nameless - Heinrich Böll Stiftung

NAMELESS

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CONTENTS

NAMELESSIn the Beginning

Nameless

The Rise And Fall of A Baby Girl

Thorny Life, Bare Feet

Jamila

Market Politics

Favour Under Law

Iquo's Farm

The Taxi Driver

Married Deities

AND THE EIGHT WRITERS RESTEDBiography - Writers

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N A M E L E S S

N A M E L E S S

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IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning there were eight writers with adeadline

And their ideas were without form, and void

And displeasure moved upon every brow

And out of the crucible of pain

Through quarrels and laughter and many drinks

They said:

Let there be a book!

They articulated their pain, isolated the issues

gave themselves freedom to dream, to create

And on the fifth day

Nameless was born

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NAMELESS

Nameless is a city. A country within borders. A boundless space of ideas. A cosmos with realities, stark and painful, quiet and loud. A space crippled by fears. Nameless is populated. West African. It is in the minds of its people, black and proud. Sometimes Nameless is human. An idea. Sometimes it is in the past. Often times it is the now. Other times, it is the future.

The oldest residents know its dreams, its origins, be-ginning in a major stream and ending in a cleardeep pond. The youngest residents know its pulse,feel its heat, its blood coursing through the veins ofthe country - the history they know is happeningright before them, good and bad and ugly. Everyoneknows its hopes.

Afele is the heart of Nameless. The marketplace ofitems and ideas; the centre where all things meet,where the blood of Nameless converges and getspumped out into homes and heads and souls. It isthe meeting point. It feeds Nameless and starves it.

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Nameless is ambitious. And in the third world. Indarkness. With inadequate infrastructure. Darkenedby the lack of electricity. Nameless is in light.Brightened by the hope in the eyes of its inhabi-tants. Slowed down by the potholes on the roads.Sped up by anticipation of change by desire. Name-less is rich. And poor. And in between.

Nameless is oppressed. Under surveillance. Name-less is free. To dream. Of change. Free. To dare. Tolive. To express. To break open the boxes in whichsexuality and gender and tribe exist. Stifled and sti-fling. Free. To love and not to take oppression in thegarbs of love. Free from the dubious bonds of reli-gion and tradition, disguised as law.

Nameless is many things. It is the present we loathe.It is the past that haunts us. It is the future we want.Nameless is what we own, the things we areashamed of, the hurt that binds us, the leaders whostain our present. Nameless is the clarity we have. Itis the knowledge that things cannot remain thesame. The hope that our children will only knowour tears as history. It is all we must do to move usfrom the things that cage us to being able to fly freeto a place beyond where nothing can stop us.

We are nameless.

And Nameless is us.

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THE RISE AND FALL OF ABABY GIRL

Just a baby girl living my life.That was the promise held out in the Instagramphotos of strangers, on Facebook, in the buzzaround the big city of Nameless and how it was su-perior to the drudgery of Iseyin, most prominentlythrough the virtual existence of Sparkle, a fellowIseyin girl who was now, from the unpopular, awk-ward daughter of one of the women in the fish mar-ket, transformed to an Instagram celebrity based inNameless. The purveyor of that dream was theTecno smartphone Oluwafisayomi got for her latestbirthday. And the beginning of that dream was thename. No one popular had such an ugly name likeOluwafisayomi. So it had to be that in the begin-ning, Oluwafisayomi died. And Gold was born. Golddecided that she was going to live a baby girl life inany of the popular areas in the big city. The closestshe seemed to be coming to this was through thepompous generosity of Alhaji Azeez.

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"Don’t worry. Let me just win this election. I will getyou a flat away from Afele.""I will get you a bigger generator.""I will make you comfortable.""Because you are my baby girl."

Gold knew more than most people, that, unlike thewords of her mother’s wisdom delivered mostlywhile smoking fish, good things did not come tothose who waited. Not in Nameless. Here, goodthings came to those who hustled. That was how shegot Alhaji Azeez in the first place - he used to pa-tronize Modesta, a young woman trying to escape avillage background like her, before Gold lured himaway by allowing him to do the things Modestawouldn’t do, for the same price that Modestacharged.

In the long run, Alhaji Azeez’s generosity grew,starting with one year's rent of her studio apartmentbehind the teeming Afele market. Now he came notonly to feed his fetishes --he enjoyed putting his bigtoe between her legs and she let him pluck the hairsof her armpit until she screamed-- but also just torest, to hide, or to whine about that Igbo boy pretend-ing to be a big boy from Nameless.

That Igbo boy was Adekunle Nwakpa, an upstartwhose mother was impregnated by an Igbo traderwho left during the civil war and never came back.Alhaji Azeez refused to call him Adekunle.

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“I go finish am. E get luck say things don change.Before, during Marwa time, who born de Omo Igbowey go challenge me for here. I fit go their state deydrag position with them?”

Gold knew how to make the creases on his foreheadflatten. When her fingers found the tense muscleson the base of his neck, that was when he made thepromises. When the whining wound down to amoan, then the praises began. He would eulogise themanners in which she knew how to make himhappy, how she was better than all his wives. Fromhis first wife, Iya Yetunde who acted like a duncemost of the time, to his youngest Iya Bola who wastoo educated for her own good and seemed to enjoycausing trouble in the market. There was also hissecond wife, a troublesome woman who was alwaysinterrupting him and asking silly questions aboutthings that didn't concern her. It was only Gold wholet him be a man, a real man.

Today as he moaned, he was going to take her out ofthis place.Today too, she did not tell him how stupid shethought the things he was saying were.

And in that cramped, often dark place, Alhaji Azeezbecame a man. And that Igbo man died along withhis irritating wives, all his fears and inadequacies.

***

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My government will finish the work that we havestarted. We will turn this Local Government intosomething Nameless people will be proud of. Name-less is dying. Foreign things are invading our com-munity. I want to return Nameless to those of uswho are indigenous to Nameless. The way we aregoing in the next ten years, Nameless people will belooking for a place to stay in this same Namelesswith the way we have allowed strangers to feel com-fortable.

He spoke in Yoruba and appealed to the largely ho-mogenous crowd. People cheered and waved dust-pans, the symbol of his party at this rally where Op-eration Flush Out was launched.

Because the rubbish heaps needed to be flushed out.

Because the ashawo needed to stop reducing theproductivity of decent market men.

Because, if you checked, the men who sold porno-graphic CDs at the edges of Afele market were allsettlers, as were the ashawo.

Because if you let them, these foreigners wouldchoke good Nameless people with sex and filth andbad politics.

***

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Her university forms had been filled and submitted.Three times.

Three times the bridge to an alternative life, blownup in her face when she stared at the admissions listsof the Lagos State University and didn’t findOluwafisayomi Akindele.

Oluwafisayomi had died, and forms filled by Goldcould not bring her back to life.

The fourth time she paid 5,000 naira. This timeshe applied for a less prestigious, less sought afterDiploma program. She heard that it was easier toswitch to a preferred degree program once you werein. It would be easier to say to her mother that shewas a student of LASU, than just she was doing busi-ness in Nameless Local Government.

Business meant nothing. Business was what paid forthat Sparkles baby girl’s Instagram life. And nowthat Oluwafisayomi was someone’s baby girl herself,she knew how hard business was.

Three days to the release of the LASU list. Threedays. To the announcement of the Local Govern-ment Election Results. Three nights since she hadmassaged the tense muscles of Alhaji Azeez. Threenights since she was his baby girl.

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In the end it shocked her how easy things were. Eas -ier than she anticipated.How easy it was for an election to be won and lost.How easy it was for crowds who waved dustpans tovote out a son of the soil and vote in an apparentstranger.How easy it was to find her name on the list forDiploma in Science of Recycling.How easy it was to change her mind about the de-partment she wanted.How easy they said it was to change departments.How easy it was for a mourning politician to rejecther calls. How easy it was to stop being his baby girl.How easy violence started among those protestingthe election results.And how easy it ended, when the leader of themotor park touts was shot dead by soldiers.

***

In the end, Oluwafisayomi was born. Again.

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THORNY LIFE, BARE FEET

Chuks Amadi walked into his favourite bar and wassurprised how much like home the place felt. Hehad been moving around a lot these last few monthsand had gotten used to sleeping in different placeswhile being entertained by different women. Thiscity and this town felt different. It was a fairly largetown called Nameless and he was beginning to thinkhe could put down roots here. As he approached hisfavourite table at the back of the hall where his latestbabe Modesta sat waiting for him, he noticed withmild irritation that everyone’s attention was on theTV and not on him.

He sat and turned his chair around, trying to catchthe news on the small flat screen TV hoisted on thewall. The news anchor droned on in a bored voice asimages of people fleeing the conflict in the North-east flashed across the screen.

Everyone's attention was on the screen when Chuksspoke with a loud commanding tone, “See how theynever talk about us soldiers.” As though his thoughtshad been transmitted into the TV, eliciting an in-

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stant response, grim-faced soldiers appeared on thescreen standing next to an armoured truck. Chuksshook his head. “This biased media never shows thereal images. When we were at the battlefront, thekind of thing we saw was worse than the most hor-ror film."

“What happened at the battlefront?” Modesta asked,awed that anything could be scarier than 'WillyWilly'.

“No be small thing, my sista!" Chuks' voice rose anumber of decibels, soaking in her admiration. "Justimagine yourself coming eye to eye with someonewho won't even shout if he was hit by a bullet.”

Chuks lifted both hands and held them aloft as ifthey bore the weight of an unseen gun. “We werefacing people like that!" he stressed.

"Na wa o!" Modesta said, as Chuks reached for herdrink.

"That is why I had to leave nah." He continued.“Why will I stay to die for nothing when my big-bigsoja ogas are enjoying at home with their wives. MeI will be fighting madmen and snakes for insidethick forest, abi?"

Tijani, an older man who worked in the bar, wasnearby and could hear their conversation clearly. Hesuddenly spoke up in agreement with Chuks.

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"Our se curity forces should re ceive good money toreflect the dangerous work they do and the risksthey take. This one wey only big-big oga dey getplenty security no suppose continue, at all." Tijanisaid.

Chuks looked sideways to catch a glimpse of the el-derly man speaking.

"It's true fa," Modesta agreed. "Dat one no go help.You hear wetin e talk. Bullet no dey scratch this peo-ple body sef." she kissed her teeth.

"But why we no get State Police sef? State police fitsupport federal police and soldiers fight this people."Tijani announced, obviously something he hadthought long and hard about.

"You think that will solve our security problems?"Chuks countered. "State police can easily be abused.It has happened with small local forces made fortraffic and local law enforcement by State govern-ments in some places. With this terrorism wahala inthe country, vigilante people fit become politicians'armed thugs, armed robbers and them fit even jointhe terrorist too. Even if dem like, make them carrythe whole soja wey dey Africa go there, these terror-ists no go give up. Dem go kill our gallant peoplecome clean mouth." Chuks concluded.

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Suddenly laughter broke from the other end of theroom as Ajasko stood up. “Chuks, shut up there! Nobe you wey run away from soja come here dey formexpert?”

Chuks' eyes darted back and in a hurry to see whoelse was paying attention. He had only been in thearmy for under five years before he was posted tothe Northeast. He had cried bitterly that night, re-membering the lengths he had gone to, to falsify hisbasic school certificate result and lower his age con-siderably to get into the army. Even after that, hehad only been accepted into the army as a personalfavour to his uncle from the aged army recruitingsergeant who had served with Chuks' uncle duringthe civil war decades ago.

Life after being accepted in the Army was easyenough as Chuks was deployed to be an aide to an-other of his uncle's friends, a senior officer this time.That had allowed him a lot of freedom until the of-ficer died. Then he was deployed to North-east where the country's armed forces were engagedin efforts to repel insurgents. Chuks only stayed aweek, and he jumped on a freight train headed awayfrom the region at the very first opportunity he got.

No one in Nameless was supposed to know this. Hehad confessed all this to Ajasko only last week whenhe had drunk too much beer. It wasn’t just that hehad been drunk, he had also gotten into a fight.

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Chuks had the habit of using words like “bloodycivilians” to people around the town. On that night,the so-called bloody civilians had had enough of hisnonsense and had decided to take the matter intotheir own hands, bloodying him up with their fistsfor a change. When Ajasko came round the cornerand saw the Nameless boys beating Chuks, he hadoffered to head for the small military base in theoutskirts of the town to call some army boys tocome and help their brother get revenge. It was tohis greatest shock that Chuks had begged him, cry-ing and trembling with his sprained knee andbruised face, not to call anybody but merely carryhim somewhere before any soldier saw him. Thefear in his eyes convinced Ajasko to act first and askquestions later. It was not till they had gotten to an-other bar that Chuks confessed to Ajasko that he haddeserted the army and escaped from the Northeast.He told a stunned Ajasko that if the army found himhe would be court martialled and executed.

Chuks had attempted to justify his actions by tellingAjasko about the nation's porous Northeastern bor-ders and the proliferation of all sorts of small armsin the country. He kept repeating how these in-creased the incidence of armed robbery, armedmilitia activities, the continuous trend of militant in-surgency, and how he knew his life would notamount to much if he remained in the North-east wearing an army uniform.

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Chuks kept talk ing about how things were taking aturn for the worst and a state of near anarchy lookedimminent even beyond that part of the country, sohe had escaped as early as he could. He had wit-nessed reprisal killings by armed militias acrosstribal lines in other parts of the country, and therewere indiscriminate bomb blasts and sense-less shootings. The ordinary people were taking thelaw into their own hands and this became the orderof the day. Ordinary people were being targeted andkilled along religious and ethnic lines. There wasn'tany chance of getting justice for the victims of theseacts of madness, he argued. Even the armed forcesgot in on the act and further tormented the peoplethey were supposedly protecting.

Chuks had fled the conflict to escape the helplesssituation as he saw it. He wasn't going to remain withother members of the nation's security forces andcollect peanuts, with a joke for pension and insur-ance packages. Like most of his colleagues in thearmy, Chuks felt demotivated, so he demobilizedhimself and left. He wasn't the only one doing so.When he left, the Northeast was virtually deserted.Members of the communities that dared to stayback had to resort to vigilante efforts to provide reli-able security for themselves. This was the practicebeyond the Northeast as well. People were impris-oning themselves inside their homes, like they couldfence out the world outside.

