Princesschi:

my bad

its all good
hope ur ok?

[b]STORY CONTINUATION


Mr Yemi trekked the rest of the journey to the court. It was a ten-minute trek. If only the okada man who came around earlier had offered to collect #80, he would have made it there earlier, but the mouthwatering bike man was demanding something beyond Yemi's ken.

"#150? *Afi bi pe eeyan kawo lori igi," Yemi said.
As if one is plucking money on a tree

Yemi hastened immediately after leaving the bike man alone. However, when he got to the court they were just dismissing.

The expressions on the faces of those coming out of the court were different. Some were smiling while some were sad. Some were even carrying this kind of face which appeared they would give you a punch on the face if you come too close.

Yemi wouldn't dare go close to any of the punch-ready ones.

Yemi approached a lady who was having a smile steaming on her face.

"What's the judgement please?" he asked.

"Death by hanging," she said and began to hurry. Yemi took few steps after her and asked for details.

"Details, oh details?" the lady began to whimper, sobbing bitterly. "I--I can't say any--any--thing now," she could not control herself.

"It's okay, it's okay," Yemi petted her. What could have made her change suddenly, Yemi pondered. Initially she was smiling, now she was weeping that terrible. How come?

Yemi soon got an answer to it when he remembered an afro musician who said something about Nigerian people's condition and their external portrayal.

What should be strange? Yemi thought. Even a madman in Nigeria laugh nowadays most of the time.

"Suffering and smiling, says Fela," Yemi said as he walked on. "She must be a relative of Deinde, somehow, but she's looking quite younger," Yemi said and walked up to another person.

If Yemi had looked well into the face of this person he just approached, he wouldn't have dared coming close at all. This one was a male with a stout physique, rough face and broad nose which was made to lie too low between the eyes and the mouth. He appeared like someone a scientist would see and tag 'the new revolution to the theory of evolution'.

His hair was spaced out and scattered like ridges lying higgledy-piggledly in a poor man's farm. It was obvious no comb had come too close for years or perhaps it had defied all efforts to get it combed.

"What do you want sir?" he spoke in a respectful manner. His grammer was even okay too. He seemed to be in his late thirties.

"Nothing," Yemi said and walked away, despite the fact that the man seemed ready to attend to him.

Yemi got an abrupt answer to his quest from a young man who gave it to him in a smile.

"He'll die by hanging," said the young man.

"Why?" Yemi asked and then the young man's face got some wrinkles.

"Funny question," the young man said. "Or isn't it the issue with Mr Deinde you're talking about?"

"Of course yes, that man who was alleged to have murdered the governorship aspirant of the Friendship party," he said. "I mean how could the court declare such sentence on him when he hasn't come out clear to tell us who sent him?"

"Hmm, now I see you're not aware," the man said. "Last night, the news aired it that Mr Deinde confessed that he was sent by Mr Aluko, the aspirant of the rival party, Harmony Party."

"Mo gbe!" Yemi exclaimed in bewilderment and held his head in shock. It was a very unbelievable revelation since the alleged man was well famed for his moralism and philanthropic idiosyncrasy to the point that no one, not even a detective from the US, would easily suspect that he did such a despicable thing.
[/b]

MISS UNIVERSE I SEE U O OO O O

[b]

Story Continuation...

Yemi had a long story to tell now. His face was carrying those smiles and bliss of one who had something going his way.

One thing about Yemi was that he always wanted to face and tackle the reality instead of just talking about them. Yemi didn't have any sense of pity for criminals. Why should he when he was one of those who prayed for criminal arrest botg day and night on his bed.

"You pray that God should expose them, he did, yet you are weeping for them when you see their villainous faces on the screen of the TV when they pretend to be gentle people, isn't that an irony of life?" Yemi would always tell people who had some pity for the criminals arrested.

Yemi wouldn't buy cheap stories from criminals or suspected criminals who had been arrested. He wouldn't believe in setups. If any accused soul was protesting concerning being set up, Yemi would make a nose mock on thr person in absentia and say,"If that was the truth, why haven't I been set up too, even after a long year in the prison service.

Yemi had been into the prison service right from his early days, while he was only twenty-five. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an upper credit in a Social Science course.

Yemi had heard the news of Deinde's sentence in a proper and elaborate manner now. He was to die by hanging in two weeks.

"Why such hasty judgment?" Yemi questioned the policeman who told him. "Isn't that a jungle justice?"

"I don't know for you o," the policeman replied him. It had always been that way. Yemi getting much interested more than the policemen themselves. They didn't like talking things to scrutiny yet they were policemen. If Yemi challenged them they would hide under the rug of not getting pay to parallel such task.

Yemi himself had been owed some month salary now, but he wasn't moved. At least he would be paid someday, he thought.

Yemi took his work with all the zeal needed for it. His mates had made mockery, calling him a 'workaholic' in the midst of 'alcoholics' since he wouldn't join them to take strong drinks.

It was Yemi's passion to always see to the affairs of arrested prisoners which made him have many prison cells to his charge, yet he wasn't a high-ranked civil servant. To call a spade a spade, Yemi had been underrated and undermined yet himself wouldn't mind since he believed he was doing it for the sake of the love he had for his country.

"God will reward me for it," he would tell those who have approached him to talk the matter through with him.

This story would sound unbelievable to his wife, Yemi thought. How would she believe the involvement of Mr Aluko in the murder case? The eagerness to get the news into 'the other Yemi's' ears became a propellant to hurry Yemi up. He wished he was home already.

As expected, Yemi's wife exclaimed when she heard it.

"I doubt it!" she yelled. "How could that clean man with such huge integrity do such a thing?"

"You don't know what politics could engender my dear Yemi," he said to his wife. "It's a dirty game!"

"But it can't be dirty to the extent of turning a philanthropist to a murderer so soon--I mean what's the correlation? I mean Aluko didn't declare himself as a contestant in the first place, his community forced him to do so for the betterment of this nation. So why will he do such wicked thing?"

Yemi's wife was already derailing from the principle she once upheld--that all accused persons were guilty indeed, but her wife still maintained his standpoint.

"Mr Aluko is my mentor my Yemi," Yemi told his wife. "But he's human hope you know. Humans change overnight, only God remains the same. My role model has been blindfolded by the dark garment of politics, I think."

It took Yemi's wife an extra time of ruminatings to accept it, though she was having a little doubt over the issue still.

Mr Aluko Peter was a renounced moralist who had propounded many theories in the Western part of the nation. He believed in the law of sowing and reaping so much, such that he was awarded for being the most generous citizen of Lagos at one time, yet the man used the money he got to promote a movement for youth empowerment and built a building where youths of the state could get in to learn some skills at a price unimaginably little.

Yemi drove home his point when he said, "Darling, you'll have to agree with me that politics is like a black ink that makes a thinker lack a good sense of judgement in a fleeting moment."

The statement Yemi just made was a statement written in one of Mr Aluko Peter's published books itself, making a satire of politics back then. Now himself ( Aluko) had put on the garment which he warned people against back then. The book was titled-POLITICS, A POISON TO BLACK NATIONS.

"Now our darling campaigner against politics is now vying for a position in it," Yemi spoke further. "In fact, my respect for him began to wade off that day he declared that he would be vying for a gubernatorial post in the forthcoming election."

"Uhm," Yemi's wife just kept breathing deep. She was speechless. "You're right dear, I'm bothered how people's inherent orientation could change over a short period of time."

Bimbo coughed to draw attention. She was bored of the talks now, yet she was the one who asked for it earlier, having her head on her father's head.

Bimbo had many strategies of cutting into a boring discussion without uttering a word. The cough she just released was one out of her many antics. At some other times, she would rise up swiftly and begin to sneeze 'crocodile sneezes' into the tender atmosphere. She could also run out of the room sometimes such that her mother would need to run after her to see what was wrong with her.

