A fictional representation of Leadership Crisis in Nigeria
For hours, Ekoyata tried to relate the moment to reality but failed. His father, Chief Egbe, was well-known globally. How come he had that kind of house in their hometown? His father's sister of the same parents got gobbled up in such miserable poverty. How did it happen? He felt that he was missing something. The whole thing came to him as a kind of terrifying force.
When the farmer took him to the mud house and told him that it belonged to his father, he had thought that the farmer was psychologically blind. But he had acted blind with him so that he could do what he wanted and would never be seen by him. He didn't hope too, that the wobbly old woman who later joined him was his aunt. But it was suddenly true. They were together now. At the moment, she was the closest person to him in all of the world.
Ekoyata wanted to get up and go outside. On the rough floor, Obehi was on her knees praying for him. The prayer had become wearisome to him. It had already lasted for more than one hour. He had taken about that same time to answer Amen. It no longer made much sense to him now.
But if he go outside, what would he meet there? he thought. He tried to find a good reason to go outside. Obehi was still praying. He watched her crawled on her knees on the rough floor to another corner of the room. It was drama. But she was sincere and if he go out, what would she think of him? But his throat had dried up for saying Amen for such a long time. He had become tired of it. He had either to decide to go outside and let Obehi think that he was godless or stay in the room and sore his throat.
He decided to stay in the room with her and endure the pain of waiting.
The wind continued to rush around in the hamarttan storm like giants chasing one another. Occasionally, Ekoyata heard the roof shook over them to reveal to him that the house had become very fragile and dangerous for living. The wrath of the storm was loose upon them even inside the house, through the dust that rushed in like water at the mouth of a dam.
Finally, the prayer ended after another fifteen minutes and Ekoyata was happy it did. His eyes followed the woman until she went down to seat near the window.
'Thank you ma, for all the good prayers,' he said.
Obehi was elated. ‘How did you know here?’ sheasked.
Ekoyata looked at her and saw that she had fully come back to life from her tiredness. But her face still held that expression of a long lack of rest.
‘Oh, I said it before,' Ekoyata said. 'One farmer and his son helped me. Later, one girl in the next house told me that you went to get water.'
‘Yes, they knew. I told them when I was going out.’ She sighed deeply.
Obehi interested Ekoyata a lot. He was soon obsessed again with her acting and her breasts that tossed involuntary from side to side. She doesn't seem to know that the breasts are still there, he thought.
‘I know that you couldn't know this place by yourself,' Obehi said. 'You were just a toddler that time when you with your mother spent one holiday with me here.’
‘Oh, mama...’ Ekoyata started to say but was cut short.
‘It is true. At that time you were still very small to know it.’
‘You see, mama. I haven’t come here before at all.’
‘Your father and your mother did not tell you about it.'
'My father and my mother said that I have not come to their village before. It is only Eguabor who has come among all of us.’
‘Your younger brother?’
‘Oh yes. Eguabor is my younger brother.’
‘Is this your first time here?' she wrinkled her forehead in disbelief. 'I thought you have come here before.’ She began to scratch her head. ‘The welcome I will tell you is a special one!' she remarked. ‘But I thought that my brother's first son is living in the overseas?’
Ekoyata didn't have a good answer now, but just a sudden terrible pain in his heart. He wasn't prepared for the overseas subject.
'Yes. Your brother's eldest son was overseas. It is me. But I... I have come back.'
'You are the one and you come to visit us?' she said. 'I am so surprised.'
'Surprised?' Ekoyata said and narrowed his eyes in an attitude of deep thinking.
'You said that you came from overseas to see us here.'
Ekoyata looked directly at her. He thought that he should correct her. 'No,' he said. 'I have come back to Nigeria.'
Ekoyata saw the old woman's face changed abruptly. He felt that he knew why her face changed. Obehi must be wondering why he could not stay for life in America. If he were in her place, he would wonder about it too. But he actually wanted to stay. Arizona was a nice place to be in America. But being a white dominated territory was the only bod thing with about that that place. And America was not really the liberal it claimed to be. The volcano of racism was still alive and smoking. Police investigations were not thorough when an accused was black.
Someone had claimed to get drugs into the
country through his courier. Ekoyata was not allowed to see him. He wasn't told the name of the person that mentioned him. He was only questioned briefly in police custody. His greatest surprise came when he was asked to go back home. He felt that America hit him between his eyes with their ways and words. They denied him access to a lawyer and revoked his business franchise.
Ekoyata had never tried to deny that American police had all the necessary tools to prosecute crimes. But in the event that they chose to be shallow, it combined with other means as the best way to understand racism against blacks in the country. The use of swimming pools and preferences at restaurants and bars kept the blacks from the white. They were also few in the police and the senate. So they played little roles in the vital process of the nation's affairs. They were left to mostly business and other mundane things such as music in all its forms.