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As a direct re sult of these communal ef forts to pro-vide reliable security, the State authorities appearedto now be physically and psychologically armingmentally and emotionally untrained youths. Thevigilante groups they formed were becoming aproblem in their own right, as they gained more au-thority.

Chuks kept lamenting all of this, drinking more beerall the while. Ajasko grew more and more disgustedby his new friend’s cowardly actions. Chuks had col-lapsed in a heap in that bar and they hadn’t seeneach other since that day.

"Bros Ajasko, na me you wan entertoday?" Chuks asked while trying to make his waytowards the door. "Waiter please give my brotheranother bottle of stout so that he can enjoy the babyboy life too." He added drawing smiles from peoplearound as his generosity was acknowledged. Ajaskohissed and drained his cup.

“Major today, captain tomorrow, lieutenant next to-morrow. Just kuku carry your wahala and go beforesomebody come report you for here. No dey addyour mouth when real men who are fighting foryonda are talking.”

The patrons at the bar took their attention off thescreen for a second, waiting for a heated reply, butwhen the two adversaries did not continue, they lost

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interest and went back to watching the news anddrinking away their meagre earnings.

Chuks craftily made a hasty retreat to his room toresume his activities with Modesta, the girl he hadmet last night. She said she had just come in fromthe big coastal city and thinking of her name madeChuks smile as clearly modesty wasn't a virtue shepossessed. Luckily modesty was not what he sought.He climbed the stairs with renewed gusto andpromptly forgot about Ajasko and his aprokomouth.

***

Tijani the sixty year old cleaner was the only personwho had paid close attention to the exchange be-tween the two men, and he had a thoughtful look onhis face as he made his way out of the room andback to his work post. He was in timely retirementbecause he was honest about his age at his time ofemployment. This was rare. It was considered al-most normal to falsify documents or information,but Tijani had no respect for people who did not re-spect the due process and the law. Most of those hemet in government service had fraudulently alteredtheir ages to stay on, but Tijani was happy to leaveeven though he wasn't ready for retirement in theleast. He chose to continue residing in the town hehad actively served for thirty years, rather than re-turn to his region of origin. He had gotten married,

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started a family and built a small house in this town,where he was stationed, far away from his ethnicorigins. Yes, Nameless had been good to him.

As an elderly man of minority origins, remainingwith his family in a society not indigenous to himafter retirement was an easy decision, because hehad lived away from his own people most of hisadult life. Returning back to his home town after re-tirement was never an option for him or his family.They had assimilated completely, and spoke thelocal dialect fluently. Tijani and his family were pre-pared to tolerate the tacit second-class status some-times allotted to them by some strangers, but he andhis family were generally happy.

His only source of sadness was Tabitha his wife whowas suffering from diabetes and in dire need ofmoney for medication. His pension had still notbeen cleared, and welfare and social security wasnon-existent, so he had taken a job in the hotel tomake ends meet while the government prosecutedthe pension thieves and returned the money to therightful owners who had given their strength andtheir best years to the country.

It never escaped him that he was eligible to benefitfrom the existing pension scheme, but because pay-ments were highly irregular and it is always a her-culean feat to get any funds out of institutions whendue, he had in essence re-joined the ever growing

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number of unemployed who are not constitution-ally provided for and are left to their own devices.

His brother’s voice always rang in his head, remind-ing him that he should have had more children sothat they could cater to him in his old age instead ofwaiting for the government to provide social secu-rity.

“TJ, children are wealth from God so do not denyyourself the gift that is your due. If you have many,at least one of them may have a good job so thatthey can care for you,” was always his goodbye con-versation with Tijani.

Tijani was struggling to make ends meet at such anadvanced age, so he wondered how he could havetaken care of more children. He was always glad hedid not have more children, but once in a while, hedid wonder if his brother was right.

Tijani was always amazed at the islands of prosper-ity which existed amidst oceans of poverty, withouta formal social security structure. Nameless wasn'tdelivering the much-heralded dividends of democ-racy to the citizens like it shouts from the roof topsit is doing, especially to women. Poverty was still ce-mented among the low income earners. Crime rateshad increased exponentially, life expectancy keptfalling, maternal mortality rates kept rising, and

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healthcare was only af fordable to high paying cus-tomers.

Tijani wondered if any functional social securityscheme would be implemented during his lifetime.He only hoped that his children would have avail-able to them a welfare scheme funded by a progres-sive tax structure providing for and supporting thepoorest, weakest and neediest of the society. The ex-istence of such a social security framework wouldgreatly reduce corruption, and public workerswould be assured of an income and social servicesafter retirement when they could no longer work.He had read reports that showed social securityschemes made it possible for governments to raiseentire strata of society from poverty, in a planned,scalable and measurable method.

That night as Tijani headed home, he was tired andworried as was usual with him. It dawned on himthat if he played his cards right, he could get a siz-able compensation from the military for exposingChuks as a deserter. Tijani could really do with themoney. Tani, his oldest daughter was just aboutrounding up her studies for a degree in Catering,and he knew she would be home expecting him todole out more money for her upcoming practicals.He also thought of his second child Bitrus; the boyhad completed his National Diploma three yearsago and since then it had been near impossible for

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him to secure admission back into the Poly technicfor his Higher Diploma. Tijani could not understandwhy Bitrus had to finish the same school and againseek admission to return to it. Like the entire nation,Tijani was not convinced that a university degreewas more qualitative than a polytechnic higherdiploma. He would rather Bitrus learned a traderather than obtain his Higher Diploma and be fur-ther segregated against for not having a degree.

"At the rate things are headed, our future genera-tions may not be adequately educated and our fu-ture teachers could end up being worse than theirpupils,” he said aloud to himself. “With the unattrac-tive salaries paid to teachers, those who are the mostsuitable for the profession are not attracted to it, andeven if they are attracted, don’t have a fair chance ofgetting the jobs because the field is oversaturated bypeople who are clearly unqualified," he mused.

As he walked past houses with high fences andbarbed wire bordered walls, the ever present rum-bling of generators accompanying him, Tijanithought bitterly that the only children with access toqualitative and uninterrupted education were thoseof the ruling class. If qualitative education was read-ily available and affordable, then graduates of thenation's educational system would be consideredamongst the best in the world. Parents like Tijaniwould then feel proud of educating their children

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and look for ward to seeing their graduate childrenwork as researchers, scholars, professors and evenphilosophers, at home and abroad. This can only bethe case when a ninety-eight percent literacy level isaccomplished all over the nation. However with thissame shoddy arrangement in place, building localcapacity and leading in essentials couldn't even beachieved.

It had always baffled Tijani why different sides ofthe country have different literacy levels, with thegap being incredibly wide across certain parts of thenation. He wondered why he bothered to educatehis children, when most educational certificatesgiven by the local tertiary institutions were seem-ingly useless. Graduates tended to remain unedu-cated after spending years struggling through thecountry's formal education system. The averageNameless graduate lacks the ideal command of lan-guage, with archaic knowledge of their fields ofstudy and little or zero practical knowledge. Tijanirecollects he had to pay to have someone write theprerequisite WAEC and NECO examination for Bi-trus after his previous results were very bad. It hurtshim to his heart's core that he had to stoop that low,but corruption works best in this land.

The issues at the universities were really bad, withmore people applying for admissions in than therewere spots available. There weren't enough qualified

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teachers where they are needed and in fields forwhich they are most required. Meanwhile, the inces-sant strikes by academic staffs caused so many de-lays and very few people graduated university with-out at least an extra year added.

Tijani felt Tani was wasting her time and his moneyin formal education. Her mother had already taughther to cook beautifully and he had a gut feeling thatshe would end up staying back home and unem-ployed, unless she developed the business acumento start work as a caterer. Tijani knew in his gut thatif unemployed graduates could be trained to bequalified teachers in the essential fields; especiallyscience and technology, the problems of unemploy-ment would be greatly reduced.

At this juncture Tijani made the definitive decisionthat he would have Bitrus join a skill acquisitionprogramme. It is needless to have a good soundingprestigious formal education certificate and not beable to earn a living with it. Tijani would ensure Bi-trus joins students that get trained in various techni-cal areas so that they become self-reliant, enablingthem to be self-employed and start cottage indus-tries.

It became crucial for Tijani to get the reward for ex-posing Chuks. The money would really come inhandy. He started to plan what he would do with thereward money he wasn't even sure was there.

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***

The next day, it was already six in the evening whenTijani left for work. He was late, it would take himsix minutes to make it to the hotel and he ought tohave been at his post at six. He barely had enoughtime to get home, clean up and leave because he hadto take Tabitha to see a new doctor to discuss someinnovative traditional medication.

Tabitha’s orthodox medication was so expensive,they had to find a permanent solution. The State ap-peared unwilling to fund basic healthcare. Health in-surance for the masses was literally non-existent.Conditions of employment for medical personnelwere bad, as qualified personnel left for other coun-tries or set up really expensive private hospitals.

Poor people were left to patronize state hospitalsthat were at best death traps, though when they arefirst opened and in the absence of the incessantstrikes by the public healthcare staff, they'd func-tioned well.

Tijani and Tabitha waited for hours to see the tradi-tional medicine practitioner that doctor Jamila hadtold them about, but still they hadn’t attended toTabitha by the time Tijani was forced to hurry awayto work.

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By the time he managed to nav igate and manuoevrethrough the still busy Afele market, where storeswere closing for the day, it was ten minutes after six.He was relieved to learn from a colleague that Chukswas still upstairs in his room with a new girl. But heheaded upstairs anyway to ensure that he was stillthere, before he made the call. No point the authori-ties getting here only to find that Chuks hadchecked out.

He knocked and waited. There was no response atfirst. Then he heard a lady giggling from within theroom. He knocked again, and this time Chuks’ muf-fled voice answered. A few seconds later a halfdressed Chuks opened the door.

"Ah Baba, na you? Please come in."

"Evening sir," Tijani greeted and followed Chuksinto his room. On the bed, lying completely naked,the bed sheet barely covering her, was the younglady whose tinkling laughter he had heard. She wasturned away from the door, her hip jutting at anangle, her long fake synthetic fibre hair coveringhalf her face as she spoke into the phone she held toher ear. "Yes mummy, I am attending choir practice.I might return late."

What was it about her voice? But before Tijani hadtime to process this, she turned around and the lightfell full on her face. Her face slackened in shock and

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it could only be a mirror of Tijani's face. For it wasTani, Tijani's daughter.

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JAMILA

Jamila walked briskly to her car, got in, and lockedthe door. It was not until the AC kicked in that sherealised she had been holding her breath. Shelooked down at her hands and saw that they shookslightly. She clamped them between her thighs andforced herself to breathe, to be calm. Seeing her co-wife in Afele market had shaken her. It had beeneight months since her husband took his latest wife,and there was never a time that Jamila was preparedfor this reaction. The anxiety always started in thepit of her stomach and despite her best efforts toquench it, spread through her body until it reachedher fingers. This was crazy. Insane. Where was thiscoming from? This was untenable. What was shegoing to do? But then, why had she gone to Afelemarket and not any of the others...?

She had had these feelings once before. During hersecond year in the university, a strong friendshiphad developed between herself and her course mateBarbara. Close on the heels of the friendship, an in-tense attraction had grown. A physical attraction,which took Jamila completely by surprise. They did

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everything together, and Barbara encouraged Jamilato explore her alternative sexuality. During thosecurious months, they had attended parties, raves,pride. Jamila had grown to embrace her attraction toother women. After university, she had put it firmlybehind her, stashed it away like somebody else's badidea, never to see the light of day. Until she metShakira, her husband's new wife.

That first night when Jamila was first introduced toShakira, she felt all the old cravings crawling out ofthe pit where she had them buried.

Jamila's tongue tied up in knots every time Shakirawas near, her brain going into a whirl. She watchedShakira around the house and fancied that she wasbeing deliberately teased by Shakira’s veiled staresand innuendos. Jamila knew she was being silly rev-elling in the thought that Shakira was dressing upfor her. Shakira could not stand her. Still, Jamilasought her out; in the mornings before she headedto work, in the evenings when she returned. She al-ways found an excuse to drop by Shakira's part ofthe house. She started to feel like she needed to seeShakira to get though the day - her slow way of talk-ing, the way she flung her long braids over hershoulder, the bold stare, her swaying, sensuous walk.And Jamila liked to hear the kids talk about what'aunty Shakira' had done that day. She listened withsuch rapt fascination about very mundane accounts

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that she wondered if anyone else noticed that herface was heated, the way her lips parted, the sweat.And when she lay in bed at night, it was even moreunbearable. When Alhaji was with Jamila, shethought of Shakira, and when he was with Shakira,Jamila felt a jealous rage well up in her.

To curb her raging emotions, Jamila reminded her-self of all the times Shakira had tried to be mean toher, especially in the beginning when she firstcame - ignoring her greetings, the curt answers, andeventually, refusing to let Jamila carry her baby.That hurt the most, the day Shakira had turnedaway from her, refusing her help, that morningshe'd been struggling to balance crying baby, diaperbag, and food warmer as she headed to her shop.Jamila had stretched out her hand to help calm thechild when Shakira turned away and muttered, "Thisone wey no get pikin wan carry my own learnwork." Jamila had heard every word then, and heardthem again now. She closed her eyes, allowing thepain to wash through her afresh.

But now Alhaji was out of town. She and Shakirawere both free in the mornings, and they had'bumped' into each other three times in the last twodays. Suddenly, the feelings of hurt and anger thatshe had conjured to help her cope vanished.

As was customary, they said good morning andasked after each other's health before going their

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different ways. But in the last three days, since Alhajihad announced he was going to be traveling, Jamila'smind had gone into overdrive. She wondered whatwould happen in the two days Alhaji was going tospend out of Nameless. That was all the time shehad to make the decision that could affect every-thing...

She swiftly put those thoughts out of her head as sheswung the car into reverse and drove to the office.She checked her bag again to make sure she remem-bered to take the knitted muffler she had bought forMatron Oshaloye.