Bimbo had some childish attitudes to such end as well. She could poke her fingers into her dad's mouth like babies do sometimes while in a lying posture-all aiming at causing distraction.

Bimbo's cough was not taken into account this time around as the couple were already too deep into the yammer that it appeared nothing would stop them. They were always at their elements when political arguments were concerned, yet they would be supportive to the idea of getting actively involved in it.

Yemi's half-brother, Yomi, who aimed to be a Councillor of a town back then, was not given the nod by Yemi, his younger brother, who rather advised him to take up some other things, supporting him financially to set up a little commercial firm at last.

When Bimbo's coughing strategy wouldn't pull a pin, she was forced to voice out her desire:

"Daddy, enough of this a-thing you brought from work and let me share my own a-thing with you which I brought from school!"

Yemi could not resist the 'package'. He was not the type who loved to ignore any family member. He must let Bimbo say something now. But the look on the face of the 'other Yemi' was the one of displeasure. She wished the Deinde-Aluko issue would continue nonstop.

"Okay Bimbo, say on-we're all ears," Yemi said lovingly. "So--?"

"Daddy, guess what it is?"

"I should guess abi? Em, uh, ahn..." Yemi put a finger across his forehead in thought.

Bimbo was cackling like a firecracker. Her mum had warned her several time not to laugh in such manner anymore. To scare her out, she had playfully told her that such throaty laughter could cause sore throat.

"Bimbo!" she tapped her daughter again. Bimbo gave her an eye. She knew what her mother was talking about. She faced her father again and said, " Daddy, waiting..."

"You beat up a boy in school today?" Yemi said.

"No, no, no," Bimbo's head went in the negative manner. "Guess again daddy!"

"You spat into your teacher's face," Yemi put out another funny one.

"No, guess again."

"You damaged your seat intentionally?"

"No, guess again daddy."

The other Yemi cut in as she faced her husband and said, "Daddy Yemi, you too should try to guess something reasonable jare!"

"Are they not reasonable enough?" Yemi japed.

"En, o risinebu looto o," Yemi's wife spoke in irony.

---

It's reasonable indeed

---

"Daddy, can't you guess right for once?" her daughter challenged her. Yemi got up playfully and pulled up his trouser, turning it to the 'floorphobic' type one would see typical of olden days village headmasters. Then he sat down again in such funny look and said, "Oya, mo ti ready."

---

Alright, I am ready now.

---

"So, what's your guess?" Bimbo said amidst laughter. Shw couldn't help but laugh at her father's funny look now.

"You farted a fat fatty fart in class today," Yemi released yet another funny one. This time around, it was everyone who burst into laughter.

"Ha, ha, ha!" Bimbo laughed. "Daddy, guess something good joor."

"You won a quiz competition, right?"

"No, guess again."

"You cracked a rib-cracking joke in class."

"No, guess again."

"You, you, you you you..." Yemi had run out of idea. He had lost 'signal'. Her wife was the more bored. She wanted the political talks brought back with immediate effect. To get it on again, she felt it would be best to terminate the childish 'guess again' of her daughter by revealing the secret in Bimbo's conspicuous auspicious face. She knew what Bimbo had wrapped up in the 'moin-moin leaves' of guess again.

"Bimbo took first position in school--first overall."

"Oh my God!" Yemi screamed. "How did I forget to ask for her result in the first place? Ka, ka, ka, ka, ka," Yemi made a 'tongue-on-teeth' clicking sound to show his disappointment in himself.

Bimbo was gutted. She hated the way her mother terminated her fun. She had squinted her face now, getting ready to unleash her childish anger on anyone who 'found her trouble'.

"Why did you have to tell daddy?" she confronted her mother.

"You would have done the same, wouldn't you?" her mother said in a smiling face, not a bit sorry for her deed.

"But you should have let him hear it from the horse's mouth," Bimbo complained. Sadly, she began to walk out of the parlour into her bedroom, ignoring her parent's call

"Bimbo is like me," Yemi said. "I am proud of her. What is her overall percentage?"

"95%," his wife said.

"Splendid! I'm impressed!" Yemi was glad. "What about that boy?" he added.

"That boy? He is nowhere to be found this time around--has 75%," his wife said. The boy in question had always been the only person posing academic threat at Bimbo. He was equally good, but this time around, he went behind Bimbo by 20%.

"So who is the second best overall?"

"Who knows?" she replied lackadaisically and quickly chipped in, "En-hen, do you really think Deinde is right about saying that the philanthropist sent him the murder?"

"He wouldn't have said so," Yemi replied. "Tell me, what does he stand to gain by telling a lie concerning his sender?"

"So--you go for a belief in Deinde's talk, isn't it?"

"Of course yes," he was tensed. "What cannot happen in politics?"

"What do you think darling? Do you think Deinde will be hanged so soon?"

"I don't think so," Yemi doubted. "Not when the accused Governorship candidate hasn't owned up to the allegation against him."

"I'm thinking that way too," said Yemi's wife.

"As a matter of fact, I'm envisaging a court case to be prolonged for years," Yemi said. "Meaning that Deinde will live long behind closed bars, perhaps under my charge," Yemi smiled.

"Uhm," she sighed. "How I wish Deinde was telling a lie," she concluded softly, having some feeling of pity for the indicted gubernatorial candidate of the Harmony Party.

"Well...all I want is justice," Yemi cupped his hand and put it over his mouth to do some yawns into it. "What shall we use to celebrate our daughter's success jare?"

"Toast bread and orange juice."

"That's good," said Yemi. "Have you gotten them?"

"I'll go get them," she said. "But we need to ask mama first," she added, fondly calling her daughter 'mama'.

"It's true. She might want to celebrate it with garri and kulikuli instead," Yemi joked and they laughed.

Really, the family was such which was made strong by series of persiflages.
[/b]

Sammy Hoe: MISS UNIVERSE I SEE U O OO O O

I SEE YOU TOO

JigsawKillah:

how 3Dimension name no go dey 1st batch? Check am again oo
i no gree

na 2nd batch them go put my name.
I be don dey think say them just collect my money carry fake admission gimme o.

Thanks baba.

[b]

Good morning friends!!!

Morning MEAL!!!

CHAPTER THREE

As Yemi trudged along a tarmacked road, the look on his face turned around dramatically. He had just seen someone he saw around the high court premises two days back--the harsh-looking face of a stout, dirty man.

Yemi didn't make a mistake as regards the young man's appearance. It was the man Yemi almost directed his question to outside the court that day.

"It's that man!" Yemi spoke to himself. At first he thought it was a coincidence seeing him again

Yemi intentionally changed his course of motion and entered another lane, a tattered dusty street which seemed more like a slum regarding the loads of dustbin dumped around even after some attempts had been made by some lover of sanitation to write: DUMP YOUR REFUSE HERE AND LOSE YOUR LIFE.

What was the choice left for those poor Lagosians to make when there was no way they could dump their refuse since the government refuse bus had refused to ply their steeets for months to convey their dirts away.

Obviously Yemi wasn't happy about the pitiable condition of the Agege area of Lagos state. He detested seeing clay huts all around in an urban settlement.

"Ghetto in Lagos," Yemi said. "And this people will be thinking in their minds that they're living in Lagos."

Yemi wanted to spit when the stench from the stinking refuse began to ooze into his nostrils. He wondered how people around were coping with the pollutions that would result.

Yemi had forgotten about the thought of being trailed behind by somebody when he suddenly saw the man emerge at the other end of the street.

"Is this man monitoring me?" Yemi whispered to himself. He had begun to get scared.

Yemi entered a wooden canteen just beside a slum and settled on a bench whose length was as large as the length of the shop itself. The floor of the canteen was bare and not cemented at all. His feet had raised dust when he tramped his foot against the floor earlier. He had to shield his nostrils with a handkerchief.

Yemi was peeping out of the door of the canteen to see if the man would pass by, then he would know if he was actually being followed.

