Another Friday. Another chaotic end to another chaotic week in the same chaotic city.
Three hours in traffic has just come to a termination for me, and as I swing into the parking lot of a bar somewhere in Ikeja, the prospect of getting intimate imminently with my favourite alcoholic beverage makes all the erstwhile stress abate somewhat. You’re entitled to your opinion o, but I contend that if not for alcohol in our lives in this city, the alarming, recent statistics of people dropping dead in their prime will be a lot worse. It’s perfectly okay for you to think otherwise; I’m just exercising my right to my opinion.
Now sorted out by Daniel, the bartender, my brother from a different mother whose role in my life I can equate to that of the psychiatrist Donald Trump so desperately needs, I turn my attention to what’s on the screen. The volume has been turned down to allow for music, but then it doesn’t take me more than a few seconds to deduce that the movie on it is “Snakes On A Plane”.
Snakes. Again.
I mean, I’m sitting down here jeje minding myself, my drink and generally at peace with the world, and I have to be reminded of snakes.
On the screen, one pops out of an overhead locker in the cabin of the aircraft, opens its fangs wide about to swallow this particularly annoying guy who had been making an ass of himself, and all I can see in my mind is the Nigerian snake that recently swallowed 36 million naira in the JAMB office.
I’m tempted to call Daniel over to change the channel, but I check myself, lest he switches it to a channel where it will be e film about monkeys- perhaps Planet Of The Apes- and the imagery of looting by animal ingestion will escalate to 70 million naira.
Talk of “Snake In The Monkey’s Shadow”.
I return my attention to my drink, idly thinking of the type of animal I can turn into if I were to gain access into Davido’s 30 Billion for “di Akant”.
Suddenly I hear commotion outside. From my seated position, I see people running in all directions. A closer inspection reveals that all those running are the girls that line this particular street at this time of the night, and I immediately deduce what’s happening: Police Raid.
Now, I don’t know what came over me this particular Friday night. I had seen these raids happen lots of times in the past; it’s nothing new to nightcrawlers. But this night- blame it on snakes in JAMB offices, blame it on monkeys entering the vaults of Northern senators, blame it on everything I felt was plain ridiculous about this country, I just got that compulsive urge to see exactly where this was going to lead.
I told Daniel I would be right back and headed outside. There, I saw that about six or so girls had been herded into the commercial Kombi bus they had apparently commandeered for this operation. Another girl was being half-dragged, half-carried past me. I got into my car, started the engine and waited.
A few minutes later, the bus took off. Yes, you guessed it: yours truly followed them! I don’t know what I was thinking, but that’s what I did. And I couldn’t blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol like Jamie Foxx; I had had less than one drink ke?
So on they went, and on I followed. After they had driven deeper into Ikeja, towards the outlying expressway, they suddenly stopped. If I had stopped as well, I had no doubt in my mind that I would have been busted. So on I drove, remembering various scenes from all those movies where the “tailer” drives past the “tailee”, and goes forward to make a turn in order to avoid suspicion or detection. In my rear view, I saw that three of the girls had been dropped.
As I turned and they once again drove past, I approached the agitated girls they had just dropped. As they saw me, they frantically flagged me, obviously thinking I was a cab driver.
“Ogaabeg, carry us reach Ikeja inside, abeg”, one of them said.
“Na N5,000. Una go go”? I responded in what I believed was a good mimicry of a gruff, weather-beaten, night-crawling cabbie.
“Ah, Ogaabeg, Police just collect all the money weydey our hand. Na the N2, 000 wey I manage hide na aim dey our hand, abeg”.
As I was debating whether to help them back to where I saw them picked up, a rickety cab swung in front of me. They didn’t even bother continuing the price haggling with me. It was quite obvious that this rickety cab wouldn’t think twice about collecting the N2, 000 they had left; maybe even less.
So, as that particular dilemma had resolved itself, I turned and made after the Kombi bus. After a minute or so, I was certain I had lost them; all I could see in front of me was a stretch of dark road.
But then, luck and providence struck.
For what couldn’t have been more than a nanosecond, I caught the beam of a flashlight before it went off, about 50 metres ahead of me, in what was a steep side road off where I was.
Switching off my headlights, I eased the car silently to a position parallel to the side road. I couldn’t see from inside the car, as the side road inclines downwards; the only to see would be to get down. This I did.
And what I saw… well, what was on show before me… I’ll try and describe.
Two of the Policemen had two of the girls holding the seats of the open bus, having their wicked way with them.
Another actually had a girl laid out in the open boot and you can only imagine what he intended with that posture. I could make out the silhouette of a fourth policemanin the passenger seat in front. He had a girl on his lap, who I can only tell you was not seated there to play cops and robbers!
