₦airaland Forum

‘‘One who rushes madly after inordinate desire runs the risk of encountering destruction and death.’’

— Ali ibn Ali Talib.
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SIR MANDIBA. Foreign Baby was the one who first mentioned that name, I can remember vividly. She just breezed into the room where Otondo, Kalifa and I were playing Whot and laughing like kokaboora, and, without wasting time, enthused, '' Guess what?'' Her face was adorned with cerulean grin.

We stopped our game abruptly, the three of us, and fixed our curious eyes on her.

''Gueeeeeess whaaaaat!'' She clapped her hands and stamped her feet on the cracked floor impatiently. The impact of her playful, impatient theatric made the stainless plate with which we used to eat soaked garri with salt and groundnuts earlier fall to the floor with an irritating sound, leaving its residue splattered everywhere.

''What's that?'' Kalifa, the smallest of us, said, at last. ''Tell us, baby. Our ears are itching.''

Foreign Baby looked at the three of us, as if weighing our incipient reactions, and said, ''Sir Mandiba don hammer my account with cool cash.'' She displayed her phone screen for us to see the credit alert: N 150, 000.

''Who's Sir Mandiba?'' Otondo looked stupefied.

''A guy I met on Facebook o.'' Foreign Baby made a 'can-you-imagine' face.

''On Facebook?'' Kalifa's eyebrows arched. ''You haven't met this guy face to face and he just sent you that raw cash just like that?''

''Nna eh, the guy is fucking rich!'' Otondo exclaimed. ''Babe, please, connect us to this guy, i nugo?''

And that was it. Few days later, Foreign Baby told us that Sir Mandiba wanted to 'help any of her male friends or relations.' We accepted the golden offer gladly.

A week after, she gave us the good news: Sir Mandiba was coming to Nigeria to take us to 'Europe' so that we would hit the jackpot like him. Everything happened so fast. We didn't smell a rat, none of us, not even Foreign Baby.
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Our journey to 'Europe' was rough and bizarre. Foreign Baby is lucky to not have been a partaker. When Sir Mandiba made it clear that we would be going to this so-called 'Europe' through Sahara Desert, I was the most shocked among my friends. A rich man like him should be able to afford our flight tickets, goodness me!

We were even better than those guys whose vehicles ran out of fuel and whose drinking jugs ran dry before they made half of their way through the desert. I saw corpses of other migrants like us whose fates were unfortunate. They sprawled the hot ground of the Sahara like rags, awaiting the arrival of tropical vultures. Goose pimples gripped me with a frightening shiver. I turned my head and met Sir Mandiba's gaze.

I looked at Otondo and Kalifa: both seemed unperturbed. Were they not seeing what I was seeing?

We arrived at a road full of scattered buses and people. It was already dark, and the headlights of some of the buses were on. I saw some policemen with their batons and guns. They were interrogating some motorists.

Sir Mandiba called this place 'Argadez Region,' and said that the police didn't stop us because we were few. Any vehicle carrying 30 passengers or more must be seen as a prime suspect for smugglers and illegal migrants, and must be arrested. The law in that region is so strict that motorists 'who look suspicious' are arrested, and presumed guilty without cogent proof for such conviction. Sir Mandiba said that those laws were contrary to African Charter on Human and People's Rights and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Argadez' laws, he said, disregarded the principle of presumption of innocence on which all legal systems are based.
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When we finally alighted from our bus, I was very tired and hungry. Otondo and Kalifa, too, were. I could see that on their faces.

The night rain, too, added to our woe. The pitter-patter of the rain on the rooftops triggered severe headache in me.

Sir Mandiba just dialed a number with his phone and a man with an open umbrella came out from the building before us. He led us all in, into a small, dimly-lit room that smelt of marijuana and muskiness.

Later that night, while we were devouring the bread and cheese that we were served, Sir Mandiba said, '' Do that fast and let's get down to business.''

''How much are they?'' the man with an umbrella asked him.

We didn't understand what he meant by that until, after our meal, we were handicapped and thrown into a windowless room to await the highest bidder.

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