"What do you want?" a female voice came up close to Yemi's ear. She was the owner of the canteen, which was standing lopsidedly between two slums. It would have been better used for a cement store rather than a food canteen.

Government should financially join hands with sanitation workers to see that such eyesores are demolished in a city that was assumed by all to be embellished with beauty, Yemi thought.

"Oga, I say what do you want?" the woman spoke in Yoruba the second time. It was conspicuous that she was an illiterate. She had some vertical-upon horizontal tribal marks on her cheeks which one would have passed for the claw impressions of a lion probably during a fierce battle with it.

"Er, okay give me pounded yam, two wraps and fish," Yemi spoke without thinking much on it. He desired to be there for sometimes to avoid the man who seemed to be following him everyehere.

"Alrice sah," the woman spoke with a parlance laden with the burden of village illiteracy. She hadn't ever passed the way of school, Yemi must have thought.

The woman came with the food. At the sight of the ewedu soup instead of the melon soup he had assumed the woman would bring, Yemi recoiled and voiced out his heart:

"I don't like ewedu soup," Yemi complained.

"O o o," the woman grumbled. "Bring it."

Yemi saw her put her unwashed hand into the ewedu soup and held the fish in it, which he threw back into the pot of fish. It was a disgusting sight to behold for Yemi.

Yemi had already lost interest, having begun to perceive an indignant pungent smell. The air was stale, so it was certain the smell would last long in there.

Yemi got up as the woman was bringing the food.

"I am not eating anymore," Yemi said. A housefly sounding across his brain had put him off totally. Housefly was hovering round him when he hadn't begun eating, how much more when he began to eat the food. Surely, they would come in their multitude to dance 'galala' inside his watery melon soup, Yemi thought.

"What did you say?" the woman put the food on the table and said, bringing her ears close to Yemi as if she meant what she just said.

"I say I don't want to eat anymore," Yemi said confidently.

"Ta lo ma wa sanwo eleyi?"

---

who will now pay for this?

---

[/b]

[b]Bimbo was now bored. She was longing to have the topic changed immediately. Yemi had often called Bimbo a lazy girl just because she wouldn't buy the idea of staying too long listening to stories as such, yet she would be the one to ask for it.

Bimbo was pulling at her father's chin as she lay her head on his laps. Yemi knew exactly what she meant.

"I know what you want, Bimbo," her father said with a smile.

"Then give it to me daddy," Bimbo replied. The other Yemi frowned and said, "Dear, this girl will get spoilt in our hands if we keep giving her everything as she wanted."

"Let's give her," said Yemi. "At least she's our only begotten son."

They laughed when Yemi mentioned 'only begotten son'.

"Deinde's talk, isn't it?" Yemi asked. She nodded in the positive.

"Well...I guess he'll be remaining in prison till Mr Aluko's case is over."

"Like how many days?" Bimbo asked. It was as though she wasn't buying the idea of leaving Deinde too long in the cell.

"Days you say?" Yemi laughed. "It's better you say years-perhaps two to three years or forever."

"Ah!" Bimbo screamed. She was sad. Then she asked tenderly, "Dad, are you not the one watching over him?"

"Yes I am," Yemi said, having no clue what she would say next.

"Then can't you get him out of there?" Bimbo said in a childish manner. "What are you waiting for?"

It caught Yemi and his wife off guard. It had never occurred to them that Bimbo could say such a thing--setting a criminal free.

Yemi clicked her nose playfully and said, "Bimbo, you sound funny. What power does an ordinary warder like me has?"

Bimbo's mother was just laughing, talking amidst her laughter. She had to hold on to the edge of the chair to prevent herself from falling. Bimbo hated such kind of laughter. She was teed up.

"Mum, you just keep laughing at me on something that's not funny," she voiced out, pointing at her.

"It's because you're talking silly talks," her mother replied playfully. "Maybe you shouldn't put your small mouths in big matters anymore.

Bimbo hated being called a small-mouthed thing, just as she hated being called big-mouthed too. Her mother had always referred to her as both on different times as occasion demanded.

"Mummy stop it!" she screamed and sulked. Bimbo was always a serious person, taking every joke seriously. This had earned her names amidst her mate, calling her, "Aunty Jeje".

Bimbo wouldn't go provoking people to anger and she would want to be treated in exactly the same way. In such regard, she was like her grandfather, her mother's father who died when she(Bimbo) was only eight. That man was a no-nonsense man.

Yemi had to check through a buttered bread which Deinde's younger sister would pass to him. At first, Yemi stared long into the young lady's face. She had such a familar face of someone he saw not quite long.

"Seems I've seen this face before," Yemi asked.

"Yes, at the court," the lady said. Yemi remembered at once. She was the same smiling lady back then, whose smile turned into a whine when Yemi approached her to ask how the case went.

"And who are you to Deinde?" Yemi probed further.

"A sister," she said.

"Younger or older," Yemi wanted to know, yet it was conspicuous. The lady grinned and said, "Oga, you should know so well. Can't you see I'm not more than twenty? My brother is going to be twenty-six next month," she said and then burst into tears.

Yemi wondered what a moody person she was. She could be smiling this moment and at the next, weeping. Such kind of lady wouldn't be good for a housewife," Yemi thought. You'd be hurting her unknowingly, she would be smiling, only to burst out weeping and accusing you one day.

Yemi was moved to pet her, but he wouldn't. He was only doing his job, wasn't he? Instead, he shifted his attention to the bread and said, "Where did you get this bread from?"

"It's Agege bread," she spoke in a tert manner.

"Agege or Ajegunle bread is not what matters here. I mean to say how did you come about this bread or let me put it this way, who gave the bread to you?"

"Who?" she said and laughed fleetingly. "Of course I bought it from a street hawker."

"Do you know where the hawker resides?" Yemi asked. It sounded funny to her.

"How would I know?" she frowned.

"Well...I'm just after the safety of your brother Deinde and I think...that's all," Yemi said. "Em...what's that name of yours?"

"Desola," she said immediately.

"Em...sister Desola, you'll have to taste part of the bread," said Yemi. A little wrinkle gathered on her forehead as she said, "How would I poison my brother?"

"I didn't say you want to, did I?" Yemi said. "Of course it's hard outside there now, or don't you think the hawker may want to get that done?"

"Impossible!" said Desola.

"Then prove it!" Yemi said.

Angrily, Desola tore out a large chunk off the bread and scooped it into her mouth. Then she managed to say, "Can you see that?"

"Pass," he gave her a go-ahead. "Only two minutes."

Deinde's sister was very much emotional. It was as if the 'two-minute' time limit was only useful for her to weep, and now when she was about to say something meaningful, Yemi was there, shouting, "Madam, your time is up!"

"Be patient Oga warder!" Deinde retorted arrogantly. Yemi stared at him and did not know what to say, though his heart was saying, 'Who give him the gut to yell at me like that?"

Desola left soon after.[/b]

Where the fams dey na??
Make una come i done too chop oo
i no wan choke woh

JigsawKillah: Where the fams dey na??
Make una come i done too chop oo
i no wan choke woh

den don taya to dey chop nah
me sef go soon stop cooking be dat

[b]Yemi passed by a woman roasting corns for sale. The flakes of the coal beneath the red hot gauze kept spreading in the air as she blew air on it with a local handfan.

The sight was provoking Yemi to anger, which he had to fight hard to keep under control.

"Air pollution," Yemi grumbled, his head turned to one side, looking at the sight still. "Only God knows where we're going in this country."

The corn seller noticed him when she raised up her head and said, "Do you want to--" she sneezed into the corn, "buy corn?"

"No, thanks," Yemi said and increased his pace. He wasn't going to call for the repetition of the happening in the canteen few days back.

Yemi remembered the man who helped him out that day--very haggard but nice, he thought.

"Truly, it's not good to judge by appearance," Yemi said.

