19/04/2024
IN THE KIDNAPPER'S DEN
BY
ABBAS RHAMOTALLAHI EJIDE
CHAPTER ONE
ZAHRA
“Salam Alaikum, Baba.” I greeted as I entered our apartment in the staff quarters of the university. I got no response to my greeting. Of course, Baba was right there, sitting upright at his desk and reading aloud from his giant sociology textbook as though he was preparing for a lecture. This, he had been doing since the outbreak of strike in the university, the strike which has now ran beyond a year already!
The most unfortunate thing about this particular strike is that it wasn't the common ASSU strike that includes all the other universities in the country. Rather, it was peculiar to the state university alone, caused by greedy political leaders who are supposed to be financing it. Ever since the ruling governor was re-elected for his second tenure in office, he had made menace of each sector in the administration, especially the financial sector. Unlike his first tenure when he paid salaries promptly, and adequately funded the university for its operations so that it ran smoothly to the point that it earned the award of the best state university in the country. He began his second term in office by owing everyone on the payroll of the state for a stretch at a time. He started with two months at a time, then moved to three, four, six, seven, until he stopped paying totally. It was initially assumed that the payments were just running late, so the management of the university managed to continue running for the first few months after all payments halted. Without salaries, the lecturers went to classes and teach the students. They charged them for each practicals, just to run laboratories, and other facilities. But after months without salaries and maintenance, as even the revenue being generated by the university were going directly into the government's purse, it became virtually impossible for learning to continue in the university. The lecturers and the non-teaching staff agreed to embark on an indefinite strike. Everybody retired home.
Except Baba, who instructed his students not to go home yet, assuring them that the strike would soon be called off. He went to campus every single day and delivered his lectures as though there was no strike at all. He took his post-graduate students, reviewed their thesis and continued to assist them on their researches. But as the months of the strike prolonged indefinitely, his students began to take excuses to leave for home, until none of his students were left on campus for him to tutor. Yet, he continued to go to his office in the school, and the lecture halls when his classes were supposed to hold just to sit there, reading and waiting for the strike to be called off. And when Mama pleaded with him to stop going to sit in empty lecture halls, as rumors were already spreading around the campus about him, he came back home and continued to sit at his desk, reading aloud and preparing for the lectures no one knew when they would resume.
But all those while, it never occurred to him that as the breadwinner of the family whose only source of income had halted for several months in tow, suffering was beginning to set in for his family. Every other lecturer, and non-teaching staff affected by the strike had by then embarked on other pursuits to support themselves and families financially. The other day, I stumbled upon the Dean of his faculty on YouTube, teaching people theories and other psychological concepts. Most of the lecturers had taken up temporary appointments at other institutions, while some had even crossed permanently to the private universities coming up. Many had completely left the academic field to other fields. I knew of another lecturer in the department of physics who had taken up temporary teaching appointments in three different private schools, and he attended on alternate days. While the appointments might be below his qualifications, they were fetching him an income to keep his family together. Even the students of the university had diversified into so many sectors to fill in their days and make the most out of the devastating waste of their prime years. But Baba is just a different breed, a man of stoic habitual routine. He wasn't even considering the possibility of delving into something else just to get by financially.
Mom said to leave him alone, that in his books are the only place he found solace and fulfillment. And I asked her, what importance shall solace and fulfillment matter to a man whose family is practically starving? Mom tried to step in and fill his space, but of course, she had never worked before in her life. To begin with, she didn't even possess the certification to apply for job. The irony of a secondary school drop-out being married to a professor. Although, she was a skilled hairdresser and would have established after her marriage to Baba, had Baba not been against it. He wanted her to stay home and raise the kids, like a proper Ibira housewife, and she had. Now, Mama had been going around the staff quarters, plaiting her intricately beautiful designs on the heads of the other women in the staff quarters, just to earn our feed. And I dare say that the money is even barely enough to feed.
Usually, when ASUU strike happens like this, the lecturers are covered by their corporative societies, which sees to distributing foodstuff to each member and giving loans to cover their bills until the strike would be called off. But this one strike had stretched far too long beyond what any cooperative could dare to cover for all the members. Before the strike started, Baba hadn't been paid for six months, plus the thirteen months of strike, totalling Nineteen months of no income, we were literally drowning in debts.
I can't believe that I am already twenty years old, and yet to get admitted into the university, despite my intelligence. I had aced my SSCE with distinctions and gotten 351 in JAMB, and I had been offered the admission to study medicine and surgery in the university. But it was rather unfortunate that my admission had come at a time when my family could not boast of a single thousand naira. So, instead of going to the university, I had taken a job as a POS attendant inside the market, and everyday, I weep in my soul as trudge along to the market to resume my daily job instead of pursuing my dream.
