– Gbenga Ogundare
Dresses strewn across the carpeted floor and a pair of strayed stilettos pointed towards the bedroom. The room was bereft of any source of light save for the glint in the eyes of the shadowy figures that peopled the bedroom. The two figures struggled between each other in what seemed a mortal scuffle. Naked, from head to toe, the two were tearing at each other’s lips. The figure with a big frame took his mouth from the other’s lips, drooped his head with back arched in perfect position and stopped at the chest region of the other figure…afterwards, he bent more till he was on his knees, with his face between the thighs of the young lady. He paused, raised his head and looked at the lady. It was difficult to see the expression on her face. But the glint in her eyes glowed brighter than ever.
He returned the head to its former position. He forked his tongue like the mischievous serpent in the Garden of Eden, and buried his head between those unforgettable and unforgivable thighs. It was a passionate adventure in ecstasy.
They went into cloud nine severally. The last time they went into cloud nine it was all rotten and shredded. And when they returned from the last trip to the famed proverbial cloud nine, they disengaged with the glint in their eyes dying off. In their naked form they lay still, breathing in fast-paced pulse rate as if they were breathing ‘per second’. In another moment’s time, they were guests in Slumber-Land.
“Grrrnnnggg!” the alarm raised its clanging voice in a ferocious gesture. The two guests had not left Slumber-Land yet. And so the alarm screamed, shouted and swore. Its scream soon died out as a whimper. The couple did not wake up until two hours later. It had been a gratifying adventurous weekend.
Nine O’clock. Monday morning. A ray of light like shards of glass poured through the windows of the room. The sun licked their naked bodies, as they lay undisturbed like some caryatids in a public square. No lover would wake up from this kind of sexcapade without vowing to keep the affair going on – inasmuch as the sex remains sizzling!
“I never knew men of God too find time to dance like you did last night,” Pat giggled as His Excellency led her to the elevator that will take them away from ‘Cloud nine,’ code name for the presidential wing of Jaji Hotel reserved strictly for top government functionaries.
“Of course, yes, it’s part of stress management. Besides, the Bible itself allows us to indulge ourselves in a bit of wine and merry-making,” His Excellency said, face brimming with smiles.
“And the lovemaking…?” She looked at his eyes.
“Go on. What about it?” he queried.
“Nothing really. It was fantastic,” she said, “it’s just that I didn’t expect such brilliant performance given your last public lecture…”
For some split seconds, Pat and His Excellency stood still and speechless, but their eyes spoke volumes as they bore into each other and reverberations of the latter’s last lecture came flooding back like one howling windstorm.
…Preach the evil of campus prostitution on the pulpits. Sound the alarm of its danger through the minarets of the mosques. For it is only by these alone that we can rightly say: the future is secured…
Being the Honourable Minister for Youth, Sports and Social Development, Pastor Chris Idejo, was considered the most qualified person by Mr. President to speak on Campus Prostitution and Implications for the Future, at the annual lecture of the Nubira University, a private institution that just celebrated its third year anniversary.
He remembered the thunderous cheers and catcalls that poured on him in torrents, as he headed for his car parked in front of the school’s massive quadrangle. Some of the students even shook hands with him. Others patted him on the back. Then from nowhere, Pat, the light-complexioned lady, tall and dazzling, walked up and hugged him.
“That was a good lecture,” She cooed into his ear. The clapping increased in tempo again.
His Excellency also recalled seeing Hussein Sutton, his Personal Assistant, slip a card into Pat’s hand as they warmed up to leave the campus in a tinted 604 Peugeot saloon car. Sutton has never disappointed, His Excellency mused reassuringly.
He possessed all the endowments of a P.A: sharp mind, eagle eye, loyal and ability to meet all needs regardless of encumbrances. Sutton was also charming and could disarm a thousand and one difficult dames.
“Shhhh!” His Excellency hushed Pat to silence as he jerked off from his brief reverie. “That was a national assignment that required such rhetoric. Last night’s escapade was just one of the ways of reducing the tension associated with our numerous official engagements. Can you see now?”
“Hmmmnnn! You must be a fantastic preacher too, a brilliant one for that matter,” Pat retorted.
“Well, thanks. But of course, the ideal nation builder must at once have the talent of a speaker and a preacher. “And that is why we need good girls like you to ease the tension of nation building from our bodies,” he said and mussed Pat’s long, curly hair gently.
“Is that so pastor?”
“His Excellency, please,” the Honourable Minister corrected.
“I am sorry, His Excellency.”
