ABOUT THE BOOK

When the bad do bad, the good suffer for their bad. This story shows you how good people suffers the bad behaviours of barbaric people while the bad people live good, enjoying out there in the world, just like in the case of this Nation, Nigeria.

'HIGH RAW KNEE' OF LIFE I CALL IT!!!

YOUR COMMENTS AND CRITICISMS ARE HIGHLY WELCOME!!!

FIRST TO COMMENT GETS A SPECIAL DEDICATION



With good mien faded away like the salt that has lost it's savor, what is left of a giant is nothing more than an ant, yet the 'giant' still raises up his head which he should rather hang in shame and beats his bare chest to say 'I am the giant of AFRICA'.

A soil whose humus had been replaced with toils and humiliations; a land whose sand had been eroded to leave behind band of thieves and randy ones who had to keep their bodies and souls together by getting something done when their isn't anything more to do. A nation of over 150million people where 150thousand people have the potential of feeding them all and still have their purses unaffected, but what we see is the rich living on the poor, feeding on the poor. How on earth? They hoard pensioners money and keep public funds in fixed deposit account, use the poor for money rituals, hire the poor for tedious labours and get them little or no pay at all.

Sodom and Gomorrah didn't do up to this before fire fell on them. No wonder BOKOHARAM are now flogging the nation with 'KOBOKO' a punishment in disguise for all the multitude of iniquity, yet it's all still coming back to the poor. The rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer; the rich kills, the poor get killed for it.

Now a cry to our creature, PLS do something so that we shall not end up celebrating shame and enjoying bitterness. Help us Oh Lord and #BringBackOurGirls who are as innocent as lambs.

CHAPTER ONE

"The arrest of a notorious hired assassin in Lagos has brought a wide smile on the faces of Lagos residents yesterday. The news was yesterday aired publicly that Mr. Deinde, the assassin in question, ran out of luck after murdering a bigwig, politician, under the umbrella of the Friendship Party. According to our correspondent, Mr. Deinde would remain jailed until his case has been tried in the court of law..."

Mr Yemi was glad at the news. He had always been glad at similar news in which wicked people met their water-loos. He hadn't enjoyed any news more--not the bombings in Pakistan, the Volcanic Eruption in Georgia, the Tsunami in Seychelles or the earthquakes in Canada.

"Such news are pathetic," he would say, getting annoyed with nature. The news of death here, epidemic diseases there wouldn't do to make him happy as well. Hearing such breaking news had often pushed him to almost breaking his TV screen. Give Mr. Yemi what he wanted and he would howl in joy--criminals jailed, assassins caught, rapists arraigned, kidnappers indicted and the like.

"Why would that criminal want to assassinate the Gubernatorial Candidate of the Friendship Party?" Yemi said, stroking his little beard. Yemi was five feet and four inches tall. He was 45 with a high-pitched voice typical of a 60 year old man. He had capturing eyes which had endeared him to his job, a prison warder. Yemi had bandy legs, especially when you see him from afar. But when you move closer to him, you would hardly notice it. His toes were wide and tight against each other like the webbed toes of a duck.

Mr. Yemi was well known for his white shoes which he would wear on his black stockings which were always stretched to his kneecaps. He had jerky movement, such ones that would make a passerby almost halt to hold him from falling at first sight.

Mr Yemi, being a warder, had much police to his portfolio of friends. He would always want to be with them at their recesses to listen to their yammers. Those police wouldn't have made much talk before polluting the atmosphere with their corrupt talks. Yemi would only keep silent, squinting his face and waiting for them to bring the topic back to something healthy for his ears.

Yemi hated the way they smoke too. They would do that without regarding that they had a moralist within them which was Yemi. They would even unconsciously puff their smokes into his nostrils. Yemi wouldn't have remained to keep their company till date if not that he was benefiting in one way or the other from their political talks, hence, his ability to save his money for some other things instead of buying newspapers. Some of them did come to work with newspapers sometimes, so Yemi would only have to go through them without paying a dime.

Yemi loved telling the stories of happenings in his workplace to his wife and only daughter. He would come home, only to make the once boring home as lively as a bee hive with his talks, disturbing the house with the story of how Mr.James had puffed a pack of cigarette into his nose, or how Mr. Andrew had offered him a stick of cigarrette which he had rejected.

Mr Yemi japed as he got to his place of work the next morning and heard the news properly. Little did he know that fate would soon entiwne him with the villain, Mr Deinde, whom they had brought to the Alagbon Prison where he was working. They even put the criminal under his care.

Mr Yemi was glad that he would now be close to the criminal to do him a little torture of words. He stood outside the prison bar and shouted at Deinde the murderer, "Why did you have to kill Mr. Smith?"

The guilty prisoner was not moved a bit by his yells. He was just looking blankly away from him, blinking as if he had an eye problem.

" Talk!" Mr Yemi screamed at him, but Deinde remained unperturbed.

" You are like your name!" he got angry and left Deinde alone!

CHAPTER TWO


Story Continuation...


Mr Deinde cross-legged and held his forehead tight in frowns. He bit his lips and put his face on his laps for some moments.

Deinde raised his head. The wrinkles had gone out of them. He was now even smiling. He got up and walked towards the burglary gate. Then forcefully, he shook it as though he had the ability to rip it off. He pulled harder and bit the corner of his wounded lips. Deinde left the rusting prison gate and held his lips with his hands as if he wanted to prevent blood from dripping down from there. Even his elbow was having a big wound on it, a result of the rough-handlings he got from the police while he was just being arrested and forced into the police van.

Deinde shut his eyes and held the lips still, perhaps thinking of the Nigerian Police manner of approach to a yet unconvicted criminal.

In the western world, no one would deal brutally with an untried criminal this way, Deinde must have thought.

Deinde held to the hems of his cloth and raised it up to see the weals all over his body. He got those weals from the lashings he received from the three-in-one 'koboko' used on him by the police. The weals were just lying scattered all over him. They gave him much pain when he touched them. Deinde shook his head in self-pity.

"Hmm," he sighed and leaned against the gate, the bridge of his nose sticking out as his lips lay depressed by the contact they made with the bars.

"I must get out of here!" Deinde screamed at last, putting out his arms between the iron bars as though to hold the strong paddlock outside and break it with his bare hands. Like the biblical Samson, Deinde shook the gate powerfully, but his strength wasn't enough to bring it down, let alone bringing down the whole building as in the case of blind Samson in the book of Judges, who brought down the roof on a whole nation.

Even if Deinde had succeeded bringing down the roof upon himself, he wouldn't still find it easy to escape since warders were everywhere, ready and fully at alert, but the look on his face was like 'am I really guilty of this charge?'

**** **** **** **** **** ***
Yemi would be glad to tell it--the news of Deinde who was in custody of the police. He had just gotten back home. The sound of his belch was enough to make the house realise that he was back.

"You're back!" his wife sauntered to the parlour in alacrity. Her name was Yemi too--husband, Oluyemi, wife Omoyemi. Their fifteen-year old daughter strolled in too.

"Daddy, welcome," she said in excitement as she put a hand across her father's shoulder to bring down the bag on it. Her name was Bimbo.

There wouldn't be anything more in the world to make Bimbo gladder other than the interesting exaggerated stories of 'police and thieves' her father would always 'bre_astfeed her with.

"Any show today, daddy?" she drew close to him. Her eyeballs were fixed into her father's face. She wanted to see the reaction on his face first before even getting the reply.

Yemi intentionally made his face into a grotesque and said, "No show."

Bimbo squinted her face. That statement was what she detested most. She always wanted 'show'. If there was 'show' then it would surely show on her face that she loved to hear stories. There was great cordially in this little nuclear family of three.

This time around, Bimbo disbelieved her father. How would there not be show when it was her father himself who told them the day before that he saw a criminal on TV who was then in prison, his own very prison where he was working.

"Don't tell me that, pupsy," she shook a finger, grinning.

"Of course your dad has a lot to tell--he's only joking," her mother spoke this time.

"Dear, who told you that?" Yemi made a serious face to appear as if he meant what he was saying. "Please get me water and let me have my bath jare," Yemi added.

It was appearing real to Bimbo that her father had 'no show' of a truth. If he had something to say, he always did that before taking his bath, but now he had asked for his bath, meaning there wasn't any story. However, to her, it sounded more like an impossible thing. On rare occasions would her father not have stories to tell.

"Bimbo, won't you get me water to bath?" Yemi said, putting up a mocking nose over her head. His wife saw it and smiled. She knew for sure that something was up to be told.

"Daddy, no, you won't leave here without your pass," Bimbo was serious, obstructing her father.

"A pass?" Yemi said and made a smile. "*Ara oto lo tun gba yo si mi yi o, Bimbo," Yemi added in yoruba dialect.

"Yes daddy," Bimbo said, folding her arms and standing rigid before him and leaning her little weight on him.

