she responded, bewildered. “He seemed perfectly okay in Lagos and I even breastfed him while we were in traffic. This started rather suddenly.”

“We’ll stop by at a hospital I’m familiar with before going to my parent’s place,” he said.

They had agreed that they would not be staying at his parents’ place to forestall friction. They would go visit, but would lodge in a hotel.

He quickly pulled out onto the road, narrowly missing one of the hawkers who hadn’t moved quickly enough. He swore under his breath.

Twenty minutes later, amidst incessant heart wrenching cries from Isaac, and repeated occurrences of the spasms, they arrived at the hospital he had spoken of, one he had been familiar with since he was a boy. It was a white two storey building with well paved lawns and a low fence. Even though there was a sign on the main road, indicating they were at the hospital, they had to turn off the main road into a smaller side road to get to the big black gate that was its entrance. The sign announced that they were welcome to Omega Clinic. Like an expert robber, he parked, unlatched his seat belt and opened the door in one movement. Awazi was still trying to gather all the lose baby things in the car together when he opened the door impatiently. He reached over her and picked the baby up and left the door open. The baby was so hot now he felt his arms warming up uncomfortably as he cradled him in his arms. He quickened his pace to a quick trot. By the time he got to the see through glass door, his wife had caught up with him, with one item or the other falling out of her hands with every step. She didn’t stop to pick any of them. Derin rammed his shoulder in the door to open it.

The hospital reception area was filled with all manner of people. Old, young, healthy looking, and obviously sick. It was a busy day. He cursed his luck as he meandered his way to the mighty looking mahogany receptionist’s desk. Isaac was still crying at the top of his little lungs, the volume of his wailing quite the opposite of how little those lungs must be. The smell of drugs hit him in the face like a punch. It nauseated him but he took no notice of it. There were two nurses at the desk, one middle aged squat woman with rabbit-like teeth visible even when she closed her mouth. The other was a wiry looking nurse. Both were unsmiling, unwelcoming.

“Yes…” the older woman whose name tag said her name was Mercy asked. The question sounded more like a rebuke and her face remained as unwelcoming as it could ever be. She spoke with a slight lisp, no thanks to her teeth.

“My son, he suddenly developed a high fever, is having spasms and is crying uncontrollably, on our way from Lagos. All this started within the last one hour.”

Kaffy, the younger nurse hissed. “So because you are from Lagos now, you think you can come here and jump the queue. Abi you did not see that all the people you passed were waiting since ni?” she clapped her hands together and shook her head “all you these Lagos people sef!”

“Abi o,” Mercy chipped in.

“Ladies,” Derin said impatiently, “if it was not such an emergency, I would have joined the queue. But as it is, this is the first time Isaac here has been sick, and it seems pretty bad.”

Kaffy again eyeballed him and turned away to some paperwork.

Mercy was a bit less hostile “Oga, do you have a card?”

At this point Awazi lost it. “Iskanchi! How can we have a bleeding card! He just clearly said we came here straight from the road. We are not Ibadan people; we came in from Lagos with an emergency involving our only child, a six month old baby. You are a woman and a nurse, and should understand how urgent this is. The infant cannot even say what is wrong with him; the earlier he’s attended to, the better. We will pay whatever it is, just let the baby see a doctor immediately.”

Now Mercy was just as angry as Kaffy. Really, all these Lagos people that would come to Ibadan with all their pomposity. She was used to their type. They would walk in with all their airs and graces with the assumption that Ibadan was some kind of backwater inferior town to their big Lagos. I mean, even Johnson, her younger brother who was thirty before he left Ibadan for Lagos now came back preening around like a cock whenever he was in town from Lagos. Nonsense somebody! What did she mean by “Ibadan people”? And who was she to question her womanhood? And why was this woman giving her orders. She hissed loudly.

“Madam, we don’t attend to anybody that does not have a card in this hospital. Take the corridor to your left to our admin department to go and buy a card and register. And then you will join the queue like everybody else.” And then she too turned her back and joined Kaffy at the paperwork.