I could not help it, but I was beginning to get resentful of my father. Each time I remembered the day I came home with my admission slip and he hadn't even collected it before saying; “Zahrah, we can't afford to send you to school right now.” He hadn't even tried at all. Had he been a true father who's proud of the unusual feat of his daughter, he would have looked for the money, or because of me take up a job. But he hadn't even looked at my slip. And I weep every time I remembered that.
Now, I leave him at home every day while I go to work, and come back to meet him in the same position, reading from the same damned books. I can't help or stop the resentment, I feel like I shouldn't have to place my future on hold if I had a father to provide for me. And everyday, my resentment towards Baba grew, for every time I got harassed at work, for every hunger I endured, and every lack I knew. I kept wondering if he wasn't seeing us, how we were suffering through each day. How creditors came to the house to embarrass Mama all the time, how we could no longer afford to pay for basic amenities like water and electricity. How we would have become homeless, had the accommodation in the staff quarters not been free. Mama had sold almost everything in the house to sort some important bills. Even the things that we were still using, like her jewelry, our clothing, and the bed and wardrobe in my room. She had to sell those to pay my brother's school fee. I kept wondering what it would have been like had my father taken up a temporary appointment like his colleagues, or even applied for another job entirely.
Not to mention that Baba is a hotter in the academic field, a first class professor in the department of Sociology with impeccable records. Having obtained his PhD at the age of 35 and became a professor at the age of 40, he was renowned internationally for his groundbreaking research works. He had won, not once, not twice, several international research grants for the campus. The number of awards that grace his office walls make an iconic statement. Hardly shall one find any sociological journal published, be it locally or internationally, in the last thirty years without finding his name. He held up the utmost academic standard in his teachings, and the results were evident in his products. It was easy to pass his courses just as it was easy to fail, you either study and pass or not study and not pass, there was no other way around it with him. He was neither a sadistic lecturer who failed students at whim, nor an undeserving one who compromised the educational standard for personal gains. He had been known to report students who dared to offer him money or their bodies for grades. His name was virally respected in the field of sociology throughout the country, Any university, be it federal, state, private, or even abroad would be eager to sn**ch him up. He only had to apply and we would be out of this hell hole, but he would rather wait for the strike to be called off, even if it would take years.
His misery grew with the strike, the longer the strike got, the miserable he became, yet, he managed to maintain his routine of sitting at his desk and scribbling articles away. One would expect him to have gotten tired of preparing for lectures that weren't holding and writing papers that weren't published already, but he kept at it, as though the futility of his efforts were more rewarding than anything in the world. Gradually, he ate less and less, slept less, spoke less, and just bottled up into himself by the day. It became even worse as the months passed by, even after he mistakenly broke his eyeglasses, and could no longer read or write clearly, he continued in his routine like a maniac. Alarmingly, he continued reading from the books he could no longer see, and scribbling lines over lines, without his eyesight to guide him. He would wake up, take his bath, spray his perfume (even after he had emptied out the perfume bottle, he would still spray the empty bottle), shine his shoes and wear them, and then sit at his table all day long. On most days, he wouldn't care to eat or as much as say anything to any of us in the house. Mama, in her own misery too, knew not how to how to help him. She said he was just holding tight to his routine to keep sane, but I have an entirely different opinion, I think those are rather signs of a shifted sanity. But I dared say nothing, so I said nothing and joined Mama in leaving him alone.
Baba was not always like this. He used to be the ideal man, husband, and father. Responsible, attentive, and generous, even. The type of man who used to keep his cheque book with his wife, who used to buy golds for his wife, and read academic papers to his infant in the middle of the night so his wife could sleep. I can vividly recall going everywhere with him when I was little. He made me into a young passionate reader. I remember reading Dr. Ben Carson's biography from his bookshelf at the age of nine, which inspired me to want to become a doctor. Baba had supported my passion with more books and the promise to send me to the university of my choice. I was truly Zahara, her father's adornment. He used to take me to his office, and the library. It feels like he had lost his functionality with the strike, as though, his soul is connected to his activities in the university, and without them, he was lost. My Baba was nowhere to be found. There was no way that man sitting at the desk every single day could be my father. My Baba that I know, would never watch his family suffer in the way that we are.
