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Ochinti, my younger brother, would never listen. When you spoke to him, you knew right away that his ears were not attached to his head. Or perhaps he received the wrong set of ears at birth. He had no counselor, no advisor, and no admonisher. My family suspected that, like the proverbial ijiji n’enweghi onye ndumodu (housefly that has no admonisher), Ochinti would one day follow the smell of a dead body into the grave.
On July 22, I had just arrived in Nigeria for my annual vacation when my father met me at the airport looking sad, looking depressingly sullen.
“Nna,” he said, dejectedly, “your brother is in trouble again”. He did not have to tell me which one of my brothers was in trouble. Ochinti was the only troublesome one among us. However, I was puzzled because, at that time, Ochinti was doing his National Youth Service program in Kano.
“Papa,” I asked as calmly as I could, “what did he do this time?”
“I don’t know, my son, but he’s in police custody in Kano …”. He handed me a piece of paper on which Ochinti’s residential address as well as the address of the police station in Kano were written. Without bothering to reach home, I caught another flight, from the airport, straight to Kano.
As the airplane took off, I was fuming with anger. Ochinti had caused so much mental distress to my parents by his uncountable acts of mischief that we, his brothers and sisters, had come to the conclusion that he had reduced our parents’ life expectancy by at least ten years. Consequently we, his siblings, had been actively plotting ways to instill some discipline in him. Today, but for the concern I had for my parents’ welfare, I would have left Ochinti in the custody of the police to rot.
In Kano, the airport taxi took me straight to the house, which I knew Ochinti shared with five other youth corpers, located on a three-digit number along Dutse Road, Bompai.There was no answer at the door. I asked the taxi driver to take me to the State Police Command, also in Bompai.
The police sergeant, who attended to me at the Criminal Investigation Division, did not waste time in telling me the charges and what it would take to get him out of custody: “Your brother has been accused by one Mallam Ganiyu of taking and hiding his fiancée, Hajiya, in an undisclosed location; she has not been seen in one year; your brother’s own story is that he dropped Hajiya off at a private hospital; but Dr. Ibrahim, the hospital director and owner, does not recall taking custody of any woman by that name. So your brother will remain in custody until he reveals the whereabouts of Hajiya or until you see our Chief of Police…”
So it’s a woman again, I thought. Ninety percent of all the trouble in which my brother Ochinti had dragged the family had involved women. I was maddened progressively towards insanity. I was enraged.
Without thinking, but fuming with rage, I took the police sergeant aside and gave him some dollars. I whispered my request to him, and told him that as long as my request was carried out, he was welcome to come and see me for more money at a hotel where I would be for the night. I gave him the address of the hotel and left.
The sergeant, as I expected, reported to my hotel room to tell me that my instructions were carried out: Ochinti had been dragged to a holding cell at theCriminal Investigation Department, and thoroughly beaten to a pulp. That was exactly what I expected because, at that time, the Kano policeCID was in the news, circulated by international human rights groups, as one of the cruelest violators of prison inmates’ human rights. The reports were that inmates were first chained to the ceiling upside down,arms tied with ropes or in handcuffs, and thrashed with batons on their knees, wrists, ankles, backs, and joints. They were violently pounded until they either confessed to the crimes alleged or became unconscious. In the case of Ochinti, however, I was told that he took the beating very badly but still refused to confess. That was good enough for me.
Next day, satisfied that Ochinti had received sufficient punishment, I went back to the police, saw the chief as I was instructed, and obtained a release of my brother. His face, arms, neck, knees, wrists, and ankles were puffed up, with the blood vessels standing erect as if they were ready to burst, apparently from the beating he received. As we went straight to his residence I warned him that one day he would be alive watching his own burial ceremony and that ubochi a ga eli onye ohi, ndi n’ile ihe ha furu efu ga a bia ileghari anya (on the day the thief will be buried, people whose properties have been missing will come to look around). He would not talk to me.
At his residence, we had hardly settled on the seats in the parlour, when we looked out through the window of the house and saw her:
My lord! What a dream of womanhood! What a splendid specimen of womanhood! As she stepped out of the most glamorous, dark, Mercedes 500S class luxury Sedan automobiles that I had ever seen, I ran my hand over my eyes and took a look again.
“That’s her,” Ochinti said, excitedly. “That’s Hajiya! It’s indeed Hajiya; yes, Hajiya, the fiancée of my neighbour, Ganiyu. It’s indeed Hajiya, whom no one has seen ever since her husband, Ganiyu, threw her out one year ago!”
