A Reckoning

By Chinyere Onyekwere

 

“They’re here, Papa!” cried seven-year-old Kene Biko, careening into his father’s outstretched arms. They felt each other’s thundering heartbeats—had that kind of connection.

The sight of men cavorting on his property like they owned the place jolted Julius Biko, sent fear knifing through his innards. The dreaded land infringement conundrum was suddenly upon him.

The stricken look on Julius face struck a raw chord in his boy, evoked deep empathy and a sense of sickening trepidation. Soulful eyes teared as he watched his father caught up in a web of corrupt circumstances beyond his comprehension, their menace threatening the kind, mild-mannered man.

Frozen by the reality of the unfolding drama, father and son looked on helplessly with angst-filled eyes, as the men scurried around with their measuring tapes and an air of contemptuous resolve.

Five years earlier, Julius had taken advantage of Nigeria’s then roaring oil and gasoline economy to invest his hard-earned savings in erecting a petrol pump dispenser and miniature semi-detached brick house (serving as his office) in Omambala metropolis, near the green sprawling plains of Orange Grove neighborhood, a humble, thriving community named for the plentiful orange trees dotting its terrain.

His property stood tall and proud on the edge of an incline, enjoying modest patronage by motorists grateful to Julius for siting the petrol pump in the district’s outskirts where vehicles most likely needed to top up their petrol for their long-haul trips on the adjoining highway.

A meek, fastidious and law-abiding man, Julius had made painstaking efforts to keep in consonance with Omambala Town Planning’s property siting and landscaping guidelines, spelt out in a thirty-page handbook. He had jumped excruciating hurdles to acquire from the agency proper documentation and registration for the land— including the almighty Certificate of Occupancy, the most pertinent of the lot.

Julius’ woes came calling when a new breed of villainous scheming men insidiously infiltrated the OTP agency to corner the long-awaited roadway construction project by Nigeria state government. The expressway was mapped to run alongside Julius’ property.

Whisperings from the Orange Grove grapevine revealed the con men had arrogated to themselves absolute power. They were infamous for abhorrent practices of nullifying and erasing client’s land and registration records, railroading victims into a lifetime of litigation by a dubious state government—if the victims were too pig-headed to grease palms.

Graft rot ran deep in most establishments, including top echelons of power.

The men had surprised Julius with their unscheduled visit. They pontificated on the flagrant obtrusion by property owners on government projects, berated him for sabotaging efforts in getting the road constructed, and swiftly moved in unison, like a rampaging tsunami, to paste on the westside wall of his office, a red, six-foot-tall letter “X,” OTP’s ominous property demolition sign—and last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Julius squeezed his son in a tight embrace as if to shield the boy from life’s never-ending onslaughts.

Fate had again dealt the father and son duo a horrendous blow, quickening Julius’ descent into melancholic madness. He had struggled to make sense of his loss when the boy’s mother met her demise in a bungled cesarean delivery caused by a power outage that struck the maternity ward on the day his son came gasping into the world. Despite decades of independence, his nation had devolved into a baffling paradox—a land of great wealth plagued by privation.

Willfully repressed trauma simmered to the surface of Julius’ subconscious, had him grieving afresh for his beloved Ann, fueled him with defiance against a hellish system, galvanized him to pay OTP a visit—to set the records straight with the powers that be.

In the agency’s decrepit offices situated on the seedy side of town, Julius sat across from Jackson Dike, OTP’s Land Infringement Task Force head and, due to dire circumstances, the wrecking ball crane operator.

His amenable features did not fool Julius, who perceived the gluttonous pervert behind the man, who reminded him of a crocodile he’d once seen, its seemingly smiling demeanor strangely at odds with its deadliness.

“You had no right putting up that confounded sign on my wall,” said Julius, ditching pleasantries, looking directly into Jackson’s shifty eyes. “My property doesn’t encroach on the proposed roadway. My documents prove it, your records, too.”

“Says who?” snapped Jackson with snide arrogance, incensed that Julius had dared challenge his fiefdom. “My predecessors were reckless with records. Who knows?”

“Tell your meddling minions to keep away from my property,” Julius said with calm comportment that belied his fury. “I have no intention of playing in one of your convoluted games. I’d watch my steps if I were you, Mr. Dike.”

“Did you just threaten me right—”

“Did I?” cut in Julius. His sudden backward movement sent the cheap plastic armchair skittering on a worn and filthy vinyl floor.

“Get that despicable sign the hell off my wall,” glowered Julius before storming from the office.

“Expect my wrecking ball machine in the days ahead!” yelled the enforcer, caught off guard by the effrontery and scuttled pay-off.

