****
At the same time, Alhaji Kosoko aka Pemberton had just finished what he called “gracious sex” with his secretary in the room where he had just conducted a secret council meeting for his supporters and friends among the traditional rulers of the country a couple of hours earlier and he was getting ready to appear as the guest on a late night talk show. He now felt some kind of relief and he now had a clearer view of the recent happenings. Did the scientists not say sex was a great reliever and a cure to mental stress and nervous breakdown? Obviously it is and he had just confirmed it. A new energy flooded him from within and he let it all loose on the work before him.
‘Dear, get me the list of all that were present at the meeting and ring up my driver, let him get the car ready.’ Avery went out the door, pulling and adjusting her skirt as she went. She got the list, made the call and returned in a minute. Pemberton looked through the list, scrutinizing every name and circled some signatures. He drew out a similar list he had obtained from one of the meetings of elder statesmen and cross checked each name on the two lists obviously expecting to find the name of someone who had not been invited but showed up in his meeting earlier in the evening and there it was, Baba Ondo had not been invited but he showed up claiming he was in Lagos for the weekend and having got wind of the meeting, he saw a need to be loyal to Pemberton’s cause since Pemberton had always been a true nationalist.
“How did he get the notice for a meeting that was supposed to be secret?” Pemberton asked his secretary rhetorically.
He moved further down the list and there was no other uninvited person who had shown up. Baba Ondo is the informant who told Gbolabo what we’re up to.
‘Get me that’ he said pointing at the phone on the table in front of him. A typical Yoruba man, he was closer to the phone but it’s somewhat dignifying to have your secretary hand you the receiver, more so she is the younger one.
Hello officer, joo wa s’oke now now (he repeated the word, to pass the message of urgency) with two of your cobrals, you have some job to do for me.
He shouted into the mouth piece while his eyes lingered absently on the list in his hand. He had just dropped the receiver when he saw some discrepancy in the Olubadan’s signature. Olubadan never signed any document with a blue pen and that was common knowledge among council members. He always used a red pen. His representative today was obviously oblivious of that fact. He shifted his eyes to check the identity of the representative and it turned out to be Balogun. That’s a serious issue. Balogun is traditionally the Olubadan’s right hand man and some sort of chief security adviser and so it has been for centuries. How then will the Balogun claim not to know that Olubadan always used a red pen except the signature of Olubadan was ……….he paused……….may be…… signed by someone else…..someone who did not know. Could Balogun have simply just borrowed a pen from some other member of the meeting? But Olubadan’s use of a red pen was said to have some traditional implications. Some even said that in ancient times, the Olubadan had used his blood to sign any document.
Then there was no red ink and there was no red cam wood liquid.
The use of his blood as a seal of all his correspondence showed the immutability and integrity of his decisions. It was his integrity as an Oba and leader. Its traditional implication was that the king was liable to die when he breaks his word which he signed in blood. Kosoko would love to know how true that was now but he had never considered it a serious story that could help him make a decision someday especially in this present time when leaders generally had no integrity, even traditional leaders appointed with despicable blood oaths, covenants and sacrifices of even human beings, as is being rumoured. Avery sat down now as she heard approaching footsteps. It would be demeaning to stand along with Kosoko’s officers and henchmen. She is the lady and not just a staff. She is Kosoko’s heart, mother and wife, the active first lady in his life. His wife was just a role-player.
“Dear, it’d be safer if you send men after the Ondo chief and the Ibadan chief” she managed to conclude just before the officers burst in the door.
“Ssah” shouted the officer stamping his foot as his two other ‘cobrals’ watched from behind him.
Kosoko simply said we’ll go after the Ondo chief and not the Ibadan chief. If the Ibadan chief was impersonated, it was done by someone who reports to Gbolabo. We’ll just have men watching Gbolabo, that’s the PA presidential candidate.
The officer and his two cobrals watched in silence, listening to Kosoko, they apparently assumed he was addressing them. Just then Avery motioned to one of the cobrals to get the waste bin behind Chief Kosoko’s seat. He did. She brought out the paper with a phone number on it. ‘This could help then,’ she said with a hint of a smile.