"That's my girl. You are pretty good-looking today," Yemi said, pulling a strand of her hair playfully, yet still making those nose-mocking and head-shaking playful gesture over her head. The other Yemi burst into laughter.

Bimbo turned around to look at her laughing mother. She wondered why she was laughing as loud as that when there wasn't any laughing matter.

"It is not funny," Bimbo said, already taking it personal.

"I hope you paid attention in school today," Yemi taunted her.

"I won't tell you a thing..." she said, smiling, "if you won't tell me a thing," she added, pertly.

"Then it is better for me to tell you a thing," Yemi said at last.

It had always been like that; if Yemi would not tell his daughter 'a thing' then he should also be ready not to hear 'a thing' from his daughter. Since each of them loved hearing 'a thing' then they would eventually end up telling each other 'a thing'.

Yemi always enjoy the way his daughter told the 'a thing' from school and Bimbo too was a good listener to the cell-related 'a thing' that her father shared. No one cared for the boring 'a thing' from the kitchen which the other Yemi might have to tell. What story would a full-time housewife have to tell when she was staying lonely in the kitchen?

Yemi sat down and cleared his throat in readiness to plunge into the story of Deinde, the criminal who was bundled into the cell. Bimbo sat tight to his chest as though she was about to listen to her father's exaggerated version of the story of Samson and Delilah in 'My Book of Bible Story' where she had heard the statement 'Give me my last power!'

"Daddy, ride on," she said, looking up to her father's face.

*meaning of Yoruba statement:
Ara oto lo tun gba yo si mi yi o--this is another manner of approach you are appearing to me, Bimbo.

I gat ur back bro
Keep it rollin'

Omoalhaja7:
I gat ur back bro
Keep it rolling'

Okay thanks ma 1st time caller...
I owe you a #100 recharge card tomorrow morning if you want it

Kip on reading...

SammyO4real:


Okay thanks ma 1st time caller...
I owe you a #100 recharge card tomorrow morning if you want it

Kip on reading...

I'm contended wt just d dedication(s). Thanx bro.

Story continuation...


"Daddy, ride on," she said, looking up to her father's face.

Yemi was good at telling stories into details. The other Yemi wondered why he had chosen warder ahead of storytelling, at least he could have opened a radio programme and name it 'Nnkan Sele' since there were other programmes in such genre named 'Nnkan Mbe' and 'Labe Orun' already in the Western part of the country.

Yemi's throat-clearing sound rented the air. He beat his chest along. The two female had to remain watching. That was the manner they knew with their man.

At last Yemi got into talk:

"At exactly 2pm yesterday, Deinde was driven in a police van to the prison, handcuffed," Yemi began. "The sun appeared low, shining into all faces. And through the shiny sun, I saw Deinde's murderous eyes. They were glaring and daring and mendacious and...and...I don't have more grammar to qualify it..."

"It's okay, daddy. I'm even wondering if mendacious is inside the dictionary. Just ride on," Bimbo said, joking.

"You'd better get a jotter and jot down your daddy's story," said the other Yemi playfully to her daughter. They laughed.

Bimbo had always said she didn't want to be a journalist anytime her mother was bothering her to jot down her father's speeches.

She said it now again, "I don't want to be a--"

"Journalist," her mother completed it for her.

"Deinde has one big forehead, swollen up with police punches. His lips has also gotten a rend and I have no pity for him as he tended the wound on his elbow. I like it, Yemi. My soul was glad when I see justice on the verge of being put to play."

"And me too dear," Yemi's wife replied. "Bimbo, what about you?"

Bimbo was different. She was full of pity, her eyes showing it. Her beautiful face was fascinating and calm. She didn't like when someone is going through tortures, yet she would be the one asking to hear such unpleasant stories which would make him go lugubrious when hearing it.

"I don't know," she frowned her face at her mum and said, "Dad, continue your story joor"

"Deinde was led to the cell but he struggled hard with the police as if he could throw them down and escape," Yemi said. "I took a look at him and found the word 'guilty' written all over him in red italics."

Yemi's wife brandished her teeth in laughter. She loved the way her husband told stories in exaggeration.

"It reminds me of Shina Rambo, that hardened criminal in the year Bimbo was just developing teeth," Yemi said, just a way to taunt his 'baby'.

"Shina Rambo?" the other Yemi yelled. "Don't even mention that because Deinde can never be anything near Shina who killed hundreds of policemen and lived in Iroko trees to hide himself. I think Deinde is just a learner."

Yemi continued:

"Like a load, Deinde was bundled inside a lonely and dark cell and locked up. I was wondering who would be put in charge of him; I just wished it would be me and to my surprise, I was named as the man to spearhead the supervision of that cell 124. I had even discussed my wish with some colleagues of mine earlier, and when they heard that I was the supervising warder of that cell, they were surprised, thinking that I influenced it. I was glad because I had wished to talk to Deinde one on one, speak sense into his head, ask him some questions, tell him that he was a big mistake, point out his foolish ways and...and..."

"Correct him," Bimbo spoke tenderly.

"Correct him for what?" Yemi replied. "How do you correct someone who didn't want to open up? Imagine, till now he has not opened his mouth to utter a word, instead he was hypocritically keeping silent like a lamb who was slain, yet he wasn't. I coerced him in my speech to say something, but no, he wouldn't speak. He wouldn't tell us who sent him to kill the governorship candidate of the Friendship Party."

"People could be so hypocritical," Yemi's wife hissed in anger vented at Deinde in absentia. It seemed the same blood was flowing in the veins of the couple, the Yemis--they blindly resented pretense by suspects, believing that all suspected criminals were actually guilty of the crime they were indicted for."

"If you are not a criminal, then you won't be indicted with criminal offence," the couple had always opined.

Bimbo's opinions about criminal matter was a direct contrast of her parents. Only God knew where she got her own head. She had even earned much criticism from her father and mother for being too naïve. They would playfully say, "*Olorun lo mo iru ori ti iwo gbe wa 'le aye."

Now Yemi said, "I can't buy the idea that Deinde isn't guilty."

"Good he's not denying it, or is he?" said the other Yemi.

"Of course he isn't darling. He was cut red-handed," Yemi said, but the little tiny voice which came midway his statement caught him aback.

"What did you just say, Bimbo?" Yemi asked his daughter now.

"I said perhaps that Deinde is innocent," Bimbo reiterated. She was made a cynosure the more by the stunned couple. "Why is every eye turned at me?" Bimbo said in a playful manner.

"Bimbo, it's better you keep shut if you don't know what to say?" her mother spoke harshly and pushed her head.

Bimbo was sad. She rose up to leave but the female Yemi pulled her back and spoke apologetically to her.

"Oh! Did I sound so serious? I am very very sorry for yelling at you like that auntie wa, sisi eko," she said, trying to pull her legs. Bimbo sat again and her mother rocked her back and let her have her face on her laps, yet over her bent head she did those Nigerian traditional 'nose-mocking' and 'head-shaking' movement called '*yinmu'.

Bimbo raised her head up to listen to her father again, but now she was more quiet and speechless. She would not want to hear another upbraid from her parents mouth anymore, at least for the rest of the day.

Yemi soon ended the long story of Deinde and got to the bathroom to have a cold shower.

"Deinde!" he hissed just when the soap lather 'peppered' his eyes, such that one would think it was Deinde who put the lather inside his eyes to punish him.

Omoalhaja7:

I'm contended wt just d dedication(s). Thanx bro.

Alright then, I'm dedicating a post to you ASAP!

I'm dedicating this long post to OmoAlhaja7 who is the first to comment on this thread:


Chapter three

Yemi put a smile on his face as he dusted his grim shoes. He upended them to get the dust inside them out too as he got ready for the court. He was going to witness Deinde's trial in the court of law.

Yemi wished they would leave Deinde in the same cell after convicting him. He wanted to have charge over his affair.

"If all criminals could be wiped out in this corrupt nation, then this nation would soar to great height," Yemi mused his usual singsong. "But the police are not helping matters at all. Whenever a criminal is brought to book, they let him go free when they have brought them bribe. It all stems down from the government who are not paying us well. Imagine, they're owing me three months salary now; thanks to the savings I made last two years, which is now saving us, else, what would we be feeding on by now? Grass? God forbid!" Yemi had forgotten that he was talking to himself.

Yemi had strapped the shoes on his legs already when he realised that he had worn them the wrong way--right shoe for left leg and vice-versa.

"Aouch!" he exclaimed as he bent low to unloose the ropes on them. If only his wife whom he fondly called 'the other Yemi' was around now, perhaps he wouldn't have had any problem regarding the shoes issue since she had taken it as a duty to help dress her husband up. She was up early and had gone to the market.