Hajiya, now out of the car, approached the front door of the house. My brother ran to the door and opened it. They both embraced as I looked suspiciously. With both sitting, and facing me, Ochinti told me the story:
Ochinti’s Story
Exactly one year earlier, said Ochinti, Hajiya’s fiancé, Mallam Ganiyu, handcuffed her to the iron railings by the side of the front door of their house, next door. He whipped her mercilessly with a koboko.
Blood, blood, more blood had gushed from Hajiya’s nose and mouth as Mallam Ganiyu beat her with his fists, kicked her with his legs, and spat on her face.
She had tried to raise her hands defensively, but effeminately, unable to ward off the blows. She had cried and begged Ganiyu to forgive her of whatever it was that she did or did not do. The more she pleaded, the more the blows landed on her face, her chest, her belly, her thighs, and her legs. Finally, crawling on all fours, she had managed to pull herself down the steps as far as the handcuffs would allow her, a little farther from the door of the house with her assailant following closely behind, stumping on her behind and legs. On the steps, she had let out a heart-rending, ear-drum-piercing yell that sent rescuers rushing towards her. Upon seeing the neighbors and passersby rushing to her rescue, Ganiyu had quickly stepped back into the house and locked the door.
Ochinti said he had rushed to her rescue. Using pliers, he had managed to wrench the handcuffs from the railing, but not from Hajiya’s wrist. The handcuffs, thus dangling on her wrist, Ochinti said he had taken her to the private hospital of Dr. Mamoud Ibrahim, a general practitioner. The doctor was everything, an orthopedic, an internist, a neurologist, and sometimes even proffered psychiatric diagnoses and prescriptions. It was at the private hospital, Ochinti claimed, that he left her that day. It was the last time anyone had seen her until now. That’s why he was arrested and locked up, accused by Ganiyu of hiding her from him.
Today, this morning, one year later, here was Ochinti and I sitting before Hajiya!
Hajiya’s Story
Hajiya told us that after Ochinti dropped her off at the hospital, Dr. Ibrahim had transferred her to his exclusive recovery and rehabilitation clinic several miles away from the hospital. The doctor had prescribed three recovery steps: physical, emotional, and psychological.
The physical involved orthopedic therapy, which she had completed; the psychological involved psychotherapeutic counseling, which she had also completed; but the last, the emotional, was the one she had difficulty with -- it required letting go of her anger and her desire for revenge against Ganiyu. She said she had tried hitting pillows, punching the air, hitting imaginary images of Ganiyu, but the nightly nightmares would not leave her. She needed and wanted revenge, because she still did not understand why she was beaten as Ganiyu never told her. Otherwise, she said, she was seventy five percent recovered and had moved on with her life with a brand-new husband.
Today, she said, she had come to thank Ochinti …
Now I was more enraged. I realized that I had punished my brother, a Good Samaritan, for offences committed by Ganiyu. My stomach ached. For once, I thought, I had misjudged my brother. I told him that I was sorry for what he went through in the hands of the police; but I did not inform him that I paid the police to beat him up. I felt extremely contrite. I was now determined to take my anger to Ganiyu … I told my brother and Hajiya to wait for me while I went next door to see Ganiyu …
Ganiyu’s Story
Ganiyu welcomed me, unsure of what to say. Who was I, he asked? I told him that I was from the criminal investigation department of the police. I told him that we had found his fiancée. He jumped up and held me by the hands asking me over and over again, “Are you sure? She is alive? Is she alive? Where is she now?” I told him that he would get his fiancée back shortly so long as he cooperated with me. “Ya ya sunanka?” (what’s your name?), he asked in Hausa. I ignored his question.
On the ceiling of the house, hanging by a hook, was a long koboko, which I presumed was the weapon used to flog Hajiya to tears. Impressive, I thought.
His interest and attention now completely secured, I asked for the handcuffs he used to chain his wife when he beat her last. He regarded me suspiciously, let go of my hands, and suddenly went quiet. He appeared fearful. But after I told him that I was just doing a routine verification of pieces of evidence, he quickly produced some handcuffs. He warned me that these were extra handcuffs because the original one was still dangling on Hajiya’s wrist when his neighbour, Ochinti, took her away after the beating…
“Do these handcuffs have keys”, I asked.
He quickly produced the keys and gave them to me.
“But these cuffs are not strong enough to prevent an adult from breaking out of them”, I said very casually.
