by AC Alegbo
‘I can’t anymore; my stitch is beginning to ache,’ he pointed to his left side where he had had surgery a year earlier. I’d never seen the mark and given his reputation, didn’t know if this was very strictly true or only true in a general sense.
‘Oh sorry,’ I volunteered, looking the part, ‘maybe another time, eh? And we’ll get a bus. I’ll be better prepared.’
He held me to my promise or at least that was what he claimed it was when he pushed for a second try a few days later.
‘What about your stitch?’ I asked. ‘Won’t you give it time to heal?’
‘It is fine now; I have rested enough. So, when will it be?’
I made plenty of arrangements before we embarked on our second outing, tidying the house, making sure there were going to be as few people as possible at home and giving strict instructions to my younger brother to make himself scarce. I also arranged to get the bus in keeping with my earlier promise and this set me back a very precious naira – my entire savings for a week.
We didn’t hang around for long; the house was eerily quiet and too spick for me who was used to anything else. Ireneh seemed comfortable in his surroundings but seeing that I was more reticent than usual, upright at one end of the sofa and not attempting to venture on any new activity, he made to leave.
‘You can’t go now,’ I protested coming alive suddenly. ‘Have you forgotten that we will play table soccer? Let’s play for ten minutes.’
‘I was thinking that you had forgotten. Okay. Do you have any counters?’
‘How can you ask? I have a full team,’ I replied as I went into the room that I shared with my siblings and emerged with a sugar carton in which I stored the bottle tops that made up my football team. We tore up a sugar carton in two and used each half as goal posts and split the team between us. Using the plastic reel pivot in a music cassette for ball, we played for about half an hour and ended on a score of 3 – 1 in my favour.
‘You are better than me now because you play every day,’ Ireneh gave as an excuse as I walked him out of the compound. ‘Let me play every day like you and I will thrash you.’
‘Do you know all the people I beat even though they play every day? Come every day if you like and we’ll see if you can beat me.’
‘Ha, you don’t even really know how to play,’ he replied. ‘Your men play like India.’
‘What do you mean like India?’
‘Have you ever seen India play football?’ he asked.
‘Does that mean that they don’t know how to play?’ I asked in defence.
‘Yes. The last time they played, they used plenty of jazz.’
‘How?’ I asked expecting another tall tale.
‘They played against us and beat us 100 – 0.’
‘Ha-ha Ireneh,’ I laughed. ‘You again.’
‘No, true,’ he insisted. ‘First, they came wearing skirts, then, when our boys wanted to kick the ball, they saw a stone and when our keeper wanted to catch the ball, he saw a knife flying at him. That’s how they beat us 100 – 0.’
‘Ha – ha,’ I laughed on. ‘You really try.’
‘No really. That’s why India was banned from playing football.’
‘Anyway, my men don’t play like India,’ I got back to the point. ‘My men are more like Argentina. So don’t try us or you’ll suffer.’
‘We’ll see,’ he finished.
I walked with him to the end of the street before running back home transformed to my usual self and a few minutes later, together with my brother, transforming the house as well.
****
Now you may want to know more about Kaduna. It was and, perhaps still is, the most volatile city in the country – a city prone to conflict and riots. The most recent of these riots had erupted a few weeks before on the 21st of February 2000 and had been the most terrifying spectacle for those students who had witnessed it and thoroughly shaken those who didn’t.
I remember people telling me that luckily, I’d been away when it happened. They said it over and over and over again like I might doubt them. I didn’t. But I have lived in dread of any repeat ever since. Whatever I am, I have a crippling fear of violence, especially mob violence; a good fist fight I could accommodate but hacking, lynching and burning would kill me without contact.
And that was what Kaduna had devolved into on that day and the few days after; the story again was that most of the other coppers had sought refuge in the army barracks in the city, that is, the coppers who had no claim to the north – the southerners.
The riots were sparked by the intended move of the state government to sign the Shari’ah penal code of Islam into criminal law, something that had always been on the northern agenda but stifled under military rule. With the departure of the military the year before, however, the issue came to life again.
Several other northern states were also in this process led by Zamfara State that had in fact already adopted the Shari’ah law but Kaduna was special. It was the multi-ethnic and multi-religious melting pot of northern Nigeria. The fights had been between the southern and northern ethnic groups who almost equally inhabited the city and who were predominantly Christian and Muslim respectively.
A large number of Christian protesters had turned out against the proposed introduction of the Islamic law in the State. At some point, they ran into a group of Muslim youths who were doing the very opposite and a violent confrontation broke out. In different parts of the city, Christians and Muslims set up road blocks, rampaging and attacking people of the opposite faith - largely and fundamentally judged by ethnicity - and burning down their property. Reports suggested the Christians claimed at least a mosque while the Muslims, two Churches. A Catholic priest was dragged out of his car, beaten, had his eyes gouged out before he was killed by the Muslim mob. Several other northern Muslims within reach of the Christian mob lost their lives as well and the main Kaduna market was set ablaze.