Yemi was whistling, a kind of unspeakable joy springing out of his heart. He was up again, stamping his shoes on the ground, having worn them aright this time, but then he screamed, "Yeeah! Olorun ma se mi l'oponu"
God, don't make me an slowpoke
He had just noticed his pair of socks lying on the floor, something that his legs were supposed to be fast stuck into.
Again, Yemi had to repeat the process, but patiently now, having pondered on the belief that when you do things in a hurry, you keep doing and redoing it.

Yemi suddenly had a urge rushing it--the urge to at least chew something.

"Chewing stick?" he pondered in a funny manner. "Perhaps chewing gum," he settled for another idea. He would get that out there from an 'Northerner's' shop.

Yemi got to the corridor and soon found himself on the street. He was already at the highway when he remembered that he was once having the feeling for chewing a sweet.

"I'm late already," he nodded off that creeping thought when it returned.

The road was too messy for his liking--traffic jam everywhere. Yemi should have woken up as early as 4.30am if he wanted to be sure of making the journey at all, but he woke 6am and it was 8am already. Not that the high court was too far a journey that someone can't make within forty-five minutes, but the fact was that there was overcrowding of vehicles on the lagos busy road, as usual.

It would have been better if what was on the road were just vehicular logjam alone, but no, the road wasn't potholes free too, such that one in a vehicle would have to resonate and dance involuntarily to the figurative tone of the bus in whose belly one was getting along.

Yemi couldn't even get a bus. How would he when all the ones 'trekking' towards him were already filled inside-out from the previous bus-stops. Not even a 'molue' had a space in it let alone a danfo. Molue-large bus, Danfo- mini bus.
Yemi was tempted to embark on a trek down to his destination.

"Na wa o! Go slow everyday," Yemi spoke like a layman, with intense anger burning within him. He waited long but found himself on the same spot still.

Yemi began to have the thought of trekking to the previous bus-stop where he believed the vehicles were getting filled-up from. He nodded off the thought eventually and began to moan contumeliously under his breath.

"This country is falling under the weight of decadence every passing day," he lamented as if the government would hear him and make a change dramatically.

Motorcycles made the road worst. Even when you felt you have seen a bus to take you, you still have to look left, right and left like a madfellow before running towards the bus you thought you have seen, else you get crushed by a trespassing motorcycle which was manoeuvring its way through pedestrians' standpoint.

In Lagos, no one would need to tell anyone the reason why they had to look left and right before crossing. You get to know the reason by experience, especially if you had once been a victim of 'hit-and-run' one-way collision whereby you were looking left, attempting to cross the road, but had something strike you down from the right unexpectedly. If you survived it, no one would teach you before you realised that one needed to be as wary as a bird to thrive in Lagos.

Yemi almost fell victim of a collision just now. He had only escaped by a swift withdrawal of his right leg which was a bit ahead of the left beside the road. It was an Okada. It had just skidded past him, almost knocking him down.

The Okada rider was at fault, having dabbled into the side of the road meant for pedestrians, yet he turned his neck around with heavy vituperations at Yemi who was the least at fault in the almost-going-to-be-an-accident scene.

"Yeye man! You no see road say Okada dey come for your side abi? He-goat!" the man cursed, but just few metres ahead, a hasty nemesis caught up with him; yet it was a carelessness on his part. The Okadaman was taken aback when he turned his face to face the road again--then he found the real goat--this time around, a pregnant adult she-goat standing an inch close to the tyre. It was too close for him to swerve. He just rammed the goat over and then his okada went crashing down as well as its rider and a passenger behind him. For the nanny-goat, it scampered away to safety, not ready to be made a roadkill--better for it to be an 'escapee goat' than a scape goat.

"That's what we are saying," Yemi spoke aloud for those around him to hear. "You left the right way, passed through one-way and almost knocked down an innocent pedestrian."

"Na God catch am!" said a fair lady with an igbo intonation. "Chineke ga pogi oku," she vituperated in her local dialect. She had even taken it personal, putting out five fingers to drive home her abusive language.

The rude rider rose up and left his scooter on the road in its decubital position as he made straight for Yemi's direction in rage. He was even limping back to Yemi, perhaps to give him the beating of his life for being the 'cause of the accident'. Other pedestrians would not let that happen. They held the road hog before he could lay his hand on Yemi, yet he raked,"Leave me alone make I teach this mumu lesson!"

"You are at fault, Mr Man!" an on-looker yelled at him. He was a suit-wearing, tie-strapping, portmanteau-carrying gorgeous-looking man with eyeglasses set on his face. To the look he was like an opulent person in the prime of his career.

"Shut up!" the rider faced him fiercely. They were almos going to release spittle into each other's wide eyes.

"You are crazy!" the seemingly educated man pulled his coat, threw it at the floor and began to pour out bombastic words to lambast the dirty scooter rider: "You imbecilic hoodoo, a quintessence of a born-by-mistake son of a discovert mother under the in-lo-co-parental foster sot in the nomenclature of a father. How dare you assault a high-ranked elite coerced by circumstance to be incognito just because my jeep is there in the workshop to be mechanically injected to live? I am a professor for heaven's sake!!!"

"Professor or not, wetin concern me there?" the driver spoke in his usual insolent manner. "Weereee!" he caused him in the Yoruba dialect, calling him a mad man. The professor got angry and held the okada rider's cloth in anger. Many hands had to come on them to quell the brouhaha which was soon going to get out of hand.

Yemi was one of those who marvelled at the grandiloquence of the purported professor. However, he understood what the man was trying to communicate.

The lady beside him had tapped him to ask, "What's the man saying?"

"He's talking about being a professor who have to be here to struggle for bus with us because his car had issues," Yemi interpreted, leaving out the abusive part of the man's speech.
Hardly had the crowd succeeded in separating the two when everyone began to pave way for a 'madder' somebody. She was screaming, "Give me my money! I no dey go again. Give me money make I go treat my body wey u injure!!"

Before long, she had held the scooter rider's shirt tight, shouting at his face. She was the passenger on the motorcycle with the rider when the accident occured. Shockingly, the rider could do nothing, being restless.

However, the rider said, "I go wound this one o!"

"Sebi you kuku don wound me before," the woman spoke in a pitieous manner. "Oya, see my leg." She raised up her skirt to reveal a deep cut. She just got the fresh cut during the accident and blood was trickling down from it.

"Na me cause the accident ni?" the rider was trying to claim that he was not at fault.

"Shut up, na you!" said the igbo lady beside Yemi. She was pointing at the rider as if she was the person who was hurt.

The rider couldn't free himself from the lock. The pain was telling on his neck which was held tight against the collar of his shirts by the woman who was injured. In rage, he dazed the woman's left cheek with a thunderous slap and his fingerprint were etched on it.

"Yeeeee!!!" the woman screamed in pain and held her cheek, going low in pain. She held him tighter now and began to say "You go kuku kill me for here today!"

The woman didn't need to do much talk. Many zealous ones had come to her rescue. From nowhere, planks and bottles had arrived which they slammed on the okadaman's head. When he fell, they didn't leave him alone still, yet he was vehemently pleading.

A galon of petrol had been emptied on his head in a flash and a matchbox was readily available to light him up in flames. Had it not been for the intervention of the police, the okadaman would have gone in the flame as an unacceptable sacrifice. However, his motorcycle went in flame in lieu of him.

I dey gbadun ds ur tory o...
More updates plzzzzzzzz

Now following. You write quite well.

I think you should give "the other Yemi" a name as I get a little bit confused at times.

Neduzze5:
Now following. You write quite well.

I think you should give "the other Yemi" a name as I get a little bit confused at times.

2nded
Or better still, stick to "Omoyemi" as d wife name. This should reduce d confussion wella.
Awaiting more updates......

Omoalhaja7:

2nded
Or better still, stick to "Omoyemi" as d wife name. This should reduce d confussion wella.
Awaiting more updates......

I think I'll go with your suggestion... Gud u're following

Chapter Three


Yemi didn't need to be told that he was not going to make it to the court of law before the opening of the court case. How would he when he had spent thirty minutes watching the scuffle unfolding.

While the brawl was on, Yemi even saw a bus going his destination, but he didn't join it just because he needed to see what the fight would culminate into. Now he had 'enjoyed' one drama he would have to miss the other one, Deinde's issue, what he had tagged 'the real deal' in the court.


Perhaps if Yemi hasted, he could still meet up, but he was doubting if it wouldn't end in adjournment in the end.

"Would he be sentenced without he mentioning the person who sent him to carry out the killing operation? I don't think so," Yemi said to himself. If he knew that an old woman was peeking at him from an angle, he would surely not have allowed that cogitation come out through his mouth. He would have allowed his heart do all the talkings.

Yemi's brain got to work again. He was wondering why people could murder to get into power:

Deinde was lucky a danfo stopped before him when he waved at it. The bus-stop was getting decongested now since many people had somehow found their way earlier.

Yemi beamed at his watch, 9am already.

"Oh my God, I am so late!" he lamented, putting a hand on the head as if he had just lost a relative. When he sat down, his brain and his mouth didn't rest a little while. They just kept muttering words and hissing.