***

Jamila didn't understand why she couldn't get preg-nant. Alhaji was rough, gruff, and not romantic at all,but if that had produced children for the others,why wasn't it good enough for her? Was it becauseshe barely tolerated him, because hearing, "juya" sether teeth on edge? Was her fear of contracting anSTD the reason she couldn't enjoy her husband? Orwas it because... astaghfirullah, she muttered as shegot to her office door. She wouldn't allow herselfthat thought.

***

She hung her white coat on the door and walked tothe fridge to get a sip of water. She started to un-

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wind her hijab when there was a knock on the door."Come in", she breathed without turning round.

"Feels like today is never going to end, Lucy", Jamilasaid as she put the bottled water back in the fridge."Right now I just want to go and sleep." She turnedwith a tired smile on her face that quickly morphedinto narrowed eyes as she realized the person in theroom with her wasn't Lucy, but a young lady withvery pretty eyes looking back at her.

"I am sorry I am not Lucy, but she told me to knockon the door and see if you were inside".

Jamila hurriedly retied her hijab while thinking toherself that it was a good thing the person who camein was a woman, not a man. Mallam Kabir would behorrified to learn that another man had looked ather uncovered while at work. He took such thingsvery seriously, especially, and he was an informerfor her husband - this was the concession she'd hadto make for him to allow her to work.

"Please sit down," she murmured while making herway behind the desk. "I am Doctor Jamila Mahmoodand I assume you have an emergency if Lucy sentyou in with a file already." She nodded at the bluefile in the young lady's hands.

"Yes. Well, no. Not really." The lady stuttered. "Myname is Anna and I am sorry you are having such a

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long day. Lucy was called away by another doctorwhile she was bringing me in."

"It's ok, I should have looked before I spoke." Jamilasaid, taking the file from the young woman's handsand starting to flip through it. "How can I help?"

“Doctor, I am pregnant." Anna's voice shook.

"Ok. Have you done a pregnancy test?

"Yes. I bought a kit from the pharmacy."

"When did you do it?" Jamila studied the open filebefore her.

"Last week."

Anna was pale, clearly anaemic. Pimples pepperedher forehead, revealing some combination of badnutrition. She looked young, her right hand wasbusy spinning the colourful plastic bracelets thathung on her left wrist.

"You do realise this is a fertility clinic." Jamila shutthe file close. "I will have to refer you to somewhereyou can get prenatal care."

Anna cleared her throat. "Doctor, it is a bit morecomplicated than that."

"What is the complication?"

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"Please. I don't want the baby."

"Well, even if that was legal, you are in the wrongplace." Jamila's delicate brows furrowed. "We helpmake babies here. Not get rid of them."

"Please doctor you have to help me." Anna's feverisheyes bored into Jamila. "No one else will, and if myparents find out, they will kill me. They will literallykill me!"

"Whose baby is it?"

"My boyfriend‘s."

"Is it a serious relationship?"

"Yes." chin trembled, Anna clasped her hands to-gether. "But it is also an impossible one. He has nojob and my father will sooner bury me than acceptme being with a Muslim."

"Well. That surely complicates things." Jamila leanedback in her chair, arms crossed over her chest.

"That aside I do not want the baby. I cannot have ababy now." Anna cried. "It will literally end my life.But I want to do it safely."

"I am sorry. There is really nothing I can do for youhere." Jamila was resolved on this issue.

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Jamila let her mind drift a bit as she listened to thelady beg some more and explain how this was herlast resort before her life ends. In the end Jamila hadto ask her to leave.

I am a Muslim. It is illegal. It is wrong to take the life of ahuman being.

Jamila thought of all the things she could have toldAnna, and felt conflicted about treating the termina-tion of a pregnancy like an administrative processthat she was unable to do.

***

On her way back to the clinic from lunch, Jamilasaw a crowd gathered by the main roundabout nearAfele Market roundabout Somehow, she had man-aged to drive past this place again. Now, holdup wasbuilding and she was dragged to a complete halt be-cause cars were parking for their occupants to goand take and look.

"What is going on there?" Jamila asked someone whowas walking away from the crowd.

"Na one girl o." the passerby paused by Jamila's car."E be like say she don die."

"And nobody is taking her to the hospital?"

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Jamila parked her car and did the one thing shenever did, she went to where a crowd was gathering.

"I am a doctor," she said as she made her waythrough the crowd of people struggling to take pic-tures with their phones. One person even had aniPad and was recording a video.

As she inched closer, she heard voices and they allseemed to agree on one thing. The lady seemed tohave deliberately wandered into oncoming traffic.What would make this young beautiful girl want totake her life was the question that left them all puz-zled. Some hissed, some cursed her, others sympa-thized and berated her critics. Still, their camerasand devices clicked. Their social media ac-counts would be fed.

The market commentator Bonaventure watched proceed-ings from his place at the edge of the crowd. Today’s themewas patriotism. Yes it had to be, people didn’t love theirneighbours anymore and it was his duty to tell them. Toguide them back on the straight and narrow.

Yes, straight and narrow! Imagine Chike who refused togive him pure water that day. So what he didn’t havemoney to pay, didn’t he say he would pay later? What if hewas dying? Chike would let him die because he didn’t havemoney? Ahh, these people truly needed salvaging.

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“Our affections have deoxidized! Actualities have meta-morphosed into fibs, falsehood and outright prevarica-tions! The oeuvre by our parturients past currently standsendangered by selfish machinations aimed at self-aggran-dizement!”

The words were still sputtering from his lips when he sawthat the cause for the peo ple gathered by the side of theroad wasn’t a money doubler or a performer of any kind,but because of the young woman sprawled on the ground.She looked unconscious, no movement of any sort.

Why were they taking photographs then? No one couldhelp? He was even more convinced these were a peoplewho had lost their way. He stood at the opposite side of theroad and started taking pictures of them with his imagi-nary camera. A few of them saw him and put their cam-eras away.

They definitely needed him, he thought as he headed to-wards Iya Kazeem’s shop to ask for water, maybe even abite to eat.

Jamila knelt down, and to her horror, noticed theface was familiar. She took Anna's pulse and was re-lieved to feel the telltale beat that confirmed theyoung woman was not dead. Two men agreed tohelp her carry Anna into a taxi. Jamila did not wantto use her own car and paid the taxi man twice thefare to drive behind her.

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As she drove, contemplating her options withAnna, she felt a chill pass through her body. Butknew she had but one choice.

***

Back at home. Jamila stepped in the shower, turnedthe water on full heat, then she scrubbed andscrubbed. She had managed to detach herself fromall that she felt, believed, when at the hospital, whathad to be done was done. But now she felt the co-coon cracking, her emotions were raw. Jamila feltchafed. When she saw Shakira walk through thegeneral living room on her way to her side of thehouse, a sense of inevitability, irrefutability tookhold within her. Shakira looked happy. Whyshouldn't Jamila be happy too? For so long, she haddenied herself that joy. Jamila tried to pace the feel-ing away as she had a hundred times before but forsome reason today it was too strong. Her bodytrembled, her knees especially felt weak. Her heartwas pounding as images of a naked Shakira flashedthrough her head. She jumped up from the sofa.What she was contemplating was crazy, more dan-gerous than what she had done in the hospital. Butshe felt again for the second time that she had nochoice. Today was the day.

Shakira was walking out of the bathroom whenJamila walked into her side of the house. There wasno excuse for why she was there. Shakira was star-

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tled to find someone else in her quarters. Jamilastared at her and approached her, each step deliber-ate. Shakira backed away slowly, thinking Jamila wascoming to attack her. When Jamila got close sheabruptly stopped and pulled her brightly colouredboubou over her head. She let the gown fall to theground. There was nothing underneath it.

Shakira's eyes widened with surprise.

"I look at you and I go crazy," Jamila said, her voicecracking. It was either going to work, or her mar-riage was over and she would suffer humiliation.

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MARKET POLITICS

Alhaji Azeez raised his eyes from the centre table.His unseeing gaze had been focused on a spot forthe past three or so minutes. In truth, he was pon-dering the words of this woman who was wipingbeads of sweat off her brow. How anyone couldsweat so profusely in this mild weather was beyondhim. She was dressed in iro and buba, an off-whitecolour that emphasized the dark chocolate hue ofher skin.

Alhaji Azeez had a strong dislike for large women.And he did not like dark women. Looking at hiswives, one could easily tell. They were all slim-waisted and light-skinned. Even after they bore himsons and daughters, they kept their shape and re-mained as slim as when he had met them. How theycame to achieve this he did not know or care. Butthey all knew that if they began to ”spread”, well,they had themselves to blame. He had said it oftenenough, even though it seemed like he was joking, “alarger woman will just make my penis lazy, I cannothelp it,” and he would guffaw at his own silly joke.

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However there was no laughing at his vis itor today.She was Iya Kazeem, Alhaji Maroof’s wife. Peoplesaid she was the one that wore the trousers in thehome, and that she was the one who should not becrossed. Alhaji Azeez believed this too, and hadoften wondered what Alhaji Maroof saw in her. Hewas a soft-spoken and outwardly cultured man thatnever raised his voice. Yet Azeez had seen her scut-tle off once when after a lot of posturing, Alhaji Ma-roof directed a piercing stare at Iya Kazeem and or-dered her in mild tones to take herself out of hissight even though she had wanted to sit in on one oftheir meetings. Azeez saw then that despite all hergyrations, when it came to her husband, she was apussycat. At the same time Azeez grudgingly admit-ted that it was her tireless energy that got himelected as Local Government chairman two yearsago. At first he wondered why she had fought sohard on his case, spent so much money enticing thewomen traders at the market, even though his suc-cess seemed unlikely. He was younger than his op-ponent in a city that favoured age and respect, andhe had far less money. But Alhaji Maroof and hiswife had chosen to support him, and for that hewould remain eternally grateful.

Azeez had shown this gratitude over the years inmany ways, and they had a tacit understandingwhen it came to the subject of awarding contracts.Gradually, Alhaji Azeez saw that this couple worked

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like a well-oiled machine. Alhaji Maroof had thetrustful face, the connections, and his wife was thebrawler. Together, they delivered, and reaped thebenefits. Azeez paid them the necessary calls andshows of gratitude and solidarity now and then, butkept contact and interaction to a minimum. It was awonder he was able to succeed in politics. He wasnot able to fawn over people, a cheap requisite inthis game of politics. With the Maroofs, his dignitywas intact. And an election was coming round again.

“How are the children?” Azeez inquired to keep upappearances.

“We thank God.” Iya Kazeem replied.

“How is the market?” He added.

‘The market is the same, good today, bad tomorrow.Who knows what a new day will bring? We are justlooking.” She replied dryly.

There was a brooding silence. To break it, Azeezcleared his throat and offered to fetch one of hiswives to serve Iya Kazeem a drink, or perhaps shewould like some food. She shook her head, impa-tiently tapping her left foot. There was a furtive airaround her today, even for someone like her whowas usually restless. Finally she asked, “Where is IyaBola?”

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Azeez was surprised, though he hid it well. IyaKazeem asking for Iya Bola? Something had to beamiss. Iya Kazeem kept away from Iya Bola as muchas possible – she even seemed to take pains to avoidher as Iya Bola had informed him. Iya Bola claimednot to mind Iya Kazeem’s cold shoulder, but as herhusband, he knew she did. He knew her too well.She was the youngest of his wives, and in the con-stant jostling for relevance, they all sought to be-friend Alhaji Maroof and his wife.

With his first two wives, these attentions were wel-comed. The only exception was Iya Bola’s case.There was a note of aloofness in the way Iya Kazeeminteracted with his youngest wife, and Azeez sus-pected that Iya Kazeem was a tad intimidated by IyaBola even though she would rather die than admitit. And yet, here was Iya Kazeem asking after IyaBola.

“Iya Bola is at work,” Azeez told Iya Kareem.

Iya Kazeem’s thick lips curled. Azeez watched herclosely, slightly perturbed. “What is the matter?”

“Iya Bola is the matter. When you said you wantedto marry that woman, what did I tell you? Did myhusband and I not warn you she was trouble? Whyyou would decide to bring that omo ibo…” Azeezcut her short, they had had this conversation before.

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“Nkechi is not an omo ibo as you call her.”

“Listen to the name, it speaks for itself. Those peo-ple like money too much.”

Azeez had to smile at the irony. He did not knowanyone who liked money more than Iya Kazeem.She owned the largest number of stalls in differentmarkets and seemed to have her hands in every pie.By every standard, she was a wealthy woman, but itnever seemed to be enough. She was a favouritetopic of conversation among his wives when theygathered to recount experiences of their day. Shewas a Shylock of sorts, always lending money to astall owner and when they were unable to pay, shewould simply write off the debt as long as theyagreed to her acquiring their stall. His wives won-dered if Iya Kazeem had ambitions to take over thewhole market. Needless to say she was not terriblypopular, but they seemed to be afraid of her, and Al-haji Azeez detected a slight note of jealousy andwistfulness from his wives. All except Nkechi whoowned just one stall where she sold fabrics.

Azeez waited for Iya Kazeem to continue. “Wewarned you, these graduate-type women speakingbig-big grammar everywhere, this woman will putyou in trouble. Did you listen? No. You who is like ason to us. Now look at the wahala this woman isbringing.”

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“What wahala?” Azeez was now truly concerned. IyaKazeem regarded him with cold eyes, as if he knewexactly what her problem was with his wife.

“What wahala indeed.” Iya Kazeem eyed him scepti-cally. “You mean you do not know?”

“Know what?”

Alhaji Azeez felt his muscles tense, he felt that IyaKazeem’s next words would finally break the sus-pense.

“With all her degrees, she decided to come and dis-turb us in the market, calling herself a marketwoman. I knew something was wrong but did Iknow the extent of her greed? No. Iyaloja indeed.Where has she heard that a small girl like her can beIyaloja? Ehn? Tell me.”

“Did you say Iyaloja?”

Iya Kazeem fired on, ignoring him. ‘That your wifedoes not understand the way things work. She istalking of taxes, the kind of things she is saying, thewomen are not happy. She can never mind her busi-ness, how can she be gathering my girls around herstall like that? Imagine that nonsense. Alhaji Azeez, Ihave come to you as a mother to advise you, tell IyaBola to desist from this ambition of hers. We likethings the way they are.”

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There were few times Al haji Azeez was struckdumbfounded as he was at that moment.

