CHAPTER FOUR

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.

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.

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.

Yemi received a death knell to his thought when the man removed his glasses, looking straight into Yemi's eyeballs. The man was not even in any way having any facial similarity to Aluko Peter contrary to Yemi's thought earlier.

"Who are you sir?" Yemi gathered much effrontery to ask the strange man.

"You will know me better, later," said the man, picking up his dark spectacles again, lifting it to his face to fix it there as it was before. The man also exposed his crew-cut hair when he uncovered it by removing the big cylinder on it, whose diameter wasn't enough to permit his big head go in further than a centimeter.

The man spoke in the accent of a well educated fellow. He had a cool face. The man seemed to be inconvenient with the smoke oozing out from Gabriel's cigarette stick, which was already almost getting to an unbearable length for the fingers.

The man coughed and pinched his nose close twice in succession to get the smoke away. When he couldn't bear it anymore, he voiced out his mind, saying, "Momoh, tell your man to get that smoke away!"

"Yes sir!" Michael yelled and began to rush towards Gabriel.

Yemi's mouth went wide agape. So, there was not any Michael in this issue. Afterall, his name is Momoh and not Michael. Or does Michael has its interpretation as Momoh? Yemi began to think again. Now he wondered what Gabriel would be, perhaps Ganiyu.

Gabriel rushed out of the room like an ape when Momoh had gestured to him to leave the room immediately. Now the man came near Momoh and touched his shoulder as he said, "Momoh, you have really done a great job here."

"We don't thank oneself," Momoh said in smiles in the Yoruba language. "I'm only doing what I can do."

"How do you even know his residence?"

"Oga, I said I'll do just that," Momoh grinned. "I trailed him daily and finally he took me to his house himself.

"You are a genius Momoh," the man said as he spanked Momoh happily.

Yemi gaped at Momoh and blood rushed into his face, turning it red. If only Yemi had the strength, he would have engaged Momoh in a fight--at least he hadn't discovered gun or any other weapon with any of them.

"What have I done for you?" Yemi hollered at Momoh in annoyance.

"Nothing," Momoh came close. "And that's why I've brought you here."

"Nothing? And you brought me here for nothing?" Yemi screamed. "What do you mean?"

"Can't you understand?" Momoh bent his back and lowered his face towards Yemi. "You've done nothing for me, but now I need you to do something for me--remember, I have done much for you--helped you out in the canteen, gave you a free ride home..."

"What's the essence?" Yemi cried.

"And even now Mr warder, I will give you a free ride to your workplace if only you can give us what we want," Momoh concluded.

"What?" Yemi bawled. Hearing his voice, one would take Yemi for the boss while his tormentors would be passed for his subordinates, since they were not speaking in a bossy manner--only Yemi's voice would have been heard outside if anyone was there.

"What do you want?" Yemi cried out once more when Momoh was slow at speaking.

"My meat," the other man replied instead with his usual cool voice which still had some latent tone that could command respect in it. "You have my meat in your pot," he spoke further.

He wasn't making any sense to Yemi who said, "Sir, please come out clear."

"Give me--Deinde," the man spoke in a rhythmic manner. "Deinde is my meat in your cooking pot. Mr Warder, Deinde is my meat."

Yemi felt his world somersaulting when he heard the demand. The elevation of the floor appeared higher than that of the ceiling to him as sweat buried his forehead. How could he? How could he possibly give Deinde to them without ruining his own life by so doing.

A drop of tears rolled over his face and sought everlasting solace in his open lips. His tongue was bitter instantly.

The man came close and became a tiger, pulling Yemi up by the collar of his shirt and yelling into his face:

"Give me Deinde--tonight!"

Uneasily, Yemi smirked in sangfroid and said, "Impossible!"

A thunderous back of hand slap landed on his face when the last two syllables of the polysyllabic words were just getting out of his mouth such that it made his speech sound like 'Imposable'.

Yemi held the cheek set ablaze by Momoh and groaned in pain. When he raised up his face again, he found himself face to face with a gun. It was directed at his forehead.

Yemi turned to water!

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.

CHAPTER FIVE

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]Yemi paced about around Deinde's cell. When his eyes caught Deinde's eyes once, it was as if the criminal was smiling at him. Yemi grimaced and left the spot, not wishing to return soon.

Yemi beamed at his wrist-watch for the umpteenth time, it was only a quarter to 10pm.

"A quarter to doom," Yemi whispered to himself. "A quarter to destruction and damnation."

If only they could kill me and spare my family, I won't go into this," Yemi thought. His thought soon appeared like selfish interest to him--if he died and his family remained, they would bear the loss forever. No matter how, the scar would be somehow etched on their hearts while himself would be enjoying in the great beyond the blue, forgetting everything terrestrial.

"It's better we all live together," he opined eventually.

Yemi went straight to a room, a semi-lit room. Although there was no power failure at the moment, yet the room was dark. Seemed the bulbs in there were damaged.