"Mtchewwwww!" he kept doing it over and over again. "That okadaman will make me miss a sight today! Dirty rider."

Yemi soon forgot his agitation and went with the myriad of backseat drivers in the bus to criticize the real driver at the wheel.

"*Olosi ni driver yi o! Se oju o s'ona fun ni?" some old accident-fearing women kept the abuses coming in their dialect.
*this driver is terrible, Is he blind not to see the road?

Yemi didn't join in the abusive part of the criticism, but he lended his voice to it, opposing the driver too. The cause of the broohaha was the manner with which the driver rushed into an avoidable pothole. The way the bus shook sent a sensation of fear down the spines of the fearful passsengers in the bus.

When the road was free, they didn't stop pouring out their vituperations. They blamed the driver for being too fast, for being too slow, for stepping on the break too sudden, for waiting briefly at a point to pass a parcel to someone beside the road--for virtually everything. Who would blame them when they had all already been forced into the confines of lateness to their duties, yet an old woman kept saying, "Life is best," trying to justify the fact that the bus should maintain its slow pace.

The driver had no supporter who really count. If only he had a conductor with him, then it was sure he wouldn't have to face the whole slander all alone if he would even face any at all, since Lagos passengers enjoyed doing it with the conductors more, especially inside a molue where many people had to be on a standing posture.

The driver of this particular bus was too cold. If he were some hemp-smoking ones, he would have given them exactly what they deserved. He hadn't even opened his mouth to say a thing all the while.

"*Oko oun naa ni o l'alafia yii," a man said, shifting his blame on the inanimate bus itself.
*Even the bus is a rickety one

The lambastment got to the peak when the driver said, "Please start sending your money forward."

If he knew it would bring much reaction, perhaps he would have found another means of asking for the pay. Maybe through cheque or another method. But frankly speaking, what other mean would he have made use of.

"Ask your conductor to collect the money."

"I won't pay until I get to my destination."

"Pay ko, pay ni i. I go show you!" a young lady said. Her face was moulded in the shape of trouble. She must have graduated from the 'mighty' underbridge at Oshodi. You have to look at her finnickily for five times before you would decipher her gender. Her voice, her physique, her dressing and her styles were just 'boyish'.

"Conductor?" a man was laughing. "Can this lean thing even afford paying a conductor at all? Ha, ha, ha," he guffawed.

"Does he have a driver licence at all?" Yemi put his voice in the issue for the second time and then his conscience arrested him.

The driver was already saturated with his passenger's badmouthed disparaging statements, he spoke back, but calmly, "It's okay, or do you have me in mind before?" Then he added a Yoruba proverb, "Or will you chase your bad child away for a tiger to slaughter and eat?"

The proverb seemed too weighty for all ears who heard it in the bus. They just grew dull and remorseful as though it had pounded there adamant hearts to powder. In a dumb-like manner they began to pile up the money for the driver.

In Yemi's case, the statement had rocked his head like bullet. It even gabe him a sensation of headache. His face grew lean in guilt. He was abashed and disappointment with himself who had long been claiming to be a moralist.

"The driver is right," Yemi was telling the man beside him in whispers, but the person in question had gone far to another world in a sleep probably made sweet with a dream of fantasy or perhaps made bitter by the hullabaloo of Lagos life.

The sleeping man thumped up almost immediately and uttered something Yemi didn't understand, then a female voice at the back came up saying, "Pay your money baba, that's why I'm tapping you to wake up."

"Mtchew!" the man hissed and made his head rest on his hands again on the backrest of the seat before him. He was ready to go to 'bed' back again.

"Gbogbo ero!" the driver said when they got to their destination. It was a statement to tell all passengers aboard that the motor had reached its last bus stop. At that juncture, the sleeping passengers would hear and know it was time to get down. That was the moment one would know those who didn't know where actually they were heading to--those people they call 'JJC', in full Johnny Just Come. That was a term for those who were just arriving Lagos afresh.

Nowadays, the Lagos JJCs could even outsmart the real Lagosians themselves, but the problems those ones had was the problem of over-acting. They would want to pretend as though they were smart just because of the many exaggeratingly-told stories they had heard about the state, but in the end, they fobbed

It was as if there was no 'JJC' in this particular bus. The only such person was even the tomboy who threatened not to pay her fare earlier. She had kept to her word still, alighting and turning her back against the bus until the driver had cried out, "Hey! Where is my money?"

The girl turned around and faced the driver, "No try me at all! I go show you say me no be one kain girl wey you fit they play with hin head o. Go ask about me for B-side dem go tell you who I be!" the girl spoke in an Edo intonation. "We dey tell you make you take am easy, you just dey do like that dey do like that," the girl was demonstrating with all her body, shouting on the top of her voice, pointing at the driver's face.

The calm driver just said a little word of 'sorry' and it solved the whole situation. If it were some other rough drivers, they would have to do it by force.

"I'm sorry," the driver pleaded.

"Uh--em, okay I go give you, but no try that kind thing for where I dey again o. For B-side we no dey gree make person dey make pirirpiri like this o. You dey feel me baa?" the tomboy said as she tucked her hand into her jean trousers and provided a #100 note. "Take make you keep the remaining change buy lem to take chao with your family, eh," she said and began to bounce away.
She had no change to collect, yet she was gallivanting as though she was the richest 'man' in the world.

"Alakori," the driver said in a whisper, smiling and making a mocking nose at her back as he kept the money. She dared not see him, else an outburst would ensue immediately.

Yemi was close by. He was one of the two passengers still left. The driver opened the door and came out of the bus. Yemi was only standing by to apologize his deed so he could have his conscience clear, so also the other waiting man. The two of them tendered their apologies concurrently and the driver smiled and said, "I don't know we still have righteous people left in this country. Thank you," he extended his hands at them for a shake. It seemed the driver had a level of education.

Yemi hadn't gone far when the B-side girl began to skitter back to the driver. This time, she was having a soft look on her face. When she got to the driver, she tauntingly tapped the driver's shoulder in a laughing manner ans said, "Guy abeg you go fit tell me how I go fit get to Marina?"

"Marina? Ah, you don miss road well well o," the driver told her and she pulled up a frowning face.

Yemi smiled.

"So she's even a JJC," he whispered as he walked away. Igbosere street was not far away. He knew he was already very late for the court case.

nice one following

Sammy wey u now??

Omoalhaja7:
Sammy wey u now??

I am here o. Just woke from sleep.

STORY CONTINUATION


Mr Yemi trekked the rest of the journey to the court. It was a ten-minute trek. If only the okada man who came around earlier had offered to collect #80, he would have made it there earlier, but the mouthwatering bike man was demanding something beyond Yemi's ken.

"#150? *Afi bi pe eeyan kawo lori igi," Yemi said.
As if one is plucking money on a tree

Yemi hastened immediately after leaving the bike man alone. However, when he got to the court they were just dismissing.

The expressions on the faces of those coming out of the court were different. Some were smiling while some were sad. Some were even carrying this kind of face which appeared they would give you a punch on the face if you come too close.

Yemi wouldn't dare go close to any of the punch-ready ones.

Yemi approached a lady who was having a smile steaming on her face.

"What's the judgement please?" he asked.

"Death by hanging," she said and began to hurry. Yemi took few steps after her and asked for details.

"Details, oh details?" the lady began to whimper, sobbing bitterly. "I--I can't say any--any--thing now," she could not control herself.

"It's okay, it's okay," Yemi petted her. What could have made her change suddenly, Yemi pondered. Initially she was smiling, now she was weeping that terrible. How come?

Yemi soon got an answer to it when he remembered an afro musician who said something about Nigerian people's condition and their external portrayal.

What should be strange? Yemi thought. Even a madman in Nigeria laugh nowadays most of the time.

"Suffering and smiling, says Fela," Yemi said as he walked on. "She must be a relative of Deinde, somehow, but she's looking quite younger," Yemi said and walked up to another person.

If Yemi had looked well into the face of this person he just approached, he wouldn't have dared coming close at all. This one was a male with a stout physique, rough face and broad nose which was made to lie too low between the eyes and the mouth. He appeared like someone a scientist would see and tag 'the new revolution to the theory of evolution'.

His hair was spaced out and scattered like ridges lying higgledy-piggledly in a poor man's farm. It was obvious no comb had come too close for years or perhaps it had defied all efforts to get it combed.

"What do you want sir?" he spoke in a respectful manner. His grammer was even okay too. He seemed to be in his late thirties.

"Nothing," Yemi said and walked away, despite the fact that the man seemed ready to attend to him.

Yemi got an abrupt answer to his quest from a young man who gave it to him in a smile.

"He'll die by hanging," said the young man.

"Why?" Yemi asked and then the young man's face got some wrinkles.

"Funny question," the young man said. "Or isn't it the issue with Mr Deinde you're talking about?"