Yemi's thought was racing from one to another. He knew his daughter, Bimbo would be eagerly waiting for him now. She would be expecting some 'a-things' he would bring home that hazy morning.

Sometimes when Yemi was on night duty, Bimbo would delay her departure to school just to wait at home for her father's arrival to share those prison experiences, only to get to school late and get punished, yet she hadn't learnt her lessons.

The cloud was getting darker. Iy was as though a heavy downpour would soon visit the face of the earth.

Yemi began to make haste towards the bus stop because of the fear he was harbouring for the nimbostratus cloud above his head, believing that the would pour heavily very soon.

It was a Saturday morning. Now the brightness of the morning had turned glum as though an eclipse was happening. The cloud began to unleash its tears upon the earth in trickles. The birds lay spread-eagled across the face of the sky, swarming homeward.

Yemi's home was still quite a long distance away. Earlier, he was planning to trek home, since he had nothing serious to go home to do, but now he needed to take a taxi.

Yemi was still thinking about getting a taxi when one pulled up before the little shed where he was shielding himself from the rain in the company of two goats and a chicken. Those creatures were shivering very severely.

Yemi ran out of his hiding place to get into the taxi. On his way, he plodded into a puddle and some dirty water splashed all over his body. He didn't wait to look at the mess all over, because he didn't want to miss the taxi.

Yemi sat beside the driver at the front. They were the only two in the car.

"How much is the money?" Yemi asked the driver and he told him.

The car chugged on without any exchange of further verbal communication. Yemi was half-way into the journey when he peeped into the side mirror and saw the face of the driver clearly. It was the same man who bailed him out of the tribal-marked faced woman in the canteen the week before.

Yemi faced the man and said, "Wow! It's you again!"

The driver's face turned right towards Yemi.

"Do I know you sir?" he asked politely.

"Yes, Yemi replied. "You paid for me in the canteen last week."

"Oh!" the huge dirty young man exclaimed with glee. "Don't mind that woman. She's too tough."

"It's not her fault," Yemi gave a prompt reply. "I should have--"

"I forgot to ask for your name sir," the driver cut in.

"Oh, I'm Yemi sir," Yemi said. He was expecting him to tell his name in return but the man was silent about his own name, probably because he had to battle the steering to avoid plodding into a ditch which he saw just when they were close to reaching it. He had the control eventually.

"Michael, that's my name," said the man.

"So, you drive taxi?" Yemi said.

"That's what I do sir. Any problem?"

"Nothing," said Yemi. "I'm a warder too."

"Okay."

Yemi was seeing the man as a very special fellow. It was rare having a driver in Lagos speak politely to you. Starting from the way they charge you when you board their buses or taxis to the way they wanted you down immediately you got to your destination, one would never want to make friends with them.

"You're somehow special," Yemi said of the young man in his mid thirties.

"How?" the driver asked in a puzzled manner.

"Your gentle manner, your good intonation, your good communication skills, unlike many other drivers on the road who are always drunk early in the morning."

"Are you sure you are not flattering me?" the huge man said. He was smiling.

"Sure," said Yemi. "When I saw the way you dressed, I was hasty to judge you as one of the hooligans on the street, but you have proven to me beyond all reasonable doubt that you are different."

"Uhn," the driver made a sound. "This job of ours doesn't give us much time to take good care of our body, that's why you see me always rough as this. Of course driving vehicle isn't an office job. And putting on tie isn't going to go well with us."

The conversation went on and on as both of them revealed more things about their personal lives, family, work, exposure and more.

The taxi driver was generous and kind enough in Yemi's perspective. He had just dropped him around his house.

"Here's my home," Yemi said as he got ready to get down. By then the rain had stopped. It wasn't a serious rain, having stopped just within five minutes it began.

"Great! You've got a good home here," said the taxi driver.

Yemi counted two hundred naira, in twenty naira denomination and put it forward but the driver rejected it.

"Keep your money Mr Yemi, said Michael.

Yemi was surprised. It hadn't happened to him, a driver asking him not to pay for transport fare. All the ones he had met in the past, even the ones who lived in his neighbourhood, must make sure he remitted their monies to them even till the last penny.

Yemi could recall the incidence the month ago when he waved down a car which seemed to be a private one. The owner made him feel comfortable as if he was giving him a lift (free ride) but when Yemi got to his destination, the man asked him for money.

"Do you mean I shouldn't pay sincerely?" Yemi wanted to be sure of what he heard.

"Yes, I'm giving you a free ride sir," Michael said.

"It's becoming every day issue now, last time you paid for me in the canteen and this time again you're giving me a free lift. Thank you."

"Sir, I don't mind helping you again and again," Michael said.

Yemi was suspecting something. The young man was Michael by name--what a similarity? He could be angel Michael, Yemi thought in a sheepish manner.

"Mr. Michael, won't you come in with me to know my family and have hot coffee with us? It's cold out there as you can see."

"Don't bother Mr. Yemi," Michael spoke politely. "I'll take my leave now. Bye sir."

Michael turned the ignition key and the taxi revved to life.

Yemi remained on the spot, wondering:

"Hope I'm not already seeing my guardian Angel. He's always going everywhere to help me now. This is serious. If I see him one more time helping me, then no doubt he's the Angel Michael in heaven," Yemi talked to himself.[/b]

Sammy Hoe:

den don taya to dey chop nah
me sef go soon stop cooking be dat

no stop cooking oo
na d blast make dem dey fear to come out

SAW

[color=#990000][b]Bimbo had been up since 6am, expecting the return of her father. When the rain began earlier, she was sad, knowing for sure that it would delay her father's return.

Childishly, she thought she could get the rain away by singing a popular poem, 'Rain Rain, Go Away."

Coincidentally, the rain stopped just in five minutes, such that her mother was seriously amazed.

"Bimbo, do you know what you've just done?"

"What?" Bimbo asked.

"You've just held the rain," she said. "Do you know what that means?"

"What could it mean?"

Bimbo's mother sat her down and began to feed her with superstitious beliefs and stories which sounded more like fables and myth. She told her of a very great man in the Yoruba kingdom who would help people bind up rain such that it wouldn't fall whenever they were going to have some big occasion.

The most scary part of the story to Bimbo was how the great rain-commander died mysteriously at his last attempt of holding back rain.

"A great thunder from God struck him and tore him apart," her mother said.

"Ah!" Bimbo screamed. She was scared. It was then Yemi arrived.

"I'm home!" Yemi screamed and threw his shirt at the sofa in his careless manner whenever he was at home.

Bimbo ran to give him a hug.

"Daddy!" she yelled when she hugged him.

"Welcome back," Yemi's wife greeted him.

"Daddy, how was the night?" Bimbo asked her father.

"Good," he said. "Deinde's snore made it bad anyway."

Bimbo laughed.

"Good for you daddy!"

"Good for me you say?" Yemi posed as if he was serious. "Bimbo what is my offence?"

"You should have set Deinde free," said Bimbo. "At least you could have had a sound sleep if he wasn't there anymore."

Yemi's wife hissed. Even Yemi himself was surprised at the dimension his daughter had taken to approach the matter this time again, such an a priori way, Yemi thought. He pulled his daughter close and whispered, "Bimbo, how would you feel if I don't come home from workplace anymore?"

"For what reason?" Bimbo was scared. Her mother countered her as she said, "Answer your daddy's question and stop asking questions for questions--how we you feel?"

"I won't feel anything," Bimbo took them aback, "because I will die," and their shocks disappeared.

Yemi sighed and replied, "If I let Deinde get away free, then I will have to take his place in the cell."

"Then don't help him again!" Bimbo said without brooding over it. The couple laughed.

Bimbo didn't want to here anymore thing about Deinde. The chapter was closed since setting him free would be to her father's detriment. It isn't worth it, she thought.

Bimbo had to walk away when it seemed her parents were just going to open the Deinde talk afresh.
[/b][/color]

Comments by people in those days:


Zeinymira: I hope for Yemi's sake,Micheal is really the Angel Michael. Great story Sammy.