Yemi scrambled for the key in the poorly-lit stuffy room. He got it and began to take his leave. It was only eight minutes left for the job to be executed, else his own family at home shall be 'executed'.

Yemi tossed the bunch of keys at the floor in anger. He would resign. As he fastened his eyes together, it was Bimbo he saw in agony. She was yelling, "Father! Father! Save us!"

Yemi's eyes opened up immediately, then he bent and reached for the keys again. He gritted his teeth and walked out of the room in confusion.

He walked to a little garden at the back of the prison yard. He was not going to do it. Doing it wouldn't save him from the claws of the law as well as his families from the claws of the lawless. He had better remain that way and do nothing so his problem wouldn't get compounded.

Yemi had clambered on the low-lying branch of a tree. He was going to view life from the top elevation, just the way God views it. Yemi felt the gentle breeze blowing on his head from the tree. The birds had begun to chirp hope into his ears.

"I won't do it!" he screamed.
________________________________________


It was fifteen minutes past 10pm already. Momoh had smoked a pack of cigarette as he waited for the arrival of the two--Yemi and Deinde.

"Are these people trying to double-cross us?" Momoh said. "Not possible! Not when they have their families around!" Momoh laughed.

Momoh believed that fifteen minutes was a very big time to plan out a surprise attack at him. He wasn't going to take the risk, so he brought out his phone and dialled a number:

"Yes...yes this is Momoh...now, kill them both, it's like Yemi is trying to play a trick on us...yes...finish them off...both mother and daughter..." Momoh said in a cruel manner.

Just then, he saw two approaching silhouettes.

"Hey, don't do it again, it's like they're here already," Momoh said. He cut the call and waited for the two figures to come close enough for him to gun them down both, but then he wasn't seeing anyone again.

"What?!" he screamed in shock. Then in rage, he began to dial the number again, but the service provider was asking him to dial again later because the number he had dialled was not reachable at the moment. "poo! The number I just finished calling now?"
________________________________________


Yemi almost fell off the tree. A loud scream from Bimbo and his wife had just woken him up. He had seen the trigger being pulled, just for bullets to come out of them when he woke up into reality again.

Yemi didn't need to be told before jumping down the tree. Now his heart was fixed. He must do it for the sake of his family's life.

As Yemi walked towards Deinde's cell, his brain began to generate some thoughts again--the acumenity of force and power:

They use force to get power--and when they assume power, they make their subjects subject to their power. Evil people get fame but good people get tamed. Moral decadence has been the order of the day for decades in the land of the black races due to their race after money--yet money, the love of it, is the root of all evil--and if you hate it you still suffer for that

Yemi burned within him as he gave his thought to the fact that he didn't know who he was actually working for. He didn't know whether Momoh and his colleagues were working for Mr. Aluko or not. Perhaps they were working for another person, maybe the Governor's party, to set Mr Aluko up. Yemi had to jettison the second thought.

How would a party be working against itself? Yemi thought. If indeed they were working for the Friendship Party, they wouldn't have killed Mr.Smith who won their primary election. This must be Mr Aluko Peter's handwork," he concluded eventually.

Yemi suspended all reasonable thoughts and hurried towards the cell. The passageway was dim, poorly lit, so it would fare well for him in the mission.
When he came close to the cell, he heard Deinde speak, "You are here."

Yemi was stunned. The way Deinde was smiling at him now was surprising to him.

Did he know he would be set free tonight? Yemi thought. How come? Is there any informant among the police? Or the warders are biased and perverted? How would he know?

"Man, you're wasting time. Free me on time!" Deinde said with a slight frown on his face.

Yemi's face turned into a grotesque.

"Who are you working for?" Yemi asked in a low tone. "I mean who sent you to kill Mr.Smith?"

Deinde kept silent.

"I won't let you go if you won't tell me," Yemi said as if he had any say now. Deinde burst into laughter.

"I'm not in much danger as you are," Deinde replied and began to get well into the cell again. "Whenever you're ready just open this iron gate, okay?"

Yemi's mouth was wide agape. His hands were gradually going up to his head to hold it in shock, but then, Deinde had returned to the gate to say something more:

"Mr Warder, if you don't do this, another person will do it, but then you, as well as your daughter and your wife would have no life in you to witness my release by then."

Yemi's heart melted like a polythene burning in the flame. However, he tried hard to maintain a stolid character;

"Go to hell!" Yemi screamed angrily at him and began to leave him alone. He began to traipse back to the tree trunk again to think. His heart drummed as his Adam apple danced in resonance. His mind went blank like a tabula raza.

Yemi didn't stay long at the tree trunk this time around. He had returned to the cell, now he would do it, at least Momoh had promised to get him and his family away from the country.

He checked the time and found out he was already thirty minutes behind schedule.

Speechlessly, Yemi inserted the key into the lock and turned it with all his strength. The prison door was made to pave way.

Deinde didn't hesitate a bit. He just trotted out of the cell as if a little delay would cost him losing his desired freedom.