"Of course yes, that man who was alleged to have murdered the governorship aspirant of the Friendship party," he said. "I mean how could the court declare such sentence on him when he hasn't come out clear to tell us who sent him?"

"Hmm, now I see you're not aware," the man said. "Last night, the news aired it that Mr Deinde confessed that he was sent by Mr Aluko, the aspirant of the rival party, Harmony Party."

"Mo gbe!" Yemi exclaimed in bewilderment and held his head in shock. It was a very unbelievable revelation since the alleged man was well famed for his moralism and philanthropic idiosyncrasy to the point that no one, not even a detective from the US, would easily suspect that he did such a despicable thing.

Hmmmmmmmm....
Trust nobody.
Anyway sha,lez chill & see as d story unfolds episode by episode.
Good work bro...kp it up!!

Sammyhoe?

D9ty7:
Sammyhoe?

Now Sammy O sir. U didn't show up 2 collect ur award those days.

SammyO4real:


Now Sammy O sir. U didn't show up 2 collect ur award those days.

The website suddenly rejected my password and I tried changing it, but it was unsuccesful.
Will create a new moniker and start afresh.
How have you been?

D9ty7:

The website suddenly rejected my password and I tried changing it, but it was unsuccesful.
Will create a new moniker and start afresh.
How have you been?

Fine sir...u won #400 recharge card. It still stands @ d end of d month u will get it sir. Thanks for keeping NL Literature section going despite the negligence of the section by our mods and supermods.

SammyO4real:


Fine sir...u won #400 recharge card. It still stands @ d end of d month u will get it sir. Thanks for keeping NL Literature section going despite the negligence of the section by our mods and supermods.

*dances shoki and etighi to show appreciation to the gods God.
I am only doing my best in ensuring that this section remains relevant. And with the right set of people championing the course with me, I believe we can do it.
Abeg, dey update this story steadily

Story Continuation...

Yemi had a long story to tell now. His face was carrying those smiles and bliss of one who had something going his way.

One thing about Yemi was that he always wanted to face and tackle the reality instead of just talking about them. Yemi didn't have any sense of pity for criminals. Why should he when he was one of those who prayed for criminal arrest botg day and night on his bed.

"You pray that God should expose them, he did, yet you are weeping for them when you see their villainous faces on the screen of the TV when they pretend to be gentle people, isn't that an irony of life?" Yemi would always tell people who had some pity for the criminals arrested.

Yemi wouldn't buy cheap stories from criminals or suspected criminals who had been arrested. He wouldn't believe in setups. If any accused soul was protesting concerning being set up, Yemi would make a nose mock on thr person in absentia and say,"If that was the truth, why haven't I been set up too, even after a long year in the prison service.

Yemi had been into the prison service right from his early days, while he was only twenty-five. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an upper credit in a Social Science course.

Yemi had heard the news of Deinde's sentence in a proper and elaborate manner now. He was to die by hanging in two weeks.

"Why such hasty judgment?" Yemi questioned the policeman who told him. "Isn't that a jungle justice?"

"I don't know for you o," the policeman replied him. It had always been that way. Yemi getting much interested more than the policemen themselves. They didn't like talking things to scrutiny yet they were policemen. If Yemi challenged them they would hide under the rug of not getting pay to parallel such task.

Yemi himself had been owed some month salary now, but he wasn't moved. At least he would be paid someday, he thought.

Yemi took his work with all the zeal needed for it. His mates had made mockery, calling him a 'workaholic' in the midst of 'alcoholics' since he wouldn't join them to take strong drinks.

It was Yemi's passion to always see to the affairs of arrested prisoners which made him have many prison cells to his charge, yet he wasn't a high-ranked civil servant. To call a spade a spade, Yemi had been underrated and undermined yet himself wouldn't mind since he believed he was doing it for the sake of the love he had for his country.

"God will reward me for it," he would tell those who have approached him to talk the matter through with him.

This story would sound unbelievable to his wife, Yemi thought. How would she believe the involvement of Mr Aluko in the murder case? The eagerness to get the news into 'the other Yemi's' ears became a propellant to hurry Yemi up. He wished he was home already.

As expected, Yemi's wife exclaimed when she heard it.

"I doubt it!" she yelled. "How could that clean man with such huge integrity do such a thing?"

"You don't know what politics could engender my dear Yemi," he said to his wife. "It's a dirty game!"

"But it can't be dirty to the extent of turning a philanthropist to a murderer so soon--I mean what's the correlation? I mean Aluko didn't declare himself as a contestant in the first place, his community forced him to do so for the betterment of this nation. So why will he do such wicked thing?"

Yemi's wife was already derailing from the principle she once upheld--that all accused persons were guilty indeed, but her wife still maintained his standpoint.

"Mr Aluko is my mentor my Yemi," Yemi told his wife. "But he's human hope you know. Humans change overnight, only God remains the same. My role model has been blindfolded by the dark garment of politics, I think."

It took Yemi's wife an extra time of ruminatings to accept it, though she was having a little doubt over the issue still.

Mr Aluko Peter was a renounced moralist who had propounded many theories in the Western part of the nation. He believed in the law of sowing and reaping so much, such that he was awarded for being the most generous citizen of Lagos at one time, yet the man used the money he got to promote a movement for youth empowerment and built a building where youths of the state could get in to learn some skills at a price unimaginably little.

Yemi drove home his point when he said, "Darling, you'll have to agree with me that politics is like a black ink that makes a thinker lack a good sense of judgement in a fleeting moment."

The statement Yemi just made was a statement written in one of Mr Aluko Peter's published books itself, making a satire of politics back then. Now himself ( Aluko) had put on the garment which he warned people against back then. The book was titled-POLITICS, A POISON TO BLACK NATIONS.

"Now our darling campaigner against politics is now vying for a position in it," Yemi spoke further. "In fact, my respect for him began to wade off that day he declared that he would be vying for a gubernatorial post in the forthcoming election."

"Uhm," Yemi's wife just kept breathing deep. She was speechless. "You're right dear, I'm bothered how people's inherent orientation could change over a short period of time."

Bimbo coughed to draw attention. She was bored of the talks now, yet she was the one who asked for it earlier, having her head on her father's head.

Bimbo had many strategies of cutting into a boring discussion without uttering a word. The cough she just released was one out of her many antics. At some other times, she would rise up swiftly and begin to sneeze 'crocodile sneezes' into the tender atmosphere. She could also run out of the room sometimes such that her mother would need to run after her to see what was wrong with her.

Bimbo had some childish attitudes to such end as well. She could poke her fingers into her dad's mouth like babies do sometimes while in a lying posture-all aiming at causing distraction.

Bimbo's cough was not taken into account this time around as the couple were already too deep into the yammer that it appeared nothing would stop them. They were always at their elements when political arguments were concerned, yet they would be supportive to the idea of getting actively involved in it.

Yemi's half-brother, Yomi, who aimed to be a Councillor of a town back then, was not given the nod by Yemi, his younger brother, who rather advised him to take up some other things, supporting him financially to set up a little commercial firm at last.

When Bimbo's coughing strategy wouldn't pull a pin, she was forced to voice out her desire:

"Daddy, enough of this a-thing you brought from work and let me share my own a-thing with you which I brought from school!"

Yemi could not resist the 'package'. He was not the type who loved to ignore any family member. He must let Bimbo say something now. But the look on the face of the 'other Yemi' was the one of displeasure. She wished the Deinde-Aluko issue would continue nonstop.

"Okay Bimbo, say on-we're all ears," Yemi said lovingly. "So--?"

"Daddy, guess what it is?"

"I should guess abi? Em, uh, ahn..." Yemi put a finger across his forehead in thought.

Bimbo was cackling like a firecracker. Her mum had warned her several time not to laugh in such manner anymore. To scare her out, she had playfully told her that such throaty laughter could cause sore throat.

"Bimbo!" she tapped her daughter again. Bimbo gave her an eye. She knew what her mother was talking about. She faced her father again and said, " Daddy, waiting..."

"You beat up a boy in school today?" Yemi said.

"No, no, no," Bimbo's head went in the negative manner. "Guess again daddy!"

"You spat into your teacher's face," Yemi put out another funny one.

"No, guess again."

"You damaged your seat intentionally?"

"No, guess again daddy."

The other Yemi cut in as she faced her husband and said, "Daddy Yemi, you too should try to guess something reasonable jare!"

"Are they not reasonable enough?" Yemi japed.

"En, o risinebu looto o," Yemi's wife spoke in irony.
It's reasonable indeed


"Daddy, can't you guess right for once?" her daughter challenged her. Yemi got up playfully and pulled up his trouser, turning it to the 'floorphobic' type one would see typical of olden days village headmasters. Then he sat down again in such funny look and said, "Oya, mo ti ready."
Alright, I am ready now.


"So, what's your guess?" Bimbo said amidst laughter. Shw couldn't help but laugh at her father's funny look now.