“Oho so she has not even told you. She is even goingbehind your back. Don’t say I did not warn you. Myhusband is not happy with the idea.” Iya Kazeemshot him a meaningful stare.

Immediately sensing a challenge, Azeez rose andtried to hold her gaze, but her cold eyes causedAzeez to break off first. He stared at the ground.

“We, my husband and I, and my girls at the market,feel that your first wife, Iya Yetunde, would be a bet-ter choice.”

“I will deal with this.” Azeez tried to sound reassur-ing.

“You better do o. Ehen. My husband sends his re-gards.” She rose to leave, fastening her wrappermore securely around her waist. “Greet the childrenwhen they return from school.”

Azeez nodded lost in thought as Iya Kazeem strodeaway. He could hear her voice echoing long aftershe has left. It made no sense, her words. Nkechi, as-piring to be an Iyaloja. Where did that come from?

*****

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She flipped open the class register and pretended tocount the number of ticks by each name.

“Listen to me…”

She raised her head and cocked it to one side, asmile playing at the corner of her mouth. The lightfiltering in through a split in the drawn up blindsbathed one half of her face and cast the other inshadow. “Yes?”

It wasn't often that Lenny was lost for words Ngoziploughed on to seize the moment.

“Do you know the best place to make change hap-pen from?”

“No.”

“I will tell you. From within, that’s where. We havetalked and talked about what is wrong with the mar-ket. Now I have this idea that I think is brilliant and Iexpected support from you, not disapproval. Canyou not see?”

“Let’s say I cannot. Educate me.”

Ngozi sighed. “As we both know, the market has alot of poor women who basically live from hand tomouth, these are the women that have become myfriends since I opened that fabric shop. Thesewomen are amazing, and their lives can be im-

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proved if they have access to loans, low interestloans that they can use to trade. You know how it iswhen they try to get loans from the banks... I want tostart a market cooperative tax, where the marketwomen who have more stores and earn more in-come pay a higher market tax and the tax can beavailable as loans to the poor market women. Thisfund will raise these women out of poverty. A pro-gressive tax is the answer to the developmentalneeds of that place, and I will make it happen.”

Lenny studied Nkechi, the anger seeping away asthey regarded each other.

“You are right.” Lenny said, inhaling deeply. “I amjust worried about you.”

“Have I not always taken care of myself?” Nkechirose from the chair, came around the desk andstood in front of Lenny. The look in her eyes wasearnest, determined. She brushed imaginary lint offLenny's shirt. Her hand played with the top buttonand lingered there, as they moved closer to eachother. They regarded each other silently, and thenslowly, Lenny's head towards her and everythingelse was forgotten.

***

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“Good afternoon Iyaloja.” Tawa prostrated as sheentered Nkechi’s fabric stall at the bustling market-place.

Nkechi made an attempt at showing offence but itwas a weak one, she was pleased at the appellation.‘Tawa, I am not Iyaloja yet.”

“You are already a mother to us.” Tawa smiled,highlighting the marks that adorned her cheeks. Shesettled on an empty stool near to the seated Iya Bola.“Iyaloja have you heard about what happened to IyaAdijat?”

If Nkechi was to admit it herself, she had becomesomething of a godmother to the many women whoearned their living through trade in the market-place, it was only natural that news of the break-inof Iya Adijat’s stall had reached Iya Bola‘s ears. Shehad not witnessed it herself but she might as wellhave, Nkechi could describe the way Iya Adijat leaptwith her hands on her head, tears streaming downher face when she discovered her goods had beenwiped out in the robbery. Iya Adijat had been incon-solable, rolling in the mud and filth of the marketfloor.

‘Tawa, everyone has heard about that story.” Nkechiswiped at a fly that had landed on the sleeve of herlace buba.

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“Not this one.” Tawa leaned in, oc cupying Nkechi’sspace. “Mr Jegede has refused to give Iya Adijat themoney she has a right to.”

“What do you mean.” Nkechi asked.

Jegede owned Green River Insurance. His office wasat a ramshackle dilapidated building not far fromthe marketplace. When he had first attempted toconvince market women of the need to insure theirgoods, the women had laughed him off. His preten-tious accent and badly mangled Yoruba were unfor-tunate vehicles to attempt to transfer his idea to themarket women. It was then that he had approachedIya Bola. Nkechi had seen the wisdom in paying 100naira per day to protect her wares in case of any un-foreseen accident. It had helped that Lenny, herchildren’s lesson teacher had mentioned that theschool she taught in also used the services of GreenRiver Insurance. Now Lily of the Valley was not ex-actly a top-notch school where blue-collar childrenanswered roll call, however it was the best that IyaBola could afford, and she trusted the proprietor ofthe school and staff there, like Lenny.

If Mrs Bosede considered it wise to buy a health in-surance package from Green River Insurance, thenthere was no reason for her not to get insurance too.Anything could happen in the market, whethertheft, fire or loss of goods.

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“Iya Bola,” Tawa sighed. ‘that useless man Jegede hasrefused to pay up Iya Adijat's insurance o.” sheclicked her tongue. “Despite the money we havebeen paying him every month, he spoke his big Eng-lish and said he has no money to give Iya Adijat.”

Nkechi shifted in the plastic chair. ‘Tawa let us notjump into conclusions. There must be a reason whyJegede did not pay out the insurance.” She rackedher mind for an explanation and hit a brick wall.

Tawa sighed again. ‘there is talk in the market IyaBola, that Jegede is liv ing a baby boy life. He is enjoy-ing the fruits of our labour.”

“What is the meaning of baby boy life o,” Nkechilaughed. ‘Tawa, there must be a reason behindJegede not paying Iya Adijat‘s money. I will lookinto it.”

Nkechi again imagined a situation where the marketwomen‘s cooperative union, would buy the insur-ance for their members rather than the individualsin the market buying it themselves. It was clearJegede didn‘t feel threatened by one market woman,but she wondered if he could afford to ignore all themarket women. Whist she agreed with the idea ofinsurance for the market women, it was clear GreenRiver Insurance was not the best vehicle for them.

***

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Reaching home after a long day at the market wassomething Nkechi always looked forward to. Shewas pleased to see her children seated on a mat out-side in the quadrangle with their school books openin front of them. Lenny their lesson teacher, and an-other staff member of the school they attended, Lilyof the Valley, sat on a chair in front of them. Theywere so engrossed in their lessons that they did notnotice their mother observing them. It warmed herheart to see the fruits of her womb being so stu-dious, as judging by the fast approaching dusk,Nkechi had not even expected to see Lenny at thehouse.

“Mummy!” it was Taiwo that caught sight of herfirst, soon all four of them were rushing forward tohug her.

Nkechi made sure to smother kisses and hugs oneach of her children. She gave Bola the nylon bag,hot with the puff-puff inside it, to share with heryounger siblings, and sent them inside. It was onlywhen the children left that she noticed the tired lookon Lenny’s face. Lenny was tall and did not try toappear smaller the way some people did. UsuallyLenny had a smile that brought out the deep dim-ples on each side of what were obviously gorgeouslips, and eyes always twinkling so much that some-times Nkechi considered jumping Lenny in public.But that day, Lenny sagged as though a heavy

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weight weighing down from the gods themselves.There were dark bags below Lenny’s eyes, and thecheery smile was absent from Lenny’s face. So wor-ried by this new Lenny, Nkechi reached to hug andoffer some comfort. “Lenny, I hope there’s nothingwrong?” she said wrapping an arm around Lenny’sshoulder.

“Good after noon ma.” Lenny dragged a tired handdown the face Nkechi never got tired of looking at.“Iya Bola I...” Nkechi was shocked to see Lenny’shands shake while struggling for words. “It is... Adi-gun my...” Lenny’s eyes were red and Iya Bola cutthe conversation quickly to offer them some privatemoment to regroup.

“Ah. Bola!” Nkechi screamed for her eldest child.

Bola appeared almost immediately, her lips oilyfrom the puff-puff. “Get a glass of water and bring itto that corner beside the room.”

Lenny eyes closed momentarily as Nkechi steeredthem around the corner towards one of the onlyplace in the polygamous house hold they could havea bit of privacy. Her heart wrenched to think of theway Lenny must have struggled trying to teach thechildren while bearing such a heavy burden. Experi-ence with her fellow traders at the market place hadtaught her that in such times it was good to let it out.

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In the isolated corner, Lenny finally let lose whileNkechi tried to get the crux of the matter.

‘Take it easy my dear.” Nkechi said while rubbingLenny’s back.

Then she asked cautiously. “I hope no one died.”

Lenny’s head shook indicating no. “Adigun... he isnot dead, but he... he is in the hospital.”

At that point, Nkechi decided she would not ask anymore questions but just offer a listening ear whenLenny was ready to speak. She sat beside Lenny, oc-casionally whispering “sorry” and ‘take it easy” toshow her empathy. Later on, Nkechi listened in hor-ror as Lenny explained what had led to the breakdown in such a manner.

Adigun, a fellow teacher at Lily of the Valley school,a hard working fellow despite the low salary, hadfallen seriously ill. From the first time he had beensick, it had been one issue after the other. Under theschool’s proprietor Mrs. Bosede, all teachers hadsigned up for a health insurance scheme at Spring-field Clinics, a privately-owned institution thatboasted advanced health care. Adigun’s wife hadtaken him to Springfield when he showed the firstsigns of being ill, and had been turned back after thehospital informed her that they would not be takingin Adigun because they had yet to receive his de tails

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from the insurance company. Adigun’s wife had toborrow money from relatives to install her husbandin a hospital that they could not a ford.

While looking after her sick husband, she had had tojump from Green River Insurance offices to theschool and back. Each time she visited Green RiverInsurance, Jegede had insisted that he had sent herhusband’s details to the hospital, and that if anythingwas wrong, it must be Springfield’s responsibility.Asshe was passed back and forth like a basket ball onthe court, it was finally revealed that Adigun hadleukemia.

“Nkechi.” Lenny added in a sad voice. “I saw Adigunin the hospital today, and he looked like a skeletonwearing human skin. The doctors say he doesn’thave much time to live.”

“God forbid it.” Nkechi snapped her fingers. “Don’tsay that ehn, Adigun will be healed. I know he isyour very good friend and I know he will need yourstrength. You can’t afford to be negative at thispoint”

‘The way Adigun’s poor wife has been runningaround.” Lenny sighed. ‘They just got married lastyear, and she is pregnant. Mrs. Bosede is suspectingthat Jegede has swindled all of us. It is horrible thatAdigun is in this kind of condition and that wickedman does not seem to care.”

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***

The next day as Nkechi walked to her stall in Afelemarket, she thought of the last time someone hadmentioned Jegede to her, it was always a complaint.Tawa had been the first to warn her about Jegede’spossible evil schemes, and to think that she had de-fended the man there. Nkechi kissed her teeth infrustration: the whole situation seemed hopeless.And for Jegede to be accused in such a manner notonce but twice was alarming.

Thoughts on Jegede consumed her as she roundedthe corner where the yam sellers displayed theirwares. Iya Bola was dragged out of her musing bythe boys that carried the yams for customers onwheel barrows. What alarmed Iya Bola was the care-less manner in which they tossed the empty plasticbags of water they had used to wash their yams intothe open gutters.

"Hey Mallam" Iya Bola yelled. "Mallam" she calledagain, the boys looked at themselves clearly unsurewhether to answer her.

There were few things that irritated Nkechi morethan littering, and one of them was people not lis-tening to her when she spoke to them. Iya Bolaseized the opportunity to put the Jegede problem onthe backburner. She made a sudden detour and

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headed straight for the yam sellers, "Didn't you hearme calling you?" she asked, arms akimbo.

"Iya, you I hear me but name is not Mallam, na Hus-sain." said the yam seller in broken English.

"Why are you people throwing waste into the gutter?Can‘t you see it will block it when the next rainscome?" Iya Bola asked.

"Iya me I no know am for waste, na nylon we deythroway for gutter" Hussain shrugged.

"Hussain, don't you know it‘s your action of blockingthe gutter that is causing our market to flood?" Shepointed an accusing finger at the clogged up gutter."Abi you don‘t know? Is this gutter your rubbishdump?"

Iya Bola regarded these seasonal traders with suspi-cion. Depending on the season they would alwayscame, sell their yams, and then leave. These traderswere not members of any market union and so werenot as invested in the market as the other traders,they slept in the market, and more often than notleft the market worse than they had met it, withtheir profit of course.

A small crowd had grown to watch the confrontationbetween Iya Bola and the yam sellers.

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"Joor Iya Bola, leave these almajiri boys alone." awoman from the crowd announced.

"Ha so you don‘t know that what these boys aredoing is blocking these drains?" Nkechi now spoke tothe gathering. "When next it rains don‘t you knowmore shops will get flooded? Why do you thinkHajia Ruka store got destroyed? If small rain water isnot allowed to flow out of the market, if we keepblocking the drains with waste, then there will onlybe more flood." she explained.

"Iya you no block am for gutter ooh....." interruptedHussain.

"Eeeh Hussain abeg," Iya Bola flicked her hand indismissal. "I don‘t have time for your stories, oya tellyour boys to start clearing this gutter now. Now!"

Iya Bola's tone offered no room for argument. Herearlier explanation had linked the drains blockedwith refuse, to the floods, and most importantly, tothe yam seller. The crowd grew restless, pointingand gesticulating.

"Iya make I no vex, you go clear the gutter for Iya."Hussain could tell he was outnumbered in this one,he hurried off to shout his mates into action to clearthe blocked gutters.

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As the youths picked the empty plastic bags from the gut-ters, the market commentator Bonaventure seized the op-portunity to break out of the crowd and address them.

"Spick and span, spick and span, prog enitors, in grain inyour offspring, the necessity that is spick and span,”Bonaventure screamed at the top of his lungs, hop ing thatper haps one of those dirty market traders would cleantheir surroundings, stop dumping refuse everywhere but atthe agreed dump site, and make it an eas ier environmentfor him to purchase his food and wares.

Taking a break from his declarations, he made a left to -wards the mama put shack when he sighted Yona blowingher nose and wiping her hand on her skirt. He spun andheaded off across the street to drop his pure water sachetin the trash. Mys teriously, the need to eat at her shack hadbeen suddenly expunged after what he had just seen herdo.