Derin considered his options – stay here and spar with these clowns and waste precious time or go in to get the card and by any luck run into a doctor. Doctors were known to act better than nurses in most hospitals.

He quickly made his decision. He handed Isaac over to Awazi and dashed down the corridor like a rabbit down a hole. Seconds later, he had located the admin department. It seemed empty.

“Is there anybody here?” he shouted. Silence

“Is there anybody here!” he shouted louder.

“Oga, you don’t need to shout now, this is a hospital!” someone shouted from within the admin room. The owner of the shouting voice that had told him not to shout emerged from the shadows. How ironical. It was a dark man with thick glasses on.

“How may I help you?” the man queried.

“I need a family card,” Derin responded.

The man slowly turned around and went to get a bunch of keys from a nail on the wall. Then he methodically selected one of the keys, wasting seconds that seemed like hours to Derin.

“Would you please hurry it up Mr.” he said to the man, clearly irritated.

The man ignored him and continued at his unhurried pace. He opened a safe and went through a blue, then green and red card, before finally separating the green card from the three. He then went about putting the other two cards back into the file, locking the safe, putting the bunch of keys back on the nail before returning to Derin. He seemed to be deliberately taking his time and nothing Derin said hurried him up.

Five minutes later, he had paid Three Thousand Naira and filled out loads of forms. Then and only then did the man hand the precious card over to him. Derin bolted from the place back to the reception area.

Apparently, while he had been gone, Awazi had gotten into a shouting match with the two nurses, and had attracted a more senior nurse and a doctor. She was angrily explaining the situation to the doctor when he returned, interjecting her English with a sprinkling of Hausa now, like she did when she was exasperated.

He held the card triumphantly in his hands towards the doctor, and addressing the doctor, he said “sir, now that we have a card, can you please take a look at our baby?”

“Ha, gentleman,” the doctor said, I would love to, but I have about three patients waiting to see me right now, and they are my personal patients.”

Derin did all he could to keep his calm as he explained “Doctor…” he said, looking inquiringly at the doctor who obliged by supplying his name “Hakeem,” he said.

Derin smiled his most beseeching smile “Doctor Hakeem, I understand that these patients have been waiting to see you, and they are important. But you see, this happens to be an emergency…”

Hakeem waved his hand dismissively and interrupted “Mr. Banwo,” he said in a bored voice as if he was explaining a more than obvious point to a dimwit, reading his name off the card “as I have told your wife here, I understand perfectly. But the truth is that every patient feels their own case is an emergency, even the ones with mere headaches and tries to influence us to break protocols for them. It is the Nigerian way, but it is one of our jobs to maintain this order. Hence…”

This idiot was comparing this to a mere headache? Derin couldn’t control himself any longer. “What the Bleep are you saying dude! Are you not a doctor? Do six month old babies develop boiling point temperatures over thirty minutes for regular ordinary ailments? You could do your job with some sense and at least take a frigging look at the baby!”

“Mr. Banwo, that is no way to talk to me, I am doing my job by being here and sorting the hullabaloo that you and your equally uncultured wife have raised here. I will not be insulted by your likes. Mr. Banwo…”

“Do not Mr. Banwo me! You are an insensitive clod of cold steel, the whole lot of you. This is not the hospital I remember this place to be as a kid.”

“Well, it is not the hospital you came to as a kid. Things have changed since my father handed over the running of the place to me. I have made some changes and run this place differently now, Mr. We are now modern and orderly, and we have systems and protocols we follow strictly. Now if you don’t mind, I have real work to do.”

As if on cue, everyone went quiet. And it was in that sole moment of quiet that they noticed what had eluded them. For as they shouted and quarreled amongst each other, Isaac had become quiet. And he wasn’t having spasms this time, he was still. Awazi screamed.

EPISODE 2

Derin spun around and quickly took Isaac from Awazi. The first thing that struck him was how cold the child had become, in contrast with the vivid memory of how hot he had been when they were bringing him in.

