Copyright © 2016 by king chika (rentalghost)
All right reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotation in a book review.

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Where is the story na... abi you wan make we kill cow for you before you start. .

Note: All characters are fictitious.

[center]VOLUME I[/center]

[center]Chapter 1[/center]
[center]page i[/center]

The unknown child…
He walked and walked under the scorching sun, the sole of his feet, sore and blistered, and the ache on his young shoulder from long hours of slogging was becoming unendurable. All has been lost in the in the war but through the mercy of a benevolent God he has survived a great ordeal, and somehow ended up on these strange grounds. A lost child became a stranger, and now a stranger rummages this dreadful barrenness, or should a stranger die a hungry child.

The North is vast in land and densely populated. Before 1976, Borno was within the northeastern region of the Republic. The State has two broad relief regions, the mountain area, branded by very uneven landscape like plateau, hills, escarpment and volcanic cones, the other relief region lies on a vast open plain which is flat or gently undulating. Borno like most Northern states experience high temperature all year round, making drought prevalent, and rainfall tend to have declined since the 1960s. People of this region engaged in mixed agriculture, based on herding cattle, goats, sheep, horses and donkey and farmed sorghum, millet, maize and cowpea.
Biu plateau of Borno touches ground in a rather immerse rapid fashion at the southern end of the plateau and its opposite end evens out less sloppily. The wider end of the plateau to the east and west possess escarpments naturally calibrated in steep producing a somewhat viewing pleasure. The native’s houses were hedged with Zana mat of neatly woven dried long grasses, raffia palm, firmly tied to sticks to the ground at a spacing of about a yard from each other. On the expanse were sparsely distributed stunted trees and on the center was the legendary baobab tree. At this time of the day, they bear large white flowers and emit sweet smell. Little children sat under the shade of the big tree of Biu, a small town in Borno. They gathered to watch the sunset.
A child sat alone, his gaze was intense, probably captivated by the sun’s mysterious orange display at the exit point, his mind wondering where it goes every evening and comes again to admit a new day. The other children didn’t notice his presence, the child was unwelcomed, nobody knew who he was or where he came from.
The boy child was a street urchin and had begged for alms most of the time while he learnt the Koran under the strict gawk of a Mallam in the Almajiri. The Almajiri School had long lost its originality, completely bastardized and left in a pitiful state. Its scholars turned beggar and reduced to doing menial job before their stomachs were fed. Some mornings, the scholars would wake up to find some of their colleague’s beds empty. These children had been taken the previous night and were never seen again. It was rumored that they were given away to some men who paid meager amount of money for these little boys. For eight months the boy child was subjected to a life of imperious scourging and the fear of being kidnapped, until three days ago, he ran away.
Here and alone was the closest relation to peace he’d had in a long time. He sat quietly and savored the beauty of the sunset. Everything will be fine, he thought, everything except the constant growing growl in his stomach. Hunger.
The sun had finally disappeared behind the horizon and other children had returned to the comfort of their tents and the awaiting hot tuwo, a meal of grounded maize. He wasn’t bothered about the comfort these children had, he’d always thought of himself unrelated since the war. So, the shirtless boy stood up, brushed the dirt off his ragged short and walked away. Though some stains were still obvious to the eye. Who cared?
Since stealing was forbidden and not an option for him in a land posed with Sharia law, he had been begging and scrabbling any edibles he could from trash. Life have been worse, this was just bad. Early in the day, he had scouted the wide land and his final resolution was to find his way into the army barracks some kilometer away. Hope was what he anticipated to find there.
As night drew in quickly and the stars were becoming visible, the night insects croaked in the near distance, and the child increased his pace. In the far distance he could see three of them in the grain farm. The greedy carnivorous fought over a piece of dead meat. Though they hadn’t seen him, his heart pumped raw fear into his veins. From the plateau he used to live, he could hear their growls and hoot in the caves at night. But this was the first time, far across the horizon they howled. He gaped at the hyenas. These creatures were vicious, if they couldn’t kill and drag away their victim at once, they leave them mutilated. Only a few survived their attack. These thoughts impulsively sent chills down his spine and promptly, his silhouette fell into a light run across the endless plateau. Along the bare land of Biu en routes to the Sahara desert to the far North, the boy increased his speed.
Few kilometers away, he could see the dimness of a yellow light; he was getting close to Hope.

more updates. ..
@op I think you need to organize your work well

Yea...working on that.

keep it up... nice story. abeg more updates

It seems like I'm alone here.?