"You farted a fat fatty fart in class today," Yemi released yet another funny one. This time around, it was everyone who burst into laughter.

"Ha, ha, ha!" Bimbo laughed. "Daddy, guess something good joor."

"You won a quiz competition, right?"

"No, guess again."

"You cracked a rib-cracking joke in class."

"No, guess again."

"You, you, you you you..." Yemi had run out of idea. He had lost 'signal'. Her wife was the more bored. She wanted the political talks brought back with immediate effect. To get it on again, she felt it would be best to terminate the childish 'guess again' of her daughter by revealing the secret in Bimbo's conspicuous auspicious face. She knew what Bimbo had wrapped up in the 'moin-moin leaves' of guess again.

"Bimbo took first position in school--first overall."

"Oh my God!" Yemi screamed. "How did I forget to ask for her result in the first place? Ka, ka, ka, ka, ka," Yemi made a 'tongue-on-teeth' clicking sound to show his disappointment in himself.

Bimbo was gutted. She hated the way her mother terminated her fun. She had squinted her face now, getting ready to unleash her childish anger on anyone who 'found her trouble'.

"Why did you have to tell daddy?" she confronted her mother.

"You would have done the same, wouldn't you?" her mother said in a smiling face, not a bit sorry for her deed.

"But you should have let him hear it from the horse's mouth," Bimbo complained. Sadly, she began to walk out of the parlour into her bedroom, ignoring her parent's call

"Bimbo is like me," Yemi said. "I am proud of her. What is her overall percentage?"

"95%," his wife said.

"Splendid! I'm impressed!" Yemi was glad. "What about that boy?" he added.

"That boy? He is nowhere to be found this time around--has 75%," his wife said. The boy in question had always been the only person posing academic threat at Bimbo. He was equally good, but this time around, he went behind Bimbo by 20%.

"So who is the second best overall?"

"Who knows?" she replied lackadaisically and quickly chipped in, "En-hen, do you really think Deinde is right about saying that the philanthropist sent him the murder?"

"He wouldn't have said so," Yemi replied. "Tell me, what does he stand to gain by telling a lie concerning his sender?"

"So--you go for a belief in Deinde's talk, isn't it?"

"Of course yes," he was tensed. "What cannot happen in politics?"

"What do you think darling? Do you think Deinde will be hanged so soon?"

"I don't think so," Yemi doubted. "Not when the accused Governorship candidate hasn't owned up to the allegation against him."

"I'm thinking that way too," said Yemi's wife.

"As a matter of fact, I'm envisaging a court case to be prolonged for years," Yemi said. "Meaning that Deinde will live long behind closed bars, perhaps under my charge," Yemi smiled.

"Uhm," she sighed. "How I wish Deinde was telling a lie," she concluded softly, having some feeling of pity for the indicted gubernatorial candidate of the Harmony Party.

"Well...all I want is justice," Yemi cupped his hand and put it over his mouth to do some yawns into it. "What shall we use to celebrate our daughter's success jare?"

"Toast bread and orange juice."

"That's good," said Yemi. "Have you gotten them?"

"I'll go get them," she said. "But we need to ask mama first," she added, fondly calling her daughter 'mama'.

"It's true. She might want to celebrate it with garri and kulikuli instead," Yemi joked and they laughed.

Really, the family was such which was made strong by series of persiflages.

CHAPTER THREE

As Yemi trudged along a tarmacked road, the look on his face turned around dramatically. He had just seen someone he saw around the high court premises two days back--the harsh-looking face of a stout, dirty man.

Yemi didn't make a mistake as regards the young man's appearance. It was the man Yemi almost directed his question to outside the court that day.

"It's that man!" Yemi spoke to himself. At first he thought it was a coincidence seeing him again

Yemi intentionally changed his course of motion and entered another lane, a tattered dusty street which seemed more like a slum regarding the loads of dustbin dumped around even after some attempts had been made by some lover of sanitation to write: DUMP YOUR REFUSE HERE AND LOSE YOUR LIFE.

What was the choice left for those poor Lagosians to make when there was no way they could dump their refuse since the government refuse bus had refused to ply their steeets for months to convey their dirts away.

Obviously Yemi wasn't happy about the pitiable condition of the Agege area of Lagos state. He detested seeing clay huts all around in an urban settlement.

"Ghetto in Lagos," Yemi said. "And this people will be thinking in their minds that they're living in Lagos."

Yemi wanted to spit when the stench from the stinking refuse began to ooze into his nostrils. He wondered how people around were coping with the pollutions that would result.

Yemi had forgotten about the thought of being trailed behind by somebody when he suddenly saw the man emerge at the other end of the street.

"Is this man monitoring me?" Yemi whispered to himself. He had begun to get scared.

Yemi entered a wooden canteen just beside a slum and settled on a bench whose length was as large as the length of the shop itself. The floor of the canteen was bare and not cemented at all. His feet had raised dust when he tramped his foot against the floor earlier. He had to shield his nostrils with a handkerchief.

Yemi was peeping out of the door of the canteen to see if the man would pass by, then he would know if he was actually being followed.

"What do you want?" a female voice came up close to Yemi's ear. She was the owner of the canteen, which was standing lopsidedly between two slums. It would have been better used for a cement store rather than a food canteen.

Government should financially join hands with sanitation workers to see that such eyesores are demolished in a city that was assumed by all to be embellished with beauty, Yemi thought.

"Oga, I say what do you want?" the woman spoke in Yoruba the second time. It was conspicuous that she was an illiterate. She had some vertical-upon horizontal tribal marks on her cheeks which one would have passed for the claw impressions of a lion probably during a fierce battle with it.

"Er, okay give me pounded yam, two wraps and fish," Yemi spoke without thinking much on it. He desired to be there for sometimes to avoid the man who seemed to be following him everyehere.

"Alrice sah," the woman spoke with a parlance laden with the burden of village illiteracy. She hadn't ever passed the way of school, Yemi must have thought.

The woman came with the food. At the sight of the ewedu soup instead of the melon soup he had assumed the woman would bring, Yemi recoiled and voiced out his heart:

"I don't like ewedu soup," Yemi complained.

"O o o," the woman grumbled. "Bring it."

Yemi saw her put her unwashed hand into the ewedu soup and held the fish in it, which he threw back into the pot of fish. It was a disgusting sight to behold for Yemi.

Yemi had already lost interest, having begun to perceive an indignant pungent smell. The air was stale, so it was certain the smell would last long in there.

Yemi got up as the woman was bringing the food.

"I am not eating anymore," Yemi said. A housefly sounding across his brain had put him off totally. Housefly was hovering round him when he hadn't begun eating, how much more when he began to eat the food. Surely, they would come in their multitude to dance 'galala' inside his watery melon soup, Yemi thought.

"What did you say?" the woman put the food on the table and said, bringing her ears close to Yemi as if she meant what she just said.

"I say I don't want to eat anymore," Yemi said confidently.

"Ta lo ma wa sanwo eleyi?"
who will now pay for this?

Story continues...


mi couldn't answer the question because he wasn't ready to pay a dime. What he had left with him was his transport fare home.

"I'm sorry but I can't eat in this stuffy confinement," Yemi said as he took a step towards the exit.

"You want trouble abi?" said the woman. "And I will give it to you." She retied her wrapper and grabbed the collar of Yemi's shirt.

"Leave me alone," said Yemi. "Has it gotten to this?"

"Yes o," the woman gritted her teeth. Yemi perceived an odour--a killing one. He felt that the smell could make him go on blackout. Instantly, Yemi had had a change of mind. He'd rather give it to her to avoid being rough-handled by the cantankerous woman.

Yemi put his hand into his pocket and his fingers propped out. The money was no longer in place. It was derided of the money he kept in it earlier.

"What?!" Yemi screamed. "My money is lost!"

The woman laughed indifferently and tightened her grip on Yemi's collar.

"Your money has disappeared abi? That's your own cup of tea o," she said in her dialect. He held him tighter.

Yemi's eyes bulged as the grip got to his throat. He felt like coughing. The temptation arrived that he should beat the woman up but it wasn't in his blood-violence. He'd rather remove the hands on his neck by pulling her fist apart instead of beating her up.

"Do you want to..."Yemi breath heavily, "kill me?"

"If I can, I would," the woman said without having a sense of pity for Yemi. "Pay me up or you pay with your life."

Yemi was sure the woman meant what he was saying. How can someone be so mean? he thought. Then he held her hands and got them off her neck.

"Jedijedi cannot collect money when it is not available," Yemi gave a Yoruba proverb which got the woman more annoyed.

"Are you calling me a pile?" she shouted at him and made her hand as if to slap him, but Yemi was lucky he evaded the hand.

If the local woman was older than Yemi at all, it shouldn't be more than a year.

Her spittle settled like a dew on Yemi's face when she yelled. The woman had now held Yemi tight at his belt region, pulling him forcefully as if to get a cane and use it on him like a stubborn child.