Ekoyata thought that he would not expand his business offshore in the first place, had it not been for the fear of revolution. He had no desire to live in the country of the Americas. But over the years, the Nigerian investment climate had been marred by uncertainties due to polity instability, corruption and infrastructure meltdown. And his father said there would be a revolution someday.
Since his unjust arrest, Ekoyata had been trying to think of the modern world through history. And he found himself cursing the myth of evolution, because human as a specie was not getting any smarter. Instead, the specie got crueler, more barbaric and more animalistic than ever before. Evolution should have improved man's attributes. Now that the whole world was wrapped in nationalism, ethnocentrism and racism, where was the unique civilization of those who often tried to tender misplaced advice to Africa about her barbarism even though Africa had the cradle of civilization?
Ekoyata turned his head and averted his eyes from staring at Obehi. He didn't wonder why she said she was surprised that he came to Baneke to visit them from overseas. It would look strange to anyone who heard that he didn't go to Lagos from America. Chief Egbe and his mother had known about his problem in America. They had been talking since his arrest. Egbe had kept him posted about all the preparations to receive him back home in Lagos. But each of his discussions with them had got him to wonder if Lagos was really home. He was coming home to resume life in the pessimism of his country's political firmament of social insecurity, poverty and corruption. That was how, for the first time in his life, he began to think of Baneke, Ubiaja. The birthplace of his father was home. His father had a house there and his aunt was there. And east or west, home is the best.
Ekoyata knew already that the old woman was neither expecting him, nor prepared to receive him. When she became surprised, he understood her. He felt that the decision had been flawless thus far. The meeting with Obehi had given him some good feelings. Her long prayers stirred his emotions. And their discussions had been language of the heart too. Only the dilapidated state of the home environment, the pitiful condition of his dear old aunt and the question about overseas life were disturbing.
'Bha doó, be sound,' a voice called in from outside, the general greeting to a home.
'Please come inside the house,' Obehi responded. But she didn't get up from the chair. 'I have a stranger in the house.'
Ekoyata heard the voice asked from outside: 'Do you want me to break up the party?'
'It is not private. Actually, he is my son. I want you to come inside and meet him.'
'All right then. I will come back to greet him properly. For now, greet him for me.'
In spite of the state of the new environment, Ekoyata felt good feelings started coming to him. He heard the soft sliding of the caller's feet as it kissed away from the compound. Ekoyata finally began to see that he was back home. The only problem now was that Obehi wanted to know whether he had come to stay for good. But he didn't want to tell her the story of his problem in America. But he didn't want to lie to her. Obehi was his family person. He could not lie to her.
Ekoyata thought he understood his aunt's fear. Many Africans desired to live abroad. They believed that there was a lot of money there. Maybe Obehi thought he brought a lot of fortune from America. He had read of people like her who fought uphill battles daily to save themselves. Some would sell themselves to foreigners as slaves just to survive. He had read about some poor people who even sold their blood to blood banks to have life necessities. They thought that slavery abroad was better than freedom at home in Africa.
'I am glad you are here,' Obehi said. 'But I do not especially like that you have come back to Nigeria.'
'I just do,' was the same sudden response Ekoyata could give her. The ache in his heart began to increase. All the people he would talked to should not know where he was on the deportation affliction. By the look on her face, Ekoyata could tell that Obehi had been unhappy for a long time. So he had a cunning idea. He would tell her positive things about America.
'I am sure you did not keep a long time before I came.'
'What, ma?' He didn't hear her because he was thinking.
'Did you wait for a long time?'
Ekoyata did not even know. 'I don't think so, ma.'
Obehi nodded. Ekoyata saw the joy she had.
‘That motor outside is it your own?’ Obehi asked.
‘Oh yes, ma.’
‘It is a big one,’ she began to marvel.
That got a cackle out of Ekoyata. ‘There are some that are bigger than that.’
‘I know. Lorries and trailers are bigger,’ she laughed. ‘I know. I have seen them. Big Lorries come here every market day to carry our farm produce. Is this not the market in front of our house here?’
‘Oh, ma. I’m talking about motor cars that big men use for pleasure. I didn't mean heavy-duty trucks,’ Ekoyata laughed as he explained.
Obehi poked out her black lips as she was awed at the thought.
‘Yes, like Limousine,' Ekoyata emphasised.
‘Did you bring that lumasine from there too? I would like to see it.’
Ekoyata doubled with laughter now. ‘I didn't say Lumasine. It is Li-mou-sine. But I don’t have a Limousine.’
Then what she said next went to show Ekoyata that Obehi didn't understand that he had returned finally to the country. She seemed to forget too soon. 'When you go back tend to your business over there. I need to tell you this in case we did not see again before you go. They said that in America, you are on your own.'