A panic ran down Dr. Hakeem’s spine. He collected the child from a numb Derin, and practically ripped the clothes off his body. Placing him on the receptionist’s desk, he confirmed what his cursory observation had told him the moment the mother had screamed. The baby was dead.

He turned around to face Derin, whose eyes were glazed as if not seeing anyone in the room “I am sorry, Mr. Banwo but…”

A sharp pain caused him to swallow the rest of the sentence and he found himself reeling backwards. It took a few split seconds to overcome the shock and realize that Derin had punched him square in the face.

“You are sorry? YOU ARE SORRY? Oh, you are not yet sorry, but you will be sorry when I’m through with you!” As he spoke, the tears began to flow freely from his eyes, and through her tears, Awazi saw her husband cry for the second time ever.

Kaffy was trying to cover Isaac’s body up now and she caught the movement in the corner of her eye. She rushed over to the reception desk in one stride and screamed “Don’t lay your filthy hands on my baby!” shoving the nurse away with such force that she fell heavily into the chair just behind her. By now Derin was beside her. As if in a trancelike state, they silently wrapped the baby in his shawl and then began to move towards the exit. Dr. Hakeem called out from the seat he was nursing his chin from “Mr. Banwo, there are still things we can do for you, that you require…” He swallowed when Derin turned back towards him. The look he saw in the man’s eyes, plus the very real pain he was feeling in his chin warned him that drawing attention to himself by talking wasn’t a wise choice at the moment. He had wanted to suggest that they would require a death certificate to move around with the child, but he kept quiet.

Derin slowly turned back towards the exit and then walked briskly to the car with Awazi in tow. “Where are we going?” Awazi queried as soon as they got into the car.

“My mum’s place. We have to bury Isaac, and do it immediately,” he responded in a colorless monotone.

“And why do we require your mum to do this? I really need to get this,” Awazi said.

“Because,” Derin responded and started the engine “we are not going to be part of the burial. It is forbidden in Yorubaland for parents to bury their children.”

“Well, I am not a Yoruba woman,” she responded, “and I will bury…” At the mention of the word bury, she burst into tears. It was Isaac they were talking about burying. Isaac. She looked at him looking so peaceful in his carrier. You could almost think he would wake up any moment from now, and cry out to demand for his food. But she was not going to hear those cries any longer. The tears flowed freely and she lost the will to protest wherever Derin was taking them.

They had barely driven for ten minutes, when they took a sharp bend into one of the very narrow Ibadan streets that always confused Awazi. Just around the bend, there was a group of policemen. Two of them were searching a white saloon car they had pulled over, while three stayed in the middle of the road, guns in hand, to flag them down. As they had slowed down to negotiate the bend, they didn’t have a choice but to stop. The policemen must have picked this spot for just this reason.

Derin parked the car and wound down. “Yes, officer,” he asked, clearly irritated by the delay “how may I help you?”

The officer scowled, his face a reflection of what Derin’s countenance must have been and said “Oga, this is a stop and search operation”.

Derin frowned even deeper and said dismissively “Chief, this is a roadblock, and I hope you know that we all know that roadblocks are now illegal.”

“You are a troublemaker abi? Who told you this is a roadblock? We are conducting a stop and search operation, based on information we have. Now,” he undid the safety of his rifle, “get down and open your booth and let us see wetin you carry.”

Derin knew better than to argue with a group of gun totting, probably drunk police officers. And it was early evening already, so they might as well get this done with. If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed Awazi looking at him, trying to communicate something. Two of the policemen went to the booth with Derin. They took their time to practically go through everything in there, bringing all the items they had packed to give his mum down, going through them, while an obviously impatient Derin tried his best to hurry them along.

After about fifteen minutes of this, they slammed the booth and followed Derin to the driver’s side.

Awazi had been silently praying that the policemen would be content with looking in just the booth. She saw that her husband’s anger had beclouded his mind and he wasn’t thinking what she was thinking. She was glad when he came back into the car and began to work the gear to move it.

