I woke up the next morning, 12th of February, with a tense headache. Despite a gram of Paracetamol the shimmering pain sat above my eyebrows like a stubborn weatherfront. I’m never ill. Ask any tropical mosquito, Aedes or Anopheles, male, female or LGBTQ. I went back to bed, shivering hot and cold, my limbs feeling hollowed out.
On the morning of Friday the 13th I felt well enough to go to the library. I took the long way round to avoid running into Remi because I didn’t want her to see me looking ill. I’d just sat down when I felt an urgent tap on the shoulder. Tears beetled down the cheeks of the final year medical student standing over me. By the anthills of Kaura namoda, what now?
He thought that as president of the students’ association I would already know that Signalman was dead.
I shot back in my chair. ‘No, serious?’
Apparently, Signalman was sitting in rush hour traffic when Dimka and accomplices opened fire. One gunman noticed signs of life in the car and returned to complete the job. By a miracle an aide survived to tell the tale, apparently regaining consciousness in a morgue, which is where Signalman left the country too, in my opinion.
What was Dimka thinking? I warned him, but hey, who was I to talk? I knew from Asaba that with an AK47 in your hands how convinced you can feel that you are righting all wrongs and doing justice to history. Why did the man not stick to ogogoro, loose women and physical training? ‘That’s army life,’ I said and shrugged.
‘Thank you Yaro. A sad day my brother.’ He wiped his tears with a tissue, and whimpering, bumping into tables and shelves as he staggered up the aisle.
I couldn’t concentrate on my books and decided to get a supply of painkillers. Outside the airconditioned library, in the relatively quiet street, a sticky film of sweat enveloped me within seconds. I puffed air over my face to keep cool and as I crossed the road and headed for the chemist the Radio Unity record shop, instead of its usual output of obtrusive palmwine music, played a recording of Dimka’s brief speech. ‘I bring you good tidings,’ he’d said. He threatened with death anyone who dared resist and declared the borders, air and sea ports closed. ‘We are all together.’ He imposed a curfew.
Outside a bookies half a dozen men stood around a board that read “Down to the CIA.” After what happened to Allende, understandable. An argument started between a man in a blue safari suit who wanted to place a bet and the others. ‘This was not the time,’ said one. He should show some respect.
‘You blame foreigners for everything,’ said the man, pointing at the board.
‘Why not,’ said another.
‘Surely, our workers union must to say something about this thing…as they are doing in Ibadan and Benin -’
‘We should follow like sheep?’ said the man in the blue safari suit. He emitted a contemptuous bleat. ‘Let them do what they like. Dem call you when them dey share contract? Wetin be your concern inside. And you cannot blame us this time, sha,’ said the man. A passerby gawked in disgust, others looked genuinely distressed.
I ducked into the fan cooled chemist’s wondering what this meant for Nigeria? Another araba? Return match or matches? Did I still need to compile a list for Dodan Barracks? The likes of Seyi would be watching me for my reaction. When was the best time to present the best politically correct face to my constituents? And what was dad making of all this?
***
Washerman had allowed dad to receive proper treatment at last, not out of the goodness of his heart, but to get dad out of a catatonic state and back to work. What did they do for psychotic slaves? Flog or burn them to death? Then claim on the insurance for depreciation? Thanks be to Allah the man with a million bellies to feed was not that wicked.
Dad lived in a tiny room “rented” from Washerman. The man with a million bellies to fill did not pay dad a wage and added the medical bills and the rent to our so-called debt.
Topless, a tuft of grey hair on his chin dripping sweat, dad beamed at me from his mat. ‘God dey.’ Had I come to celebrate? Anybody who truly loved this country should be slaughtering a ram to rejoice on this auspicious day. He sent a contemptuous wave to the man weeping past the door. Why were some crying as if they’d lost their dad?
I blushed. ‘Shsh, people will hear,’ I said.
A querulsome expression flashed on and off his face. Why should he not proclaim his good luck from the rooftops. He banged his hairy chest. They couldn’t touch him now. No longer would he have to eat this rubbish. He flicked at a dirty bowl with his little toe. Its rock backwards made a rough sound on the bare floor.
By the departed souls of gole sabas what was he talking about? Had they stopped his medication again? Before I could reply dad picked up his Koran placed it carefully in the bottom of a raffia bag and began to pack up his meagre belongings – wooden comb, transparent bag containing soap, chewing stick, loofah. ‘I’m going home with you,’ he said. ‘Allahu Akhbar.’ Dad turned his back to fish a coin out of a crevice.
‘But…my room…they college will not allow it…’
‘You have a woman there?’
I was tempted to say that the only woman we both once knew was not here anymore but I didn’t. Just then I heard a curt greeting from Washerman in the doorway.