“Baba, did you pray Zhur and Asr?” I asked, because in between his furious reading and scribbling, he sometimes forget his Salah. He didn't say anything, but he got up slowly and walked outside, toward the Masjid. I sighed, shook my head, and began to do the chores. I cleaned up, swept, mopped, did the dishes, and went outside to refill some gallons in the house from the community well, as we could no longer afford to pay for running water. I looked around maybe I would sight Abdul, my ten year old brother anywhere so he could help me with the fetching, but he was no where in sight. Mama must have asked him to stay with a particular neighbor after school, because Baba was obviously not capable of looking after anyone.
This is the point, where I am supposed to start dinner, but I knew the cupboard was as empty as it was yesterday. I would have to wait for Mama to know if we would be having dinner tonight or not. So, I took a shower, washed away the stress of the day, and said my Magrib prayer. And slept off on the prayer mat.
When I woke up, Mama was trudging into the house with sleepy Abdul slung across her shoulder. Baba had at some point in time crept back inside the house while I was sleeping, because he was back at his desk by then.
“Welcome, Mama. How was where you went?” I asked as I helped take Abdul off her shoulders and lie him down. From the way she sat on the floor and spread her legs in dejection, I already knew that the outcome was not good I also knew that she returned that late because she trekked all the way from the square, I doubt the possibility of dinner. I quietly went to the kitchen to fetch her a cup of water.
Of recent, Mama had been getting little to no patronage from her hairdressing business. Even, her seemingly regular clients had stopped calling her to come make theirs and their children's hair. It so happened that the vice chancellor's wife had recently opened a mega saloon at square, and all the women in the staff quarters were now patronizing there. I think it was more of a status quo than the actual service they're getting there, because Mama is apparently good than any of the stylists. But either ways, she was out of job now and she had to act fast, otherwise we would be out of food too. She had gone to the saloon today to apply for the position of a stylist there.
“She didn't give me the job.” Mama told me in Ebira as she received the water. “She said it wasn't befitting of my status as I am one of the HOD's wife. Even when I asked her not to bother about my status, she still turned me down. She later said she's only hiring young girls with modern skills, especially wigs and weave-on experts. I suggested for her to hire me by the side for her clients who might want braidings, but she still said No.” She recounted in dejection.
"ahhhh,” I sighed. “What are you now going to do?” I asked.
“I don't know.” She sighed back.
“Hmmm.” I sighed again.
“Dear, did you not receive your salary today.” Mama asked after a while. And there it was.
“I did.”
“Ehn ehn, how much is it?”
“Fifteen thousand, they deducted three thousand for what happened the other day.
“Eiy, your money is never complete, they are always removing money for one reason or the other.”
“That is how POS business is. So much gain, yet, so much loss.”
“Hun. I hear you, so, when are you going to give me the money.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Ah, why not? You know that the deadline for your brother's common entrance exam is tomorrow. We still need twenty thousand naira to complete the payment.”
“I have told you to withdraw him from the staff school and put him in public school where we can afford. I have been working for the past Seventeen months, just to save money to go to the university. But I don't even have a single naira to show for it because you use everything to pay Abdul's fee. Mama, I need this particular salary of mine. I haven't used sanitary pads for my menstrual in months. I am beginning to feel itchy down there, and I am sure it is a as a result of the rags I kept using for my me**es. I need to buy medicated pads, and I am going to use the rest to register for Jamb. Whether you and Baba sponsor me or not, I am going to University this year.” I ranted.
“Please...” Mama said, and drifted off, with tears streaming down her eyes. I turned the other way, because while I truly felt no pity for her, I couldn't bear to watch my mother cry. My major concern is that like tonight, there are much more nights coming that we won't have food to eat. But I honestly don't pity Mama, I used to pity her, as she was also a victim of this circumstance, but not anymore. Mama would do anything, anything, except to actually make her husband take up his slacking responsibility. All she had to do was to demand of Baba to get up and get back in line, but she would rather do anything to fill his space, including attempting to marry me off at the age of Nineteen to a man who is older than my father! Alhaji Hadi was considerably rich, had strings of businesses, including a filling station. And so what? He already had three wives, he was old, and I wanted nothing to do with marriage at 19. I just wanted to go to school.
In a bid to convince me, Mama said I had no choice because we were poor. He'd make sure that I never went hungry again, he'd sponsor my brother in school, and he'd set up a business for her. But what about me? Was I just supposed to sacrifice my happiness for everyone else to be alright?
I refused outrightly, and told her that I was not poor. “I am not poor, I only come from a poor family, if I am still poor in ten years time, then I'll marry anyone who you ask me to, even he is a Dead man.” I had counterd.
“I was only Eighteen when I married your father. And nighteen when I had you. I didn't know it was ex*****on to ask you to marry a man who will give you comfort!” she had cried back.