Iya Bola watched Bonaventure move back and forth.She was satisfied to see the boys working to cleanthe gutters, and saw the approval on the faces of themarket women. Her heart expanded with pride, andatthe same time a sense of urgency settled on her.

Under her breath, Iya Bola whispered to herself "Ihave to organise these women, I just have to.“

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***

Nkechi raised her head from the tray of beans shewas picking and smiled up at her husband. “Yes, Iwant to be Iyaloja.”

‘This is nothing short of madness.” Alhaji Azeez’ssaid. His eyes protruding from his round face.

“I know. But so is the sorry state of things in thatmarket.” Nkechi pointed out, then she wisely

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changed her tone. It paid to be plead ing, “Will younot support me?”

Azeez who had been standing till that point, settled onthe bench beside Nkechi. He put his arm around her.

“You know I am up for re-election.” his voice waslow in her ear. “Iya Kazeem was here the other day, Ihave been meaning to talk to you.”

“Hmmm.” was all Nkechi could say.

“You see how hard it is to keep a hold of you.” Therewas reproach in her husband’s voice. “Because of allthis your running up and down in the market, evenyour husband has diffiulties in finding you.”

Nkechi pursed her lips, she could point out that itwas him, her dear husband, that never seemed to beat home. Trust him to try to shift the blame on herand accuse her of neglecting her wifely duties.

‘The warning was clear.” Azeez continued, his gripon her slim shoulder tightened. “I have decided. Itwill stay in the family. Iya Yetunde your senior wifecan run for the position.”

At his words, Nkechi’s eyebrows drew to the bridgeof her nose, she shrugged his hand off her shoulderand stood suddenly, upending the tray. Black-eyedpeas spilled to the concrete ground, the tray crashedloudly.

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“Have I not always obeyed you in all things?” Nkechisaw red. “Did I not marry you despite my family’sstrong opposition? Did I not have four childrenwhen I only wanted two? Did I not become a Mus-lim?” Nkechi was pleased to note her husband’sshocked face.

“My husband, in this I am sorry, I cannot agree withyou. I cannot not do this. Look around you. Womenare suffering, the market structure is in tatters. Yourso-called godmother makes a living by takingmoney from vulnerable women. Did you see whathappened after the last floods? Iya Yetunde indeed.They want someone they can control. What doesshe know?”

Nkechi kissed her teeth, spun dramatically andstrode away. She walked with long angry stridesuntil she came to the open space at the back of thehouse, the quadrangle where her children gathered.Bola, the oldest, a girl of eleven was braiding Ke-hinde’s hair and Yemi squatted beside the low wallclose by regaling them with tales from school.

Bola took the role of oldest sister very seriously. Asshe braided Kehinde’s hair, she swatted her headfrom time to time when the child nodded off. Yemiwas her second child and looked most like hermother, both in looks and temperament. Her sec-ond daughter was bold and daring and her antics at

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school were always cause for concern but made forgood stories. The twins, Kehinde and Taiwo werestill young, they loved mimicking their older sisters.At the moment, Taiwo was running around chasingafter a lizard.‘Taiwo!” Nkechi yelled when he rushed past her.“What are you doing?”

“Catching lizards!” he called back.

“Have you washed the plates I asked you to wash?”

“Mummy, that’s woman’s work. I told you, I willrather…”

Nkechi narrowed her eyes at him. He was so youngyet he had already imbibed these ideas on what waswomen’s work. At his mother’s sharp gaze, Taiwogrunted and stalked off indoors to do exactly whatshe had asked.

“Woman’s work indeed,” Nkechi murmured underher breath as her phone vibrated in the pocket ofthe house gown she wore.

As she accepted the call, Nkechi was distracted byBola’s gaze. Recently Bola had taken to staring at herlike she was a stranger. At first she thought she hadupset her daughter, then she suspected an earlyonset of puberty. The call was from her friend Bisi.Still upset from her husband’s words, Nkechi un-loaded her current source of distress onto her

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friend. Yet talking about it made her even moreupset.

“Whether anyone likes it or not, I will be Iyaloja”Nkechi caught Bola studying her, as soon as Bolanoticed, she turned and stared at the ceiling. Con-versation over, Nkechi made her way to her daugh-ter.

“Bola dear, is everything all right?” she asked.

Bola swallowed. “Mummy are you going into poli-tics?”

The question made Nkechi almost stumble. Withthe way she was talking to Bisi on the phone, itshould be no surprise that her daughter had over-heard the entire conversation.

“Yes darling.” as she gained control of her compo-sure.“Is that democracy?”

“Yes it is democracy.” she frowned. “Why. Are youlearning about democracy in school?”

“We studied it in social studies last year.”

Despite the conversation, Nkechi’s heart swelled ather daughter’s great memory. “I am glad you re-member what you did last year.”

“I am confused mummy.” Bola pouted.

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“About what darling?”

“You said it is democracy? And in democracy, thewill of the people is supreme.”

“Yes.”

“But on the phone you said that whether people likeit or not you will be Iyaloja. Is that not a dictator-ship? Shouldn’t you let the people choose?”

Nkechi felt a like she was standing against galewinds. She felt light headed from the shock of whatshe had just heard.

“Firstly Bola, you should never eavesdrop on peo-ple’s conversation.” she reproached. ‘That is veryrude!”

“I am sorry mum.”

“Secondly my dear,” Nkechi softened her tone. ‘Thatwas just an expression. Because I want to go intopolitics there are all sorts of situations that I have todeal with that frustrate me. Do you understand?”

Her daughter nodded, even though her eyes showedthat she did not understand. It seemed Nkechi hadsuccessfully wriggled her way out of the most in-tense humiliation she had ever experienced. Insome ways she felt like a fraud. But then, her daugh-ter’s questions helped put things in perspective.

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***

Nkechi could not stop her ambitions, not with somany situations on ground. On a Wednesday, IyaBola visited her market stall to find a dozen womencrowded in front of it. They were all women sherecognised, and they were all in states of distress.Some sat on the ground, hands on their heads andothers stood with their arms crossed over their

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breasts, shaking their heads. Her heart pounded as ittried to leap through her mouth, a sense of trepida-tion settled on Iya Bola. What had happened now.

“Jegede wants to ruin us!” Mummy Camsi wailed.

“Iya Bola something must be done.” Hajia Ruka satfrom her seated position.

At that moment Iya Bola decided. “We must go andconfront him. What kind of wickedness is this?”

It was as the women headed towards the rundownbuilding that housed Green Life Insurances that IyaBola got the full story. Hajia Ruka’s stall had beenflooded and Jegede had again refused to compensateher. Enough was enough, Jegede was going to haveto answer for his crimes. Together with her fellowtraders, he would have to explain why he was notpaying his clients, why he was not doing what hepromised when he advertised his insurance businessto them. Iya Bola felt some sort of responsibility, itwas she who had encouraged the women here to in-sure their goods with Jegede. The corrupt man withhis arrogant airs would pay for trying to cheat mar-ket women under her watch.

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FAVOUR UNDER LAW

"A blogger's life is lonely but that of the unemployedyouth is lonelier."

Doyin said the words out loud before typingthem out. He looked at the words on his old laptop'scracked screen; a gift from an expatriate oildriller, and considered them carefully. What he hadjust typed made sense to him, he decided. Heglanced at his wristwatch, there was still some time,he would write some more before heading out forthe Nameless Youth Council that evening. It wouldbe nice to be able to inform the rest of the guys thathe had finished writing his latest blog post. They al-ways looked forward to his writing and Doyin knewthat they would be eager to hear him describe howhe had captured their agitation for employment andyouth empowerment.

His fingers flexed over the keyboard in anticipation.

He heard the explosion about then.

***

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Tamuno was looking for the left boot, he had al -ready tied up the lace of the right boot before hediscovered the other one was missing. It was abouttime for him to head for the Nameless Youth Coun-cil. As the leader of the secret militant youth group,he had to be early and lead by example. Walkingaround in his near empty single room, he searchedeverywhere, desperately looking under his low bam-boo bed too, but that boot was not anywhere in theunkempt room. Clearly his neighbour's dog musthave snuck in while he had his siesta with his doorwide open, and dragged the boot out, the furrythief. That would be the third time this week theblasted dog had mistaken his boot for a dead cat orsome kind of bush meat. Then again he could notentirely blame the dog, perhaps the animal was justattracted to the foul smell that emanated from hisboots. Tamuno looked down at his laced up rightfoot, his boots could use several washings.

As Tamuno made to storm out of the room insearch of the cursed canine, the thunderous explo-sion rocked him off his feet.

***

Awaji spread clear lip gloss on her full lips. Shesmiled at her reflection and winked. She knew shewas not exactly the prettiest girl by any means, butshe liked what she saw in the mirror. The fittingdress she wore showed her shapely body, she had

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curves in all the right places. Awaji was used to try -ing to be attractive, mainly because of the hugeforehead she was born with. When she was in sec-ondary school she was mercilessly teased for herhead, she would be told that her skull must haveturned around on its very own after God createdand inserted it under her skin. Still Awaji liked tothink that she had outgrown that bullying, it was atestament to her resilience that she could look atherself in the mirror and decide that she lookedgood and was ready to go. Besides, her looks werenot of utmost importance where she was going.

She had been introduced into the Nameless YouthCouncil as a first year student in Chemical Engi-neering at the University and within three monthsher enthusiasm for the cause had taken her to thehelm of its leadership. She lead the group alongsideTamuno, one of the founding members, and shewas as brave as she was just. The members of theirgroup really enjoyed her presence, and her author-ity was unchallenged. As was usual, the meetingwould go on into the night; there were so many is-sues affecting the unprivileged of Nameless, theyoung graduates that could not find jobs, those af-fected by the continuous environmental degrada-tion caused by oil spills.

It would be nice too, if after the meeting, one of theguys would be gutsy enough to walk her home, walk

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her to his home that is. Then there was a suddenloud bang. Awaji did not know when she scrambledunder the low wooden table. In her panic, allthoughts of a romantic liaison were wiped from hermind. What on earth could have caused the earth toshudder in such a manner?

***

Mama Iquo was in her small stall in Afele marketwhen an oil truck carrying kerosene dipped into adeep crater in the main paved road in Namelessand burst one of its rear tyres. The truck spun out ofits driver's control, ran off the road just beside Afelemarket's main gate, and fell into a ditch. The truck'ssizeable storage tank upturned halfway into theditch and there was a spill. Kerosene flowed freelyonto the road and into the depths of the ditch.

There was a stampede as everyone in Afele marketlurched forward. Market women ignored their stalls,grabbed containers of every size and make, andheaded for the spill to scoop up some of the pre-cious liquid. This was an opportunity to supplementtheir family incomes. Cheap unadulterated kerosenewas hard to come by in this economy, and freekerosene can only be a godsend. But it appeared theinconsolable truck driver was not an angel on a di-vine errand for the supreme deity. He stood asideand watched in visible agony as the multitudeof women, men and children crowded at the ditch.

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Even el derly men passing on their old rick ety bi cy-cles forgot their ages and went on all fours to collectscarce kerosene.

Mama Iquo had merely stood aside to observe themadness. Questions swarmed through her head, forone, why was the kerosene being moved by tanker?When she went to buy periwinkle near the ocean-front, she had seen miles of pipes for moving petro-leum products. So why was this truck still carryingkerosene through a busy market?

It must have been some divine premonition, or asshe would have explained it, her wicked late hus-band had not succeeded in convincing his fellowdead ancestors to send for her to continue slavingover him in the afterlife. Later the aged MamaIquo would use every ancient proverb she could rec-ollect to describe what had happened next Shewould vehemently state that it must have been herprecious daughter's powerful prayers that kept herfrom joining the rush for awoof kerosene.

The old woman was well out of danger when thestupid irate truck driver decided that he could scareaway the scooping crowd by threatening them withhis cigarette lighter. He shouted at the top of hisvoice and clicked on the lighter. No one paid himany attention, so he edged even closer. He came tooclose, and a swinging arm of a passing scooperknocked the lit lighter off his shaky sweaty hand.

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The spilled kerosene ignited slowly at first, and inthe noise surrounding all the chaos of scoopingkerosene, no one heard the panicking driver shoutout frantic words of caution to the crowd. The firespread and raced faster towards the soaked women,children and men busy collecting the scarce fuel.

The first most of them knew about the fire was thehuge explosion, as the racing fire reached the truckproper. The fire was burning in no time, it was likethe Devil had started it himself and sent it out of theabyss. Virtually everyone already scooping thekerosene was alight and soon engulfed by theflames. The flames spread like wildfire in the heartof the savannah during harmattan.

When Doyin got to the site of the explosion,Tamuno was already there, with his right foot in hisankle high boot and his left foot in an open top san-dal. The scene was horrific. In the midst of bodieswrithing in the fire, screaming for help, one burningfigure ran out of the inferno and rolled along theground. The bystanders moved away from him, soscared for their own lives that none of them consid-ered lifting a finger to help him.

Awaji had just arrived and she immediately rushedtowards the burning man who rolled on the ground,screaming for others to do what he was doing. Sheprayed that they heard her above the loud roars andscreaming as she remembered the tips that had been

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given to participants in a first aid training she hadattended last year. Carefully, Awaji took off the scarfshe had wrapped on her head and attempted to beatthe fire off the burning man. She screamed to Doyinand Tamuno to do the same with other people asthey ran out of the inferno in an attempt to savetheir lives.

***

"Lugubrious!! Odoriferous! This terra firma uponwhich we have made our habitation is in a state ofdisma pisma! Repent! Transform your cognitionfrom the scuttlebutt plaguing our subsistence, andtransmute! Transmute my fellow travellers! Whole-someness precedes cherubianism..."

Bonaventure paused at that last word - he knew itwas wrong.

Doyin took a minute from tending to the injured tohiss.

"What kind of person is this Bonaventure sef? Nowonder everyone says he is a mad man. Instead ofhim to help people that are hurt he’s adding to thechaos with noise and big grammar! One day I willrub pepper on the mic of that his public address sys-tem. He will go and meet his God from there."

***

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Mama Iquo handed Tamuno a small pail of water ashe rushed past her. Tamuno emptied the water onthe burning man's back, while Doyin rushed to theaid of another figure who had escaped the burninginferno. As the youths rushed back and forth tryingtheir best to aid those who had managed to get outof the fire, Mama Iquo watched in horror.

