Nameless Read online

Nameless

  Copyright 2014 Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria

  A collaborative book convened by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria, facilitated by booksprints.net. Nameless strives to inspire change in Nigeria. Eight budding Nigerian writers; Rafeeat Aliyu, Fola Lawal, Kalu Aja, Chioma Agwuegbo, Pearl Osibu, Yas Niger, Elnathan John, and Azeenarh Mohammed, reflect a common vision for their nation's future.

  Nameless is a work of fiction about the complexities that is Nigeria.

  Table of Content

  In 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 rested

  Biography: Writers

  In the Beginning

  In the beginning there were eight writers with a deadline

  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

  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 is the now. Other times, it is the future. It remains Nameless.

  The oldest residents know its dreams, its origins, beginning in a major stream and ending in a clear deep pond. The youngest residents know its pulse, feel its heat, its blood coursing through the veins of the country - the history they know is happening right before them, good and bad and ugly. Everyone knows its hopes. 

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

  Nameless is ambitious. And in the third world. In darkness. With inadequate infrastructure. Darkened by the lack of electricity. Nameless is in light. Brightened by the hope in the eyes of its inhabitants. Slowed down by the potholes on the roads. Sped up by anticipation of change by desire. Nameless is rich. And poor. And in between.

  Nameless is oppressed. Under surveillance. Nameless is free. To dream. Of change. Free. To dare. To live. To express. To break open the boxes in which sexuality and gender and tribe exist. Stifled and stifling. Free. To love and not to take oppression in the garbs of love. Free from the dubious bonds of religion 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 are ashamed of, the hurt that binds us, the leaders who stain our present. Nameless is the clarity we have. It is the knowledge that things cannot remain the same. The hope that our children will only know our tears as history. It is all we must do to move us from the things that cage us to being able to fly free to a place beyond where nothing can stop us.  

  We are nameless.

  And Nameless is us.

  ________________________________________________

  The Rise And Fall of A Baby Girl

  Just a baby girl living my life.

  That was the promise held out in the Instagram photos of strangers, on Facebook, in the buzz around the big city of Nameless and how it was superior to the drudgery of Iseyin. Mostly through the virtual existence of Sparkle, a fellow Iseyin girl who was now, from the unpopular, awkward daughter of one of the women in the fish market, transformed to an Instagram celebrity based in Nameless. The purveyor of that dream was the Tecno smartphone Oluwafisayomi got for her latest birthday. And the beginning of that dream was the name. No one popular had such an ugly name like Oluwafisayomi. So it had to be that in the beginning, Oluwafisayomi died. And Gold was born. Gold decided that she was going to live ababy girl life in any of the popular areas in the big city. The closest she seemed to be caming to this was through the pompous generosity of Alhaji Azeez.

  "Don’t worry. Let me just win this election. I will get you 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 the words of her mother’s wisdom delivered mostly while smoking fish, good things did not come to those who waited. Not in Nameless. Here, good things came to those who hustled. That was how she got Alhaji Azeez in the first place - he used to patronize Modesta, a young woman trying to escape a village background like her, before Gold lured him away by allowing him to do the things Modesta wouldn’t do, for the same price that Modesta charged. In the long run, Alhaji Azeez’s generosity grew, starting with one year's rent of her studio apartment behind the teeming Afele market. Now he came not only to feed his fetishes --he enjoyed putting his big toe between her legs and when she let him pluck the hairs of her armpit until she screamed-- but also just to rest, to hide, or to whine about that Igbo boy pretending to be a a big boy from Nameless.

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

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

  Gold knew how to make the creases on his forehead flatten. When her fingers found the tense muscles on the base of his neck, that was when he made the promises. When the whining wound down to a moan, then the praises began. He would eulogise the manners in which she knew how to make him happy, how she was better than all his wives. From his first wife, Iya Yetunde who acted like a dunce most of the time, to his youngest Iya Bola who was too educated for her own good and seemed to enjoy causing trouble in the market. There was also his second wife, a troublesome woman who was always interrupting him and asking silly questions about things that didn't concern her. It was only Gold who let him be a man, a real man.

  Today as he moaned, he was going to take her out of this place.

