By Darlington Chibuzor
Somewhere in the city, in a packed-out bar, Chikwado sat staring at the TV with heightened tension. NTA was showing his village in shattered ruins. Burnt houses, a scattered market clumped boldly on the screen. Chikwado gazed in shock, the kind of shock that strikes a person when a loved one dies a mysterious death. He watched Nimbo as though he hadn’t seen the reddish soil before, the hilly landscape. He watched Nimbo as though it was not the place he grew, where he had left few weeks ago to serve as a youth corps member.
“Just look at how these Hausa boys are killing the Igbos!” A voice shouted from behind.
“They are Fulani, not Hausa.” Another voice countered.
Chikawdo turned his neck in search of the voices that spoke. The bar became silent again. Everyone fixed their eyes on the TV, sobbing and shaking their heads at the misfortune of Nimbo. The story on the news was plain. They called it a clash between the herdsmen and the community, but it had been a partial clash, that is, if it was even right to call it a clash. The herdsmen invaded Nimbo in the early hours and started shooting and cutting and burning. It was no clash, it was a planned massacre.
“Kai! Just because Mr. President is their brother.” The first voice spoke again; his tone was a mixture of anger and pity.
Chikwado turned immediately the voice spoke. This time he saw the speaker. It was a skinny dark man who looked like a daily hustler. He wore a big T-shirt and slightly worn out black jeans trouser. He was drinking nothing.
The bar echoed. People responded with their own contributions. Chikwado did not join in the conversation. He turned back to the TV, his attention fired fully at it. He was not himself, his mood had changed suddenly. He had gone there to watch a football match with so much excitement that Chelsea would win, but the news headline had sent painful shivers into him. On the TV, a man was now been interviewed. Chikwado recognized him. It was John, his childhood friend, who had refused to leave the village. John was saying that the attack was massive and that so many people had lost their lives and properties. As John spoke Chikwado looked at the background behind him, eyes piercing so hard to see beyond what the screen could show. He wanted to have a deeper look, to peep at his father’s compound to see if it had been destroyed too, but all he could see was unfamiliar crumbs, remains of what used to be houses. All he saw was toil of heartlessness.
“But how can these herdsmen wreck so such havoc to innocent people, in their own land, in their own territory? This is outrageous, brutality of the utmost order!” A new voice rang from a corner.
The intonation was of elitism, it was an educated man speaking. The big words, the ironed shirt and pointy shoes announced his presence. There was a loud hum in the air.
“Na wah! But why don’t they fight back?” asked the first man. He wanted a discussion with the last speaker.
“It is because of religion. Because of Christianity…”
“Yes I agree.” The first man said. “Christians prefer to die than to fight and kill their enemies.”
“They believe God will fight for them. They put it in prayers,” the educated man said.
“But God helps those who help themselves,” the second man jumped in. “Didn’t the bible say that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force?”
“But even if they decide to fight back, they don’t have guns and arms like the herdsmen? Those herdsmen carry AK47 everywhere they go oh! Sometimes I wonder how they get those guns they use in killing people.” The first man said.
“Don’t be so imprudent!” The educated man shouted at the first man.
“Who in this country doesn’t know that it is the government that furnish the herdsmen with all the ammunitions they use in slaughtering innocent citizens. Don’t you know that those cows they carry about are owned by top politicians in the North? These people are terrorists, bloody terrorists parading under the guise of herdsmen!”
Chikwado’s head ached. His unblinking stare and the loud voices had given him a slight headache. But he refused to take his eyes off the TV. They were showing the victims. They started with the survivors, the ones with cuts all over their bodies. There were so many of them. One of them, a man had been cut so badly on the face that his chin bone had popped out and his skull disfigured. A young boy had been badly bruised; his whole body was covered in bandage. A man who had lost his right leg was shouting amid poignant tears. His pregnant wife had been butchered. It was their first child after five years of marriage. Chikwado’s heart started beating fast; his eyes became so heavy with tears that hung, waiting for the right time to be let out. He pushed back the tears and shut his eyes, hoping it was a dream and he would open them to see Nimbo as he had left it. His mouth tasted bitter, like he had chewed bitter leaf. He ordered for Fanta, two bottles.
“But Igbo people are really suffering in this country oh,” the second man’s voice was soft.
“They have been killing them in the North, now they are killing them in their own homes.”
“Why do you even pity them, the Igbos are very wicked. They cheat people and kill themselves for ritual. All they know is money, money, money,” said the first man. Laughter grew in the bar for some minutes and died off as it had come.
Chikwado felt irritated by the man’s comment, by his unsympathetic attitude. He gave the man a wicked look and turned back to the TV. He seemed not to be comfortable anymore. The hotness of the bar pinched him; even the chair he sat became too tight. He stood up and unbuttoned his shirt to let some air in. He brought out his phone and scrolled through it as though doing so would bring some sort of relief, feeble assurance that Gozie, Ogo and Mama were okay. He imagined everything being normal, that Mama would be in her ulo eku picking palm fruits. And Gozie would be in his room, studying for an exam he would be writing for the fifth time. He thought of Ogo too, his long time fiancée whom he would marry after service. He prayed she would be in her mother’s house sleeping. Then he wondered why nobody had called him since it happened, why his phone didn’t ring to any call from the village. He dialled some numbers. None was reachable. An immense fear gripped him.
“Chai! See dead body!” Someone shouted. Chikwado’s mind skipped. They were showing the dead victims now. Corpses lined up on the floor in an orderly position. They had arranged them so that families could easily identify their members. The first body Chikwado recognized was Ozinkwo, the village drunkard. He had been stabbed to death. Then Chikwado saw Mama Ebuka, the woman who sold okpa at the junction. He had seen her the day he left the village. He had even bought Okpa from her and she, smiling, had refused to collect money.