Again she asked herself, "Why can‘t kerosene bemoved by pipes?"

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IQUO'S FARM

Iquo had always had a nose for business.

Whilst she was in the University, she started a fastfood stand where she served pies and pastries. Whenthe naira was devalued considerably, known brandssuch as Coca Cola became too expensive and out ofreach of students. This was a major problem forIquo as the cost of drinks in her stand became amajor factor in her purchase decisions.

To remedy this situation, Iquo did backward inte-gration, entered into a contract with Madam LoloAgnes, the wife of the traditional Chief of Nameless,the closest town to where her university was located,to supply her a bag of fresh oranges every morning.Iquo bought a juicer and simply squeezed out or-ange juice, which she chilled and sold as a substitutefor CocaCola. Her customers called it Iquo Soda: shecalled it a cash cow.

This was Iquo’s introduction to the business poten-tial of agriculture, and she never looked back. Shestarted I-juice while she was still a student. She

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added pineapples to her range of juices, and shebegan packaging and preserving the juice. Shestarted a small scale factory where she processed or-anges and pineapples to juice drinks. She expandedher market share, and began to deliver her fruitjuice to smaller stores around Nameless and beyond,even as far as the capital city. Her juice drink waswell received, it was natural and fresh. Iquo was ableto take her drinks to the weekly Afele market, wheretraders from other towns still came once a week, justlike they have done for countless decades, long be-fore the old stream dried up. Her juice drinks werebought and distributed to other markets.

Iquo's big break came in 2008; when Lolo Agnes of-fered Iquo her large farm for sale. Lolo Agnes hadan orchard of orange trees and a pineapple planta-tion on the farm. It was a great deal as the aged LoloAgnes could no longer manage the sizeable farmand she wanted to cash out. The farm was about 15hectares, on the major highway to the state capital,between Nameless and the University. It producedan average yield, but lost most of its produce towaste from lack of storage and theft from universitystudents out to supplement their little allowances.

Iquo took Lolo Agnes‘ offer, sold her car, took abank loan, mortgaged her factory and bought theland. She was a good manager. She secured thewhole farm, built irrigation channels, storage plants

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and a processing factory inside the farm, and shewas able to drop her cost of production and raiseyields, thus raising her revenues. By 2013, I-juicewas a successful undertaking, as healthy diets hadbecome a norm and her juices were now sold inmajor stores across the region and far beyond. Shewas already exporting small quantities to other WestAfrican towns and European markets.

Iquo was out on the field when Nneka, her Regionalbank manager, based in Nameless, called her.

“Ms. Iquo, can we have a short meeting?” Nnekaasked, “Sure” Iquo answered, “I will come and seeyou later in the day”.

“Actually Ms. Iquo”, Nneka responded “I am in yourhead office at the farms, can we meet there please?”

Iquo was impressed, she had wanted Nneka to visither farm for ages. Iquo always met Nneka at the re-gional head office in Nameless when she wanted amajor line of overdraft. She had recently applied tothe bank for funds to build a new small scale powerplant that would utilise the biomass waste created byher farm and generate power for the nearby palmoil factory down the road. She needed to have a so-lution to the unreliable local power, so she had re-quired a line of credit from the bank to finance theproject.

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The bank must have run its numbers and realised itwas a fantastic deal for them, and had sent Nneka totie up the deal, Iquo had imagined, smiling with thethought. “Tamuno,” she called out to her youngforeman. “Tell the tractor man to do another pass, Iwill be back in one hour.”

When she got to her corporate office on the farm,after the short walk, she found Nneka waiting forher with another official. This other man was obvi-ously a banker, he looked too well dressed to cometo a farm and inspect a biomass power plant, Iquothought. He looked like all bankers do while sittingbehind a desk working in their offices or seeingclients. He did not look impressed.

“Hello Nneka, it’s a pleasure to have you at I-farms,"Iquo smiled. "I hope you have been kept comfort-able while you waited?”

Nneka was polite but curt. “Hello Ms. Iquo, I wouldlike to introduce Mr. Harry. He is from the legal de-partment of the bank, all the way from our head-quarters. Our bank has serious concerns with yourpaperwork.”

Paperwork? That surprised Iquo as she sat back tohear more. She is a very meticulous person and hadchecked and double checked everything beforehanding in her application for the overdraft. She iscertain it was a clean offer.

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“What paperwork Nneka?" Iquo asked out loud. "Ihave enjoyed a good relationship with your banknow for almost nine years and I use the same docu-ments for the overdrafts, what paperwork do yourefer to?“

“If I may,” the other well-dressed gentleman inter-rupted Nneka, who had almost started to speak. "Weare referring to the title deeds of your farm.”

“What about them?” Iquo asked? “You gave me aloan with them nine years ago.”

“Yes we did," Nneka said “And that’s the problem.”

“What problem?” Iquo asked.

“Well you see at the time the land was transferred toyou by the native owners of the land, it was a simpletrade between you. We are now privy to a decisionby the state government to acquire the land underthe Right of Eminent Domain as contained in theLand Use Act,” Harry said. “We understand the Gov-ernor has signed away nine out of the fifteenhectares on this farm to a multinational shoppingchain who desire to build a shopping mall and ahotel on it.”

Iquo could not believe what she was hearing. Shelooked at Nneka, expecting him to disagree with Mr.Harry, Nneka was silent.

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“Can they do that? Can they take away myland?" asked Iquo. "I have a title to it.”

"Ms. Iquo," Harry continued. “When you bought theland, you were given a title deed officially endorsedby the Chief of Nameless, the legal paramount tradi-tional ruler of this territory, but you never regis-tered the title deed with the central land registrar inthe state capital. So now, in effect, the state is sayingyou don’t own the land.”“They cannot deny I own the land," Iquo inter-rupted. “I pay them taxes from this land!”

Harry tried to explain further. “Even if you own theland and have a deed, the State Government has theright to take the land from you in the overridingpublic interest.”

“What overriding pubic interest? How is a mall pub-lic interest and my farm not,” asked Iquo in disbe-lief.

“Ms. Iquo, the state is saying you didn’t bring yourLocal Government title to be registered in the stateregistry, and that invalidates your title,” said a sym-pathetic Nneka.

Iquo was livid.

“Nneka, I submitted my title deeds and transfer pa-pers to the state government lands office, when Ibought the land in 2008. I sub mitted my docu-94

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ments, but the Gov ernor, then Chief Akpan, didn’tsign it for 4 years and he lost re-election in 2012! Iwas then told my documents would start the processagain as a new administration had taken over. Mypapers are still there, in the land office! They havethem! So how can they now take over my land, ifthey have not signed the deed of transfer of title for2 years!”

“Ms. Iquo,” Nneka spoke up sensing Iquo was clearlydisgusted and in a rage. “Please calm down."

Iquo looked away and hissed loudly.

"We have come here as your bankers to advise youof this development so you can take appropriatesteps." Nneka said. " As it stands we will have to stopall facilities to your farm and call in all outstandingloans. If nine hectares are taken off your farm, yourrevenues cannot sustain your cash flow and youwon’t remain profitable. Please take all necessarysteps to address this.”

Iquo needed less than a minute to realize Nneka wasright. The small scale power plant, her future expan-sion plans, her facilities with the bank, it would sim-ply be impossible to sustain all these if she lost evenan inch of this land. This is not a time for temper,but for lawyers.

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“Nneka,” Iquo said “You cannot call in your facilities.I have used a working capital upgrade every year tohire excess machinery and workers to harvest thecrop during the rainy season. The pineapples needto be packaged, and shipped off, the oranges need tobe sorted, and….” Iquo choked.

“I am sure you are a wonderful farmer, Ms. Iquo.But please understand the bank‘s position. We can-not extend or operate a facility to you should youfail to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy for yourland,” Mr Harry interjected.

Iquo was dumbfounded, she was employing hun-dreds of farm workers, paying taxes to the state gov-ernment, exporting her crops, and even planning togenerate power. She had obtained the elusive bankfinancing. But here she was, about to be sabotagedby the same state governor whose motto was 'Pros-perity for Our State.”

This was madness.

“So what are my options?" Iquo asked, attempting tocalm down her nerves.

“Well, you can sue the state government and theywill offer you compensation,” Harry said

“Compensation!" Iquo had no idea she had shouted."Mr. Harry, we all know the state government com-pensation will be minuscule and compensation

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won’t give my workers jobs or feed their families.”Iquo said forcefully.

“The thing I can’t get my head around is why myright to land can be set aside and practically extin-guished by the same state seeking to give life to an-other private company?” Iquo sort of asked. “Why island transfer so cumbersome and difficult in our na-tion. Why should it take more than three monthsfor a simple transfer of title of land to be signed bythe Governor? If I had bought a car from you Mr.Harry, would we need to go to the Governor to en-dorse some evidence of that transfer? Can the gov-ernor not see how this Land Use law stifles agricul-tural production and employment?” Iquo asked

“Ms. Iquo, you need to understand our position,”Nneka said with his eyes almost pleading.

“No Nneka, you need to understand mine," Iquo re-turned. "Why can’t we have a registry where land ismapped by GPS and transfers are evidenced by asimple transfer contract, the way we do with vehi-cles or shares? Why must the Governor himselfsign?” Iquo asked again in an uncontrolled highpitch. “Please I need to speak to my lawyer," sheconcluded and stormed out, leaving Nneka and MrHarry motionless and staring after her like bad chil-dren being punished for bad behaviour.

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Three months went by quickly. Iquo was relentlessin getting the government off her back. She got aninjunction from the High Court that ensured thestatus quo remained. The government didn't evicther and the bank didn't call in its loan... yet. Shecontinued to harvest her fruits and process theminto juice drinks but had to stop plans for the bio-mass plant while her case against the governmentwas in court.

Tamuno, Iquo's young aggressive farm foreman,who led the local youth body, wanted her to let himtake more militant action against the authorities. Hehad gone against her wishes to assemble his "troops"and harass the local councillor, who knew next tonothing about the whole issue. Iquo understoodTamuno's impatience, he was about to lose his job atthe farm if she lost the farm to the government.Iquo however instructed Tamuno to desist.

Then the battle she had helplessly watched from thesidelines came to an unexpected end. She lost, butstill won. The Governor's assurance to the multina-tional company planning to build the mall and hotelwas taking too long to finalise, and they got quiteimpatient. They couldn't wait as long as it wouldtake to get the a legal verdict. They were scepticaland they were unwilling to wait much longer.

Iquo started to devise other plans to forge ahead, be-cause it appeared certain she would lose her farm

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for a pit tance in compensation. She could get newland for her farm, but she had no cash to buy thenew land and transfer her assets, and it was clear herbankers would not help out. When her lawyercalled, she was going home, dejected with the disap-pointment of losing her farm, her fruit trees, herland, her biomass plant, her plans, and all her bigdreams.

Iquo answered her cell phone and her heart sank tothe depth of her guts when she heard her lawyer'svoice at the other end. It had to be the verdict, shethought. It was a verdict all right, but it was hers tomake, it turned out.

Acting on the multinational firm's instructions,their lawyers had opened negotiations with herlawyer. The multinationals had offered to pay herfor her farm, her fruit trees, her land and her bio-mass plant in exchange for the full unencumberedtitle to the land . They would pay it full and multipletimes over to reflect goodwill value. Iquo heard butdidn't believe her lawyer, She asked for clarity. Thelawyer repeated himself, slower this time. Itdawned on Iquo that she could sell everything at herown price and come away with enough cash to relo-cate the entire farm and workers, without a bankloan. She would not be selling her dreams.

"It is a lie!" Iquo shouted into the phone in joyfuldisbelief, "lawyer, you are lying!!!!"

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"Na wetin madam?" Tamuno asked, standing next toher. He was already as excited as she was before heknew what she was so visibly happy about.

Iquo didn’t answer Tamuno and she ignored thephone as she grabbed Tamuno and danced alongwith him. Tamuno gladly obliged her and tried hisluck further by lowering his touch below the re-spectable waist line level of her back. She wasn't tooexcited to forget she is a decent lady. She slappedaway Tamuno's hand and eyed him menacingly.

"Sorry ma!" the shamed Tamuno pleaded.

Iquo was just too happy to be angry.

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THE TAXI DRIVER

Pam adjusted his face cap lower and looked at hiscar parked behind two other cars. It was commonoccurrence for people to block your car after youparked at the market but Pam never got used to it. Itwas annoying and time consuming, even more irri-tating was that all the guilty party would do whencalled out, was apologise after making you waste thewhole day waiting for them. As he stood there pon-dering his next move, a young man waved at himfrom across the street. Pam turned around just tocheck if there was someone behind him the youngman was waving at, and he was quite surprised tofind that there was no one.

Pam was used to feeling like he was watched by theNameless Security Agency popularly called NSA butnever before had the watchers made contact withhim. Not for the first time since his ordeal started,his heartbeat accelerated and his palms instantlywent wet with sweat. He tried very hard to concen-trate on something else to control the sudden rapidbeat of his heart. He had been reading different tipsonline on how to handle anxiety attacks, but despite

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his best efforts, he had not quite mastered it. In afew seconds, his mouth was as dry, his hands shook,and he felt faint and disorientated. He needed to geta hold and activate his coping mechanisms immedi-ately.

He took a deep breath and placed his hand over hisdiaphragm to feel the air go into his lungs. Hestarted yoga breathing through his nose, inhalingand then slowly expelling it after five seconds. Al-lowing his field of vision to broaden, Pam onlystarted to calm down when he could see from thecorners of his eyes.

These anxiety attacks had started after November2014, after he was doxed.

Doxed, he thought. What a simple word for such ahorrible event that had destroyed his life. He hadnever even heard of doxing until Adekunle hadcalled, asking him to get to safety immediately.Since that call, his life had never been the same.Adekunle was the catalyst. The beginning and mainreason behind all his problems. The thought of himstill brought mixed emotions bubbling to the sur-face of Pam's heart. He still wondered why anyonewould put all his real personal information name,address, phone number, emails and passwords, bankaccounts, his family members and his whole historysince he was a kid, just to call it being doxed. Theyhad meticulously released everything about him

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into public space and deliberately made it look likethere was more than friendship between Adekunleand himself.