Dad cringed against the wall as if he’d seen a ghost. His eyes bulged and jiggled from Washerman to me and back. Washerman scoffed, spat out a piece of gristle and waddled out of sight.
Dad’s jaw opened but he seemed unable to speak. Thinking he’d had a stroke I dropped to his side. To my inexperienced eyes nothing seemed amiss. There was no asymmetry of face or limb or weakness. Then I realised why he was shocked. ‘It was not him who died,’ I whispered to dad.
Dad looked confused. He moaned, his wistful gaze fixed on his meagre belongings. ‘Habi, I thought they were crying for..for…him.’ He could barely get the words out. He squeezed his eyes shut. Did that mean he was stuck in here? When would I finish my studies to get him out of this place? His plaintive tone cut me to the quick.
How could I tell him that I was repeating the class, that I had one last chance and if I fluffed it again I could be back on the streets or working for Washerman for ever. ‘They shot him. A man called Dimka,’ I said and slowly fed dad the news about the coup.
Dad offered up a brief prayer, passed his palms over his face. Maybe now Mariama would be able to come back.
I groaned out loud. Just when I thought I was getting through to him. ‘Ah, no, baba.’ Yet I didn’t want to upset him. If he wanted to think that mum was alive, so be it, if it kept him going. Why take his hopes away when I had nothing with which to replace them? In the distance rumbled thunder. Thank God, some light relief from this unrelenting heat. ‘Allah will do what is best,’ I said.
Dad crawled back onto his mat. ‘Why you look as if shit fly land on your face?’ Now he thought of it, Allah Akhbar, it was definitely a good thing that Dimka did. Good riddance. He made a spitting sound of disgust so loud that I leaned back to haul the door closed.
‘You want to die?’ I opened my packet of paracetamol.
‘Don’t pretend, you agree with me.’
I popped two tablets into my mouth. How could I explain to him how this is not what I wanted for Signalman. That if I knew what Dimka was going to do this I would have shot the fool long before he got anywhere near Ikoyi. Had I not begged you Allah, please don’t let Yellow Fever, Malaria Fever, Overconsumption or TB or AK-47 or CIA finish him oh. I wanted Signalman to have a long life, so that everyday he could see the ghosts of Asaba following him around. Shuwa took Enugu, Adekunle had his own palaver but nothing like Asaba happened on his watch and according to those in the know, he had a much tougher gig. Where were the soul stirring paeans and demonstrations for those gunned down in Asaba? What those like Seyi with fine teeth and plump cheeks far away from the warfront euphemistically called collateral injury, accidental, their hero knew was anything but. Had they asked themselves why Signalman drove around without an escort? It was guilt, presenting as a subconscious piacular death wish. Yet he couldn’t lose. If he survived an attack it would add to the personality cult of an invincible man of the people. Die, and he would become a martyr, guaranteed a place on our plinth for heroes and we will say to the world look here is our very own Toussaint Louverture, Abe Lincoln.
My little petty in the world, to whom in the northern or western hemisphere shall I now compare Signalman? To the great butchers of the past, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Rhodes, or the Putins and Netanyahus and Bushes and Blairs of the present age? That the Signalman of Nigeria doesn’t register internationally is because the richer countries set a high bar for war crimes when the dead are not White and number less than 12 millions, twice the number the Germans killed in the Holocaust. Maybe Nigeria will have a Colston moment and erect at Abuja airport, an empty plinth dedicated to the memory of the massacred in Asaba and elsewhere, but I’m not holding my breath.
I bit on a chalky tablet and washed it down with a bottle of water. ‘I hope Dimka rots in hell,’ I said evoking a confused wrinkling of dad’s face.
Seconds later loud cheers erupted in the next room and reverberated from the streets. I went to the door. People were leaping about with abandon, praising Jesus, Allah, God, and hugging one another in a spontaneous venting of joyful relief. It seemed that the coup had failed. Yards away the man in the blue safari suit nursed a green bottle of
lager. I felt limp.
***
To avoid Seyi and others who wanted me to call a press conference in support of the government I spent the next two nights in the room of a Physiotherapy student. On the Sunday, to unwind still feeling uneasy, I went to Fela’s “Sunday Jump.” The gig usually started at about 5, Fela arrived at 7 and it ended at about ten o’clock and was popular with youngsters who had to get back home before late. His set ended on a favourite of mine, No Buredi. Fela’s witty alliteration on the name Udoji referred to the inflation caused by the backdated salary rise to civil servants. I didn’t feel like joining in.
When I got back to college three men, two in army uniform and one in a pale blue buba and sokoto, leapt out of the shadows. ‘Are you Yaro, the president?’ said one, his massive hand grabbing me by the t-shirt. ‘Cuff him o jare,’ said the man in mufti.
They manacled me hand and foot and slapped me on the head.
‘What have I done?’ I cried.
‘You mean you don’t know?’