[center]page ii [/center]

The walls of the Barrack were high enough but that wouldn’t deter him. In every system, there were always flaws; he’d learnt that from his perpetual scuffle for survival. It took him almost ten minutes to figure out the flaw. Carefully concealed with stones were holes big enough for a foot. It had been dug into the wall by soldiers who habitually sneaked into town without proper clearance. This part of the fence was their secret getaway.
At the other side of the wall, he missed a step as he tried to place his foot into one of the holes and fell but instinctively, he cushioned the impact of the landing by rolling on the ground. An old trick, somewhere from his old life.
Behind the other side of the wall, he met an ominous darkness and absolute quietness. A dark pitch separated him from a secluded light. Perhaps Hope dwells within the vicinity the light peeled on, he thought as his eyes darted in the darkness, and then … reality sets in. He was within the confines of the army barrack. But fear wasn’t a feeling he’d normally give into, rather it has been a tool he’d grown accustomed to. Fear makes one cautious. The boy child wasn’t afraid of the uncertainty that lies ahead or the punishment that awaits him if caught.
He started to run towards the darkness but was stopped by a sharp pain in his ankle. The old trick wasn’t perfected well enough. He had suffered a dislocation. Two choices were before him, he goes on with the pain and embraces whatsoever fate has in store for him or retrace his steps back to the village and cower in hunger? But then, the growl in his stomach was unrelenting and the thought of hyenas lurking in the grain farm crossed his mind. Going back was not an option. This place could provide food and shelter, so he limped painfully across the darkness towards the light.
Soon, he found himself in the living quarters and hurriedly slipped behind the closet wall, avoiding a moseying soldier who was ransacking a wooden locker in the verandah. He cursed the soldier under his breath for being out there at this particular time. Since the delay was inevitable, he did a quick glance over from where he hid. To his far right were some buildings, none of them fit the possibility of being a refectory. He had seen many and this was too modern. To his left, across a withered lawn was a building with colorful display of sporting activities drawn on the wall, the gymnasium, and beside it stood a smaller structure attached to it. From the smaller structure, smoke rose from the chimney, the kitchen. His eye brightened with pleasure, he had found Hope.
The moseying man had retired into his quarters and was time for the child to meet Hope. Initially, he didn’t see them standing in the shadow not too far from him. It was their laughter that had saved him. For as he was about to make a move towards the kitchen, the two drunks busted out laughing as they recounted their intimate episode with the natives from town. The boy child quickly curled back into the shadow like an exposed snake and waited. Suddenly, he began to perspire. He never knew he had such ample fear for military men, before now, he’d only respected their uniform. Gasping quietly, the boy child calmed his racing heart … What if he was caught? The boy thought. As a kid scavenging in the hot and disheartening streets of Borno, he had seen the severity of military disciplinary actions firsthand. In the shadow, he remembered it too quickly and very vividly.

Nobody liked Sule, he was arrogant as daylight and annoying as the morning rooster that wakes everyone in the neighborhood . At the parity of poverty dispersed across the locality, one could say Sule was passable for a man of limited luxury, only because he’d recently procured a brand new bicycle, Flying Pigeon, which was a rarity. He thinks too much of himself and thought everybody envied, when in truth, everybody was disappointed in him.
It infuriated him when children played close to his house. He would seize their balls and sometimes rip it before their eye, leaving them in teary eyes as they returned to their mothers.
One day, while riding on his newly purchased bicycle, which by the way, he hasn’t fully mastered. Accidentally, he knocked down an old woman and as usual he felt unsympathetic about the accident and blamed her for not looking where she was going. After all, she was on his way. Later that evening, three soldiers paraded a severely brutalized Sule down the Street. Little did Sule know that the old woman’s son was a private in the army.
The boy child remembered the stark miserable look on his face as they paraded him on the street. From that day on, everybody noticed a totally different Sule, it appeared the wiggling fish had lost it water glass. Sule was humbled by the beating he’d received.