  Today too, she did not tell him how stupid she thought the things he was saying were.

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

  ***

  My government will finish the work that we have started. We will turn this Local Government into something Nameless people will be jealous of. Nameless is dying. Foreign things are invading our community. I want to return Namelss to those of us who are indigenous to Nameless. The way we are going in the next ten years, Nameless people will be looking for a place to stay in this same Nameless with the way we have allowed strangers to feel comfortable.

  He spoke in Yoruba and appealed to the largely homogenous crowd. People cheered and waved dustpans, the symbol of his party at this rally where Operation Flush Out was launched.

  Because the rubbish heaps needed to be flushed out.

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

  Because, if you checked, the men who sold pornographic CDs at the edges of Afele market were a
ll settlers, as were the ashawo.

  Because if you let them, these foreigners would choke good Nameless people with sex and filth and bad politics.

  ***

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

  Three times the bridge to an alternative life, blown up in her face when she stared at the admissions lists of the Lagos State University and didn’t find Oluwafisayomi Akindele.

  Oluwafisayomi had died and forms filled by Gold could not bring her back to life.

  The fourth time she paid 5,000 naira. This time to apply for a less prestigious, less sought after Diploma program. She heard that it was easier to switch to a preferred degree program once you were in. It would be easier to say to her mother that she was a student of LASU, than just she was doing business in Nameless Local Government.

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

  Three days to the release of the LASU list. Three days. To the announcement of the Local Government Election Results. Three nights since she had massaged the tense muscles of Alhaji Azeez. Three nights since she was his baby girl.

  ***

  In the end it shocked her how easy things were. Easier than she anticipated.

  How easy it was for an election to be won and lost.

  How easy it was for crowds who waved dustpans to vote out a son of the soil and vote in an apparent stranger.

  How easy it was to find her name on the list for Diploma in Science of Recycling.

  How easy it was to change her mind about the department she wanted.

  How easy they said it was to change departments.

  How easy it was for a mourning politician to reject her calls. How easy it was to stop being his baby girl.

  How easy violence started among those protesting the election results.

  And how easy it ended, when the leader of the motor park touts was shot dead by soldiers.

  ***

  In the end, Oluwafisayomi was born. Again.

  _____________________________________

  Thorny Life, Bare Feet

  Chuks Amadi walked into his favourite bar and was surprised how much like home the place felt. He had been moving around a lot these last few months and had gotten used to sleeping in different places while being entertained by different women. This city and this town felt different. It was a fairly large town called Nameless and he was beginning to think he could put down roots here. As he approached his favourite table at the back of the hall where his latest babe Modesta sat waiting for him, he noticed with mild irritation that everyone’s attention was on the TV and not on him.

  He sat and turned his chair around, trying to catch the news on the small flat screen TV hoisted on the wall. The news anchor droned on in a bored voice as images of people fleeing the conflict in the Northeast flashed across the screen.

  Everyone's attention was on the screen when Chuks spoke with a loud commanding tone. “See how they never talk about us soldiers.” As though his thoughts had been transmitted into the TV, eliciting an instant response, grim-faced soldiers appeared on the screen standing next to an armoured truck. Chuks shook his head.“This biased media never shows the real images. When we were at the battlefront, the kind of thing we saw was worse than the most horror film."

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

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

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

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

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

  Tijani, an older man who worked in the bar, was nearby and could hear their conversation clearly, and he suddenly spoke in agreement with Chuks.

  "Our security forces should receive good money to reflect the dangerous work they do and the risks they take. This one wey only big-big oga dey get plenty security no suppose continue, at all." Chuks looked sideways to catch a glimpse of the elderly man speaking.

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

  "But why we no get State Police sef? State police fit support federal police and soldiers fight this people." Tijani announced, obviously something he had thought 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 for traffic and local law enforcement by State governments in some places. With this terrorism wahala in the country, vigilante people fit become politicians' armed thugs, armed robbers and them fit even join the terrorist too. Even if dem like, make them carry the whole soja wey dey Africa go there, these terrorists no go give up. Dem go kill our gallant people come clean mouth." Chuks concluded.

