1 BAPTISM IN A BLOODBATH
FIGHTING FOR ONE'S right in the twenty-first century is never an easy thing, but Somto never thought such a righteous act would claim one's life in an age much vaunted for its enlightenment. It was not until the revamped police-force unit, clad in their new black white-trimmed uniforms opened fire on the protesters, the shooters aided by a squad of soldiers wearing patchy green military fatigues, that Somto realized that the concept of diplomacy was lost on most African leaders.
So much for having a peaceful protest.
It's the twentieth day in the bloody month of October in the very unkind year of 2020, a great injustice was visited on the Nigerian people. The year of 2020 was rife with death and sorrow, amidst the lockdowns due to a rapacious pandemic, the month of October ushering nation-wide protests against the brutal unfair excesses of a rogue police unit popularly known as SARS –short for Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
The significance of October 20 darker and scarier than the coming of Halloween. A travesty so ugly it obscured Somto's plight in the early afternoon of the same day.
On October 20, 2020, precisely thirty minutes past noon, a frightful Somto Ike was running through the woods in a bid to evade the guns of soldiers and rogue police officers. His hunters had been given the order to shoot on sight any protester.
Adrenaline blunted the mind of Somto, his psyche only sharp enough to wade through the massed greenery of the woods closest to the road he and many others had led their rally against police brutality. Clad in black trousers, a short-sleeved purple shirt, a black tie and black moccasins—the attire now stained with sweat, wet mud and the green ichor of plants—Somto ran for his dear life. All around him, he heard the dying wails and helpless screams of fellow protesters; the percussive booms and bangs from the hunting muzzles of the pursuing gunmen; the fear-laden shuffling footfalls of protesters and accompanying rushing snaps-and-breaks of plants as the protesters dashed from cover to cover away from the thugs employed by the country's oligarchs.
Thugs donning the regalia of authority under the permission of society's crooked myopic politicians, criminals in the police, military and so-called SWAT uniforms were set like a pack of slavering hounds after Nigerians brave enough to voice their discontent with their failed leaders.
Turning the corner round a big tree, shrubs and other small plants crunching underfoot, Somto laid his back against the broad tan trunk of a massive tree. Fright and flight had denied him coordination of any sort, he had bolted for safety immediately he saw the first five protesters go down in bloody heaps.
The sight of human mortality detailed with the bright glare of a gun's muzzle like fire from a dragon's maw, the thunderous blasts of gunshots, and the red rain of human blood, guts and slump human forms on the tarred road was etched into his memory like chisel-carvings on old stone.
A scene made stark by the glaring sunlight above.
Like the other protesters, he scattered into a random direction, making a dash for the forest on instinct.
Sweating like an Olympic athlete, Somto, a twenty-two-year-old sophomore of Animal Behavioural Studies at the prestigious Nnamdi Azikiwe University, reeled in anguish at the sounds of sorrow and gunshots around him.
It was an orchestra of death, the bloodthirsty trumpets of conflict in the background, the melancholic melody of voices in agony, and the drumming of his heart which he could hear up to his ears.
Somto stayed crouched behind the old massive tree, taking care to make sure the foliage around lent to masking his presence. The young man sat in shock, silent tears dripping from fearful eyes, his mind losing all coherence except the singular thought of seeing another day in the land of the living.
Somto was so lost to his predicament that he let slip his awareness of his surroundings, he didn't hear the snap-and-break of plants, the hasty footfalls of someone running, nor the panic-filled shrieking of the pretty lady with black mascara tears running down her beautifully made-up face. Somto brown eyes snapped up, glimpsing the almost-blur feminine form wearing a red top, blue jeans and brown sandals fall with the reverberating sound of two gunshots in quick succession of each other.
Her body twisting as the bullets hit, the lady collapsed to the bushes without a sound.
Frozen by the sight of another protester gunned down, Somto held his breath; willing himself to blend with his environment like a chameleon would, wanting to be obscure to the malign gaze of the enemy.
The rays of the sun that stole through the gaps in the forest enveloping canopy revealed the approaching form of a soldier, clad in dark green fatigues of his calling. His gun still smoking from his kill, the soldier made to inspect the fleeing protester he had shot down. The soldier swept his gun in probing arcs, his back hunched and eyes alert as he scanned the forest around him. Somto could hear the crunch of plants crushed under black metal-soled boots.
Somto kept still, for all the world, he was part of the forest in those moments.