They boy child tarried for a while that felt like forever until the drunks moved away. Afterwards, he limped across the lawn towards the kitchen. Fortunately for him, someone had forgotten to shut the window.
Inside the kitchen, there was an impressive pot supported by two opposite concrete platforms. The pot hung over a coal furnace. The cook had left the pot over the red hot coal to keep the food warm till day break. Quickly, he swung into action; the throbbing pain in his ankle did little to slow him down.
Afterwards, he gulped the second cup of water and wiped the smug off his face. His stomach was laden with bean porridge, and truly, he was contented. Whatever comes after this was not as relevant as the genuineness his stomach felt. And, not long after he was done eating, the suddenly weight of three wearisome days came upon on him. The long hours of trekking in the heat combined with the ‘what was’ and the ‘what ifs’ of his last seventy-two hours overwhelmed him. Eventually, he gave in to the urge. The boy didn’t feel his body hit the ground neither did he feel his eye closing. Sleep took him away from the weary he was to a place that was peaceful and quite.
******************************************************************************
The sudden hot sensation on his cheek was numb at first before pain sharply crept in. The fingers that grabbed his neck were cruel and savagery as he felt himself forcefully jerked up by a powerful hand, a hand so stiff that he couldn’t see the face of his predator. The poor boy felt like a prey. All he could discern was the massiveness of a man dragging him roughly. He was dragged out of the kitchen and across the lawn. Outside, night had turned grey and day was waiting to be ushered in. The strong hand dragged him past the soldiers living quarters to a lone quarter. The poor boy was heaved up a few step stairs to the front door. The cruel man rapped a few impatient knocks, before he admitted himself inside dragging the boy along.
“Morning sir”, he made a slight nod with his head. “Found this squirrel in my kitchen”, he spitted undeniable hatred in his voice. “And it dipped its fingers into my pot sir”. He stressed on the word ‘it’ when he referred the boy.
The boy’s head was vehemently held down by the cook as he complained. The boy wondered who this hateful creature was and the person he was talking to. He also observed the respect the cook had for the person because despite his needless rage, he’d somehow managed to uphold regards for the person. The boy continued to stare at the unfriendly coarse concrete floor that was piercing into his kneel.
“I will handle it from here. Thank you”. The boy heard the other man’s baritone voice dismiss the cook. But before the cook left, his fingers deliberately dug into the boy neck as he shoved him to the rough ground. He was definitely displeased and had expected more from the Commanding Officer of the barracks.
Minutes after the cook had left, the boy’s face was still fixed to the ground with dried blood on his bruised neck. He hadn’t even flinch when the cook pinched him rather he has been preparing his mind for whatever presumed punishment.
Outside, the barrack was gradually coming alive. The morning drill had started and a voice was hooting some military jargons, hurling soldiers around the field for the early morning exercise. Inevitably, the boy listened as the hooting continued in increased tempo.
Momentarily, the hooting distracted the boy, he didn’t notice when the CO had left his chair and walked up to the drape-less window in his unadorned office. Only the picture of the serving Head of States hung on the wall behind his desk.
“And look at what Bear dragged in”, the CO deep voice was unexpectedly humorous and his gaze didn’t leave the window when he spoke. The boy didn’t understand what he said and contemplated if he should ask.
But after a brief moment passed, the CO resumed, “Bear, that’s what they call him”, he sighed as if he was reproving the cook. “You are lucky I decided to leave this morning instead of yesterday. You would have been at the mercy of Bear and judging from what is what, it would have been ugly”. There was an irrefutable truth in his last statement. Bear was a six feet five inches overfed animal and if left with the boy, it was going to be scores of repeated tortures before he would be done with what would be left of him.
The man’s gaze finally left the window, “Who are you and what brings you to my barracks boy?” He asked with a stern voice that demanded immediate answer.
“Food”, the boy answered the second question quickly and was almost inaudible for lack of assurance in his dilemma when he added in his southeastern local dialect. “And I am a boy trying to survive”, his head slowly angled to his inquisitor. The man was fully dressed and by the decorations on his uniform, he was a colonel in the Nigerian Army. The boy knew all the insignia hierarchy in the army. He’d taught himself since the incident with Sule.
Disregarding the boy’s answer, he returned his stare to the soldiers in the field. The room fell into a grave silence for a while. His hard eyes went dark and his voice wasn’t friendly when he began to speak theoretically. “There is a storm coming and the country would need men, men willing to go extra miles, who would give their life without hesitation, men dangerously brave enough to make history. The country needs patriot and not loyal soldier.” His voice sounded like a dreaded wind howling from a distance and his face showed a kind of seriousness you find only when a judge is about to serve a death sentence. “The war is over, wounds will heal but the scars will remain. I foresee a dark clouding rising. Evil minds will plot evil deeds, and soon they shall be heard”. He concluded his passionate monologue.
“Sir?” The confused boy asked as if he was in a lecture class that was not meant for him. The Commanding Officer blinked twice and shrugged back to reality. He thought for a while and cleared his airway.
“Do you have anywhere to be boy?” he said as he approached the boy.
“No sir”.
The colonel held the boy’s shoulder firmly and leaned slightly, gazing intensely into the boy’s brown eyes. “How would you love to serve your country?”