“It’s okay. Will you come over next weekend? Mr. President is hosting a cocktail party at the Presidential Cave.”
“I will try. Though next week is tight. Term papers and mid-semester tests here and there,” said Pat.
“You need not bother because your vice-chancellor is going to be there too.”
“Are you serious?” she screamed in unpretentious surprise. “Don’t tell me the professors also groove too.”
“Of course, yes. All lectures and no play are dangerous for teachers as well. The more reason you need to come so we can recommend you to him.”
“That won’t be necessary, I think,” Pat frowned.
“Well, I insist. The benefits will be your reward for lending a helping hand to us, the nation builders in your own little way.”
They both laughed and winked at each other as the elevator eased open at the VIP lounge of the hotel.
Dukia Da-Silva, 21 and final year student of Communication Arts of Nubira University, took a bow as she concluded reading an excerpt from her award-winning book, Tongues of the Builders. The last thirty minutes for her had been spent standing on the dais facing the distinguished guests and the intrusive pellets of camera light as photo-journalists jostled against one another for the best shot of the most captivating moments. Now was her turn to sit back and watch the world give her a deserved standing ovation. Caught in the anxiety of the moment, intense pressure raged in her bladder. She must visit the ladies now that it was obvious that the applause in the hall was not likely to subside with the approaching bedlam of the presidential convoy.
Quietly, she vacated the stage and disappeared through the adjoining doors leading to the rest rooms with the police detail assigned to her on the trail. She began to feel sorry for herself immediately she connected with the expansive hallway and beheld the presence of a crowd. They were plainclothes police officers and security operatives loitering in the guise of guests using the restrooms. Dukia hated the sight of the Nigerian Policemen. The black sackcloth that served as their uniform gave her nausea more than anything else. Until recently, she would shiver violently whenever a policeman was near her…such encounter to her was reminiscent of Agbako, a legendary character notorious for his wiles and magical penchant to inspire bitterness in the path of those who encountered him. Now under seething psychological torture to belly the secrets behind the death of Stella, her closest chum and ally in the whole episodes that led to the writing of her book, no one could ever convince her that the average Nigerian policeman is not Agbako incarnate. He is eternally wily and reeks of looming terror.
Yet, once in a while, during rare moments when she allowed emotions to warm her reasoning, nothing but pity was what Dukia felt for the Nigerian Police. The average Nigerian policeman appears to find it difficult interpreting his role as a police. Unlike the sense of alertness, dedication and dignity the man abroad feels for being a policeman, the man inside the black uniform in Nigeria is at once sharply withdrawn, alien to best practice and boldly corrupt.
And those who at least possess the conscience that pricks them, they soon learn the hard way why it is unprofessional for the Nigerian Police to be straight the moment some corrupt government officials and top police brass make them sign for salaries that will never get to them. The moment they are banished to a filth and disease infested barracks or beneath the staircases of police formations where giant rats would terrorize them for invasion of privacy.
“Are you alright Miss Da-Silva?” the police orderly gently tapped on the door with a boldly printed inscription: LADIES.
“Very well, thank you,” Dukia shook off her deep thoughts and replied the orderly. She hated to confess that she had been sitting on the WC all this while thinking about the Police.
With a youthful vigor that had aided her numerous dalliances with dangers while gathering materials and poaching characters for her book, Dukia glided noiselessly towards the rectangular wall-mirror in the massive washroom. She looked herself up in the mirror for the third time since she arrived Nigeria from her trip to the United States of America. Twice she had performed the same ritual in the glittering red Mercedes Benz jeep that had come to pick her at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, upon her arrival in Abuja. She rummaged through her tiny silver handbag and produced a round powder flask which she tapped gently until a white substance tumbled into her curved palm. She dabbed it effortlessly at her face and straightened up to see the result.
Woeful, she cursed under her breath. She sighed and allowed a deep yawn part her tiny, lipsticked lips. The heaviness in her eyes – which signified her helplessness as the cold blanket of sleep enveloped her – was back again. She had battled frantically in the past few hours to keep her eyelids open after that 14-hour flight from Washington DC en route Abuja where she was billed to receive the National Literary Award which is the highest honour for creativity in Nigeria. The thrill of being honoured by her country on its independence day was too overwhelming, so sleep would be a mere wishful contemplation in her present circumstance.