With the surety of safety and no targets in sight, the soldier pulled out his phone. Fingers moving deftly, the light from the touch-screen mobile-phone revealing a swarthy sparely bearded face definitely from the Northern Nigerian tribes; the soldier dialed. Motioning the black-cased phone to his right ear, the call clicked, and the army officer spoke in a gruff voice.
Somto remained still, his breathing stuttering and soft, he heard the soldier speak in his clicking native tongue. A language he did not understand but recognized. He also heard the supine lady gasp from where she lay, the officer turned to her saying, "So you're still alive… Ah! You strong ooo." The soldier's voice bore the tell-tale sign of mockery.
The soldier spoke a few words to his phone, dropped the call, and resting the brown stock of the rifle against his shoulder to deliver a coup d'grace to the supine female protester.
Somto could hear the downed lady's weak sighs and sobs… Somto was no hero, though fit by dint of age and as a young man who hits the gym from time to time, he made a judgement call.
It was one that would change his life.
Somto, wielding a sturdy mud-caked brown stick the length of his arm and half as fat, his face a mask of exasperation, silent fury and desperation, charged the soldier as he aimed down on the wounded protester.
The soldier turned at the sound at Somto's frenzied charge, the snap-and-break of foliage betraying murderous momentum. The soldier was stunned, frozen in his killing pose, was too slow to evade the attack.
The soldier's last sight in the land of the living was Somto arcing his weapon with all his might and fright, his waist twisted and the top of the makeshift club almost past his back as muscles bunched, Somto's whole body tensed to land a sure blow that would incapacitate if not kill the army officer.
What got the soldier petrified the most was the look in Somto's eyes, it had all the warmth of an open grave. Tears stained the brown skin of the young man's face, painting a face a mask of sadness, wrath and justice.
The blow fell upon the soldier's head with the force of a lumberman's axe against the trunk of a tree, the sound a sick wet crack as the soldier's skull caved in, hair and skin above the area of impact softened, splitting and bleeding precious blood.
The army officer collapsed to the floor convulsing from the wicked concussive blow with a jerky thud, the shrubs softening the fall. The soldier's eyes rolled to his whites, his body wracked with spasms; his rifle clattered to the muddy grassy ground from his loose fingers.
Somto hit the soldier twice more with his club, delivering unkind downswings to the already compromised head of the soldier. Ruining the soldier's face, especially the forehead which had most of the flesh abraded by the rough texture of the makeshift club.
Blood splattered Somto's clothes, the soldier's uniform, his face, his weapon, the supine form of the wounded protester, and the greenery around them. The soldier stilled from his spasms, blood pooling from the rents in his ravaged head.
Somto looked from the corpse of the licensed thug to the stricken girl; two bullet wounds—the crimson blood staining them like a gangrene would an infected wound was conspicuous. Her blood was stark against the red relief of her beautiful top.
The lady had taken a bullet to the right of her chest, the bloody hole nestled between the top of her right breast, seeming somewhat close to her shoulder. The second went cleanly through her left thigh. Her beautiful sweaty face, laden with terror and tears was already growing pale from blood-loss.
There was also gratitude in her weak eyes.
The snap-and–break of foliage was palpable in the now stilling air of the forest, it seemed the shooting had abated. The hunt for errant Nigerian citizens was coming to an end. Crouched beside the injured lady, Somto turned towards the direction sounds of approach came from.
The rays of sunlight bleeding through the canopy of the forest revealed the black gleam of a shotgun and the silhouette of a man clad in the black uniform of the crooked SWAT searching, calling out for comrades… and protesters in hiding.
Somto looked back to the lady saying, "Nne, seems like you have to play dead." Somto turned to gauge the distance of the coming enemy, he turned back to the lady—blood pooled underneath her, becoming a veil of slowing expanding red blanket over the muddy grassy ground she lay upon. He could see the pleading in her eyes, enough to say aloud that she didn't want to be left alone.
"I will be right here… I have to take care of that fool like I did this idiot." Somto gestured to the dead soldier. The lady nodded a very weak affirmation; it was enough for Somto. He grasped her shoulder in a warm gesture; the lady closing her eyes in order to bear her pain—her breathing weak and ragged—and to conserve her already dwindling strength.
In her mind, she silently prayed… for the both of them.
Somto motioned for his hiding place behind the large tree. He went for his bloodstained stick, stopping halfway to gaze at the soldier's brown-black gun. Somto knew he didn't know how to prime a gun let alone shoot, but he took it nonetheless. Strapping the gun reassuringly over his shoulder, Somto picked his club and went to his perch so as to ambush the fiend.
The hunter just became the hunted.