Chapter 2
page iii

The life of the child Ali…
Pain, anger, vengeance…these have I known, these have I felt. Now, they are exciting tools of mine, used to impel our agenda. They shall feel pain, know anger and wish for vengeance, but vengeance is mine to mete out in whatever ferocity I desire. Ah...the reek of fear on their faces, the thrills of their pleas before they meet the inevitability of my cold steel as it slices through. So good it feels against their little resistance, after which, I watch them wriggle a bit until they are still and move no more.

I am from a large tribe, Kanuri, a descent from the Kanemo-Borno Empire, founded sometimes before 1000CE. Through this empire, Islam was established in my country during the reign of the Mai Humme Jilmi and it spread to the major cities of the northern part of the country by the 16thcentury. In the 19thcentury a banished Islamic scholar from Gobir, one of the seven originals of the Hausa kingdom, lunched a military conquest, Jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms of the North. He was victorious and he established a Fulani Empire, the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate headed by the Amiral-Muminin, the commander of the faithful.
In the 80s, a marginal group led by Mohammed Marwa, a controversial Islamic preacher and a Cameroonian, whose his nickname, “Maitatsine” meaning “the one who damns”, because to his expletive speeches. He resented westernization and spoke against the use of material things with their own mosque and doctrines that antagonize established Islamic and societal leadership. Its main appeal was to the marginal and poverty stricken urban immigrants. These adherents ultimately lashed out to the more traditional mosque and congregations resulting in violent outburst in several cities in the north. The Maitatsine eventually died eventually after sustaining injuries in the clashes against the military. In the rounds of rioting, Musa Makaniki, a close disciple of the Maitatsine emerged as a leader and Marwa’s successor. In his reign of terror, more than three thousand people died and roughly half of the city of Yola inhabitants were displaced. During the wide hunt for Makaniki, he fled to his hometown and later fled to Cameroon where he remained for long and was later arrested in Nigeria by the Nigeria Army.
Apparently, the North thought she had seen her worst days pass. Peace and calm began to seep in these troubled parts, and slowly normalcy crawled in and optimism began to spread among the populace. However, in this settling dust, somewhere in the northeastern region, north Cameroon and the Republic of Niger, a deadly organization awakened and they seek to establish a pure Islamic state ruled by Sharia law, a moral code and religious law of Islam, putting a final stop to what is deemed westernization. They would do this at any cost.