Constable Dimka had been with the madam while the other two more junior officers had gone to search the booth with her husband. That Isa always annoyed him with the way he handled these things. Proud Hausa man that he was, once he felt someone was looking down on him because of his police work, he would forget why they had risked coming on the road in spite of stern warnings from DPO that the IG was serious about this no road block business. They were here first and foremost to get paid, not to pick fights with the people who would “drop” for them. Now, it was obvious that this man had nothing they could hold him for (the car looked very new, so he guessed the papers were in order) and he was too angry to drop anything for them. Foolish Isa. As the husband returned, he noticed that the madam’s eyes went to the back seat quickly, twice. It was then he realized she had been doing that quite often while they had waited.

“Isa, make we check the back seat,” he said out aloud. And watched for the woman’s reaction. He got the reaction he suspected he would and became even more convinced there was something there she was hoping they wouldn’t check. He smiled, a display of teeth browned from eating kola and snuff. Payday, he thought.

Derin watched the policemen swoop in on the back seat of his car. And then it hit him. Even as they began to exclaim, he sensed that he was in trouble, deep deep trouble.

“This pikin don die! And as e cold, no be now now e die,” Isa exclaimed in heavily accented pidgin English.

“Oga, who get this pikin,” he said, addressing Derin.

“He’s our son,” Derin answered.

“You don’t know he is dead?” It was Dimka asking now.

Awazi answered “we know, we just left the hospital where he died.” She went on to explain all that had happened to the police officers, watching their eyes to see if it was softening as she spoke. When she was through with her narrative, the policeman whose name tag said he was Dimka asked her the question she had dreaded all evening

“Can we see the death certificate?” he said, his eyes twinkling with something that Awazi knew wasn’t good. He was the most intelligent of the lot, and by extension, she guessed, the most devious.

She went ashen faced, and she saw that Derin had broken into a sweat, even though the AC had been running.

“Officer,” he began “I can explain this…”

“Oga! Which explanation? You get abi you no get the certificate?” Isa hollered, obviously pleased that the man who minutes ago had been proving to be stubborn was now in their palms.

“Actually,” Awazi ventured “because of the way they treated us in the hospital, we left without it.”

“How do we believe you madam? How do we know you are not ritualists who killed this baby? Okay, do you have the child’s birth certificate? We can use that to confirm identity and check against your ID card” Dimka asked. Of course, he knew they wouldn’t have it with them. When the man said he didn’t have it, he smiled again and said “you will have to go to the station with us to explain yourselves.”

Derin was exasperated. He could sense that this smiling policeman was deliberately asking what they couldn’t provide but there wasn’t much he could do in this situation except appeal.

“Officer, I understand your position, but we can easily sort this out, if you would just go back to the hospital with us. I’m sure the doctor will confirm our story, and there will be some of the patients there who were also witnesses to the whole thing. So, please officer, en?”

Dimka suddenly switched to his vicious mode. He released the safety of his gun noisily and shouted menacingly “you think we have time for such nonsense? I’ve even given you some options with my ‘church mind’ yet you could not. When you get to the station and we deal with you, you will confess to what a dead baby was doing in your car! Isa! Join them in their car, and if they try anything funny, scatter their heads!”

Awazi wept silently.

Otunba Haruna Ajanaku paced in his former office, hands behind his back, with his left hand running occasionally through his grey hair. His trim figure was evidence of years of paying particular attention to his health. That body had failed him a couple of months back, when he had suffered a stroke at work without warning one morning. Thankfully, it hadn’t been as major as it had initially seemed, but he had still had to go through two months of physiotherapy to get use of the left side of his body back. And it was then he had made the decision to retire and hand the running of the hospital over to his son. The hospital. It was his pride, and the crowning jewel of his life’s work. He had set it up from scratch, with almost nothing, and it had grown into one of the finest in Ibadan. In those years, he had earned the nickname Dr. Omega, after his hospital. Now he wondered if he had not made the worst mistake in his career by being sentimental and leaving Hakeem at the helm of Omega Clinic.