Of all the men she could have had, she chose a man who loved his books more than he loved her. My mother is a very beautiful woman, attractively proportioned ; plump, slender, and thick at the appropriate places with a face that glowed like the moon itself. I am grateful to have copied most of her features, for if all else were to fail, I could rely on my appearance to lead me out of the trenches. Even now that poverty had dimmed and washed and trimmed from her looks, men still make advances at her. At least, once every week, she would mumble into the apartment telling my father how one of his colleagues had asked to sleep with her just to help us with some food. In response, my father would regard her briefly and return to his books without saying anything. That was enough to prompt any man into action, but my father was not any man, he was a man who was more consumed by the words in his pages than the world around him.
Mama was far adamant that I was, and it wasn't looking like I was going to win that batch of argument. Surprisingly, and much to my gratitude, Baba's intervention came when we weren't expecting it.
“My daughter will not marry an illiterate, a greedy one at that.” He had said firmly, and no one would go against those words, for it had been the first and the only he had uttered to anyone of us that week.
But that experience made me realize something, my future was in my hand. No one was making plans on how I would go to the university or achieve my dreams. Baba couldn't care to feed his own Body, and Mama was just looking to marry me off to the highest bidder.
Not that her tears moved me to pity, but I reached into the cup of my bra, fetched my salary from there, and handed it to Mama without turning back to look at her. Mama received the money with profuse prayers, and with tears in my own eyes, I stared at the well-fed face of brother, I trusted the neighbors to have fed him both lunch and dinner, and now he sleeps satisfactorily. Such lovely and lively soul, the sweetest human you'll ever meet. He has the ability to melt the devil's heart with a single smile. People are attracted to him like ants to sugar, he's loved everywhere he went. I could already see that he would make it in life, if she had to, Mama would sell her soul to see him through school. His irresistible aura will sail him through the woes of life. But as for me, I knew I had to get out of here as soon as possible, otherwise I would end up working my whole life without anything to show for it. I had a plan in place, and I would soon leave.
I drifted to sleep with pangs of my hunger singing me chaotic lullabies.
My parent's marriage is one amusing one, their differences are so extreme, yet it was the reason why they are so close-knitted. Their fierce love burned out of that same differences they had. Baba was already 40, and a professor when he married Mama, who was 18, and a very pretty girl. At his age and with how little he cared for the gratifications of this world, he never imagined that he would be married to such a young and beautiful woman. And with her status and her limited exposure, she never expected to marry someone so learned. They were overly grateful for each other, and because of that, they could do no wrong in each other's eyes. Little wonder why Mama would never call her husband out for our current situation.
I was woken up again, this time by Abdul who tapped me lightly on the arm.
“Zahra, I want to piss.”
“rephrase,” I corrected. We can not be paying such huge amount of money demandedyour school and you'll be speaking irritably.
“Zahra, I need to ease myself.” He rephrased.
"Better,” I commented as I rose quietly and pulled him up too. Together, we tiptoed towards the door so that he could urinate outside. Since it was more economical for him to urinate in the gutter outside, than the bathroom where we would have to use hard-fetched water to flush.
I glanced at my parents as we quietly unlocked the metal doors. Baba's head was resting on his desk with some murmurings coming from him, I couldn't tell whether he was asleep and sleep-talking or still reading. Mama was fast asleep at the feet of the desk. Baba could not part with his books, so, he would rather drool away on his desk. Mama wanted to be with her husband, so she would rather curl at the feet of his desk. So what is now the use of the bed in their bedroom when the both of them wouldn't sleep on it?
I concluded in my mind that I and Abdul would start using the bed since ours had been sold anyways. In fact, we would start from this night, as soon as we return from outside. We should make the most out of the bed before Mama would sell it again. Which I'm sure she would soon do when it was time for Abdul to begin secondary school.
Outside, It was full moon, everywhere were as bright as erl morn. I lead Abdul to the gutter and waited by the side, while giving him the privacy he needed. He finished up and was coming back when he saw the link a cat chasing the neighbor's chicken, he ran after them to rescue the chicken. I waited back because there was no point in stopping Abdul, he wouldn't back down until he'd rescued the chicken. I would only give him a minute before I go back inside. He would have to find his own way when he's completed his rescue mission.
As I turned around to go inside the house, I heard a movement rustling near me. I hadn't even had time to check it when I felt a cold metal drill into my back. A rather rough hand clamped my mouth from behind.
“FORWARD MARCH! I NEED EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY!” The chilly voice rang in my ears, even though the words were only whispered.
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