Thank you my sister o.
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by okalo: 10:32pm On Jun 01
Peepin......nobody is at home!!! I beta run b4 dem catch me say i don devour d meal
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by peksmay(f): 11:36pm On Jun 01
Hmmm yoga Michael pls declare your mission o.
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by Akinkudin: 12:13am On Jun 02
Thanks Sammy.
*Goes to check the traps and sees Okalo*
so you came to eat & run, that's why the trap caught your trouser..lol
*sets Okalo free* better be more carefulgrin
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by Sammy Hoe: 1:30am On Jun 02
Akinkudin: Thanks Sammy.
*Goes to check the traps and sees Okalo*
so you came to eat & run, that's why the trap caught your trouser..lol
*sets Okalo free* better be more carefulgrin

So you set trap inside house for human beings? angry
*flogging Akinkudin...*
Next time don't set trap inside house for your brothers and sisters again okay? grin
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by Akinkudin: 1:51am On Jun 02
Sammy Hoe:
So you set trap inside house for human beings? angry
*flogging Akinkudin...*
Next time don't set trap inside house for your brothers and sisters again okay? grin
lol..all traps removed for now
*in a little kid's voice* I'll not be your friend again
(You can always give me candy to appease me thoughgrin)
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by Sammy Hoe: 2:14am On Jun 02
Meal is ready tongue

My people what do you think? Should Yemi's keep getting close to Michael? Is Michael really a divine being? Has Yemi made any mistake by allowing a stranger get a better side of him? is Bimbo right in her early prediction that Deinde could be innocent. What reason did Aluko have to kill his rival or you think it is a set-up? All these things will begin to unfold in my next posts if only you air your thoughts now.
Thanks for following
Re: Honeymoon In Prison-By NL Best Writer May 2014 by Sammy Hoe: 2:17am On Jun 02
Akinkudin: lol..all traps removed for now
*in a little kid's voice* I'll not be your friend again
(You can always give me candy to appease me thoughgrin)

Sammy Hoe

when the rebirth is complete, u sef go dey tire for comments

i remember say i skip ebiag season 1 for one week before i finally decide to take a peek and now im glad i did

Sammy I still dey ur side o.

We still dey observe the "the reborn" as he dey happen for maternity ward.

If he don born finish people go greet congratulobia.




*weldone sir sammy*

3Dimension: We still dey observe the "the reborn" as he dey happen for maternity ward.

If he don born finish people go greet congratulobia.

*weldone sir sammy*

Thank you sir...

[b]It was evening again. Yemi would have to depart for work as usual. He hardly had time for rest, yet he wouldn't complain.

Yemi was the type of person one would call a patriot. He believed there shouldn't be anything one should keep away from his fatherland. He would serve his fatherland with all his might, even if he wasn't recognised.

Yemi had in mind the thought of catching a bus at the bus stop. If he was late, he would usually take a bike to the bus stop which was about half a kilometre away from his home. Now he wasn't late, so he began to trek.

Yemi's wife had waved a goodbye to him. She would miss him during the night. If Yemi was on day duty, his wife was always happy because he would have time for her to do like husband and wife in the cold of the dark.

The couple would talk far into the night after catching connubial pleasure.

Yemi's wife sat at the edge of the bed, her chin on her palm, thinking:

"Being a full-time house wife doesn't get me exposed," she thought. "And why am I even one now? Bimbo isn't a kid anymore. Why can't I just get a place to sell things--imported materials, and so on? I will tell Yemi when he returns," she concluded, yet knowing quite well that the savings available was only geared towards getting a car to ease off Yemi's stress of trekking or rushing to get buses at the bus stations.

Yemi's wife had raised this same issue earlier and he had agreed to get her a place to do her trade. It was around that time Yomi lost his job, Yomi being Yemi's half elder brother.

Yomi had to come to his younger brother to lend him some money then. It was something very touching and Yemi consulted his wife who agreed to lend Yomi the sum of money which he hadn't been able to pay back till date. This, however, did not reduce the love of the two brothers for each other.

Meanwhile Yemi's wife was busy thinking in her room, Yemi was on the way to the bus-stop. He hadn't gone too far when he sighted a heap of refuse dumped on the site adjacent his home, yet on a little sign post on the land was written: IF YOU DUMP REFUSE HERE, GOD WILL DUMP REFUSE INSIDE YOUR LIFE.

Yemi blushed in anger.

"Are people blind not to have seen this? And they still dumped the refuse there? *O ma se o," he shook his head.
*It's a pity


Yemi calculatingly allowed his mind flow into the thoughts of the hazards land pollution would bring with it.

"People lack morality in this nation," he spoke with deep concern and spat when he discovered a mound of fresh human faeces peeping out of the moin-moin leaves it was having as covering initially.

"All this early morning shi*tter shaaaa!" he spoke in Yoruba ans turned his eyes away from the sight.

Yemi was conscious of time. He didn't want to get to work late. If only he could get a bike to take him to the bus-stop now, then he would be glad.

Yemi raised his right wrist to his face to check the time, but found it empty.

"Oh! I forgot to strap my watch. The other Yemi didn't remember to help me strap it. How did she forget that?"

Yemi reached for the watch in his pocket and fixed it hurriedly.

Yemi was soon carried away with a poster he had just found on a well-painted wall of a house by the road:

Hindustani Temple:
Get your ring for favour
Give birth to triplets
Get spiritual power
Get protection from accident
Call Rajahadhutan on 08034572...

Yemi's attention was diverted to the sound of the vehicle incessantly permeating the cool environment.

Who is horning this way? Yemi thought. He was surprised when he discovered it was a taxi familiar to him.

"Hello Mr Yemi," said a head peeping out of the window. It was 'angel Michael' again.

"Hey! You again?" Yemi was shocked.

"I dropped someone close by just now sir and I decided to check on you at home when I caught sight of you just now," said Michael.

"You are too generous," said Yemi. "I'm on duty as you can see and I'm on my way to the bus stop to get a bus."

"Where in particular is your workplace sir, perhaps our way could tally?"

"Alagbon," Yemi replied quickly.

"Great!" Michael exclaimed. "I can take you to Alagbon because I'm picking up a passenger on the way who is also going to Alagbon. You cab get inside sir."

Michael eagerly stretched to get his hand on the door behind to open it for Yemi. He got inside and began to consider himself lucky again.

As soon as Yemi settled down, he sighed and said, "Gentleman, you're an angel--helped me in the canteen, drove me home this morning and now, this evening again..."

"Don't mention," the driver spoke as if he was timid.

"But I'll surely pay you for your service this time around Angel Michael."

"Of course you'll pay me if you insist," the driver said in a smile as the car chugged on.

Yemi criticised the government under his breath as the car danced 'disco' along the sinusoidal road full of bumps and potholes. The hiccup of a road was something Yemi hated about Lagos.

The disgusting thing about the potholes was the way in which they were filled with water as a result of the early morning heavy downpour. Such water may not dry up in the next two days.

Michael had shown much driving skills and adroitness at the wheel so far, avoiding all the voids and climbing on the hill-like bumps in a soft manner. However, he got it wrong ones and a pedestrian laid a strong curse on him for his err, having splashed some murky water on her body.

"You are mad!" she hollered, gesticulating her annoyance with the spread of her fingers at him insultingly, but Michael was humane enough to have made an apologetic move by halting the car beside her, putting his head out of the window and saying, "I'm very sorry madam."

Yemi's respect for Michael became more pronounced. Angel or no angel, Michael had exhibited some characters considered morally sound in the view of a moralist like himself, thought Yemi.

Outward appearance can be misleading, Yemi thought. Just like the pharisees of the 2000AD who were clean outwardly but inwardly they were like ravening wolves. But the Michael here was in direct contrast, rough outwardly but clean and spotless inwardly.

Traffic jam! They were stuck.