“How could you possibly have been this stupid?” he was saying to Hakeem as he continued pacing. “One, you let the hospital devolve into that level of professional negligence that is the direct cause of this baby’s demise. On febrile convulsions that could have easily been treated with a simple injection! And two, you allowed them leave here without a death certificate! Incompetence has never found a better ally as in you, Mr. Chief Medical Director! Damn, how could I not have seen this?” He had worked his way to his chair and he sat down with a thud.

Hakeem saw that his father was ready to let him speak and he quickly started before the man began talking again. The old doctor had a knack for talking and pausing and talking and pausing whenever there was an issue, and his memory was archival. He could bring up something that happened when Hakeem was five that was somehow related to this incident.

“Look, dad, it’s an unfortunate case, but really, the hospital is not liable. The baby was not yet our patient when he died and hence, we cannot be legally accused of professional negligence for someone who wasn’t our patient. And just in case you missed it, I tried to give him a certificate but got a broken nose in return!”

“You are a fool to assume this is about the legal ramification of things!” Otunba exploded, his hands trembling. “Do you think a hospital thrives on legality? It is perception and reputation that drives this business, sonny boy, and if this story gets out, our reputation is a goner. I know young Banwo well, hec, I treated him as a kid! Do you know they had been through several miscarriages, and twelve years of marriage before they had that child? You are lucky all you got was a broken nose! In his shoes, I would have ensured that not only your nose was broken, but your neck as well. Now imagine, for a moment, Mr. Legalist the spin the press would put to this. Especially with all these online people that can make things spread like wildfire. ‘Omega Hospital, Haven of Death, Baby Killing Factory murders baby a Lagos couple searched for for 12 years in cold blood for their processes and procedures’ would be some of the nicer ways this would be reported!”

“But dad,” Hakeem tried to say

“Do not interrupt me when I am talking!” Otunba shouted, jumping up from his chair. “You were always a legalistic, unfeeling child, but I thought your training as a doctor would have instilled some compassion in you. Clearly, I was very wrong. Do you think I am not thinking of how to make sure this doesn’t hurt the hospital? Of course I am! But the crucial thing is this; that’s not all I am thinking of! I’m thinking of that young man and his young wife and how to help them through this. And that is the crucial difference. You’re clearly not ready to run a hospital just yet.”

“What are you saying? That you are relieving me of my position as Chief Medical Director? Dad, you seem to be forgetting something.”

“And what might that be sir?” Otunba asked.

“That with your retirement, you turned ownership of the hospital to me, as well as its running. You cannot simply waltz in and relieve me of this sir. I know I’ve never been good enough for you dad, but really, you simply are in no position to do this. Oh, and to make sure that this probability was cancelled, I had the lawyer make changes to that effect,” he said with mock politeness.

Otunba began to laugh, a deep, rumbling sound from deep within his belly.

“Bi omode l’aso bi agba, kole l’akisa to. And just in case you didn’t get my Yoruba, allow me translate for you. Even when a child has more clothes than his elders, he cannot have as much rags. Hakeem, I gave birth to you and you grew in my hands. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, what sort of father would I be? Of course I knew you would try that. And that lawyer was watching you on my behalf, young man. You don’t get to my age and build a business such as mine with naïveté. I’m glad to disappoint you young man, but I still own Omega Clinic fully. And of this moment, you are no longer the Chief Medical Director. Now if you’d still like your job as a doctor here, you would go and write that death certificate. I’ll personally take it to his mother’s house and see what I can do to manage this very bad situation.”

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

Mrs. Agatha Banwo came to the living room to receive the Otunba. Since her beloved Adeoye had passed away, she relished the opportunity to see faces she had known from the days when her husband was with her. And Otunba was one of those faces. He had been Derin’s doctor when he had been a small, sickly child, and a loose friendship had developed over the years. She couldn’t say he was a close friend, but he had been part of those years that she looked back on with fondness and hence was always welcome in her home. She was a taller than average woman, with what Adeoye had always called a “Yoruba ikebe”. She had always teased him that he fell in love with her backside before even really seeing the rest of her. She missed him sorely.

