MUHTAR NDELELE: MARCH, 1976

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It’s exactly one month, two weeks and five days ago since my unlawful detention by the federal military government of General Muaziah took place. There was, and I cannot dismiss that lightly, a time I nearly thought I wouldn’t last longer than a day inside Guda. Given their well-publicized antecedent for brutality, I had expected to be hung as quickly as possible - for treason of course – without the decent courtesy of a fair trial in a competent court. The smell of death – no, the wish of it – hung in the air like bad medicine, especially when you knew that yours was only weeks or days and maybe, hours away. Every night, these cold blooded life sniffers would match in, pull out one of the inmates amidst shouts of pleas. When we woke up the following morning, we all knew what happened. Nobody talked about what happened in the open. They just knew for themselves. I imagined how easy it was for the prison authorities to report to the press that an inmate ‘hung himself’, or ‘slipped in the shower’, or ‘died of natural causes’ and in some cases, of ‘hunger strike’. They were not the first. The apartheid South African government had perfected the art. We will never know the true story of the Tubakwes, the Cuthselas, the Kutemelas - and who knows, Nelson Mandela - etc. who were gruesomely murdered inside apartheid held prisons. The same was true now of Guda.

Nothing was as scary as a man whose appointment with death was being postponed each turn of the hour. I smelled hesitation on their part. I was not like any other inmate, I assured myself. The government was eager to avoid another international outcry; Anza Jacobs was one nightmare no one would want to forget easily. It made a lot more sense now.

But despite this, I wasn’t allowed visitors, not even my family could see me. The aim, I suppose, was to cut me off completely from the outside world. Other inmates could watch TV and listen to the radio and have access to newspapers. It didn’t bother me and I didn’t miss the news. What was there to miss when all that was said was what the government wanted the public to hear. The news media was heavily monitored. You didn’t want to be sent to the firing squad for being too candid. And I believe that this fight for freedom could well have ended a long time ago had the news media not retired to the unenviable sidelines.

Mbegha sat up now, drenched in sweat. He had just finished another round of rituals – forty pushups in one minute, long sit ups.

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"Been doing this since I came here eleven years ago", he said and laughed heartily, impressed with himself. "They may have you in chains. But they don’t get to touch your mind too, brother, or else you don’t deserve to live," he said and stood up to stretch his arms. "You want to outlast this damn place? The key is a free mind. You can thank me later."

I nodded more in admiration than agreement. Then, for the first time since I came to Guda, I realized I'd never bordered to ask him about how he too got here. I was too angry to conceive of it, too engrossed with my own full plate. So much for the journalism in me!

"Speaking of which", I began, "You know, you’ve never told me how it happened. I mean, this being locked up here for eleven years."

I watched him. Mbegha didn’t seem eager to have this conversation, I could tell. I sensed he too was angry, had wounds he didn’t want reopened.

"There is nothing to talk about, journalist", he said, mopping his dark hairy chest.

"You mean there is nothing from the past that gives right to your present?"

"I don’t have a past," he maintained.

I forced a brief smile. "Are you ever getting out of here?" I asked.

"Are you?" he said, almost ignoring me as he threw the towel over the hanger and sat down on the floor near the jail bars.

"Then it hurts, your past," I said, trying to draw him out. He said nothing, his face probing the concrete floor of the passage way.

"Why don’t you…"

"Shut up or talk about something else like ten reasons why you shouldn’t be here, or why I think this country is sick and everyone is crazy?" he cut in angrily. "Well, apparently not everybody is," he revised.

I sank back in horror. I’ve met far stronger brick walls than this before, I consoled myself as I slid down from the bunk and sat near him, for the first time I felt sorry for him, for someone. Eleven years behind bars was enough to kill a man’s spirit. It was the kind of incarceration that made a man do crazy things like refusing his meals and letting his hair grow uncontrollably, like Mbegha’s mass of tangled dreadlocks. His droopy mustache easily hid his pale lips so that when he spoke, one could hardly follow the theatrical movement of his lips. It reminded me of the silly stories of the Old Testament patriarchs of the Bible, pictures that I remember drawing as a young lad in the early sixties.

Mbegha heaved a sigh and stayed his eyes on the floor. He shook his head slowly.

"She betrayed me", he said finally. The three words dropped like a bombshell. A big story was about to be unraveled, I thought as I braced up for more.

"She betrayed me", he said again and shook his head. "She threw everything away. Everything", he smiled wanly.

"What’d you mean? Who was she?"

"Soma", he said uneasily. A tear taxied down from his left eye and was soon lost in the thick mass of hair. "We were in love, you know. Lived together for the better part of six years. I even bankrolled her studies in the university. Smart girl, I tell you. I wanted a graduate for a wife and so I waited." He sighed heavily and then sneezed. I nodded instinctively.

"This was what we agreed to do as soon as she was done with school. Until she ditched me in her fourth and final year of study for another man!" he said contemptuously, clenching his fist. "After I got wind of the story, I decided to confront her one fine morning. She was proud. She abused me. She called me names," he said forcefully and gesticulated with his fingers pointed towards his chest. I hissed in disappointment.

"I never wanted this to happen. God knows that wasn’t any of my plans…", he said mournfully, and buried his head in his palms.

" I understand," I said, rubbing my hand gently on his back. "Wasn’t your fault, man", I assured.

"No you won’t understand. I haven’t told you what I did that morning," he said and looked away.

"Doesn’t matter, does it?" I said. "I’m sure I’d do far worse. I’m sure I’d do far worse", I repeated, wondering whether I really meant it.

He sneezed again and blew his nose.

"Well", he resumed, "For what’s worth, it taught me a bitter lesson about women, about Christianity. No woman can and should be trusted."

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"It’s a prison, you know-"

"A prison with no way out. Love captures easily but kills even faster. When it turns bitter, as it will, well, its first victims are those nearby, those caught in between by its tangled web of mischief. You fall in love with a woman, you fall into a deep pit."

"Well, that may be true of some-"

"There aren’t any exceptions!"

"Really? Does that include your mom?"

"With all pleasure! See, mom and dad divorced shortly after they had me. My father tells me that she was unfaithful and a swindler. Come on now, it just runs easily in their blood."

"Well, I wish your personal experiences can validate the ‘our experiences’. I’ve got a wife – a woman – in my life. She doesn’t fit that description."

"True? Good for you. But don’t tell me she’s been some bed of roses. It doesn’t always exist."

"Well, let me shock you. In my six years of marriage to her, we’ve never had a serious quarrel", I said, watching as he blinked his eyes in unbelief.

" True?"

"Yea".

"Then you’re a damn terrible liar!"

I smiled victoriously. "You think so?"

"I know so! Perfection is ideal madness."

"You don’t know that. See-"

"I understand your frustration, brother. But it’s quite unfair to take it out on all women. Social justice cannot support that". He smiled and said nothing.

"Did I tell you that the young man who made away with the love of my life was a Clergyman who wore one of those white collars?"

He observed that didn’t surprise me.

"What’d you think about Christianity?" he asked.

"I’m not a Christian".