"Oh God!" Michael banged the steering in disappointment mingled with frustration in the ratio 'it-is-not-easy-to-be-a-lagosian'.

"What's that? Hold up?" Yemi asked, being jolted out of his thought. Himself had caught a glimpse of the traffic congestion aftermath from the window.

"It's hold up again o," Michael said. "And you're almost late for work sir." Michael showed much concern for Yemi in particular.

To some, the hold-up was a plus. It would pave way for them to hawk their wares. Some were selling puff puff while others had bags of pure water on their shoulders.

"Buy yoghurt!"

"Kphun! Kphun!" it was a hissing sound common to puff puff sellers, accompanied with the clicking sound of their forks against their showglasses.

"Gala yes."

"Paper ngala!" a newspaper vendor was shouting.

"*Kari ile! Omo a bere oun e mu b'ode," it was the chinchin seller. The plantain chip seller was also using the same tone.
*Goes round the house, your child will ask what you bring from your outing


"*Robo Abeokuta re e!"
Here's robo from Abeokuta


Robo was a round peppery snack like kulikuli, which Bimbo loved to eat so much. Yemi would have bought it but he changed his mind. He would buy it in the morning while returning home because Bimbo had asked him to get some for her.

Something that always got Yemi soaked in laughter was the sight of the road sellers hawking bitter kola. Even Kolanut selling in the traffic mess was a bad business to him let alone bitter kola business.

If this could sell in Lagos, then a human dung selling and marketing business enterprise should thrive in Lagos too, Yemi's thought.
Michael's car joined in the forward march in the traffic jam queue. A lorry was reported to have knocked its engine few metres ahead of them.

"Thank God say na engine hin knock say hin no knock important person like me down," a young igbo boy selling 'eku gum' said in pidgin.
eku gum: gum on thick paper used for catching little rats


Michael's body was shaking visibly now as if he should manoeuvre his way out of the nose-to-nose vehicle transit, but there wasn't a way out of it.[/b]

GOOD MORNING PEEPS


[b]Story Continuation...


Michael roughened his already roughened hair in anxiety. It was as if he wanted to meet a deadline.

"Sir, are you not already late for work?" he asked Yemi at last.

"Well...what can we do about it?" Yemi said in a relaxed manner. He had already resigned to fate.

Yemi was watching all the gestures Michael was making. If it was for his sake Michael was shaking like that, then indeed he had his love at heart.

As if Michael was a mind reader, he said, "Sir, as for me I have nothing doing apart from this, but for your sake I have to find a way out of this mess."

"Thank you very much mister Michael," Yemi was impressed.

Michael began to pass by the brink of the road, just to see if he could go out of the jam faster. The car was bending in such a way that Yemi thought it would tumble over. They had to beg other drivers every now and then before they could get back on line.

"This country sickens me," Michael said.

Yemi's bones and muscles were hyperactive in response to the kind of talk Michael had just introduced.

"Yes o, my brother. You're not the only one. Sometimes I just get bored and asked myself, why am I born into this nation?"

"Our leaders are crazy," Michael said.

"Yes, it's the truth," Yemi accepted. "Democracy is a demonstration of craziness."

"Where do you get that statement from? I love it!" Michael said with an excited face.

"From the book, Politics, A Poison To Black Nations, wtitten by Aluko Peter."

"You don't mean it!" Michael exclaimed. "And that man is in jail now, isn't he?"

"Not yet," Yemi said. "Not until his accuser has been fully proven right."

"But what do you think sir? Do you think the man did what he is indicted for?"

Yemi grinned. He had heard such question from at least a dozen mouths just within a week--a newscaster, journalists on TV, his wife, his daughter, his half-brother, his colleague im his workplace and now Michael was asking too.

"I was Mr Aluko's fan until this debilitating news came up few weeks ago, but my stance is that nothing can't happen in politics, Nigerian politics," Yemi divulged his opininon.

Yemi didn't even realise when the road became free, being highly engrossed in the political discourse with his newly found friend, or guardian angel.

"Sir, I'm stopping here briefly to pick up that passenger I told you about," Michael said as he made the taxi slowpoke going towards the side of the road. Yemi watched an obese pregnant woman scamper out of the road with her baby. She had one strapped to her back, two held to her grips and a load on her head. Seemed she was waiting for a bus to board. One would have to trust Lagos drivers, they wouldn't pick her up, just because of the delay she would constitute in getting settled in their buses.

Fat people, let alone pregnant and heavy laden 'labouring women', were always denied space on Lagos commercial vehicles. If at all they would get in, they would have to pay for double space.

Yemi pitied the woman.

"Hmm," he sighed.

Michael pulled up in front of a man who had a long face cap over his face. He was young and seeming to be bequeathed with ebullience. His eyes sparked out life, being in his early youthful age.

He seemed to be in his mid-twenties. However, he was looking rough too.

"I've been waiting for long Michael," he said as he got into the cab.

"There's one big go-slow around that T-junction, Gabriel," Michael said.

"And another traffic jam is waiting ahead," said Gabriel. "I was just coming from that way now. "Can we just change route?"

Michael introduced Yemi to Gabriel.

"Geebu, meet Oga Yemi, my friend in recent time."

Gabriel bowed his head for Yemi since he was old enough to be his uncle.

"How are you?" Yemi greeted him like a VIP.

"Fine sir," Gabriel answered.

Michael wanted to be sure of the news Gabriel just brought, so he asked him again, "Do you mean we should leave this main road?"

"Yes o, Michael," he said. "There's a heavy checking point ahead, causing a stand still. We will just fall headlong if we are not careful. I hope Mr Yemi hear isn't in a hurry," the young man turned to Yemi.

"In fact I'd be late if we get into another traffic stand still," Yemi blew out his mind. "Are there still other route?"

"Routes abound Mr Yemi," Michael said. "It's just that they are within streets and they could be longer, that's all."

"Then let's try one of them," Yemi said, seeking a respite from the continuous traffic jams on such part of the road.

"Let's go there!" Michael said in a funny way and then manoeuvred his way into the street abutting the expressway.

The ringroad was messed up with dust since it had never been tarred as it appeared, perhaps for donkeys years. There was no street lamp on the sides of the street, Ajetunmobi street. Just few houses were on it.

Yemi watched as the taxi went down into the street, then to another and to another until hr wasn't able to count. The last one they entered seemed to be a close which was culminating into a bush.

Yemi was surprised. He was about to raise a brow when a terrible blow rocked the centre of his forehead. Yemi went with his side down in the bus but was remaining conscious.

For such a devastating blow to have come from Gabriel, a twenty-five to twenty-six year old stippling, he must be under the influence of something.

"W-what's happening?" Yemi whispered with all the strength monetarily left in him.

Michael had parked the car to join Gabriel at the back. When Michael came around laughing, Yemi raised his head in disbelief to look into his face and then said in a cold voice, "What have I done?"

Michael didn't give a reply. He had begun to blindfold him with a red piece of cloth.
[/b]

[b]Yemi felt four hands bearing his weight away. His mind was far gone. He had no hope and no strength. Perhaps, if he knew Gabriel would land a bantam weight blow on his cerebral cavity, he would have been at alert. Now the pain had gone too deep into his coordinating system such that he almost had stroke.

It was like an earthquake. Seemed the damage at the epicentral part of the blow receptor had come to stay. Yemi got saliva running down his mouth uncontrollably. He had shut his eyes as though he would die.

Yemi was dumped in a room. By then, he had passed into comatose.

Yemi woke up to reality quite soon. His face had just been baptised in cold water, a chilling one. As he opened his eyes, he saw Michael standing in front of him.

"Ha! Michael!" he yelled and then became dumbfounded. If anyone had told Yemi that Michael was going to betray him, he would have doubted it, since he hadn't seen any reason why anyone should do these to him.

"What have I done?" Yemi stared up at Michael with a confused face.