It was going to be another hectic day and perhaps week like she had experienced this past few days in the US where she had gone to pick the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism and Narratives. The African continent had moved to Nigeria all because of her and she could not afford to keep them waiting. As she strutted along the long hallway and headed back to the oval auditorium of Treasure Resorts, Dukia stopped by the two swing doors and peeped through their slits. The hall had quintupled in size with a large crowd of dignitaries and public officials streaming into the auditorium. There was the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in his emblematic flowing Babariga made from the kampala fabric that the Egbas are famous for and his retinue of bodyguards who wore a permanent contortion on their faces to enhance their perceived meanness.
Sometimes, Dukia wondered whether Nigerian security agents, especially those who protect public officials, had to wear dark, sinister goggles or force themselves to wear a frown. And God knows that their facade does not make them any more professional and effective than their kindred in other parts of the world. Those ones dress smartly, most times in simple jean trousers and jackets and they don’t wear any ferocious frown like a snarling warthog. Yet, they are in more ways mobile lethal weapons. She could testify that this is not the same with the Nigerian operatives; at least, she had been close to the ‘inner chamber’ for two years now since she started her undercover investigation, to know this. And there were other African leaders, looming large in their cultural regalia. They had all come to celebrate with the country on her Independence Day anniversary.
The presence of the man the world loves to call Madiba tickled her spine in particular. Again, Dukia marveled at how the former President of the Sun City managed to appear so infectiously simple and innocent, despite the enormous burden of statesmanship and diplomatic undercurrents that rest on his lean, aged shoulders. All the four black icons who had etched Africa in global literary memory by winning the Alfred Nobel Prize in Literature, including the bearded Ogun incarnate, were also waiting eagerly to admit her into the rare cult of the Muse.
She pressed her face closer still to the slit and peered hard into the riotous crowd. She thought Kunle Jibade was dwarfed somewhere in the haze of heads and she wanted to be the first to see him; to lock eyes with his and feel his pains – the searing burns of a strait-laced teacher being exposed as a loose fly. Whatever happened, she liked Kunle still. He remained the best Journalism lecturer in her department. Everybody also thought he was a sex symbol. But Kunle was the most dreaded and unfriendly. No skimpy dresses in my office. No offer of bribes and unsolicited favour, he would rap – sotto voce – at every class. Everybody, including Dukia, believed so until that night…
Another mentor Dukia would have loved to see in the crowd was Clint, the skinny editor of the Lampost literary journal and her online friend who spurred her on to write her exposé and also published it. It still amazed her at how Clint who had not seen her before except through the numerous pictures she sent to him could believe so much in her to the extent of presenting her series of stories for the Pulitzer Prize.
The raucous voice of the compere that boomed through the speakers across the hall severed Dukia’s thought, as she heard her name. She pushed the thoughts of Kunle out of her mind and scurried out of her hiding. She fell into the outstretched arms of the Nigerian President. His Excellency hugged her and patted her severally on the back. A battery of policemen suddenly began to bully the crowd as they pretended to ease the congestion around Dukia and the Nigerian President. They have never failed in this kind of duty. As long as Mr. President or whosoever is the almighty public official is protected, the Police do not care about the safety or dignity of the ordinary people.
“The nation is proud of your daring feat. I am particularly happy for your rare show of youthful intelligence,” the President said in his characteristic gruffly voice.
Dukia’s face wore a blank expression. She did not know how to respond to the President’s courtesies. She alone was certain that the man’s compliment was the kind of filibustering that had kept him permanently relevant in the politics of the country and beyond. Mr. President could never be happy for her effort. No man comes face to face with death and declares a feast like the President was now doing. Except if he actually escaped by the breadth of his teeth like it happened in the President’s own situation. The two of them knew that he could have been one of those shameless characters in her celebrated memoir if she had not cleverly refused his dalliance and agreed to bring Stella with her to the Presidential Cave on the night of the cocktail party.
It was Stella, her room mate, who died with the shame of that national irresponsibility. She cringed at the thought of Stella’s premature death. In a way, her friend died for her. If not for that midget recorder that gave her away while she was leaving the airport after the cocktail party at the Cave. The mini recorder had been one of the weapons in their arsenal as they cast their investigative dragnets in all direction. It was one potent lesson they both learnt from Kunle Jibade, the stern Journalism lecturer.
Always consider the job of an investigative reporter as that of a fisherman. The investigative reporter, like his fisherman counterpart, must not only be ready to dare dangerous tides and undercurrents, he must also be ever ready to cast his net as far as possible if he ever hopes to add flesh to a story or tell his readers something new.
Three years after she cast her first dragnet with Kunle Jibade firmly trapped between her thighs, Dukia would go anywhere with her midget tape recording every bit of her encounter with men old enough to be her father begging for a sex romp with her. It was the same recorder that Stella had planted in her make-up purse on the night both she and the President sneaked into the Presidential bedroom while other guests swam in a sea of assorted wines.