Mama Ebuka was a woman with a good heart, a woman loved by all and hated only by village witches, but there she was now, lying lifeless in the dust, flies perching and feeding on her corpse. Chikwado searched the screen for Mama or Gozie, or Ogo. He feared they were dead but he prayed they were not, even if they were, he wanted to see their corpses to be sure. He looked at all of the corpses. They were not among. They were not dead. But if they were alive, where would they be, his thoughts were full of uncertainties, of fear. Suddenly he burst out in tears, he cried like a baby.
“Eh! Corper, why you de cry?” the first man asked. Chikwado didn’t say a word.
“Do you know any of them?” The educated man asked.
“That’s my village. I am from Nimbo” The words slipped from Chikwado’s mouth slowly that his lips moved before sounds were heard.
“Ewo! Sorry oh,” the bar chorused.
Sympathetic messages flew from all corners into Chikwado’s ears. Some said he should stop crying and be a man. Some told him to be happy that he was not in the village when it happened, that he too might have been dead. Others advised him to go and seek revenge. Nothing they said meant like words to Chikwado, they were all like flying jargons, foreign languages that landed on ears that only wanted to hear the voices of his mother and brother, and lover. He dialled the numbers again. Yet, none was reachable. His eyes became dizzy, tiredness had masked his face.
On the TV, the commissioner of Police was now being interviewed. The man had an athlete figure. He stood with some other officers. He spoke good English with red unblinking eyes.
“It was just a mere misunderstanding between the herdsmen and the community, but everything is under control now.” The commissioner assured. The way he said it with so much ease, with a warm smile could make any bad news sound like a love story. The news ended.
“What Nonsense! So many people dead, so many injured, so many houses destroyed and yet this nincompoop said it was just a mere misunderstanding.” The educated man boiled, his beer almost falling off his hands.
“This evil cannot happen in the Niger Delta!”
“Never,” said both the first and second men, almost at the same time.
The crowd in the bar began to lessen. People left one after the other and soon Chikwado was the only person seated. The bar man started locking up.
“Bros I wan close,” the tiny man announced.
Outside, Chikwado staggered. His legs could barely carry his weight. He found a bench on the roadside and sat on it. He shrunk into the bench like a baby would sink inside his father’s cloth. The night breeze blew, hitting him with cold. He shivered. He pulled himself together and stood up. He started walking in the direction of his home. The road was totally deserted; nothing was seen except cars that drove in full speed once in a while. Chikwado checked the time. It said 11:47 p. m. The city had gone to bed. He scrolled on the contact list of his phone again. He searched for numbers he could call to ask about his family. He stumbled upon John’s number. He dialled. John had a tiny voice and a huge body frame. One who listened to him speak on the phone would think he was a child.
“Kwado, they have finished us. They have wasted Nimbo,” John spoke on the other side.
“I know,” Chikwado answered, and then he asked of his mother.
“Your mother is fine. They didn’t see her” Chikwado’s face lightened the first time that evening. He asked of Ogo.
“Ogo is fine.” John said. “She hid before they saw her. Chikwado smiled.
“Gozie kwanu?”
Silence answered him.
“What of my brother Gozie?” Chikwado sounded impatient.
Just then he heard a loud clanging sound from a distance. A voice was screaming loudly in pain. A car had hit a man crossing the road and dragged him like a piece of rubbish. The driver came out but on seeing the man’s awful condition rushed back in and sped off immediately.
“Stupid man! Bastard! Killer!” Chikwado cursed the driver as he ran to the aid of the man who lay lifeless on the floor. Chikwado shook the man thoroughly. He was still alive, but his blood was spilling. He would die if not rushed immediately to the hospital. The man was slim and black. In his jalabia, he looked small, as though sick. His head swam in his fila. He smelled heavily of kilishi, the scent was fractious. From the tribal marks on his face Chikwado guessed he was a northerner, a meat seller perhaps. But he wasn’t too sure yet. Anybody in town could wear a jalabia and smell of kilishi. He searched the man for something, a card perhaps to identify who he was. He found none. Instead, he saw a book that lay in front, a religious book with some Arabic inscriptions. Chikwado opened the book and read a verse off it.
“Make ready to slaughter the infidels’ sons for the guilt of their fathers; lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.”
Chikwado hissed, his heart filled with hatred for the man. Thoughts began to fly into his head, weighty thoughts of what to do. The life of a northerner was in his hands. He had to decide if he lived or not. He thought of the news, of the tragic headline. He thought of Nimbo, of all those dead bodies. Then he thought of revenge, a way to pay the Northerners back. He wanted to end the man’s life there or better still walk away like nothing had happened. He thought of what a Northerner would do if he were in his shoes, if the life of an Igbo Christian were to be in his hands. Would he save the Christian, or would he just walk away and let the victim die because he was of a different tribe, because he spoke a different language and worshipped a different God. For a while he stood thinking of all these things, but then he bent down and pulled the man up.
Later, Chikwado would learn of his brother’s death. Later he would discover that while he closed his eyes wishing and imagining things being okay, he missed the part of the news where they showed Gozie’s dismantled body on the floor, in the midst of other victims. Later he would pack his things and return to Nimbo, to mourn Gozie and cry like a baby, and to rebuild what tribal hatred had destroyed. Later he would do all this, but for now this northerner held tight to him and shared his legs, limping badly in pain. They toddled on the lonely road together, into the darkness of the night searching for help.
image:news2.ionigeria.com
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