“Oh, they are strong,” said Ganiyu “I can tell you that they are.”
“I don’t believe you”, I said.
“You think I am telling lies? Come outside to the railings and let me show you, “ he said.
Before I could say the word fool, he was outside and handcuffed his right wrist to the railing. I checked to ensure that he was securely cuffed to the iron, and told him I would be back. As I walked to the house next door to see Ochinti and Hajiya, I could hear Ganiyu complaining unintelligibly in perfect gibberish.
Ganiyu was even more madly excited when I came back with Hajiya and Ochinti.
“Ni ce” (it’s me), Hajiya announced to him, in Hausa.
“Ita ce” (it’s her!), he shouted. “Hajiya ce” (it’s Hajiya).
I stepped into his house, retrieved the koboko, handed it over to Hajiya and told her that Dr. Ibrahim’s Step Three prescription for full recovery, the emotional part, should immediately be accomplished.
Hajiya flogged away, with reckless abandon, and Ganiyu cried and screamed like a little girl. Hajiya flogged and flogged and flogged like a mad woman and Ganiyu cried, as Ochinti and I hurriedly returned to Ochinti’s residence, quickly collected his suitcase, and made our escape by foot to the road where we caught a taxi. From a distance, we could hear Ganiyu still screaming as the blows landed. Then, farther still, we saw Hajiya get into her Mercedes and drive off .
Sitting comfortably in the taxi and heading to my hotel from where we planned to take off and go straight home to Papa and Mama, Ochinti suddenly remembered something. He needed to speak with Dr. Mamoud Ibrahim, the doctor who took care of Hajiya. My strenuous effort to dissuade him from wasting time failed. My heart pounding, because I knew that we needed to get out of town fast, we directed the taxi to take us to the doctor’s private hospital.
Dr. Mamoud Ibrahim’s Story
When we arrived at the hospital, Hajiya had already pulled into the parking area. I was beginning to wonder why she would return to the hospital when Ochinti pointed to a man standing next to Hajiya as Dr. Mamoud Ibrahim. The doctor was there, outside, with his arms round Hajiya. She saw us and, excitedly, introduced the doctor to us as her new husband. Things were happening too quickly for me to understand. She told the doctor that my brother was the man who brought her to the hospital, which led to …their marriage.
My brother took the doctor a few steps away from Hajiya and me. As Hajiya went inside the building I could hear Ochinti saying to the doctor “Where is the rest of my money? Where is the rest? I need the balance. I’ve suffered too much… give me the rest … I did my job…”
“Haven’t I paid you enough? … Let me tell you …” asked the doctor.
“No, sir. If I did not bring her to your hospital as we agreed this deal would not have …” began Ochinti. He stopped short of completing his sentence as he looked at me from the corner of his eyes.
“Don’t forget,” said the doctor, “that it was me who sent the anonymous letters to Ganiyu, which caused him to beat her … that was ninety percent of the plan…”
“But, sir,” said Ochinti “I sat down by the window for more than seven days, looking through the window of my residence, waiting for him to beat her so that I could play my part … look at what you got … a beautiful wife … look how beautiful… you wouldn’t want me to tell her …”.
“No, no, no, I will give you something, hold on…” With that, Dr. Ibrahim dashed into the building. While he was gone, my brother kept staring at the ground, trying to avoid looking at me. But I had already put two and two together because achowa mma ekwu na-ututu, agba ama ife eriri n'abali (you reveal what you ate the night before when you start looking for the kitchen knife in the morning).
My heart sank. My heart sank even further when the doctor returned with a fat envelope, full of money, which he handed to Ochinti. On our way to my hotel room, my head reminded me to abandon my effort to reform Ochinti because ihe masiri gi mee onye ara, o gaghi ahapu ntamu (regardless of what you do to a mad man, he will not stop mumbling to himself).
As we took off on a flight to our hometown, the protective big-brotherliness in me suddenly surfaced, and before I could stifle it, I heard myself saying to Ochinti “A wise wayo dude always gets all his money upfront in a deal. You went through all that trouble and yet that doctor guy almost cheated you; always regard your wayo confederates as visiting bicyclists, you know the proverb that ihe masiri gi mere onye igwe, ya lawa, ya a boro gi ike (regardless of what you do for a visiting bicyclist, when he leaves your house to go home, he will always show you his behind). Did you hear me!”
WayoGuy@aol.com
(A Washington attorney)
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Posted by Robot| 02.04.2007 17:07