News reports also revealed that the army barracks had swarmed with a lot of the Christian Igbo traders who made up the bulk of the southerner population in the city, seeking refuge. The army had had to be deployed to help the police control the situation; business and schools were ordered shut and a dusk to dawn curfew was imposed. Even these measures did little to quell the violence that gained momentum pretty quickly.
In all the chaos, what was often not mentioned, however, was the great proportion of northerners in the city who were themselves Christian. I knew, therefore, that my new found non-Christian status would not offer me much immunity in the event of any such outbreak as enemy status was judged more along lines of ethnicity. If I was not a northerner, my hide was not safe. By the 26th of February, casualties of wounded and dead were in the hundreds and northern Nigeria was in chaos. Three days later, amid fears of reprisal killings of northerners in the south which was already happening anyway, the national council of states voted to suspend the adoption of Shari’ah law in a bid to restore calm to the country.
Mamu instantly left the room after Taribo turned around and a few of those around, I included, instantly became suspicious of his next move. In fact, I could see some of the crowd milling around him in a seeming placatory manner. He kept walking on out of the compound and I knew I had to get out of the hostel, the compound and the city quickly.
But I was simply being paranoid, I was told an hour later by a mocking Taribo who had need of Banjo to carry out some errand in Lagos. ‘Yes, he may have long legs but he cannot do shit right now; you know how long it takes to raise a mob and all the negotiations that takes – that is even if we believe those stories about him?’ he questioned confidently.
He had a point, I conceded, trying to feel as confident as he did. Even if Mamu had a mob ready, they’d need an hour, at least, to get to where we were since Mamu was based outside the city, I reasoned. Most of all, the city was at peace and any chaos that attracted any attention was likely to bring trouble on the cause as well. Mamu was no fool, I sincerely hoped;
he knew he had a lot to lose if he made a wrong move but that didn’t mean that I wanted to hang around to see how foolish he couldn’t be. I couldn’t put out of my mind the scene with a small crowd trying to pacify Mamu – what could that have meant?
‘Let us go, Banjo,’ I called out. ‘I have a long way to travel.’ My voice did not carry the lie through as my hidden fear was betrayed by the sound.
‘Just a minute,’ Banjo replied. ‘Relax man, nothing will happen,’ he added, addressing my felt apprehension. He proceeded to wrap up his business with Taribo, however, and lugging his suitcase, turned around and walked out of the premises with me.
****
To get to Ireneh’s house, however, we didn’t have to get the bus; it was a walking distance by our standards. The rains had just arrived so the roads had carved out in hollows filled with pools of muddy water. It took about ten hard and dirty ten minutes to get to his house through interweaving muddy streets. By the time we arrived, I was completely lost.
I remember it’d been a disappointing affair for my young mind. I had, even unknown to me, gradually built up quite an esteemed notion of Ireneh because of the grip he had over me; I’d pictured him above ordinary embroils apart from the fact that he had to attend school, placed him higher than the everyday person and must have expected that he’d live in a style that would put my existence to cringing shame.
The building was well run-down, the peeling paint on its walls gave a very drab picture; it was a storey building with each floor constructed right the same way – little rooms running down both sides of a narrow corridor. As we walked in, I had to skip several times in the darkness to stop my feet crashing into some object or the other that I’d only just made out a split second before. There was a dirty kerosene stove lazing in a corner, ready to take on my shin and which I dodged from with a leap, bumping into my host; a piece of cloth spread out in front of a doorway to serve as some form of foot-mat and which slid under me; five pairs of worn out slippers and sandals; two bamboo canes leaning against the wall and an old fridge tossed into another corner.
Ireneh kept glancing back at me in reproof each time I successfully avoided a collision; he expected me to manage as well as he did. He walked in front of me with a quick and well practised stride; he definitely knew his surroundings well. As we progressed, he would stop to bawl at a kid here and yell out greetings to an adult there. He led me to one of the little rooms at the top end of the corridor and when we got in, I could see that it was the sitting room. It didn’t have much but was surprisingly cosy; there were two sofas, a little table on which rested the TV and a fridge by a corner of the room. At the other end was a little cupboard that housed utensils and crockery. A small rug covered the ground underneath us and I quite forgot that I was inside the same building as seen from the outside. Obviously though, I thought, there had to be other rooms let out to my friend’s family in the building that would serve as bedrooms. Ireneh did not seem bothered about his home. He dashed straight in, tossed his school bag on the fridge and flung himself on the sofa.
‘Come, come, sit down. Let’s watch TV,’ he chirped as he waved me in and turned on the little black and white TV on the table. ‘My brothers are still at school but my big brother is lifting weights at the backyard. I’ll take you to see his weights,’ he carried on animatedly.
‘If you see how big he is? I’ve tried to carry some of the weights but they are too heavy and my big brother doesn’t allow me carry them.’
‘So that you won’t kill yourself?’ I said laughing at my half question.
‘What about him? He can kill himself with the weight too,’ Ireneh replied taking me very seriously. ‘After all, that was what killed Booslee.’ He really meant Bruce Lee.