Michael gripped him by the chin and jerked him up. His legs were off the ground. Then he spat on his face and threw him at the floor.

"What's happening to me?" Yemi was weeping.

"You'll soon know," Michael said and walked away lackadaisically. Yemi began to experience whirlpool. It was as though the whole room was turning around like a turnstile or a rigmarole.

Yemi had to lie on the floor flat, since he thought the turning experience was real and he could fall down.

He saw Gabriel smoking cigarette at a corner. Gabriel came close and offered him a stick.

"Gentleman, smoke St. Morris," Gabriel said.

"I can't!" Yemi replied. Cigarette smoking was totally against Yemi's moral standard of health. He hadn't smoked all his life.

"You can't or you don't?" Gabriel asked in a voice so deepened by the effect of continuous hemp smoking.

"I--I don't," Yemi said and soon had some tears on his face.

"You'll smoke by force today, or else I will smoke your head," Gabriel threatened, laughing. Yemi was scared. If only he had his hands free now, maybe he would have tried them at something to escape, but he had been tied up with a strong cord.

Gabriel lowered himself after lighting a stick. He was going to force it into Yemi's mouth. Yemi tightened up his lips against each other. Never would he allow it, even if it would mean death.

Gabriel's attempt to force it in was a sheer waste of time since Yemi was turning his mouth away all the time as he maintained the firm cohesive force between the lips.

"Are you mad?" Gabriel shouted at him when he found his three-minute effort in futility. Repulsively, Gabriel landed a heavy elbow blow on his spinal cord. The shock travelled through Yemi's body as he yelled "Yeee!"

Gabriel was not done yet. He was coming to do him more harm, but at the sight of an opulent newcomer, he halted and paid obeisance.

"Oga sir!" he saluted like a soldier. The face of the newcomer was critical. He looked on at Gabriel with disgust as the smoke from the cigarette circulated the air. The newcomer had seen Gabriel drive the heavy blow into Yemi's back earlier.

"Hey Mr man, what are you doing with him?" he shouted at Gabriel at last. His voice commanded authority as Gabriel shook like a leaf tossed to and fro by the wind.

"I am very sorry sah!" Gabriel managed to speak correct English since the man had communicated to him in English too.

"Are you going to kill him before we use him?" the man frowned.

"I sorry so much sir," Gabriel released a grammatical blunder at last. The man then began to walk close to Yemi. He croutched before him and said, "Mr. Yemi the moralist, or am I wrong?"

Yemi could not say a word.

The newcomer was in a robe, expensive robe. He was light-skinned and fresh as if he hadn't lived under the heat of the belligerent Nigerian sun all his life. He had a dark goggle on his face and the cap on his head was long.

The newcomer's body structure would remind one of the famous dunlop elite cartoon for advertisement in the 90's where the likes of Michelin tyre service and so on were the reigning motor tyre service company in limelight back then.

Going by the man's dressing, one would call him a millionaire. His shoe could even be worth more than twenty thousand naira in the market. Yemi was afraid of the man, perhaps he was going to be sold to him for ritual.

Yemi hadn't seen much of the face of the man standing over him because he was having a dark pair of eyeglasses glommed to it, but going by the side view, he looked like the moralist himself, Aluko Peter. He had seen him in posters and pictures earlier, but in 2D.
[/b]

Almost there!

JigsawKillah: Almost there!

Yes o!

Good job boss, I guess we are lucky you have back-up! Almost there.

[b]Momoh put up a stern face as if he should ignite Yemi's burning cheek the more. Then he pulled him up by the collar and shouted, "You are a warder! You can set Deinde free for our sake!"

"I'll be doomed after!" Yemi managed to utter.

"Who cares?" Momoh hollered at his face. "Now listen Oga Yemi, you have five minutes to decide, else we'll blow you up, you as well as Bimbo and the other Yemi!"

Yemi was dazed on hearing that. How did he get to know his family? How on earth did he know that she was even called 'the other Yemi?'

With eyes looking punchy, Yemi beamed at Momoh as if he would zoom him with his eyes to magnify him far into an unimaginable ratio of image to object magnification in sciences. His heart resonated the fear his brain had generated by palpitating abnormally.

Gently, like a man fed up with life, he asked, "Do you know them?"

"If I don't, how would I have called them by their names?" Momoh said. There was silence for a little while.

Momoh turned his head away when Yemi was becoming slow at reacting. He shouted, "Gogo! Bring the phone here!"

The one who called himself Gabriel earlier rushed in with a telephone.

"Jaycee is online," Gogo cum Gabriel said and gave Momoh the phone. It was ringing.

Momoh passed the phone to Yemi and said, "Pick the call Mr man!"

"From whom?" Yemi asked. His hands were shaking. "He just boggled on like a patient undergoing a serious Parkinson's disease.

Yemi eventually picked the call and then, a voice shouted in agony from the other end:

"Yemi!"

"Yemi!" he replied. It was his wife.

"Yemi, they are here," said Yemi's wife in a cold voice now.

"They are here too," Yemi replied.

"They said they will kill us if you don't... do what they say," Yemi said, sobbing silently.

"Oh my God!" Yemi held his head. "I'm confused."

"Bimbo was..." Yemi's wife said, but her voice faded off at once. Seemed someone had taken the phone out of her grip. Yemi was scared. The incompleteness of the statement put him in a state of confusion.

A voice came up from the other end. It was a type of baritone voice which had been put out of order by the innate ability of marijuana.

"*Ogbeni, b'omo e soro!"
________________________________________
*Gentleman, speak with your child[/hr]

The voice sent cold fear into Yemi's spine. He feared that her 15-year old daughter had been ra*ped by the 'beasts' out there.

"Daddy!" Bimbo squeezed in.

"Bimbo!" Yemi spoke inquisitively. "What have they done to you?"

"Daddy! I'm dying here," Bimbo spoke with a voice so low, as if she had been laden with the burden of the whole earth.

"What? W-what did th-they do to you?" Yemi shivered as he asked.

"They...they beat me up like a thief," Bimbo burst into tears. "A gun is wounding my skull now!"

Yemi sniffed as his daughter said that. His ears were full. He couldn't stand it anymore. The thoughts began to flow now. Bimbo, Abimbola, her only daughter--the only sharp part of his cutlass, the apple of his eyes, now faced with a gun, or perhaps now having a gun on her face.

Yemi imagined the impression the hollow portion of the gun had made on his daughter's forehead, down into her suture joints around the skull. He could not even imagine how the other Yemi would feel over there, facing the horror of the error she didn't commit.

Now the reality had done on Yemi, and perhaps his wife too, that it is not everyone paraded as guilty in the nation of the blacks that is indeed guilty. What now is the assurance that Mr Aluko is guilty? Yemi cogitated.

A tap at the back of Yemi's head woke him to the consciousness of his environment again. He was sweating, yet there was a functioning air conditioning system in the large parlour where he was having his torture.

When the clock struck 8pm, Yemi's heart struck with strong hatred for his tormentors. If he had a machine gun, he would gun them all down and rush home to save his family, but here it was like an impossible mission, only possible to the well famed Commando in American films.

Subconsciously, Yemi had heard his wife say, "They won't leave our sides until you have done it!"

"Get him out quick daddy!" Bimbo pleaded, weeping on the phone.

It was the last Yemi heard of his family. The telephone had been taken away from them.

"So Yemi, you can decide not to get Deinde out if you wish," Momoh said.

"You'll kill my family?" Yemi asked in befuddlement. He was not even sure of what he was asking.

"Not only kill, Mr. Yemi," Momoh said without a minuscule feeling of compassion. "We shall r-a-p-e them," he spelt it out.

"That's it," said the well dressed man who had been keeping silent all the while. "Obey and live, disobey and die, you and your family."

Yemi's head began to issue sweat as if he was in an oven. It was as if the center of his head had cleaved into two to produce the liquid in high quantity like the Ikogosi water spring.