To this day, violence linked to this insurgency is said to have resulted an estimated body counts of 10,000 and rising. The figure is a total farce, the death toll is far greater and the havoc is far underestimated by the media in collaboration with the government.
But all those are another man’s story, glory and downfall, those aren’t mine. Yes, I was born in the hills and mountains of Tibesti and my place was once an opulence of beauty. I’ve always wanted to be productive person in my society but destiny had a more demanding role for me.
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I grew up in a respected Islamic family and all I had was my cleric father and my two adoring sisters. Mother had died when I was very young. I don’t remember what she looked like, but I knew she had loved me deeply. Father had always reminded me. My little angels, A’ishah, named after the wife of the holy Prophet and A’shadieeyah, meaning princess were the joy of my life and I will do anything to please them, even if it requires that I go against father. I loved my father and father loved us more but he’d never failed to admonish us to always do the right thing even in the face of threat. “Allah sees all and he will reward the faithful”, he would say.
We weren’t poor and father didn't have a chieftain title, he was a simple and a well respected man in the village. A small scale farmer who cultivated only for our consumption and the excesses were sold in the town, a 40km walk our village. The money realized was used for our basic needs : clothing and maintenance of our thatched mud house. Like I said we weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either, we had each other and that was more than all we wanted.
Father eschewed corruption and violence, and occasionally, he imparted me with wisdom. The skin around his eye wrinkling in truth and wisdom, “Corruption poisons the mind with greed and violence taints the soul and as my son you are a reflection and extension of me, you will uphold this name and no shame shall come to it”. Gently, father would pat me on the back whenever he was giving me his lectures.[i] “Zaman Lafiya ya fi zama dan Sarki… [/i]living in peace is worth more than being a prince”. He was also a preacher of peace.
Our small world was perfect until lies about my father involvement in the growing insurgency began to spread in the village. I was young but old enough to understand the solemnity of these rumor, and I knew, father would never participate in such fabrication conjured by some abominators. But my father never faltered or paid attention to the baseless lies, he went on with the daily endeavors.
Then it happened. It was on an early wet morning, the day my destiny began it course. The event of that day left a permanent scare to my body, soul and memory. Memory that should never have been processed by a twelve years old boy. The night was old and fading away, but the moon was still high in the sky and its illumination was bright enough that I could see where I placed my foot. I had left my house early because i had prepared our local trap the night before. I left father and my twin sisters sleeping, hoping I would surprise the twins. It was my little sisters birthday and whatever the trap caught was theirs.

I hurried through the forest as fast I could so I could make it back before Fajr, and moreover, i knew father would not approve of my early morning escapade if he finds out. But the love for my siblings was more compelling than my father’s scold. I ran, my hand clinging tightly to two big rodents, my face filled with smiles. I was happy, A’shadieeya and A’ishah would be happier.
On the hills down my village, I stopped when I saw a smoke rising from our small village. We rarely have burnfire, especially not this time of the year. This made me worried. My legs raced as my heart did, and my mind went through all sorts of undesirable possibilities. The smoke turned flame as I got closer to the village, and the source was my father’s house. My heart skipped a beat and spontaneously, a tear trickled down my face. Our hut was on fire. I was panic stricken and terrified for my family.
The fire had engulfed most part of our house, mother’s hut which served as our food barn had been ransacked and all our food stocks were gone. Frantically, my neighbors were trying to put out the fire to salvage what could be but nothing could temper the savagery of the fire. The evil perpetrators had stayed till the fire had grown out of control.
I didn’t recall when I threw the dead rodents away. “Where are they?” my voice quivered as my lips barely moved. I asked again but no one seemed to have noticed me.
“Where are my sisters”, my voice rose and some of my neighbors turned.
“Isn’t that Mallam Aadil’s son?” A voice whispered in the crowd. “Na gode Allah”, another voice was thanking God. There was mixture of surprise and grief streaming in their voices as they murmured.
As they were muttering something about the fire and my father and sisters, my head brewed with undeniable possibility that my family was trapped in that fire. Thoughtlessly, I tried to lunge into the inferno, hoping the fire finds me before someone stops me, I’d rather perish with them. But somehow a strong hand caught and held me tight, but not before the fire smeared the right side of my face. My screams were violent and pathetic, not for the pain I felt on my face but the loss my heart suffered. I cried and struggled to free myself but my rescuer was far stronger than I was. Finally, I succumbed and swore to kill him if he’d released me, but those were empty threats of a devastated boy filled with all the anguish in the world.
I cried plenty, my tears mingled with mucus as it ran down my face. My reality was a nightmare and my heart ruptured over and over with unbearable pain. I thought I was going to die of heart ache. Gasping hysterically, I felt my spirit leaving me, and for some seconds, my heart seized to beat. My leg wobbled under my weight and I felt my face kiss the soil, I never wanted to rise again. An inevitable whiteness hovered over me like a blanket, reaching out to save me from the horrible and unpleasant sensation. And so it was, I fainted.