He had met Adekunle Nwakpa at one of those NGOevents. Now he could not even remember whichone, NGO events had the tendency to blend intoone long panel discussion with the same people talk-ing about the same issues. At first he had not noticedthe opinionated man with the thoughtful but radicalideas from across the room. But the more theman spoke, the more sense he made, and the morepeople paid attention to him. Pam was no different,and like most of the room at that meeting, foundhimself agreeing with most of what the gentlemansaid.

It was not till three other panels later that they wereofficially introduced. Pam first paid a genuine com-pliment to Adekunle about his contribution beforethey went on to discuss other issues. Pam andAdekunle had exchanged email addresses and fromthen on, they had constantly kept in touch. At firsttheir emails were work- related, articles and break-ing news on topics they were both working on.Eventually they were trading music and links tofunny cat gifs on the internet. As Pam had only re-turned to Nameless from Obodo Oyinbo, his circleof friends was very small. He was glad to meetsomeone intellectual and funny he could spend time

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with in so cial circles. At least every day Pam knew toexpect music videos and movies from his newfriend Adekunle and as they became friends ratherthan acquaintances, once a week they met up toroast bole in Adekunle's house. Adekunle's wifeKauna was a very warm woman with constant anec-dotes, when she laughed it came from somewheredeep in her belly. Pam liked Adekunle, but he likedAdekunle's and his wife even more.

He deliberately cleared his mind of those old happymemories and straightened his shoulders, preparedto meet someone who he assumed was part of theNSA watching team.

He plastered a fake smile on his face, determinednot to give his watchers the satisfaction of seeing hisfear and walked onwards to meet his first tormen-tor.

"So you people are not just robots on the internetAbi. I am glad to see that blood flows in your veins. Iam Pam." he said as soon as he was close to the man."but I assume you already knew this?"

The young man stared back at him with a blanksmile on his face and took the proffered hand.

"Well really, I do not have to work with anyone toknow who you are. You are one of the most popular

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men in Nameless. I am happy to finally meet you inthe flesh too."

Pam took in the man's demeanor, the fraying tie andheavy bags his eyes carried suggested that this manwas a harmless junior operative. One of those techboys who spent all day staring at a computer screenand monitoring everything.

"To what do I owe this pleasure? Is it a slow week inthe NSA office?" Pam asked him testily.

"No." the young man sighed. "Can I help with yourbags? I can see your car is blocked, my taxi is rightaround the corner if you want to come with me."

Pam instinctively drew back, it suddenly seemed nocoincidence that his car was blocked from all sides.The thought that this was a kidnap attempt crossedhis mind, but then Pam shook his head. If they hadwanted to kidnap him, they would have done it along time ago. He had on numerous occasions usedthe app Informacam on his android phone to see ifthere were other people in his compound with himand once, he had found other Bluetooth and radiodevices registered within the vicinity. Since theyfound ways of coming around him without hisknowledge, he figured they could have taken him ifthey wanted to.

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Picking up the bags stuffed with the variety of itemshe had purchased from the nearby market, Pam fol-lowed the man to the car. Together they loaded hispurchases into a green and white painted taxi and hehopped into the front seat. From the outside, thetaxi looked as ugly and battered as thousands of oth-ers like it that rattled to and fro in Nameless. How-ever the inside of the taxi was something else en-tirely, as it was little shy of luxurious. Pam realisedthe NSA was more sophisticated than he had giventhem credit for. The dents and scrapes that marredthe taxi's green and white surface belied the frontand rear camera inside it. There were numerousother gadgets Pam had no hope of identifying with-out the help of the internet.

He made a mental note to try and remember thespecs of what he could see so that he could draw itfor Riyana. Riyana was his lawyer who originallyworked for the Online User Defenders. The OUFwas a human rights organisation which had beenspecifically set up to protect the rights and privacyof persons on the internet. He had never even heardof them before his world turned upside down.

The agent pulled out of the parking lot and headedtowards Pam's house.

"My name is Yaro by the way," he said as a form offormal introduction. "I am the new head of the anti-terrorism unit and I came to see you in person be-108

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cause I want to explain some issues to you. I wantyou to be fully aware and properly carried alongeven before we proceed." He said softly.

"Do you think you can at least listen to my proposalas I drive you to your house?" Pam knew he had nochoice since he was already in the car with him buthe swallowed the sarcastic retort that would havebeen his answer and nodded yes.

"Since your profile was intentionally made public byunknown persons, you have become a very impor-tant campaigner for internet safety and privacy, butI am here today to tell you that you have to stop."Yaro said as he stepped on the brake and the carswerved a little.

Yaro looked at Pam from the side of his eye towatch his reaction before continuing.

"From the communications, we are noticing thatyour publicity is exciting some friends of ours. Ac-cording to the packet inspection and data we gath-ered this week, Goguwa is going to contact yousometime this week." Yaro said.

It had been a long time since Pam had been gen-uinely shocked, but at Yaro's words he literally felthis heart stop. Goguwa was the name of the leaderof the biggest terrorist group in Nameless since the1990s. The man had risen to global attention after

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he was revealed to be the mastermind behind a se-ries of terrorist attacks against the UN building,mosques, churches, schools, markets and randompublic spaces. There was no logic or reason to his ac-tions and he had quickly become the most wantedperson in Nameless.

“Are you sure?" Pam's eyes widened. "But, why me.Why now?”

“Well you have been on TV, radio, Facebook, Twit-ter and newspapers teaching people how to avoidstate surveillance." Yaro shrugged. "You really aremaking our job more challenging. We have noticedover half the people using the internet in Namelessare now using some sort of encrypted network. ToRbrowser and Firefox with extensions seems to haveovertaken Internet Explorer and other less saferbrowsing apps since you started your campaign," hereplied calmly.

"I mean, just the week you were on TV talking aboutSurespot, most users stopped using Whatsapp anddownloaded that instead. Even Chatsecure is gettingmore use than ever before. I went home the otherday and my 17 year old nephew was teaching hisfriends how to download HTTPS Everywhere anduse Ghostery on their Firefox browsers. I was mildlyamused at first, but now I wish you had not startedthis campaign to tell citizens how we gather infor-

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mation on them.” There was a bit of steel in Yaro'svoice this time when he spoke.

Pam could only listen to the man's words because hewas unsure of what to say. Was he supposed to apol-ogise to the NSA for telling the truth about how theyinvaded everyone's privacy?

“Terrorists are closely observing your tactics Pam,and we need to stop this. We believe in privacy, yes,but we are doing this for purely security reasons, forsecuring the lives of the people in Nameless.”

Pam plucked a loose thread from the edge of hiskaftan. “Why do you always hide behind terrorismwhen it comes to crossing the line and overridingcitizen's privacy?" he said. "I know there are terror-ists, but does that mean you should read everyone'semails, listen to everyone's phone calls and watcheveryone's homes and offices?"

"Don't be naïve Pam! How else do you want us tokeep the people of Nameless safe?" Yaro said as hemade a turn to the left.

"How about monitoring only people who are sus-pects to a crime. Or even getting a warrant from acourt before you can read, search and take over peo-ple's homes, computers and phones? I mean youcan't put everyone under the microscope simply be-cause you are able to. It is against the law of evi-

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dence and against the constitution." Pam said pas -sionately as they drove past a building he recog-nised.

"Yes it is. But all that is ideal. In the real world weneed to do what we must do to keep you safe." Yarosaid with a smug smile. "And it is only the computerthat reads through all texts, emails and messagingapps not human beings."

Pam cleared his throat. "But you save a copy of allwhat we send over text and messaging apps andhuman beings have access to those right?"

"Yes," accepted Yaro grudgingly. "But our people atthe NSA know not to do what is not correct..."

"Yeah, yeah. That it is not correct but does anyonewatch them to ensure that they don't cross the line?Can you guarantee us that jealous and creepy agentsare not stalking their objects of affections?"

"No one can guarantee that, Pam" Yaro replied

"Then I rest my case." Pam said sadly.

It took a short while for Pam to recognise the openrusted black gate to the right was his house. Yaroparked the taxi cab outside the gate.

"Do you want Goguwa to blow up another school ormarket?"

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"Of course I don't," an swered Pam, angrily. "I knowgovernment surveillance is here to stay, I under-stand the argument about terror, but I want govern-ment surveillance regulated and debated. You guyscan't keep playing God, deciding who to watch andwho to pick up and torture. Go to court, argue yourcase, get a warrant to search and arrest suspects. In-vestigate crimes, not just pick up people that matchyour profiling and beat out a coerced confession outof them." Pam continued "What happens to thedata you collect? Where will you keep it? and howare you sure it won't fall into other hands?" Hewasn't expecting Yaro to answer so he just went on."It is just like you almost destroyed my life. Youhave too much power to do that to other citizens ofNameless." Yaro didn't respond. "I will not stand byto let that happen," Pam flung in conclusion at Yaro,opened the door and started to get out of the car.

For the first time Yaro looked very sorry as hereached across the car to stop him.

"I am really sorry about what happened to you but Ican assure you that the doxing did not happen fromthe NSA office."

"Please do not add insult to injury." Pam said as heflung the open door away and stepped out. Yarostayed in the car but turned off the engine. "I won'thave you lie to my face," Pam continued. "You knowyour people went out to make it look like Adekunle

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and I were sleeping together. I could have been at-tacked and killed by any Nameless crowd!"

"I know." Yaro replied. "But I will tell you again thatit was not from the NSA office. I do have some theo-ries I can share with you on how it might have hap-pened but you cannot quote me on it. Deal?" Yarowhispered.

Pam thought for a few seconds as he stood by thedoor of the car before nodding okay.

"We have a feeling that Alhaji Azeez paid some ofhis cronies at a GSM network to give them all ofAdekunle's records. When they could not find any-thing incriminating to make him less likely to be tobe elected as the chairman of Nameless, they de-cided to use your information and release a few de-tails to make it look like two of you were sleepingtogether. It also did not help that you went on holi-day together with him and there was a picture ofyou two hugging, which you both posted on Face-book." Yaro finished.

"I refused to believe you just said that! Can't twomen just be friends without it being sexual?" Pamdemanded.

"They can. And now both your names have beencleared by the public. I just want you to know it wasnot something my office did. We brought these for-

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eign companies for security but we cannot knowwhat these politicians do with it. Don't forget youare the ones voting them."

"See Yaro I am tired of hearing your excuses. I wantto go to my house," Pam said as he started gatheringhis purchases from Yaro's cab.

"Does that mean you will not help us?" Yaro asked.

"I never said that. But I have one demand first," Pamreplied knowing he finally had a bargaining chip.

“As someone who works in the NSA, what securitymeasures do you take?” Pam asked.

Yaro looked at Pam thoughtfully for a second beforeanswering

“You know it is not about the tools one uses, becausethere is no absolute security on the internet right?”

Pam nodded yes.

“Well, when I am at work, all our computers areUbuntu instead of Mac or Windows. The securitycommunity knows how Ubuntu works but no oneknows how the Mac or Windows works, so we avoidthem to ensure we don't end up giving sensitive in-formation about the people and government ofNameless to foreign governments. But on my per-

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sonal time, I prefer using Tails as it makes the com-puter forget everything after I shut down.

"For our official communication, we use PGP on allour emails, and instead of using Yahoo and Googlewe use riseup.net while waiting for the politicians inNameless to pay for our own to be locally hosted.You know how politicians take time before they re-lease the funds for anything ba?' He asked jokingly.

“For quick discussions with other agents on our mo-bile, we use an app called Redphone for calls, andTextsecure for texts”

“So that means everyone uses android in the NSA?”Pam quickly asked.

“No. Redphone and Textsecure are called Silent-phone and silent text on the Apple store.” Yaro saidwith a smile.

“Does that mean NSA doesn't use Blackberry orNokia anymore?”

“No. All official phones and devices are androidphones that we have rooted. We ensure that appslike Orweb, Orbot, Textsecure, Chatsecure, Jitsi andsearch engines like DuckDuckGo have replacedgoogle on those phones." Yaro finished.

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Pam racked his brain to see if he had any morequestions. But before he could speak again, Yaroraised his hand and stopped him.

“I know you want to hear more but that is as muchas I can share with you. The rest of the stuff you arealready doing as we have seen that you now avoidusing Internet Explorer, Safari or Chrome."

“Yeah. I use the Tor browser, Firefox or Chromiumas long as Ghostery, Adblock plus, do not track me,HTTPS Eeverywhere and Click & Clean are acti-vated on the add ons.” Pam agreed.

“I want to thank you for telling me all these. I knowyou usually don't share trade secrets with other peo-ple outside your field. I just wish I knew how I couldhelp. Goguwa has nothing to do with me.”

“Well we imagine he wants to see how he can exploityour dislike for our agency but we will see what hewants when he finally makes contact with you. I as-sume you know what an E911 is?”

“Not really.” Pam said.

“Well it is a device that allows us to activate the cam-era and the microphone on your phone remotely.Courtesy demands that I should make you awarethat we will be doing that often with you, so don't besurprised if your phone is constantly drained of bat-tery.”

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Pam looked at him in surprise. This was news tohim. He took out his phone from his breast pocketand looked at it as he asked, “Would I know whenyou are listening to my conversation?”

“No you wouldn't. I suggest you keep your phone inanother room when you are having a conversationwith Lyop.” He said. Finally mentioning Pam's girl-friend and tacitly telling him that they had been lis-tening to him for a while.

Pam acknowledged the gesture and tried not toshow his annoyance at such blatant disregard for hisprivacy. He wondered what else they had beendoing and how long it had been going on.

“Oh one last thing.” Yaro said as he turned to restartthe car. “When my office says 'Citizens that havedone nothing wrong, have nothing to fear,' remindthe public that the onus is not on citizens to provethey were not doing anything wrong.”

For the second time that day, Pam was very sur-prised. “Are you giving me tips on how to fight youragency?”

“Well I am a citizen first, before being an agent ofthe NSA. I want justice, but I also want to see that itis not abused. That can only be achieved if citizensunderstand privacy and have an honest debate andpass stringent laws to protect it. The people of

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Nameless might not have much to hide but itdoesn't mean they have everything to share.” Yarosaid as a parting shot. “I hope we understand eachother better now?”

