Adventures of Babangida (A Village Boy's Memoirs): Meeting the Police Inspector, Part 1

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The screech sound of sliding aluminium window woke me up. I was rubbing my eyes to clear the haze of the night when a voice from outside the window got me fully awake.

“It's me Muhammed.”

“Muhammed! What is it you want at this time?” I was a bit irritated to realize someone cut my sleep. From the look of the sky it was barely 6 am.

Muhammed hushed me and advised I keep my voice low so we don't wake “madam.” Aunty Unwana is my relative who sent for me to be brought from our village the month before. I kept asking my mum whose sister she was of my two parents, but it was apparent from mum's response that Unwana was one of those my-mother’s-third-cousin's-in-law’s-step sisters who we had to call “aunty” because she was from our village and had made a lot of money in the city. Her room window was directly above mine in the duplex we lived in an estate in Illorin.

I unlocked my room door as quietly as I could so I wouldn't wake anyone. My room was the only bedroom on the ground floor, next to the kitchen and a few strides to the dining room and stairway that led upstairs -- one I only climbed when Aunty Unwana called me on the intercom and ordered her homemade organic juice from the fridge, or water, or the market list the cook had prepared. Whenever she was home from the spa she ran, she drank juice and watched TV in the upstair parlor till her husband, Uncle Sam, returned and she came to fix his dinner. My aunty does not have to do any chores at home as she has a laundryman, cook and me. My mum will not believe it. Muhammed told me how he shook hands with madam once and her palm was soft “like a baby's bumbum.” I will believe, because Aunty's face has pores that look like they are always flushed. Even when she sweats her face does not get oily. She sweats fresh water.

I was outside to meet Muhammed, the security man. He waited for my hand to pass through the sweater I was still putting on and he grabbed it and pulled me hastily, leading me to the security post by the gate that doubled as his apartment. Far enough from the main building to not be overheard.

“I tell you say Inspector pikin na bad pikin. Why him dey find you this time?” His broken English made way through a lisp.

“What! Where is he?”

Muhammed gestured to the gate to say, he's out there. Really, why was Shola looking for me at that time? Shola was a boy my age who lived with his parents two buildings away. Muhammed told me his father was a Police Inspector and the boy was capable of many mischiefs because he will get away with it. I hadn't met Shola’s dad but from the number of policemen stationed at their gate and around our street, and the fleets of Toyota Hiluxes with sirens that entered and left, I knew Muhammed was right.

“Someone saw us and reported to my dad. Daddy said I won't enter the house if I don't bring you with me.” Shola did not bother to say good morning to me. We usually don't. We just go on to gist and play whenever we met. But this time was different. Shola was not his jovial self as he looked all business, and there was a policeman on the other side of the road peeing in a gutter, one I suspected came with him.

“Kai! Your own I don be, kwo!” Muhammed expressed, his hands on his head as if to begin wailing. “Inspector go jail you, walai!”

“What happened! Why did you tell him?” I turned to my friend.

“I DID NOT tell him. Someone saw us and reported to our security men, who told my dad last night.”

“And you accepted it?”

“Babangida, are you nuts? How dare you even think of lying point blank to my dad!”

Babangida was a name that almost totally replaced my native name, Kenti. It started when I had rashes on my butts as a younger kid, and about then there was this joke going around of a former head of state who was cured of similar rashes. His name was Babangida. So everyone called me that. I never got to find out if the story was true, and I never succeeded in forbidding the name.

“So what should we do now?” I was scared at the thought of meeting Shola's Police Inspector father, especially because I did something wrong.

Late in the morning is usually very quiet in the estate as most residents would have gone to work. Shola and I were on holiday and this time was a perfect time to play football on the street or just ring people's doorbells and run when the dogs bark. Shola was not like other rich kids whose parents forbade from even walking on the road. Shola had many bicycles and that was why we bonded in the first place.

Last Monday I came up with the idea to replace the power bills that was in empty water bottles with a noose knot tied around the bottle neck and tied to the gate of every house in the estate. This was to protect the bills from rain water, make it easily accessible to the power company officials, even when there was no one in the compound and they came for disconnection. That way they knew who paid and who hadn't.

“Since they don't want to give us light, let us teach them a lesson.”

I gave Shola an overview of the plan and his analytical mind went to work on the details. The plan was to replace the bills with papers with funny writings and curses targeted at the power people. That week we didn't have electricity at all. The estate was noisy as every apartment had to use their off-grid power generators, else soups will spoil in their freezers or they will miss their favourite shows.

“After someone would say I should expose my children to this dysfunctional society. Look at power, we have paid but we never see the light.” Aunty Unwana told her husband as they both came down the stairs.

NO POWER, NO BILL!

DID YOU FORGET ANYTHING? OH YES. YOU FORGOT TO TURN ON THE ELECTRICITY.

BIG HEAD NEPA PEOPLE!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

We prepared all the paper tags and set out for the street. It was fun as we would wait for a security man to move inside the compound so we strike; the dogs barked at us, and once we activated a gate alarm.

Two days later I heard Muhammed tell Uncle Sam that NEPA wrongfully disconnected some buildings in the estate and the homeowners were very furious and threatened to deal with them. He said he heard that when he went to pray with the other Afars at a corner of the street.

Uncle Sam thought it served them right. I was happy because no one seemed to be on the side of NEPA, even Sam. I knew more than they did about the root of the conflict, but Shola and I had promised to keep it a secret.

Then the Policeman at the other side of the road crossed over and greeted Muhammed in Hausa. He uttered a few things I didn't understand and beckoned Shola to go with him.

Muhammed dragged me inside and shut the gate. He told me in the most scary way possible that I have been invited to come to the Inspector's house later in the evening… with madam or oga.

I literally began to jitter. It suddenly felt colder than it was outside. Thrice my aunty had threatened to return me to the village, when I turned on her car radio and when I broke two glass jars in one day. Was my days in the city coming to an end? Was I going to be arrested by the Inspector? Can I still lie my way out of this? Only evening will tell.

Cover art by Okwir Isaac

Hand me my peach, @sammosk ;-)