"What kind of humiliation is this?" Yemi was angry. He raised his hand to punch the woman in the face, but had to let it go down when he pondered on something.

How would he raise his hands to smite a lady? Wouldn't it amount to the negation of the moral law he had upheld for so long? Impossible! Yemi thought.

Yemi resorted to begging. It was like a son in the hand of a mother who was bent on beating him up.

"Please, please, I'll get you your money madam," he pleaded. The woman let them fall on deaf ears.

"Sebi you want to punch your mummy before ni?" the woman spoke like a termagant who was raised under the care of a termagant--sure she would be henpecking on her husband at home.

"Please just forgive..." Yemi paused to catch a fast-moving widespread palm coming towards his cheek. If he hadn't held the wrist in time, then he'd be sure of having some unexpected 'tribal marks' lining his cheek like the mucus lining in a nose.

"Eh, you want to slap me ni ke e!" Yemi said in shock.

"Tele wa n ko," the woman spoke.
how about that?

"Forgive him," a rough male voice sounded just at the entrance of the canteen. Yemi turned and discovered it was that same man he had been running away from.

"Ha! Siifu!" the woman said, showing some reverence to the rough-haired man who had just got inside her canteen. "How do you know here?"

"I just decided to branch when I heard your arguing voices, both of you. What is the bone of contention, can you tell me?"

"He bought food--refused to eat, refused to pay," she said, leaving Yemi's belt alone.

"Gentleman, why?" the dirty man faced Yemi, but not in a harsh cruel voice had Yemi had thought of him.

"I wanted to pay...but I lost my money," said Yemi.

"Sorry about that," said the man with a croaky voice. He turned to the woman again and said, "Let him go, I'll pay."

Yemi was very grateful. He believed the man was his guardian angel--one least expected to render any help at all.

"All things work together for good," said Yemi in whispers as he came out of the canteen. The dirty man even asked for his home and gave him some money to transport himself there since he said he had lost all his money through his torn pocket earlier.

As Yemi trekked towards the bus stop, frowns gathered intermittently on his forehead again at the sights of the Hausa beggars sitting beside the gutters in large number. He wondered who came to dump them there. They were irritating to his sight.
Yemi had thought them a big menace to the society. The gutters behind them were some sites to behold already let alone having those dirty beggars adding to the paint of irritation.

Banbiala, kola kola... such was all he could hear of their sweet begging voice and people would just bow low to put some money in their overturned cowboy hats or in their almsplates. Lagosians are very nice people, Yemi thought. Left to him, he believed they could have used their singing talents to generate money instead of begging under the hot sun their.

"Perhaps they have this begging mentality," Yemi whispered his thought concerning the beggars in question.

Who should not be nice to those beggars if not the Southwestern people of the nation themselves, some whose children had been killed in some riots in the north?

Yemi just wished those beggars would someday be packed like sardine into a big trailer going northward.

Yemi cherished morality and self-discipline more than anything else in the world. He believed that smoking is unethical, so he wouldn't smoke. Yemi would not even touch an empty can of beer, hold a stick of cigarette or indulge fidelity. If everyone was like Yemi, the street would not have to be littered with dirts, instead the roadside baskets and drums would be the ones to suffer for it--they would be full to the brim.
Yemi screamed disgustingly at a can of tasty time drink he found on the sidewalk. He bent over it after, walking to a roadside iron drum to dump it in there.

"Are people so blind?"

Actually, Yemi's moral behaviour wasn't an inborn gene. It was only a lesson he had learnt seven years back in one of Aluko Peter's numerous book. It was titled: Keep Lagos Clean. Then, the books went free for the public, courtesy of Peter Aluko himself.

It was a military regime then and the man's contribution to social development was awarded by the then military governor.

As Yemi remembered his mentor, he hissed and said, "Can someone be moral forever in this cursed land? Hmm, evil communication corrupts good manner," he drove home his point with a passage in his Bible. Yemi thought such was the case for the philanthropist cum moralist cum governorship aspirant cum murderer, Aluko Peter.

Yemi had much story to tell--especially that of his ordeal in the hand of that local woman in the shabby old canteen. His wife didn't let him tell the story to its peak point when she got some fire on her brain and agitated, "Describe the place and let me go and tear that wicked woman apart!"

"Be still Omoyemi," he calmed his wife. "J-just let it go!"

"How could she be so arrogant?" Yemi's wife frowned her face as if the woman in question was just right there beside her.

Bimbo was now bored. She was longing to have the topic changed immediately. Yemi had often called Bimbo a lazy girl just because she wouldn't buy the idea of staying too long listening to stories as such, yet she would be the one to ask for it.

Bimbo was pulling at her father's chin as she lay her head on his laps. Yemi knew exactly what she meant.

"I know what you want, Bimbo," her father said with a smile.

"Then give it to me daddy," Bimbo replied. The other Yemi frowned and said, "Dear, this girl will get spoilt in our hands if we keep giving her everything as she wanted."

"Let's give her," said Yemi. "At least she's our only begotten son."

They laughed when Yemi mentioned 'only begotten son'.

"Deinde's talk, isn't it?" Yemi asked. She nodded in the positive.

"Well...I guess he'll be remaining in prison till Mr Aluko's case is over."

"Like how many days?" Bimbo asked. It was as though she wasn't buying the idea of leaving Deinde too long in the cell.

"Days you say?" Yemi laughed. "It's better you say years-perhaps two to three years or forever."

"Ah!" Bimbo screamed. She was sad. Then she asked tenderly, "Dad, are you not the one watching over him?"

"Yes I am," Yemi said, having no clue what she would say next.

"Then can't you get him out of there?" Bimbo said in a childish manner. "What are you waiting for?"

It caught Yemi and his wife off guard. It had never occurred to them that Bimbo could say such a thing--setting a criminal free.

Yemi clicked her nose playfully and said, "Bimbo, you sound funny. What power does an ordinary warder like me has?"

Bimbo's mother was just laughing, talking amidst her laughter. She had to hold on to the edge of the chair to prevent herself from falling. Bimbo hated such kind of laughter. She was teed up.

"Mum, you just keep laughing at me on something that's not funny," she voiced out, pointing at her.

"It's because you're talking silly talks," her mother replied playfully. "Maybe you shouldn't put your small mouths in big matters anymore.

Bimbo hated being called a small-mouthed thing, just as she hated being called big-mouthed too. Her mother had always referred to her as both on different times as occasion demanded.

"Mummy stop it!" she screamed and sulked. Bimbo was always a serious person, taking every joke seriously. This had earned her names amidst her mate, calling her, "Aunty Jeje".

Bimbo wouldn't go provoking people to anger and she would want to be treated in exactly the same way. In such regard, she was like her grandfather, her mother's father who died when she(Bimbo) was only eight. That man was a no-nonsense man.

Yemi had to check through a buttered bread which Deinde's younger sister would pass to him. At first, Yemi stared long into the young lady's face. She had such a familar face of someone he saw not quite long.

"Seems I've seen this face before," Yemi asked.

"Yes, at the court," the lady said. Yemi remembered at once. She was the same smiling lady back then, whose smile turned into a whine when Yemi approached her to ask how the case went.

"And who are you to Deinde?" Yemi probed further.

"A sister," she said.

"Younger or older," Yemi wanted to know, yet it was conspicuous. The lady grinned and said, "Oga, you should know so well. Can't you see I'm not more than twenty? My brother is going to be twenty-six next month," she said and then burst into tears.

Yemi wondered what a moody person she was. She could be smiling this moment and at the next, weeping. Such kind of lady wouldn't be good for a housewife," Yemi thought. You'd be hurting her unknowingly, she would be smiling, only to burst out weeping and accusing you one day.

Yemi was moved to pet her, but he wouldn't. He was only doing his job, wasn't he? Instead, he shifted his attention to the bread and said, "Where did you get this bread from?"

"It's Agege bread," she spoke in a tert manner.

"Agege or Ajegunle bread is not what matters here. I mean to say how did you come about this bread or let me put it this way, who gave the bread to you?"

"Who?" she said and laughed fleetingly. "Of course I bought it from a street hawker."

"Do you know where the hawker resides?" Yemi asked. It sounded funny to her.

"How would I know?" she frowned.

"Well...I'm just after the safety of your brother Deinde and I think...that's all," Yemi said. "Em...what's that name of yours?"

"Desola," she said immediately.

"Em...sister Desola, you'll have to taste part of the bread," said Yemi. A little wrinkle gathered on her forehead as she said, "How would I poison my brother?"

"I didn't say you want to, did I?" Yemi said. "Of course it's hard outside there now, or don't you think the hawker may want to get that done?"

"Impossible!" said Desola.

"Then prove it!" Yemi said.

Angrily, Desola tore out a large chunk off the bread and scooped it into her mouth. Then she managed to say, "Can you see that?"