Pam smiled and nodded. Suddenly he realized cir-cumstances being different, he could really get alongwith Yaro and admire him, aside from his loath-some job.

Yaro started the taxi and drove away as Pam enteredthe gate and headed for his front door. His armswere laden with the bags he had with him. He won-dered if Lyop would believe him when she getshome and he tells her what has happened. He alsowondered if he would ever be able to look at an-other taxi cab without wondering who was in it andwhat they could do remotely. He shook his head ofthat thought and headed up the short stairs to hisfront door. He was genuinely looking forward tobeing contacted by Goguwa. At least the NSA couldtrap him and put an end to his reign of terror. Itsounded simple enough.

Pam inserted his key and opened the front door, Hestepped into his sitting room, and there sitting in hisfavourite armchair was the heavily beardedGoguwa, already here to make contact. Pam swal-lowed and stood speechless. Suddenly, it didn'tsound simple any longer. He couldn't remember re-turning his phone back into his breast pocket.

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MARRIED DEITIES

Oluoma looked at herself in the mirror admiringherself. ‘This is truly God’s work, his very goodwork.” She looked at the half-dimple smothered inmakeup and nodded in approval.

Reducing the volume on the rendition of 'Jesus isthe answer for the world today' playing on theirbedroom radio, Oluoma briefly recited part of thespeech she would give at the proposed thanksgivingceremony, when she became a member of theHouse of Representatives.

The elections, to her mind, were a foregone conclu-sion, only the devil could stop her now. Didn‘t TheBible say Satan was under her feet? She mur-mured “Satan don fall for ground,” as she struggledwith the zipper on the back of her dress. Her gleefroze as she realized her arms were stressed in thetwo minutes they had been sent to the back of theblouse.

“I need to lose weight ooh” she said out loud, ‘This isdefinitely not the life of a baby girl."

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Just then she sounded like her daughter Chiamakawho always used that phrase to get out of chores shedidn‘t want to do. Was there anything Chiamakaliked to do? Not even lectures in Nameless' nearbyprivate University appealed to her, the spoilt girl.

Pastor Ekwueme tickled her from behind, amusingand annoying Oluoma at the same time. How didn‘tshe hear him enter the room?

“Dee, you know I have told you I don’t like thisthing you always do, eh. What if I had fallen down?”

He ignored her mock anger. ‘Then I would havefallen with you, my love. We would have descendedinto the depths of love, eeh Omalicha m… Egovinnwa… Ada Ada mmadu!”

Oluoma smiled. After all, she was better thanOdinkenma whose husband paid her no compli-ments.

“Have the last guests gone?” Oluoma asked. She wastired of smiling at people, tired of catching aglimpse of people stuffing their bags and purseswith fried meat and canned drinks.

“Yes they have gone. The stewards are stacking upthe chairs outside already, but the canopy peoplewill come tomorrow. Incompetent buffoons. Firstthey came late to set up, and now say they can’t stay

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to clear the canopies as agreed because they closeearly on Sundays.”

“No problem as long as they clear them early to-morrow. I‘m not comfortable with us parking ourcars outside,” she said. Oluoma was done changinginto her nightgown and flicked the face wipe in herhand into the bin. She opened the bedroom door.“Let me check on the children," she murmured asshe shut the door behind her.

***

"Dee biko, I thought you said you were tired. I'mtired too." Oluoma said.

She resented this habit her husband had of wakingher up in the middle of the night to do “God’swork”, as he called it. She was annoyed at his insen-sitivity, not at all impressed by his determination tokeep up the early morning ritual come rainor shine. For God’s sake, Sunday had been superbusy. From playing the dutiful pastor's wife andmother at the two services in church that morning,it was home to boss the caterers and event plannerfor the celebration her husband insisted they have.What was the celebration even about? The birth oftheir fourth son and sixth child. It involved the cus-tomary slaughtering of a cow, and her husband hadtaken it up a few notches by buying her that goldjewellry set she eyed covetously the last time they

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were on holiday, not like she didn’t deserve it, andmore.

She was honestly tired of giving birth; she was sickand even more tired of being pregnant. She was un-happy with her body, constantly afraid her hus-band‘s eyes would stray to figures slimmer and stillbetter put together than hers.

However tonight she was so angry she didn’t care ifhe went to a cat or dog to satisfy his urges, she justwanted to sleep, to be left alone.

Ekwueme's hand fell from Oluoma's rounded shoul-der. “I don’t know why you always do this, Oluoma,doesn’t The Bible say not to deny your spouse? Didyou not see it there that your body is mine and viceversa? Why are you allowing the Devil to use you?Why?”

"Ekwueme biko, biko, biko." Oluoma sat up on thebed, and glared at her husband. "Stop right therewith all the scriptures please. Do you want to killme? I've been on my feet since 4am yesterday, cater-ing to you and the children, supervising caterers andothers for the reception, and breastfeeding a two-week-old. And you know my body has not healedyet. When did I go to have the stitches removed forGod's sake? This thing of waking me up every earlymorning has to stop!"

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"Blood of Jesus! Oluoma! Are you talking to me likethis? When did you start talking to me like this? AmI the one you're talking to like this Oluoma?" PastorEkwueme Nwabuike asked furiously. His nostrilsflared and he suddenly felt so hot despite the airconditioning. He blamed himself for allowing her tofollow this politics thing; perhaps she now felt shewas the man in their relationship. He stood up,manhood and ego now in urgent need of inflation.

"Ekwueme.” Oluoma‘s voice was as tired as herbody, “I am only trying to say I'm tired, very tired.You know we have a meeting tomorrow I can’t missbecause elections are close by. I am truly tired, body,mind and spirit. What is the point if I don’t respondeeh? What if I get pregnant again eeh? With a bodythat has not healed, it would kill me, Dee. Do youwant to kill me?“

“Shut up Oluoma, shut up. You are now bringingdown your voice after shouting at me abi? Whatkind of foolish question is that? You‘re asking if Iwant to kill you. Why would I want to do that? Awhole man of God? Wait, what is even wrongwith getting pregnant? So you want to us disobeyGod‘s mandate eh kwa?”

Anger at his words drove her tiredness away andlaunched Oluoma to her feet by this time. If she wasnot going to sleep, her husband would get the fullextent of her, minus her body of course.

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“Ekwueme, God wants us to do a lot of things, notonly multiply and replenish the earth. What hap-pened to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and dogood to our neighbours and enemies? Did The Biblesay you should kill your wife with sex? Did it? Ngwadid it?“ She demanded.

Oluoma’s voice was laced with a double scoop ofsarcasm and derision, and so she was a little puzzledwhen her husband burst into laughter. Mock laugh-ter, but laughter nonetheless.

Then it got worse, he actually started clapping. Olu-oma braced herself, but it was his words that hit her.“See who is talking about feeding the poor, andclothing the naked. Even if I am blind, deaf anddumb, we both know you have squandered at least70% of the appropriation your office has received. Isit 70% or is it everything sef?”

Ekweme wouldn't let Oluoma get in another worduntil he was finished. “Yet you can open your dirtymouth and tell me about what God said, onye oshidi ka gi! Is it the Women‘s Empowerment ProjectPurse, or the Community Development Initiative?Do you not remember you told me how you misap-propriated the money, or are you just stupid?“

“Don’t call me names Ekwueme, don’t try it!" Olu-oma wagged her finger at her husband in warning."Saint Ekwueme talking about a wife that steals. Did

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you not accept our tithes and offerings with openhands? Did you not trouble us to make donationsafter donations? Ehn, answer me! To chair thechurch harvest, to donate over and over again to allthe endless building projects? The money was notstolen then abi? Useless man, pot calling kettle black!All of this because of sex? Come and have sex now,come! Come and climb on top of me by force, see ifI won’t use this my fat to press the air out of yourbody, useless man. Meanwhile, we are planning foryour private jet o." At that moment, her cruel hisscould put serpents to shame.

Ekweme was suddenly disgusted, first at how fat hiswife was, and at himself for deceiving her. Clearlythe gloves were off and he had never been one for aconflict. The early years of their marriage hadshowed him how awful his wife could be when shewas provoked, and this sounded like one of thosetimes, when they lived from hand to mouth. Withmore affluent years, she had become less feisty.Now it looked like the volcano in her soul had notgone extinct after all, it had merely been dormant.Tonight, it had erupted in its true nature and blas-phemous molten magma spew out of her fat gut.Shameless cow.

“Oluoma go and sleep, I don’t want to do again,since you don’t have the fear of God, since you toreout the page in your Bible where God said women

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should submit to their men, since you cannot accordme the respect I deserve as a man of God, then biko,take your body and go, I will go downstairs andspend some time in prayer.” Ekweme said, headingfor the door suddenly tired.

Oluoma was just getting started though, and her sul-phur-ridden words followed his every step. "Prayooh, better pray well! Ask God for deliverance fromthe lusts of the flesh! Ask God to help you removethe trailer in your eye before you look at the bicyclein your wife’s eye, inugo!” She rushed her words,determined he would hear everything.

Oluoma followed closely behind Ekweme, shewould have the last word. “No, come and do! Comeand have sex, Pastor Ekwueme the sex machine.You‘re calling me a thief, is it not the money Ibrought that ensured you still have a church? Comeand do ooh, come and have sex!"

Ekweme banged the door; stung, humiliated andconvinced his wife had to leave politics. But if hisGod had indeed enabled him with the gift of proph-esy like he had led his congregation to believe, hewould have known that it had always been out of hishands.

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A N D T H E E I G H TW R I T E R S

R E S T E D

A N D T H E E I G H T W R I T E R S R E S T E D

BIOGRAPHY - WRITERS

B I O G R A P H Y - W R I T E R S

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Azeenarh Mohammed wears many hats. A projectmanager most of the time, a digital security trainer,queer advocate, feminist, brooding activist, wannabehacker the rest of the time. She has found the sportsthat she loves and is trying very hard to let thosesports kill her. When not arguing that the future willbe made up of bikes, trains and teleportation, shecan be found walking on the wrong side of the streetwhile explaining for the umpteenth time why shedoes not answer phone calls.

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Chioma Agwuegbo is a social media strategist. Herbackground is in radio and radio drama production,first for Aso Radio and Television Services, and thenfor the BBC Media Action, both in Abuja. She set upCC Consulting Services after obtaining a MastersDegree in Social Media from Birmingham City Uni-versity, and has a growing portfolio of clients in-cluding the National Broadcasting Commission(NBC), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commis-sion (NERC), MTV Staying Alive Foundation(Shuga), etc. She is also Editor of YNaija2015, a sitestrictly dedicated to political news and analysis in alanguage young people understand.

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Elnathan John is a full time writer who trained as alawyer in Nigeria. His writing has been publishedin Per Contra, ZAM Magazine, Evergreen Review, Sen-tinel Nigeria, Chimurenga's The Chronic and The CainePrize for African Writing anthology 2013 and 2014. Hewrites political satire for which he hopes to somedayget arrested and famous. He also teaches writing. Al-though he has tried very hard, he has never wonanything. He doesn't like mentioning it, but in 2013,he was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for AfricanWriting, for a story many people did not like. Hestill wonders if it was accidental but likes the acclaimthis has given him globally. He loves Twitter. Oneday, he will quit drinking. He is unmarried and cur-rently attempting to lose weight. He is planning hismid-life crisis to include contemplating a tattoo anda vasectomy.

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Fola Lawal is a project coordinator, environmentalenthusiast, charity worker, and a social mediabrand-integrator for companies and individuals.Quite often, she helps writers write more profitably.These days, Fola divides her energy between man-aging her book-publishing business and encourag-ing her social media fans to save the world, onetweet at a time.

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Kalu A. Aja is husband to Oma, son, father to ‘theboys,’ and financial planner during the day. Kalu de-scribes himself as a fiscal conservative with a strongbelief in limited governments. Kalu writes part timeon issues to do with governance, fiscal federalismand the efficacy of the Nigerian Federation, and alsoacts as a life coach to many. An alumni of the LagosBusiness School and the New York Institute of Fi-nance, he is a firm believer that Enyimba FootballClub of Aba, Nigeria is the best football club in theworld.

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Pearl Osibu is a feminist, humanist, Facebook trou-ble maker, blog warrior, saint of peace. Pearl writesby night - fiction, nonfiction, social commentary,TV and film. You can read her work on http://pearlosibu.wordpress.com/ (Fifty Shades ofme), http://www.sabinews.com/category/columnists/pearls-of-wisdom-with-pearl/ andMnet/Multichoice Tinsel. By day, she designs andsews clothes. Yeah, she’s multi-talented like that.You want to be on her good side. On twitter she is@pearlosibu where you wish she shared her nudes.She doesn't. Oops

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Rafeeat Aliyu likes to call herself a writer. She blogsand tweets as Eccentric Yoruba and more recentlyCosmic Yoruba. Under that handle she writes forThisisAfrica.me and HOLAAfrica. She is also a con-tributor to Muslimah Media Watch and Afrimind.She is a big fan of speculative fiction and horror andher short story Ofe! is published in the AfroSF an-thology. She promises to have more speculative fic-tion available in the future. When she is not writing,she enjoys reading about gender and sexuality inWest African histories, listening to kizomba, folkmetal and Afro-house music, watching Japanesedramas and enjoying African cuisine. Few thingsmake Rafeeat as happy as reading well-written andresearched African historical fiction.

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Yas Niger is a writer and poet of Hausa origins, with strong progressive traditional views and has a Mas-ters degree in Education. An activist and social media commentator, Yas writes on contemporary Northern Nigerian and African issues, as they re-flect civilized virtues. He has a preference for sim-ple poetry and unconventional literary prose, in a removed, assertive manner. Yas reflects on secular relationships, as they relate to everyday living.I'm already missing you Mum…

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This book was written in a five-day Book Sprint inNovember 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria.

Book Sprints are a method for collaborative writinginvented by Adam Hyde. This Book Sprint was con-vened by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria and fa-cilitated by Barbara Rühling and Simone Poutnik ofbooksprints.net.

Filmed by Luis Antonio Delgado.Copy editing: Raewyn WhyteCover design and illustrations: Henrik van LeeuwenTech support: Juan GutierrezBook Design: Julien Taquet

This book is licenced under CreativeCommons Attribution-ShareAlike.

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