No wonder fighting crime was a challenge for some policemen… these were veritable X-rated movie stars right here!
As I drove off, I couldn’t help but wonder how these people can call themselves our friends, let alone call themselves are protectors. Obviously, those girls had been arrested with the intention of extorting them. The ones that could pay were the ones I had just seen a few minutes earlier. The ones in the dark, side street below were the ones that couldn’t pay in cash, paying in the only other currency they have.
This town…?
Just the other day, after a particularly gruelling session at the studio, I was making my way home quickly, tired, hungry and in dire need of my trusted duvet. As I manoeuvred in and around the potholes that litter Ogba area, several flashlights suddenly beamed frantically ahead. As I parked, I put on my inner light, and made to open the glove compartment to get my papers.
“Oga, come down”, I heard by my window.
Quietly, I shut my glove compartment and stepped out of the car.
The next question the man asked me was straight out of Crazyville.
“Oga, why you speed enter that pothole like that?”
Look, let me put it this way. I was tired. I was hungry. I had been sitting down for 6 straight hours at a console, so maybemy ear-to-brain information processing was not at its sharpest. I needed a second shot at what I thought I heard.
“Sorry Officer, what did you just say?”
“That pothole wey you enter just now, why you enter am like that?”
I just lost it.
“Officer, shay with the car I bought, or the one you bought for me, which one?”
And then all hell broke loose. Shouting. Insults. Guns raised and cocked. Threats of being shot and “nothing go happen” made.
It took a few people passing by who recognised me to douse the tension with these my “friends”.
And how can I not tell you about the day I went to a police station to bail that my same recalcitrant maiguard? He had gotten into a fight with an okada rider and broken the man’s okada mirror. I should sack this guy abi? Sigh. Back to my story.
So, as I drive into the police station, the first thing I notice is this gleaming black Cadillac Escalade. A thing of sheer beauty. As I walked in, I see the apparent owner seated calmly on a bench, reading a newspaper. I mean, he had to be the owner of the Escalade. He was very well dressed, I could tell the make of his watch by just looking at it, and his leather slippers had that unmistakeable 2-letter logo. Besides, he was the only person seated there… lol!
So, I state my business to the officer on duty, and he tells me to take a seat as well and wait for the DPO.
A few minutes later, Oga DPO saunters in, his retinue of aides in tow. He pauses in front of us and nods his greetings, to which we respond.
He turned to the duty officer and asked.
“Constable, who owns that car parked outside?”
“It is that man in white native sir”.
“Why is he here?”
“It’s SergeantBulus that arrested him sir”.
As if on cue, the SergeantBulus in question appears from within the station.
“Shon sir! Welcome sir!”
“Ehen. Please, what did this man do that you have brought him here?”
“Ah, Oga”, Bulus starts enthusiastically. “We were on morning patrol this morning, when I stopped the man for search sir. As he wound down his window, I could perceive the strong smell of Indian hemp coming from inside his car sir”.
“Indian hemp”, Oga DPO repeated.
“Yes sir”, replies Bulus.
“ Coming from inside this gentleman’s car?”
“Yes sir”.
“This Sunday morning?”
“Yes sir”, continues Bulus. I had a sense of foreboding at where this was going. Everybody there could sense it except poor Bulus.
“You must be very stupid. In fact you’re a very stupid, idiot officer”.
“Sir?” Bulus spluttered.
“Wallahi, if you “Sir” me again, I will remove your uniform and throw you into the cell. Infact I’m going to throw you into the cell!”
“Sir… I mean, no sir! I mean, I won’t “Sir” you again Sir, sorry sir”!
“Idiot! Can you imagine?” This the DPO said, looking at me directly.
I dutifully shook my head, as if I couldn’t comprehend what could have come over Bulus, to have perpetrated such a heinous arrest. There was only one winning side here, and it wasn’t SergeantBulus.’ I had pitched my tent.
“All the agberos that smoke igbo in the garage down the road, have you arrested anyone of them? The area boys that smoke igbo next to where you drink monkey tail in the next building, which one have you ever brought in here”? The DPO is near apoplectic now.
“You now see this fine gentleman going his own jeje, you stop him and you say you smell igbo in his car. You didn’t even see him smoking it! Even if you saw him smoking it, you think it is the same kind of igbo that area boys and agberos smoke? Will area boys igbo give you common sense that will make you buy this kind of car? You’re dead today, Bulus, walahi!”
Of course the man walked, after being profusely apologised to by the DPO. So did my maiguard, by virtue of my strategic alignment.
I’m out. Do remember: Beware of “Friends”.