It was almost a perfectly executed operation until Stella got to the airport and the metal detector began to scream as soon as she placed her hand luggage on the conveyor belt.
“Young lady what do you have in your bag?” The uniformed man asked, trying unsuccessfully to be friendly.
“Nothing except for my jewelries and a few personal effects,” Stella said firmly, assured that the Presidential men were still in sight to protect her.
“All the same Madam, we may have to search the bag,” as he picked up Stella’s hand luggage from the collection end of the conveyor belt. Before long He whipped up the tape recorder from among the pile of used clothes.
“Madam what are you doing with this?” the man asked sternly as he raised the midget up enough for the presidential aides to have a glimpse of its.
“I am a communication student and it is part of my study materials in school including the camera inside the bag too. Or do you have problems with that?”
In no time, a presidential aide quietly slipped into the scene and conversed with Stella’s interrogator in hushed tones. She was allowed to leave afterwards, but not until the aide had smartly opened the tape compartments to probe for any hidden cassettes. He found none, for the priced cassette laid flat somewhere between the mounds on Stella’s chest.
As soon as Stella told her of the drama that took place at the airport, she knew the problem had started. Perhaps, if Stella had listened to her advice against meeting with the President at his Private Resort, it was likely that she would share in Dukia’s present moment of glory. But, Stella died. She was burnt beyond recognition when some gunmen riding in an unmarked vehicle fired shots at the bus conveying her and other persons to Akodo with “a fusillade of bullets riddled their way into the vehicle’s fuel tank, the bus exploded with body parts flying in mid-air”. No soul survived. Dukia read in the papers that her friend died with seventeen other passengers.
Even though Stella was dead, she knew the constant surveillance of the presidency was still on her. They would never be at rest until they were sure that Stella’s midget recorder was not going to do any major damage like hers was doing now. She knew the state goons called SSS, were always following her about. Their dark suit and goggles have always given them away. Two daring ones among them had even approached her at different times for a date and she was smart enough to allow them.
Afterwards, she did not need anybody to confirm her hunch again. One of them, a particularly ugly semblance of a baboon, claimed he worked in a bank as Customer Service Officer. And God knows how much customers the unfortunate bank will lose daily each time this Mr. Customer Care opened his wide drooping jaw to smile at customers. Wale, the other agent who claimed to be a Project Manager in a development agency, was at least a better alternative, even with his missing finger. Once in a while, both of them would pick a convenient time to come and spend the night with her at the hostel. And no matter how painstaking they tried to be careful, they always left traces of their unprofessional invasion in her room as they prospected for their usual threat to state security. Dukia would forever laugh off their follies as the acts of tortured minds.
She was resolved to make their numerous visits as unpalatable as she could, and so each night was always spent exchanging hot arguments as she waived off their sex advances. Somehow, she was convinced that none of them would dare rape her. Except the one who is ready to die by the sword of those jealous mafia that set them on her.
“Ladies and Gentlemen’, the baritone voice of the Media Assistant to the President rang across the multi-directional microphone pinned to his blazer, and immediately caught the attention of the audience that were fixated on the PowerPoint presentation of Dukia Da-Silva’s citation.
‘I am awfully sorry I have to tinker with the programme a bit due to a state of emergency. We shall have to render the National Anthem now because Mr. President must take his leave immediately to attend to urgent state matters. Mr. President has promised to join this gathering shortly after his engagements at the State House”
The once quiet evening was now thrown into bewilderment as loudspeakers boomed with the recorded version of the National Anthem and pilot cars drove with tyres screeching in dangerous acrobatics as they headed for the Presidential Cave. The night also lost its sanity with the exit of Mr. President. Martial tunes soon took over the airwaves and lethal pellets further pierced the fragile silence in the seat of power….
“Pello Nigerians”, a strange yet, familiar gravelly voice crackled through the large speakers placed in the hotel lobby.
“I am General Tafa Tafatafa
GCE; GSM; PHN; Phd…
We have seen the lebu of corrupshin…
We have seen the sipate of embezzlement…
Pello contree men
This kain of demoncrazy cannot be condoned…
Pello Nigerians
Let me assua you
This is not a military invashin
It is just a mere intervenshin
Until we usher in a credible demoncrazy…
Pello contree men…
Dusk to dawn curfew…”
It read like a brilliant verse with a simple message. A long night of another nation-building had just begun…
NaijaAdvocate 