"Pass," he gave her a go-ahead. "Only two minutes."

Deinde's sister was very much emotional. It was as if the 'two-minute' time limit was only useful for her to weep, and now when she was about to say something meaningful, Yemi was there, shouting, "Madam, your time is up!"

"Be patient Oga warder!" Deinde retorted arrogantly. Yemi stared at him and did not know what to say, though his heart was saying, 'Who give him the gut to yell at me like that?"

Desola left soon after.

Yemi passed by a woman roasting corns for sale. The flakes of the coal beneath the red hot gauze kept spreading in the air as she blew air on it with a local handfan.

The sight was provoking Yemi to anger, which he had to fight hard to keep under control.

"Air pollution," Yemi grumbled, his head turned to one side, looking at the sight still. "Only God knows where we're going in this country."

The corn seller noticed him when she raised up her head and said, "Do you want to--" she sneezed into the corn, "buy corn?"

"No, thanks," Yemi said and increased his pace. He wasn't going to call for the repetition of the happening in the canteen few days back.

Yemi remembered the man who helped him out that day--very haggard but nice, he thought.

"Truly, it's not good to judge by appearance," Yemi said.

Yemi's thought was racing from one to another. He knew his daughter, Bimbo would be eagerly waiting for him now. She would be expecting some 'a-things' he would bring home that hazy morning.

Sometimes when Yemi was on night duty, Bimbo would delay her departure to school just to wait at home for her father's arrival to share those prison experiences, only to get to school late and get punished, yet she hadn't learnt her lessons.

The cloud was getting darker. Iy was as though a heavy downpour would soon visit the face of the earth.

Yemi began to make haste towards the bus stop because of the fear he was harbouring for the nimbostratus cloud above his head, believing that the would pour heavily very soon.

It was a Saturday morning. Now the brightness of the morning had turned glum as though an eclipse was happening. The cloud began to unleash its tears upon the earth in trickles. The birds lay spread-eagled across the face of the sky, swarming homeward.

Yemi's home was still quite a long distance away. Earlier, he was planning to trek home, since he had nothing serious to go home to do, but now he needed to take a taxi.

Yemi was still thinking about getting a taxi when one pulled up before the little shed where he was shielding himself from the rain in the company of two goats and a chicken. Those creatures were shivering very severely.

Yemi ran out of his hiding place to get into the taxi. On his way, he plodded into a puddle and some dirty water splashed all over his body. He didn't wait to look at the mess all over, because he didn't want to miss the taxi.

Yemi sat beside the driver at the front. They were the only two in the car.

"How much is the money?" Yemi asked the driver and he told him.

The car chugged on without any exchange of further verbal communication. Yemi was half-way into the journey when he peeped into the side mirror and saw the face of the driver clearly. It was the same man who bailed him out of the tribal-marked faced woman in the canteen the week before.

Yemi faced the man and said, "Wow! It's you again!"

The driver's face turned right towards Yemi.

"Do I know you sir?" he asked politely.

"Yes, Yemi replied. "You paid for me in the canteen last week."

"Oh!" the huge dirty young man exclaimed with glee. "Don't mind that woman. She's too tough."

"It's not her fault," Yemi gave a prompt reply. "I should have--"

"I forgot to ask for your name sir," the driver cut in.

"Oh, I'm Yemi sir," Yemi said. He was expecting him to tell his name in return but the man was silent about his own name, probably because he had to battle the steering to avoid plodding into a ditch which he saw just when they were close to reaching it. He had the control eventually.

"Michael, that's my name," said the man.

"So, you drive taxi?" Yemi said.

"That's what I do sir. Any problem?"

"Nothing," said Yemi. "I'm a warder too."

"Okay."

Yemi was seeing the man as a very special fellow. It was rare having a driver in Lagos speak politely to you. Starting from the way they charge you when you board their buses or taxis to the way they wanted you down immediately you got to your destination, one would never want to make friends with them.

"You're somehow special," Yemi said of the young man in his mid thirties.

"How?" the driver asked in a puzzled manner.

"Your gentle manner, your good intonation, your good communication skills, unlike many other drivers on the road who are always drunk early in the morning."

"Are you sure you are not flattering me?" the huge man said. He was smiling.

"Sure," said Yemi. "When I saw the way you dressed, I was hasty to judge you as one of the hooligans on the street, but you have proven to me beyond all reasonable doubt that you are different."

"Uhn," the driver made a sound. "This job of ours doesn't give us much time to take good care of our body, that's why you see me always rough as this. Of course driving vehicle isn't an office job. And putting on tie isn't going to go well with us."

The conversation went on and on as both of them revealed more things about their personal lives, family, work, exposure and more.

The taxi driver was generous and kind enough in Yemi's perspective. He had just dropped him around his house.

"Here's my home," Yemi said as he got ready to get down. By then the rain had stopped. It wasn't a serious rain, having stopped just within five minutes it began.

"Great! You've got a good home here," said the taxi driver.

Yemi counted two hundred naira, in twenty naira denomination and put it forward but the driver rejected it.

"Keep your money Mr Yemi, said Michael.

Yemi was surprised. It hadn't happened to him, a driver asking him not to pay for transport fare. All the ones he had met in the past, even the ones who lived in his neighbourhood, must make sure he remitted their monies to them even till the last penny.

Yemi could recall the incidence the month ago when he waved down a car which seemed to be a private one. The owner made him feel comfortable as if he was giving him a lift (free ride) but when Yemi got to his destination, the man asked him for money.

"Do you mean I shouldn't pay sincerely?" Yemi wanted to be sure of what he heard.

"Yes, I'm giving you a free ride sir," Michael said.

"It's becoming every day issue now, last time you paid for me in the canteen and this time again you're giving me a free lift. Thank you."

"Sir, I don't mind helping you again and again," Michael said.

Yemi was suspecting something. The young man was Michael by name--what a similarity? He could be angel Michael, Yemi thought in a sheepish manner.

"Mr. Michael, won't you come in with me to know my family and have hot coffee with us? It's cold out there as you can see."

"Don't bother Mr. Yemi," Michael spoke politely. "I'll take my leave now. Bye sir."

Michael turned the ignition key and the taxi revved to life.

Yemi remained on the spot, wondering:

"Hope I'm not already seeing my guardian Angel. He's always going everywhere to help me now. This is serious. If I see him one more time helping me, then no doubt he's the Angel Michael in heaven," Yemi talked to himself.

I forgot to update and people here also forgot to remind me

Bimbo had been up since 6am, expecting the return of her father. When the rain began earlier, she was sad, knowing for sure that it would delay her father's return.

Childishly, she thought she could get the rain away by singing a popular poem, 'Rain Rain, Go Away."

Coincidentally, the rain stopped just in five minutes, such that her mother was seriously amazed.

"Bimbo, do you know what you've just done?"

"What?" Bimbo asked.

"You've just held the rain," she said. "Do you know what that means?"

"What could it mean?"

Bimbo's mother sat her down and began to feed her with superstitious beliefs and stories which sounded more like fables and myth. She told her of a very great man in the Yoruba kingdom who would help people bind up rain such that it wouldn't fall whenever they were going to have some big occasion.

The most scary part of the story to Bimbo was how the great rain-commander died mysteriously at his last attempt of holding back rain.

"A great thunder from God struck him and tore him apart," her mother said.

"Ah!" Bimbo screamed. She was scared. It was then Yemi arrived.

"I'm home!" Yemi screamed and threw his shirt at the sofa in his careless manner whenever he was at home.

Bimbo ran to give him a hug.

"Daddy!" she yelled when she hugged him.

"Welcome back," Yemi's wife greeted him.

"Daddy, how was the night?" Bimbo asked her father.

"Good," he said. "Deinde's snore made it bad anyway."

Bimbo laughed.

"Good for you daddy!"

"Good for me you say?" Yemi posed as if he was serious. "Bimbo what is my offence?"

"You should have set Deinde free," said Bimbo. "At least you could have had a sound sleep if he wasn't there anymore."

Yemi's wife hissed. Even Yemi himself was surprised at the dimension his daughter had taken to approach the matter this time again, such an a priori way, Yemi thought. He pulled his daughter close and whispered, "Bimbo, how would you feel if I don't come home from workplace anymore?"

"For what reason?" Bimbo was scared. Her mother countered her as she said, "Answer your daddy's question and stop asking questions for questions--how we you feel?"

"I won't feel anything," Bimbo took them aback, "because I will die," and their shocks disappeared.

Yemi sighed and replied, "If I let Deinde get away free, then I will have to take his place in the cell."

"Then don't help him again!" Bimbo said without brooding over it. The couple laughed.

Bimbo didn't want to here anymore thing about Deinde. The chapter was closed since setting him free would be to her father's detriment. It isn't worth it, she thought.

Bimbo had to walk away when it seemed her parents were just going to open the Deinde talk afresh.