That dusk, Kene watched his father’s every move. The man had left his food untouched, looked dangerously emaciated. Whatever was happening with his papa seemed fatally bad.

The boy put his arms around his father’s drooped shoulders in a show of loving comradeship.

“Stop worrying. We’ll be fine, Papa,” he comforted.

By the next morning, the curious Orange Grove neighborhood had caught wind of Julius’ run-in with OTP, and people looked on with bated breath as the wrecking ball machine rumbled up the incline, heaving its way toward Julius’ lot.

Jackson spewed a blizzard of profanities as his heavy vehicle grappled with treacherous terrain—and he choked with apoplectic rage at the sight of a young male child, his arms firmly clasped around the petrol pump.

Irked to be deterred by a mere street urchin, Jackson inched closer with his mammoth machine for the carefully planned assault. But the boy bravely stood his ground, did not budge an inch, ignoring his father’s frantic pleas to stand down, to clear out from the wrecking ball’s imminent path of destruction.

The stand-off morphed into an extended battle-of-wills. It attracted mainstream media that honed in for the kill like a cackle of ravenous hyenas, capturing the father and son’s pitiable plight.

But Jackson’s depraved sadism came to an inglorious halt when, in a bizarre twist of events, the machine’s massive tyres lurched, skidded out of control, and sent the steel ball on an erratic pendulum swing. It smashed the crane’s cab windows to smithereens with an earth shattering blow that reverberated around the neighborhood.

Jackson hardly knew what hit him when flying glass shards blinded him. He was bundled off the lot screaming like a demented soul from the pit of hell.

As if the tempestuous spectacle playing out on Julius’ lot was not enough uproar for one day, a disgruntled arsonist with a score to settle had a momentous meltdown and purged OTP of its long overdue excesses.

The headline, “A DAY FOR THE UNDERDOG,” and a large image of the colossal wrecking ball pitted against the puny child protesting the demolition of his father’s property, were emblazoned across the front cover of Nigeria’s leading newspaper and foreign bureau tabloids. It became an iconic symbol of a system’s tyranny over its long-suffering citizens, sparking outrage, a beastly backlash against government, and a clamour for justice for the hapless little boy, who received an outpouring of love never before witnessed within or beyond national borders.

“They’re here, Papa!” shrieked Kene gleefully, as road dust heralded a gleaming white SUV racing up the incline.

A Nigerian couple spearheading a nonprofit organization helping motherless children had followed Kene’s poignant story with keen interest—had lovingly opted to cater for his welfare until teenhood.

“I’m off to boarding school. You’ll visit me soon won’t you, Papa?” Kene’s eyes sparkled with unfettered excitement.

“Of course son, you bet I will,” Julius said, tearing up.

They hugged each other tightly and shared the joyful pounding of their hearts.

 


Chinyere Onyekwere is a freelance graphic designer and self-published author in Nigeria. Her passion for the written word won her Nigeria’s 2006/2007 National Essay Competition Award with her story titled “Motion Picture and The Nigerian Image.” Chinyere holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Nigeria. When she’s not glued to the computer screen, Chinyere keenly observes human conditions and the state of the world in general, while trying very hard not to be hoodwinked by her mischievous grand twins. She’s currently working on several short stories. You can reach her at ockbronchi@gmail.com.

Photo credit: imageartifacts via a Creative Commons license.

Patriarchal Palaver and Politics

By Chinyere Onyekwere

 

Kpotuba sweated profusely as she climbed the ten dilapidated steps to Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission notice board. She looked for her name on the sample ballot, and its absence shocked her, rendered her huge undulating body immobile. She fought back tears of humiliation when a group of certified male contenders snickered as they walked by. Staggering away heartbroken, she flagged down a taxi, wondered what her next line of action could be.

In her bid to vie for political office in her country Nigeria, the chairmanship post of Achara Local Government Area to be exact, she had unleashed the “Beast,” a deceptive, subtle cankerworm that had been allowed to fester and overrun the district. It marginalized her gender in politics, in virtually all spheres of women’s lives. Landmine navigation seemed like child’s play compared with her candidacy validation efforts with the electoral commission. The omission of her name from the ballot attested to the well-oiled machinations of the Beast; a calculated attempt to disenfranchise her from the chairmanship race because some of her country’s menfolk considered politics their exclusive birthright and domain.

