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| Jide Atta, at the Abuja Literary Society reading held on May 25, 2012, Silverbird Entertainment Centre, Abuja, Nigeria. Photo by Araceli |
Oginigba
-a story by Jide Atta
They came at dawn. I should know. I was awake gathering my nets and preparing to go out on the days fishing trip when I heard the noise. I heard them before I saw them. There were lots of them. They were jumping out of the gunboats before the boats even reached the shore. I turned and ran. There was only one thought in my head, my grandmother, and my cousin Ebi.
I knew who they were, I had seen them before. The whole village had seen them before. But they normally didn’t come this way. Normally it would be the helicopters, then the trucks. There were never any boats, and they were never this many of them. Something was different this time, I could sense it.
I was close to our home when the gunshots began.
What was going on this time? What had we done wrong this time? How come our small village of mostly fishermen and palm wine tappers had to bear the brunt of the so-called struggle for our freedom? And then it struck me! Tiemo! This invasion must have had something to do with his surprise arrival three days ago. He looked haggard with long, dirty and unkempt dada.
Tiemo, my cousin, who caused the most pain to my grandmother. Youthful, handsome Tiemo who the old folks said brought bad luck to his parents. His mother died while giving birth to him and, a week later, his father surprisingly fell from a palm tree. As a little boy, he was always the leader of the gang, dictating what prank to pull and on whom.
There was this particular incident when we were given the beating of our lives, courtesy another Tiemo prank. Tiemo had become fascinated with the village shrine and on the eve of the ashi festival decided we should relocate the totem. Yes, I was terrified but I was excited about being able to touch that totem we only saw in public during the festival, but which we had been seeing during our regular trips to spy on the shrine. We took the totem, when the chief priest went into his shack with Pa Willy’s new wife. They always went into that shack three four times daily. Tiemo had one time gotten close enough to peep into the shack and came back giggling, refusing to tell us what he saw, insisting that we were still kids.
We hid the totem in Olotu’s hut. He was the village drunk, and we were sure no one would suspect our involvement.
We were wrong.
I had always heard that palm wine tappers saw everything and knew everyone’s secret. Well, we had no idea that Papa Preye saw us, followed us to Olotu’s house and went to tell our grandmother. We didn’t know why we were beaten that way by mama. We didn’t think it could possibly have had anything to do with the totem. Mama is a very strong woman. With one hand she held on to Tiemo and me, and with the other administered continuous series of slaps with such dexterity that, if Ikopu the village drummer had seen her, he would have turned the colour of rotten fish with envy.
That was the Tiemo I grew up with, at least until Abigail. I wonder how or when he saw her, but that was Tiemo. It was said that he had eaten a dog’s legs, because he was always up and about. Something about him changed. He began to pay a little more attention to himself. He even started combing his hair! This was Tiemo who always wanted to have dada like Majek Fashek the musician.
Everyone in the village knew them, Tiemo and Abigail, always walking hand in hand everywhere they went. She changed Tiemo, made him less of a prankster. She also separated him from me and the rest of the gang, and I resented her for it. I and Tiemo were brothers. Who was this girl with whom he would rather spend time with than hang with us?
Then it happened.
No one claims to know how it started. But we knew that suddenly oil – black and smelly like when palm kennel fell in dying fire – was leaking from the pipelines that ran behind the village school toilet and from the stand below our rickety makeshift jetty. That jetty is over fifty years old. The oil company had promised to build one since over forty years ago, before I was born. It was the immigration point from our village. Everybody that came and went from the village by sea had to go through it. Legend has it that after the oil company that laid the pipeline had built a rack stack for the pipes that they used, people converted it to a meeting place for discussing happenings between the workers and fishermen. One by one, each would bring a frond of palm or any piece of driftwood or metal pipe remnant and connect to the stack against the rack. The rack kept getting higher as the tide gradually ate below it and took residence deeper and deeper along the shoreline. I always wondered how one could walk for almost a mile out in to the sea and the water would only be chest deep at most. For us, we would use it as a diving place. Our tiny feet scrambling up and then, posing like Eupele, our African Games champion from the village, we would dive into the sea amidst squeals of laughter from the smaller kids who would only watch with admiration. That is how it became the commanding point for the leader of the pack that arrived in boats that day.
People could not fish, could not farm, and nothing could be done. Emissaries were sent to the oil company, but weeks later, the oil was still leaking. The fishermen and the farmers decided to go to the company’s camp to protest and get them to do something about the leaking oil. I went with them that day. I was excited. My life had been boring without Tiemo but here was a chance to get some fun.
When mama heard that I was with the protesters at the oil company camp, she sent Tiemo to come and drag me home. As usual, Abigail followed him.
The oil company camp looks very different from the rest of our village, barbed wire fences, floodlights, well cut grasses, paved roads. I overhead one of the men from the village saying this was how America looked like. We all believed him. Even the smell of the place was different from the one that came all the time from the water just over the copse of palm trees and washed our village. The man said that they sprayed perfume in the air all the time and that the gods loved to sit just on the other side of the fence in the European quarter. I dreamt of America.
There were armed men at the gate who refused us entry and ordered us to turn back. Some of the village men started turning away. Was this why I had come? To be turned away like a leper? I wanted some excitement; I wanted to smell a bit of America a bit longer. So I picked up a stone and threw at the guards, then they started shooting.
I was shocked, and filled with fear. I started running. I hadn’t run too far when the shooting stopped. I turned and I froze at what my eyes beheld! I saw Tiemo covered in blood, screaming. He was sitting on the ground holding Abigail as she lay covered in a pool of blood. I walked in trepidation towards him and stopped. All around, men of the village were wailing, some were injured, most looked dead. Was it guilt, was it cowardice, what was it? I couldn’t tell, but I couldn’t bear the sight either. I turned and ran.
That was ten years ago.
Tiemo disappeared after then and we never saw or heard from him until three days ago. Of course we had heard some stories. We had all heard of Commander T.
As I got to the house, the soldiers were there already, and they were pushing mama, Ebi and everybody from their houses to the village square. I joined the line and walked there with them.
A man who seemed to be in command was pacing angrily as we got to the square. He spoke into a radio briefly then picked a megaphone, turned and faced us all. Where is Tiemo?
I froze!
(To be continued)
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