by Chris Okafor

Ayoh is speaking. At least he feels he is, but no one is really listening even though everyone is looking at him. Even as the entire attention of the crowd is on him, no one is listening. He can’t really see the faces. The sticks and stones that landed on his eye have impaired his vision greatly. He can still see, but the blood clots covering his eyes doesn’t help his vision in any way. Vision is the last thing on his mind, he just wants to be heard then he wants to go home and lie down. Even as he’s lying down in the grime gutter, his entire soul is trying to get up and get away.

He wants to tell the people he was going to buy engine oil for his generator with the two pet bottles he was with. He wants to make them understand he wasn’t a ritualist. Their expressions seemed to have judged him already. He needed someone to speak up, someone to vouch for him, but most just shook their heads, others who didn’t want to join in pulverising him hauled pejoratives.

Some many minutes back, he was just being rude to the “street boys” asking him all sorts of questions,  because firstly, he had a long disappointing day as he could not secure a spot on the agents list for the 2nd stage of the football trials that would have held in Abuja, and secondly, they, the street boys usually did stop him to harass and asks for monies occasionally from him and other passersby (he had noticed once or twice).  A large stick hits him across his face, just below his nose, shattering his teeth. He stops to think for a second or two again. He knows he is dying. The sticks and planks have rained with force on almost every part of his body. He can feel the blood gushing through his knee. The patella almost hanging out. He is almost naked too with his torn boxer short the only piece of clothing left hanging oddly on his waist.

This periodic beating by the Mob has been ongoing for almost an hour now, but the pain is too much. Now he wants it to be fast. He knows they aren’t going to hear him out. Two men hold him by his legs, covered with blood and drag him out of the mud. He resigns his fate. He knows for sure, that he’s going to die. He knows they are all going to kill him. He pees on his trousers for the third time that evening. He begins to regret ever stepping out of his door. He begins to regret wanting to even trying to put on his rickety generator- he had happily gotten recently from a second-hand seller- before he noticed it was oil-dry. The heat and mosquitoes won’t have killed him; They had not for years. These people were going to. They had already killed his soul, his body was just trying to hang on. He wondered why. The darned generator!

Two hours earlier, Buruji glanced at Kaba-boy, nudging his head towards the oncoming boy. Buruji has seen him in the area carrying shoulders, not wanting to respect them, greet them or hail them, the original street boys. They had made a mental note to teach him a lesson. The fact that Sisi Tola who sold bread was always smiling and laughing with him didn’t help issues. He always avoided them and even when he looked at them, when their eyes met with his, it was the look of someone who considered them irrelevant. They did not like him.

The anger of what the ritualist did two streets away was still fresh in Buruji’s veins. They had murdered his aunt in cold blood. Someone had to pay.

Who knew if it was this fool? This Ayo of a boy. There was no reason for him not to be.

Kaba-boy could almost telepathically synchronise what Buruji was thinking. He didn’t like this boy that was coming. He had seen him pass this road a few times. Sometimes on Earpiece. He had seen him drinking alone in a bar in the corner of the street. He had a disrespectful mien and ignored them like he was better than them. He knew he wasn’t really literate. He was just a street boy like them, so why did he behave like he was better. Today seemed a good day to teach him a lesson. He is probably a ritualist sef. Kaba-boy summed up.

“Woss, you come here, where you dey go? Wetin dey your hand?” kaba-boy exclaims.

“Free me, make I pass jere” Ayo replies, trying to walk round Buruji standing on his way.

“I say tell me why you dey Waka like dis ? I see you enter Jaramo street, then you cross enter Salami close. Who you be dey find?” Kaba-boy shouts.

Passers-by starts to gather. Some other men with blood-shot eyes move closer to the three causing the scene.

Buruji lands a thunderous slap on Ayo.

“You fucken Ritualist. You dey look for your next victim abi?” he exclaims as the shock of the assault leaves Ayo stumbling into the tiny crowd that have gathered. Many hands push him back into the circle that is gradually expanding as more people join the scene.

“Mister man, what is your mission here?” one of the strangely looking men asks in the local dialect.

Ayoh didn’t t really understand the local dialect spoken here, although he was learning and understood the basic greetings, that was all. He had moved here just under a year ago after relocating from the slums. His mum died during childbirth and his dad was still having kids on the go at the slums with his new wives, abandoning them to fend for themselves as soon as they could push canoes for a little money.  He had worked as a bus conductor to earn his daily bread since he first came to town and occasionally he got a call from Kuriah, his friend to come for a political rally downtown where all he had to do was join the boys in shouting the name of a political party and then went home for 2000 Naira. It was sweet, cool and easy cash. What he really wanted to do though was to play football and he wanted to combine that with learning vulcanising in the meanwhile. He was really good with the ball at his feet. He didn’t lack a dream, all he currently lacked was “Tacxical dizipline” as his football instructor had said.

“My name na Ayoh” He replied and almost immediately the man who quizzed him rained two more slaps on him.

“Dat no be wetin I ask you” The man further says in pidgin “you be one of them abi, the container na wetin you wan take carry the blood”

“Make una no let am run o, I sure say he join the people wey kill those women. Hold am tight”

Buruji and Kaba-boy are less involved now. The new crowd of men have obscured them and, even though they are a little shocked too on how fast the situation seems to have escalated, they find it easier to believe the drawn conclusions from the dilettante investigative procedure that was carried out. The new crowd have gripped Ayoh now and are taking him to the area he says he stays so they can first report him to their neighbours as a ritualist, before they descend on him and teach beasts like him a lesson.

JUNGLE JUSTICE IS ALWAYS HIJACKED INJUSTICE

We become that which we abhor!

---

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

(This story is a work of fiction. Names and characters are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental)

Chris Okafor is a storyteller, content developer and Chinua Achebe Aficionado. When he’s not reading, writing or pontificating, he listens to Fela and watches Instagram skits- a lot more than his data would normally allow.