Kpotuba heaved a sigh of exasperation and mulled over her first-time candidature woes as the taxi sped toward her abode. A born leader, Kpotuba burned with passion to make a difference within the squalid environs in which she resided. She organized women groups in her neighborhood, empowered long suffering families to alleviate their poverty-stricken state, a calamitous fallout from economic malfeasance by Nigeria’s political class. When the women spurred her to greater heights with a unanimous endorsement for her candidacy, the Beast reared its ugly head.

Unlike her politically savvy male counterparts, she was an unknown quantity, unversed in the art of campaign gamesmanship. When her candidacy was made public, the Beast bared its venomous fangs and sharp talons to bury her long-nurtured garden patch in tons of garbage. Before the effrontery of the assault could be digested, resounding gun blasts erupted in the vicinity of her home—warning shots to scare her out of the race.

They were messing with the wrong woman. The vicious acts had only strengthened Kpotuba’s resolve to defy the bunch of desperate, uncouth, rabble-rousing despots determined to derail her political ambitions. Patriarchal marginalization of the female gender in politics was an age-old, inherent culture passed down from generations of menfolk to keep women in their place. The Beast held sway in Achara district; women who kicked against it literally battled for their lives.

Even her husband’s support was lukewarm. Infuriated, she had rebuffed his salient but ominous “be careful” with her silence. Their once amicable relationship deteriorated to an exchange of monosyllables. Her grown children were indifferent, believing they were ignored by a country of failed promises and dubious future, so what did they care? Her political party contradicted its professed motto of equity, justice and peace to treat her with disguised incivility.

Her opponent, Anene Ibezim, the corrupt incumbent chairman of Achara Local Government Area, belonged to the ruling party. The perks of office lured him to perpetuate himself in power. He ran his campaign by resorting to vitriolic pronouncements with smug certainty of returning to office.

Months earlier, when Kpotuba and Ibezim crossed paths on the campaign trail, he stalked and sized up his adversary with a vow to banish any notions of political exploits harbored by the obese upstart of a woman.

“You’ll lose, fat cow,” he muttered under his breath.

“What did I hear you say?” asked Kpotuba, stopped her in her tracks by his barrage of words.

“What part of my sentence didn’t you understand. Lose or cow?” he asked.

“You belong in the kitchen!” yelled his ragtag entourage before they disappeared into the crowd.

She made an ignominious retreat, but with absolute conviction of his inevitable comeuppance.

When the taxi screeched to a halt, she was jolted back to the present.

The driver demanded his fare, double the standard price. “Why?” she asked, incensed at his belligerent tone. “Because you’re double the standard size,” he replied, eager to take off.

She alighted from the cab, closed the door with calm exactitude, and paused. A lifetime of imagined and real indignities coalesced into something sinister. She saw a blaze of hot fiery red and lost her head.

Her scuffle with the cab driver engendered comic relief for Nigeria’s pent-up populace; a welcome diversion from disillusion and despair. The fracas drew throngs of people, mostly women who cheered her on. The man, thoroughly terrified of being trounced by a woman, extricated himself from her grasp and fled. She let him escape, had no intention of crossing the thin line between mediocrity and madness to ruin her hard-earned political career.

She dusted herself off with an imperious stance and surveyed the crowd of women whose cries of adulation rent the air when they recognized her from posters advantageously positioned throughout the town. Kpotuba, struck by what could only be deemed divine inspiration, seized the moment with righteous anger to expound on the despicable acts of injustice, meted out to her by the electoral commission.

Her eloquent speech roused the bloodthirsty mob to a fever pitch. Her plight with the Beast became their collective outrage. Like a conjurer’s trick, the swelling masses metamorphosed into a full-blown protest march to do battle with the electoral commission’s perfidious lot.

Two weeks into the general elections, a political gladiator chose to bedevil Ibezim with a human trafficking scandal that rocked the nation.

Kpotuba won the election—with a landslide—to become the first woman in history to occupy the chairman seat of Achara Local Government Area of Nigeria.

*

A month later, hounded by the Crimes Inquiry Tribunal, Ibezim frantically packed up his personal items from the office. Startled by loud laughter, he reeled around to the menacing sight of a huge body blocking the doorway.

“Goodbye loser,” Kpotuba said.

 


Chinyere Onyekwere is a freelance graphic designer and a self-published author in Nigeria. Her passion for the written word won her Nigeria’s 2006/2007 National Essay Competition Award with her story titled “Motion Picture and The Nigerian Image.” Chinyere holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Nigeria. When she’s not glued to the computer screen, Chinyere keenly observes human conditions, and the state of the world in general, while trying very hard to not be hoodwinked by her mischievous grand twins. She’s currently working on several short stories for electronic submission. You can reach her at ockbronchi@gmailmail.com.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Bella Naija.