  Suddenly laughter broke from the other end of the room as Ajasko stood up. “Chuks, shut up there! No be you wey run away from soja come here dey form expert?”

  Chuks' eyes darted back and in a hurry to see who else was paying attention. He had only been in the army for under five years before he was posted to the Northeast. He had cried bitterly that night, remembering the lengths he had gone to, to falsify his basic school certificate result and lower his age considerably to get into the army. Even after that, he had only been accepted into the army as a personal favour to his uncle from the aged army recruiting sergeant who had served with Chuka's uncle during the civil war decades ago.

  Life after being accepted in the Army was easy enough as Chuks was deployed to be an aide to another of his uncle's friends, a senior officer this time. That had allowed him a lot of freedom until the officer died. Then he was deployed to Northeast where the country's armed forces were engaged in efforts to repel insurgents. Chuks only stayed a week, and he jumped on a freight train headed away from the region at the very first opportunity he got.

  No one in Nameless was supposed to know this. He had confessed all this to Ajasko only last week when he had drunk too much beer. It wasn’t just that he had been drunk, he had also gotten into a fight. Chuks had the habit of using words like “bloody civilians” to people around the town. On that night, the so-called bloody civilians had had enough of his nonsense and had decided to take matter into their own hands, bloodying him up with their fists for a change. When Ajasko came round the corner and saw the Nameless boys beating Chuks, he had offered to head for the small military base in the outskirts of the town to call some army boys to come and help their brother get revenge. It was to his greatest shock that Chuks had begged him, crying and trembling with his sprained knee and bruised face, not to call anybody but merely carry him somewhere before any soldier saw him. The fear in his eyes convinced Ajasko to act first and ask questions later. It was not till they had gotten to another bar that Chuks confessed to Ajasko that he had deserted the army and escaped from the Northeast. He told a stunned Ajasko that if the army found him he would be court martialled and executed.

  Chuks had attempted to justify his actions by telling Ajasko about the nation's porous Northeastern borders and the proliferation of all sorts of small arms in the country. He kept repeating how these increased the incidence of armed robbery, armed militia activities, the continuous trend of militant insurgency, and how he knew his life would not amount to much if he remained in the Northeast wearing an army uniform.

  Things were taking a turn for the worst and a state
of near anarchy looked imminent even beyond that part of the country, so he had escaped as early as he could. He had witnessed reprisal killings by armed militias across tribal lines in other parts of the country, there were indiscrimate bomb blasts and senseless shootings. The ordinary people were taking the law into their own hands and this became the order of the day. Ordinary people were being targeted and killed along religious and ethnic lines. There wasn't any chance of getting justice for the victims of these acts of madness, he argued. Even the armed forces got in on the act and further tormented the people they were supposedly protecting.

  Chuks had fled the conflict to escape the helpless situation as he saw it. He wasn't going to remain with other members of the nation's security forces and collect peanuts, with a joke for pension and insurance packages. Like most of his colleagues in the army, Chuks felt demotivated, so he demobilized himself 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 stay back had to resort to vigilante efforts to provide reliable security for themselves. This was the practice beyond the Northeast as well. People were imprisoning themselves inside their homes, like they could fence out the world outside.

  As a direct result of these communal efforts to provide reliable security, the State authorities appeared to now be physically and psychologically arming mentally and emotionally untrained youths. The vigilante groups they formed were becoming a problem in their own right, as they gained more authority.

  Chuks kept lamenting all of this, drinking more beer all the while. Ajasko grew more and more disgusted by his new friend’s cowardly actions. Chuks had collapsed in a heap in that bar and they hadn’t seen each other since that day.

  "Bros Ajasko, na me you wan enter today?" Chuks asked while trying to make his way towards the door. "Waiter please give my brother another bottle of stout so that he can enjoy the baby boy life too." He added drawing smiles from people around as his generosity was acknowledged. Ajasko hissed and drained his cup.

  “Major today, captain tomorrow, lieutenant next tomorrow. Just kuku carry your wahala and go before somebody come report you for here. No dey add your mouth when real men who are fighting for yonda are talking.”

  The patrons at the bar took their attention off the screen for a second, but when the two adversaries did not continue, they lost interest and went back to watching the news and drinking away their meager earnings.