‘How?’ I was getting used to this word in conversation with Ireneh.
‘His muscle grew so big until it burst,’ he said. ‘Do you know what that means, when your muscle burst?’ He bent his right arm at the elbow and stiffened to make his bicep bulge and pointing to it as an illustration. ‘All your blood just pours out until you die.’
‘Who tells you all this?’ I asked as thoroughly fascinated by the story as by how he must have come by it.
‘Forget. People talk. My brothers also tell me things.’
A sudden loud commotion outside made us jump. I could distinctly make out shouting male voices as Ireneh led the way back outside. The spectacle was at the top of the street which was only a few yards from the compound we were in. From where we stood, the noise came in much stronger; the crowd were very much at a riotous high. They kept bouncing back and forth from a thick centre, very much like buzzing bees. We peered harder and made out a picture. Two young lads had just been broken up from a fight. They were teenage schoolboys, their uniforms now in tatters hung loosely on them. As the crowd broke them further apart, I could see the reason for the big hoo-ha about this event.
The torn uniforms of both boys were quite blood stained although they didn’t seem to be in pain. I was still wondering where the blood came from when I saw two people from the crowd tying strips from the uniform of one of the fighters around his arm. I peered even harder and could make out the source of bleeding just below his left shoulder.
‘Woo!’ I whistled. ‘It is really bad. They are using knives.’
‘That’s nothing,’ Ireneh replied unfazed. ‘They are Trinity boys. That’s the school my brothers attend. They always fight with daggers.’
‘Do your brothers also fight like that?’ I asked.
‘Yes now,’ he answered a little surprised that I had to ask. ‘Trinity is full of jaguda wild boys. That’s why all my brothers lift weights so they can fight - not only with dagger but with knives and cutlasses.’
Even despite Ireneh’s reputation, I was not so sure how much of this story I could believe.
‘And your brothers also fight like that?’ I repeated. ‘Don’t they get injured?’
‘Yes now. And they also injure the people they fight with. My brothers are good fighters o. Like the other time, one boy slashed my brother Uyi down his right hand near his elbow here,’ he touched the upper part of his arm to show me. ‘Uyi’s shirt was covered with blood but if you see what Uyi did to the boy? The boy is still in hospital. His parents brought the police come look for Uyi but what could they do? My other brothers hid Uyi so the police couldn’t find him. My brothers were even ready to beat up the police people.’ Ireneh was quite excited and we were not paying much attention to the scene which had almost died down completely.
We turned around a little while later and returned to the little sitting room. We’d just thrown ourselves of the sofas when a much taller boy burst into the room and Ireneh instantly stopped speaking.
‘Welcome,’ he muttered as the boy dumped his bag on the sofa to the side of ours. His uniform was hanging down one side of him all soiled and soggy with sweat and dust. His much bigger bag that had taken up all of the sofa space had been hanging on the bare half of his body. His hair was unkempt and his face was dirty; he looked like he had just dug two graves and he intimidated me.
‘Where is Nosa?’ he asked, not noticing me. ‘Hope that you haven’t touched any of my stuff today? If you have touched my things, I’ll roast you.’
‘No, I haven’t touched your things and I haven’t seen Nosa,’ my friend replied, quivering mildly. The lad threw us a look of unconcerned distaste for about half a minute before he dashed out of the sitting room.
‘That’s my big brother TJ,’ Ireneh introduced the youth belatedly. ‘He is very strong and he beats people all the time.’ He was a little distant as he said this; it was disturbingly evident that some spark had gone out of him. But it was the shell left in his place that I found more disturbing; he wasn’t simply lifeless, there seemed to be a manner about him that made me a little wary. It was something in his eyes as he shifted them when he spoke and his mouth as they twitched sporadically in mid- sentence. His mood change could not have been unconnected with
the visit earlier of TJ, I reasoned but how often did he get into this state and why did it make me this nervous.
‘Come, let’s go and see the weights,’ Ireneh suddenly announced, snapping out of his scary mood as directly like the switching off of a light bulb. I was relieved and a little amazed as I skipped out of the little room with him to the back yard. This part of the yard housed a low wall that ran along the perimeter of half the compound, just enough to demarcate the compound from the next one. There were pieces of broken glass cemented all along the top of the wall to prevent anyone foolish enough to think of climbing over, doing so when they could so easily just walk round to the un-walled section of the yard. We passed more cooking utensils littering the main cemented section of the backyard and a few hens with their chicks pecking around where a fat, very dark skinned lady had been sifting corn a minute or two earlier.
****
‘Mamu is not that powerful to run a mob, you should know,’ Banjo was explaining as we bumped around on some rough patch of road on the long journey home. We had boarded a Luxury bus which was anything but its name and crammed with people who, from the different smells they very generously gave, could have been doing anything from choking on garlic to nursing a gangrenous sore. We had been fortunate to get a back seat spacious and private enough to be bothered only by the smells without any physical contact with their causes. Somehow, we had got on to the Mamu-Taribo topic and Banjo had tried to allay any fears I might have had further.