Now the task they had to face was the one of escape. How would they go through all the security guards on duty without being noticed? Yemi pondered. The palpitation of his heart now was even more than the initial times.

Deinde walked furtively. The sound of the sole of his feet must not be heard by a soul, else it would draw up suspicion. He was on tiptoes, looking everywhere like an intruder fond of plucking mango secretly in another person's compound.

When Deinde peeped from a corner, he found men on duty, parading the large compound with their guns. Majority of them had just pistols on them.

Deinde made a swift move to another direction. He needed to get the weak point of the prison, through which he would channel his escape.

Deinde thought he had found one eventually. It was a large passageway, poorly lit. Deinde began to walk in it, believing it would culminate in somewhere near the exit.

Deinde hadn't walked twenty metres in the large passageway when a large beam of light came upon his eyes. He went blind.

"Who are you?" the torch flasher bleated...



Deinde rushed to the initial spot and found Yemi in a corner, frozen with fear. The amazing thing to Yemi was the sudden transformation in Deinde's dressing; he, now being in a police uniform. Yemi shuddered with shock.

"Surprised?" Deinde said as if he had no iota of fear. "That fool has nothing with him other than a bludgeon and a torchlight. I beat him to pulp."

"You--beat a...policeman?" Yemi whispered. His mouth was shaking.

"Any big deal?" Deinde said in a care-free manner. Mr Warder, lead the way, you have the gun."

"The gun?" Yemi said. "What gun?"

"Don't joke," Deinde said in whispers. "I know Momoh gave you a gun."

Yemi was affrighted. How did Deinde know all these things? Perhaps there is an informant feeding him with information. How did he know that he would be set free in the first place?" Yemi was stunned.

"Give me the gun," Deinde said.

Yemi released it with collapsing lips. Deinde grinned when he had it. Then he went the opposite way, skulking.

Yemi was indecisive. He knew he was in for trouble already. If he remained, he would be caught and imprisoned; if he fled, they would comb everywhere for him as well.

Yemi had had much experience of happenings involving escape of criminals from prison in the past. In most cases, the warders in charge had always been made to suffer for it, and that would be done out of court.

Now, there was power outage and everywhere was completely dark. Yemi began to make a move. He would creep out of the prison yard, anyhow, without being noticed.

Yemi hadn't walked out of the corridor when he heard a gunshot. He was scared.

If anyone had been killed, then the case would surely be worsened. Now the bulbs were blinking--the dull flourescents too. The power supply was epileptic.

Yemi began to hear sounds of heavy footsteps coming towards his direction. His heart palpitated. How would he escape this? What would he tell the world when he got caught. if he told them he was acting under duress, they would ask him who put him under the duress? They would be expecting to hear names of bigwigs, but he would have no name to mention--Momoh? Gogo? Who know those ones? Yemi thought, sweating profusely. Perhaps he would turn the whole thing upon Mr Aluko Peter, but how would that help to turn his own situation around thereafer? he pondered.

There was nothing left for him to do now, but to feign ignorance and put up a bold face. The light had been restored now after much instability, but it had come in low voltage, such that the red glow of a burning wood would do better to give illumination than the light coming from the bulbs above them.

Yemi composed himself and began to tramp towards the approaching figures.

"What's happening?" Yemi said when they crossed path. "Please can someone tell me what's wrong?"

They were two armed men. When they saw Yemi, they said, "Did you hear the gunshot?"

"Yes I heard it! What's the matter?"

"A prisoner has escaped," they announced. The two men hurried past him, flashing their torches into every cell to see if anyone had escaped.

The prisoners were just chanting happily as they flashed the torchlight at them.

"*Ki lo bo sonu lara awon olopa yi t'on wa a?" a large voice issued out of the most notorious cell in there.
________________________________________
*What organ got missing in these policemen's body that they are looking for?
________________________________________


It was the voice of a criminal who was serving a life imprisonment. They hailed him:

"Presido International!"

The two policemen just walked past the cell, ignoring the prisoners who were as much as ten in number in that single cell, breathing harmful air into one another's nostrils.

Now Yemi had begun to hurry away. Just then, a voice came up from nowhere, screaming, "I saw them! I saw them!" It was the voice of the prison officer whose clothes Deinde wore. He had trailed Deinde behind earlier and had seen him come to Yemi.

"A warder gave him a gun! You walked past him just now!"

"What?!" the two men were surprised. "Let's get him!"

Yemi ran. He knew the judgement time had come. He didn't need to be told that he had to fight with the last drop of his blood to get out of the prison yard, but how when he wasn't even with a gun.

The chase was hot. Yemi knew he wouldn't make it running since warders and police were everywhere and they would join in the chase as soon as he got to an open space.

Now Yemi had to hide in a dark corner. He lay flat against a wall in a confined corner, holding his breath. His chest was denying him a suitable rest as it thumped up and down like a gorrilla fighting hard to control its hiccups.
Yemi heard footsteps coming close. He peeped and saw three armed men walk past the corner where he was hiding. Yemi would let them go far before coming out of the corner.