She exchanged pleasantries with the grey haired doctor and then they asked about each other’s children until the househelp had served some drinks.

Otunba had deduced two things. The first was that Derin hadn’t come to his mum when he had left the hospital. That worried him, as that was where he expected that the young man would come. He also deduced that the woman sitting before him, chatting away and laughing politely had not heard the news. This was going to be much harder than he had thought.

“Madam, about your son, is he around? I would like to see him,” he started.

“Now that you mention it, he’s supposed to have arrived from Lagos today. Last we spoke, he said he was in serious traffic on the express. But I’m sure he will be here anytime from now. He’s bringing my grandson to Ibadan for the first time today.” She chuckled as she said grandson, and Otunba felt a shiver run down his spine.

“Yorubas in our wisdom have said that no matter how big a message is, we do not require a knife to deliver it. I have some bad news, and I want you to be prepared for it.”

Agatha sat upright immediately “What happened? Was Derin in an accident? Did they rush him to your hospital? Doctor, talk to me now!”

“Derin is fine, Madam. In fact, I’m surprised he isn’t here. He was at my hospital about three hours ago, with his wife and baby. I’m sorry, but we lost the baby…”

Agatha felt her heart lurch into her mouth at the doctor’s words. “Ye! Mo gbe! How doctor, how? And where is my son?”

“He left the hospital in despair madam, with his wife. We were unable to stop him from leaving”

“Ah! Otunba!” the tears were flowing freely from her lined face now. She picked her phone and dialed Derin’s number from memory. All she got was the monotonic female voice telling her the phone was switched off. She tried three more times and then tried his second number. She still couldn’t get through. Then searched for Awazi’s number in her phonebook and tried it a couple of times. The number was unreachable too.

“Where is my baby? Where is my baby!” she kept mumbling repeatedly to herself as she tried the numbers. Her worst fear was that grief had driven him to do the ultimate – suicide. She shook her head through her tears at the thought.

“I have an idea I think we should explore to find him. When they left the hospital with the child’s body, they forgot to take this,” he said, handing the death certificate over to her and then continued “if he had tried to bury the child without this, or even unluckily ran into policemen and he didn’t have the certificate in his possession, he would be in serious police wahala.

She calmed down a bit, at the prospect that Derin was still alive “How do we find out for sure?” she asked him, using the back of her hands to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“In my line of work, I have vital contacts in the police. Let me make a few calls so they can check if my theory is correct.”

He stepped aside and made the calls briskly.

“Now,” he said gravely, “we wait”.

whao wat a wonderful write up. pls kip it rolling.

clockwise: whao wat a wonderful write up. pls kip it rolling.

tanks brother, but the write-up aint mine... it;s just meant for nlers pleasure

bolakale30:
tanks brother, but the write-up aint mine... it;s just meant for nlers pleasure

Oh boy.

HumbledbYGrace:

Oh boy.

i am a writer too, plagiarism is a serious offence in the writing world... tanks for your patronage... even if ...

bolakale30:
i am a writer too, plagiarism is a serious offence in the writing world... tanks for your patronage... even if ...

finish that your sentence...I would prefer to credit you for what's rightfully your.

HumbledbYGrace: finish that your sentence...I would prefer to credit you for what's rightfully your.

i wont finish it now, until i get some facts right, however, does the poetry genre fascinates u ? if it does, be my guest

Dis story is soooooo interestin...i feel like hiting Dr Hakeem wt sometin very hard! & 2 d writer:more power 2 ur elbow.*wink* dat was a bribe,pls update soon.

Bholar18: Dis story is soooooo interestin...i feel like hiting Dr Hakeem wt sometin very hard! & 2 d writer:more power 2 ur elbow.*wink* dat was a bribe,pls update soon.

by default, i dont take bribe but i will take this as an exception

bolakale30:
tanks brother, but the write-up aint mine... it;s just meant for nlers pleasure

You have untill noon to explain this before I delete this thread and ban you for YEARS. It will remain locked until you something else comes up

Not kidding

Abeg sir*kneels*don't do dat ...*sobbing*