For months I was lost, everything turned grey, my world had lost its color and I was blind to everything except my grief. There was nothing I could do to the constant pain that rang in my head, a reminder of what had happened to me. When there were no more tears left to cry when memories visits me at night, I would lay awake for several hours thinking of nothing. I was a blank slate and slowly, I watch the world passed me by. For a long time I was in oblivion, emptiness consumed me and no one could do anything to alleviate my suffering. The pain was what kept me alive, hoping to find peace in revenge.
I gathered, not long after I’d left that morning, some soldiers came to the house to inquire about my fathers’ involvement with some extremist activities. They had forced him to make a confession which he refused. The argument got heated and there were some gunshots. The house was burnt down with my family inside, maybe to hide any trace of their involvement. They didn’t even leave my little sisters out of it.
My heart has gotten a lot older and distasteful; lots had changed in me in my solitary. I had no care in this world anymore, so I fell into verve of insidious affairs and gradually my destiny began to unfold. I began to know the wrong kind of people that was right for me and they all in believed in me. I felt spirited anew. Father’s voice of wisdom had stopped ringing in my head long ago and I drifted, drawn into a black hole, there was no looking back.
At first it was rebellion then it became something entirely different, a religious conviction. I’d seen the light and it needed me to invigorate it.
Our meetings became clandestine and were held at odd location mostly in the middle of the night. Ideas were been pumped into our heads, for I was not alone. Our numbers grew day by day. We were going to do great things and people would fear and respect us. We rallied and set properties on fire, and it wasn’t long before the police were on our trail. Some of us were caught and were never seen again, we only heard rumors of what happened to them. But that did not stop us, rather, we became bolder. We started attacking public places, schools, churches and mosques. We tried the police station but it was a disaster, too many of us got injured. By then, I was long gone, my old self had shredded and I became clear and distinct. I was fearless.
I masterminded the next attack on the police station and we looted away some ammunition. Soon, I was recommended for higher purposes. Special meets were arranged, important people wanted to meet with me, they wanted me to fight the good cause, they wanted me to be a holy soldier.
The next few years were spent on various combat and technical courses in different countries in the continent. I trained with some of my highly placed countrymen and foreign nationals who were marked to fight and kill for Allah. At 22, I was registered jihadist hardliner and a member of the dreaded Jama’aful Ahul Sunna Wal Liddawatiwal Jihad.
We have eyes and ears everywhere, we have infiltrated almost all the federal agencies, finance home, politics, we have access to the media, both printing and electronic and our tentacles span even all the way to the Federal Capital Territory to the seat of power. The funds are not limited, we grew in number and strength, and the violence escalated in frequency and intensity. The death of one leader gave rise to a more ruthless and tactful leader whose recent feat had placed him in the country’s top watchlist and one of the most wanted in the world.
I blew up the barracks in the outskirt of Abuja, 7 died and 34 were injured. The All Christian fellowship Church, Suleja, Niger State was blown up by the bomb I single-handedly planted. I orchestrated the bloody riot at the Campus University of Maiduguri; the school was closed down as a result of my seed that grew in the heart of some radical students. The British hostage rescue attempt to free an Italian and a Briton engineer was thwarted and both hostages were killed, I gave the order. I have become a force to be reckoned with, my opinion bears substantial significance and my judgment is not to be questioned.
My name is Ali, and I am the Black Sarki.