Ekoyata cursed in his heart. His nerves tinged again with frustration. He had told her that he had returned to the country.
‘I said that I have come back from there,' he said softly. 'I am here now. I won't go back to America again.’
'No, son. Don't say that you have come back. You cannot say so. Nobody comes back from there and say that he won't go back. We heard that there is a lot of money in Oyibo land. If I go there, I won't come back to this country. Come back to do what? Would I?'
Ekoyata saw her eyes filled with disappointment.
'I reckoned you would come back, ma.'
'No, I won't. That place is better. Oyibo land is far better than our country. God is very close to them there. But here, we are always hungry,' she said ruefully.
'There is no place a person cannot be happy, mama.'
'That is not true. You don't know that you cannot be happy here, son. Do you? I don't want you to test it to believe. It is very bad here. That is why I wanted to tell you to make this visit very short.'
Ekoyata sighed and slid into the chair. Obehi didn't want him to suffer like her. She wanted him to go back and leave her alone on this side in her world. It was the opposite of what he hoped she would do. He had expected her to persuade him to stay with her and partake of the fortune she thought he brought from the overseas.
Ekoyata turned to her side. He looked at Obehi for a moment. They were silent looking at each other. Her eyes were weak and glassy.
'You see, mama,' Ekoyata said. 'I reckon that we can make you to be happy here. I have some good plans for you.'
'Oh, son. You cannot change it because of the witches.'
That succeeded in ringing an alarm in Ekoyata's head. 'Witches?' he said through a soft scream. 'Do witches trouble people here, ma?'
'Why did your father allow you to come here? He was supposed to tell you about it.'
'My father knows there are witches here?' Ekoyata asked. That was not what he had in mind to say. He wanted to explain to Obehi that his parents in Lagos were not aware that he had come to their hometown. They only knew that America wanted him to go back home.
'Yes, he knows,' Obehi pointed out and looked surprised. 'Your father knows about it. That is why many of our people that are rich don't feel inclined to come home.'
Ekoyata's fingers began to shake. With the fear of witches hanging over his head, Ekoyata felt all the good feelings in him evaporated at once. And his senses began to wake up to the reality of his surroundings. First, he felt the cold of the harmattan afresh. Then, it was the lonely songs of birds ringing as if he was in a cellar. And the dull sounds of the plodding activities from the neighbourhood filled the room.
Ekoyata did not know what to think of. He had thought that he had finally found a resting place. He remove the car key from his pocket. He wanted to be on exile to Lagos now. But is this not going to be some kind of internal sub deportation? he thought. But what would happen if there was a revolution after he was already settled there? Father said for sure, there was going to be a revolution in the country. Would he not become a squirrel that is always on the move by then?
Suddenly, the wind came back, boom! The roof of the house was lifted slightly and dropped violently back on the house. It felt like earth tremor as it shook the house to the foundations. The rusty zinc rattled on top of the house and dust poured into the palour from the window. But Ekoyata noticed that the old woman didn't look worried. It was strange. Let me say that she is very used to living under threatening conditions, he thought. But what choice did she have? She definitely knew that one day, the roof would be finally brown away. And the force of the movement would draw the walls and fall them over her. Most likely, she would die and the house would become a heap of ruin. How terrible to wait for something very bad to happen and yet one is not able to do a damn thing about it!
He began to cough because of the dust in the room. He felt dryness in his nose. He squeezed it with his thumb and the index finger and felt a sharp pain through the orifice. The dryness affected his throat too, and the walls gummed together each time he swallowed saliva. He did not like the harmattan weather very much.
'They put heavy wood and stones on the roof for me,' Obehi said calmly. 'Are they not there again? Let me see.' She finally excused herself.
Ekoyata watched as she walked across the room. When she was gone, he looked around the walls of the parlour. The house wasn't a desirable life for an old woman at all. And from the ceiling to the sitting arrangement, it was rickety. But the wall decorations held some useful information. One almanac was bearing the images of Nigerian leaders past and present. There were others of Baneke Development Union and the infant Jesus with the holy family. A wreath in heart shape was over the door post. It was made of palm frond and looked to be what Catholics brought home from their Palm Sunday.
Suddenly, something struck Ekoyata in the wall. There were two large gaping cracks on two walls. They had been light sources too that he didn't know before. But did Obehi need a soothsayer to tell her that she needed to find safety for herself? She must see it all the time. She wasn't supposed to be there in that house. But what would she do?
As he thought about the danger the house had become for his aunt, Ekoyata was also trying to find a way to associate it with his father. But it was not working. Egbe was a very rich man who had mansions and even estates throughout the country. So, how could this mud house have come out here in the middle of nowhere in his name? He had no idea. He would have to find out. He would wait and let the riddle unravel. But the mere thought of it made his head hot. It was very unusual. It was unexpected. And it was unacceptable.
Comments
Post a Comment