Yemi's mind went back to the halcyon days with his family--such good days which would now be smeared forever, he thought. Now he knew life was not always going to be a bed of roses. Now it is a nightmare, an everlasting nightmare that would not end in a jiff. The faces had set on his face once more, the terror, the grotesque, the fear, the horror, the agony, the perplexity, all heaped on his family members dramatically.

He broke into tears and sobbed.
[/b]

[b]Yemi was left to vaccilate in silence. He had a choice to make within minutes--a choice to commit a criminal act and get into trouble or to reject and face just one thing, death. How would he get out of this catastrophe? He couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, no one needed to tell him that it wasn't always the truth that indicted criminals were guilty all the time.

Who knows if Mr. Aluko was forced this way to take up the political post in the first place? he thought. There's more to public display than just what a layman sees. A masquerade will not dance if there wasn't a song to propel him.

Yemi now believed that a moral man can never keep his moral lifestyle for too long in a corrupt nation such as Nigeria. What would become of an innocent fellow who was sent to prison unjustly? Won't he come out there to turn into what he was not initially? Such person would seek revenge with all his strength, killing the innocent the more.

The innocent suffer the crime of the guilty Deinde would be set free while he would be imprisoned forever.

Yemi's thought soon went the other way round:

Perhaps Mr. Aluko sent this people to get Deinde away so that the case would have no head. But why is it me they wanted for this? There are over a hundred million of people out there who would have helped better, Yemi thought and wept.

Verses curled from Aluko Peter's book titled UPENDED:

The world has gone insane. Life has turned crazy--everything in it is running amuck. The innocent suffer guilt and the guilty enjoy the reward of innocence. The moral suffer loss, the immoral get the gain. The decent pay dearly for the indecency of the indecent. A good person gets bad reward and a bad person gets good reward. You sow nice seed, you get weed--a bad wage for a good work. You work round the clock but get bound and locked.

Animal rules, criminals choose--no nose to breathe in peace. Death draws nearer than life; sweat pores gets enlarged for sweat to pour--more tears on faces, on the worn faces of a race that is black, a race which lacks the quality of love, the love which brings cordiality into lives-- lives that are precious to its owner--owner of life who shall require his blood from the hands of his murderer, murderers who walks about to wreck more havoc--havoc which turns many precious lives into dirt...

Yemi was lost in the meditation of the texts he had memorized. When he got out of it and raised his head, the butt of a heavy gun sank down on his temple. Mouth blushed! Heart lurched! Tears rushed! Blood gushed! Blackout!

When Yemi opened his eyes back to live again, he found himself in a car, the car that was taking him to do the dirty job; the dirty job that would put his life in danger; his life that was rosy few moments back, those moments he was spending his last fun with his family; his family which was ever ready to love.

"What will happen to me?" his heart beat fast as he asked.

"We will keep you safe," Momoh assured as he drew in smoke. "Just get him out first."

Actually, Momoh wasn't going to spare Yemi after setting Deinde free. They would kill both of them.

"What's the plan you have on ground to keep me safe?" Yemi asked calmly. He had accepted his fate.

"We are all leaving this country this night to Benin Republic," Momoh assured him. "All the necessary arrangements have been made."

"Are we leaving with Deinde?"

"Yes of course!" Momoh said as if he was saying the truth. "Just do as we shall instruct and you will be safe with us--you and your family."

Yemi held his nose tight. The pain at the edge of his nostril was affecting him seriously. Each second they spend on the road made him panic.

"What about my family?" Yemi asked again.

"I told you they'll be safe!" Momoh yelled. He was losing patience.

Yemi felt like hitting him hard on the head. But even if he was lucky to get rid of Momoh, he would have other gang members to face, those ones staying right inside his home. They would wipe out his family at once--his innocent daughter, his namesake and life partner and probably his half-brother too.

Yemi began to think of informing the Prison Warden of the Alagbon Prison Service. He knew Yemi so much, perhaps he would be of help.

"And don't you try anything silly," Momoh said as if his eyes were x-ray of the mind.

How did he know what I'm thinking about? Yemi thought.

Yemi found everything offensive, the sound of the sound engine of the car Momoh was driving now, the bellows from the horn, the clanging sound of the silencer. A bead of perspiration stood over his forehead like the morning dew on the windscreen of an abandoned vehicle. Yemi licked off the sweat with a finger.

He was shutting his eyes intermittently, such that at every shutting, he imagined a horrendous sight. At a time, he saw himself hanging and at another time he saw his wife killed. When he shut them the last time, he saw Bimbo Molested. He had to try all means not to shut those eyes in thought anymore, else he would see more heartrending sights.

An idea had suddenly occured; he would struggle the steering with Momoh and they would both die in a fatal accident. He had to stifle the idea when he remembered the guns were presently on two foreheads back home.

A long distance away from the Alagbon prison, the car pulled up.

"Go down now Mr. Yemi," Momoh commanded.

"I should go down?" Yemi said in a confused manner. His brain was addled to the point that he didn't even know what he was doing anymore.

"You heard me!" Momoh hollered. "Now you must return here with Deinde, right? Don't come here alone, okay?"

"O-kay," Yemi said and then kept mute. He stepped down from the car and made to go, but then, Momoh tapped his shoulder and said, "Remember, if you f*ck up, your family shall be wiped off."

Momoh opened an enclosure in the car and brought out a bag. He quickly took a pistol out of its bolster and handed it over to Yemi.

"For what?"

"Give that to Deinde," he said. "He knows what to do with it."

Yemi felt like releasing a shot at his forehead. Each time he tried to pull the trigger, he remembered his family.

What threat could be more? What is life's worth without a family member--a nuclear family for that matter, Yemi thought. If his family was wiped out, he would have to go sixteen years back in life; that is if himself come out alive. And who shall Yemi tell the 'a thing' of tragedy?

Yemi hadn't been this late for work. Perhaps his lateness would arouse suspicion if eventually he got Deindd out of the cell successfully.

Yemi changed to duty cloth. Unlike the other times, he had no cheers on his cheeks. Now there would be no sitting around with the police to discuss. Fear was italicized on his face. He had gnawed all his fingernails away to ease off his tension. He sank a finger into his temple to feel the strains on the veins in there. His eyes secreted eye gums, a sticky one.

Now, Yemi had to let Deinde lose at 10pm. Deinde was the only inmate left alone in a cell of all the thousands of inmates there. In other cells, eight to ten inmates had to be crammed together. Deinde was only enjoying the privilege because his case was the most special one now--a case of a high-classed murder--the murder of Senator Smith, a very rich man who was the Governor-elect.

As a matter of fact, it was obvious that the Governor would do anything to make sure justice was done on whoever was found guilty of the crime. He would pay with his last blood to see that Deinde was punished, as well as all his sponsors.

Now Yemi's fear heightened when he remembered how the Governor had addressed the public on that issue:

"It is so disheartening that a candidate under the auspices of the Friendship Party, my own party, was massacred this way. How so sad that in a civillised community such as we have here, some opposers still employ the axe of cruelty to hack down their rivals. What a pity?! But I, the incumbent Governor shall not relent. I can't stomach this barbaric slap on my face by some coward political party who believes that getting power from us is best achieved by killing our candidates. We say no way to undemocratic political party!"

The governor ended the speech that day almost weeping. He had to rely on his white handkerchief to keep his face dry.

Yemi felt he should have asked Momoh a question. Now it was too late to go out there to ask, else he would be suspected after the deed had been done.

Yemi wasn't even relying on Momoh's plan to get them away to Benin Republic after the act had been done. He was looking for a way of doing it without being suspected at all by anyone, such that he could retain his job and his family.

Yemi was walking aimlessly around the compound, biting his lips as if those lips had a hand in his predicament.

"Oh God, see me through," Yemi called on his creator at last and heaved.[/b]

five comments before I continue

Almost There

Rhyde On Sir


SAW