Yes, brilliant. Kosoko said as the cobral who had brought the waste bin twitched his forehead in a sign of disgust at ‘the secretary who was sitting down with the Boss’ but he returned the bin to its place.
“Here it is” Kosoko said finally. Officer will get two of your men and kidnap Baba Ondo. Don’t hurt him, just keep him safe till I’m ready to see him.
He’s staying at Eko Hotels, just get him out of there and take him to the outskirts, somewhere in Lekki village area. I’ll contact you there. Get one of your cobrals to get two other men to monitor Gbolabo’s movement and report all who visits him, all he visits and any other relevant information. He’s too much in public glare to be kidnapped. You, he pointed at Cobral Ekpe, behind the officer you are to personally follow my secretary to wherever she wants to go tonight and receive orders from her tonight. She’s from your village so she will treat you well.
All these officers and cobrals were men who had been dismissed from the Nigerian army after the coup. They were now re-absorbed into the Yoruba Peoples Police Force and were acting as Alhaji Kosoko’s special security details. That’s common place in the African setting. The people’s security forces served the elite people. If you have money and enough material interests worth securing, you’ll have the officers and corporals at your beck and call. Cobral Ekpe was glad and a bit puzzled to learn that the secretary was from Akwa Ibom, his home state, crudely called a village by Alhaji Kosoko. The secretary spoke English so well and with such perfect British accent that they had all thought she was from Britain, no wonder it was now hard to see people from Akwa Ibom in Lagos these days, many had emigrated after the breakup in the south and the few remaining now speak Queens English.
When the British came to southern Nigeria, the Calabar area up to Uyo was the first port of call so we people still dey hold queen mentality whenever they leave home. Ekpe thought in his head as the officer and his cobrals left the room.
As the security men left the room Alhaji Kosoko looked up from the paper in his hand and planted a quick kiss on his secretary’s cheek. Please help me get the white kaftan in my wardrobe and the white shoes. I have to be on my way to the TV station for that talk show and whatever happens let me get the news quickly. Avery nodded as she got the white clothing. She sat down with her elbow nailed to the table and her chin rested on the back of her hand and watched Pemberton change clothes. He virtually has not changed all through the years she thought, always doing several things at the same time, now he was talking as he got into his clothes.
This is the kind of clothe that suits this occasion. I don’t want to be in a suit when I announce that Gbolabo is a fraud. A suit gives the impression of a young politician who is still struggling to be known and if you make the kind of statements I’m making tonight putting on a suit, you’ll be seen as a politician desperate to make a name by attacking the main presidential candidate.
Avery remained silent as he rattled on like an excited kid on his birthday. He was truly a young man but the new clothing really made him look older and it was quite hard to know that they had been friends for 13 years and intimate friends for 11 years. He was on the edge of achieving his life’s ambition and he had not officially and legally married her.
‘That’s a trap I’m walking into’ she thought.
Who’ll be the first lady when it all happens and I may forever be relegated to the position of ‘secretary whore’ because there is no President that gets married while he is in office and his ‘first lady’ is alive.
When will you be a man Bodey and marry me like you promised? Is it when you become president and have a first lady so she can kill me?
At this he paused and said M.A. I love……..
Don’t love anything she screamed looking into his drifting gaze, you’ve loved for 13 years and now it’s time to marry. She stopped abruptly and dropped her voice to a whisper ‘Bodey, I’m not a fool, I lost my innocence to you, played the secretary for you and schemed for you to get to the topmost seat of power in your homeland while your wife stayed at home tending her kids. She hasn’t even cooked for you in six months’.
Six months, she repeated with a gesture of her fingers crying and sobbing. I’m not a fool she repeated choking on her words. I’m leaving this country in two weeks if we don’t get married before next week Sunday and by the time I return even if you’re the President of the world, I’ll make things really difficult for you and you’ll prefer to commit suicide. I assure you that I’m a full Briton and these are not empty words and don’t you dare call me a village girl again before your menial staff.
Alhaji Kosoko was stunned. He remained speechless until she told him to leave at once for his talk show at which the driver breezed in to get Alhaji and his effects. The cheery driver stopped to greet the Miss but she swiftly turned her face aside, pretending to read the numbers on the paper in her hands. Alhaji walked out with the driver and Avery broke down in tears sitting on the floor of the boardroom.