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Chief Wazobia
The name on a golden plaque pasted on the wall of his house read: Chief Alh. Sir, Dr. Wazobia
J.P. GCON, OBE, KBE, MON, PhD (honoris
causa) and a string of traditional titles numbering about six from all the geo-political corners of the country.
The name and his appellations took a generous paragraph.
18TH AUGUST
Today he stirred on his oval, king-sized, water bed. He only snatched some sleep for three hours.
The dim bedside lamp with golden fringes emitted some fragrance. It was both a brightening and scenting device.
He pressed a button just near the lamp and the mini-cinema screen TV. opposite his bed soon lit up. He turned to
the CNN with a remote control; all that he was concerned with was business news. He only wanted to know how the
NYSE and LSE were behaving. The news wasn't at all encouraging. There was breaking news, for the umpteenth time,
somebody had blown himself off in Iraq. He hissed and dragged his pudgy legs out of the bed. His silky pair of pajamas was a bit crumpled.
He opened his wardrobe that was filled to the brim with designer pajamas and bath robes. He threw his pajamas and
put on a robe with a heavy towel around his paunch. He went to the spacious bathroom and turned on the warm water
tap. He brought out about five bath scents and foam and squirted them into the water and soon there was fragrant
steam and bubble in the giant container. He entered into the Jacuzzi bath stretching his muscles and the ripples
were both a relaxing and refreshing experience.
After the bath, he shaved with electric blade and then applied his normal after shave. He dressed
unhurriedly in a designer suit
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and took some time choosing a tie, shoes and watch from arrays of these items. With his fat neck-less head and
a heavy potbelly, the dressing formed an ensemble of a standing human-size toad. Then he put on his wide rim glasses
and went down the stairs. As normal his breakfast was waiting for him. There were about twenty silver porcelain
dishes and a golden coffee urn emitting the fragrance of well chosen coffee beans. He nibbled at his food. His
mind was absent thinking only about his impending meeting with the vice president; though his appetite had become
jaded always seeking for exotic cuisine and soon getting over it to seek for yet another one. His chef, a French, whom he paid a staggering amount of money
having prized him from a Paris five star hotel, was an expert in experimental gourmet. Today the meal simply tasted bland to him.
The problem with this class of people wasn't at all food but having the appetite for it.
He sauntered out to the terrace of the house. The well-hedged bougainvillea had grown on the strings
from down and crept up to the edge of the roofing of his duplex quite evenly and creating a cool shade on the terrace.
The house was a sprawling mansion made in the shape of a plane. There were about ten different duplexes tastily
furnished all attached making up a picture of a Boeing. It had a small zoo, a garden with lounging chairs and umbrellas
and an Olympic �size swimming pool by the side. He stood outside with a Havana cigar dangling on his lips emitting rich
and thick smoke. He could never stop smoking even with his chronic bronchitis and kidney problem for he thought
how dull life could have been had it not been possible for one to puff out his tension.
The Lincoln navigator was already outside and the driver soon came out, his well starched khaki uniform crackled,
he greeted the chief and collected his brief case to the car. There was a fleet of about thirty snob cars covered
in tarpaulin; from Rolls Royce to the latest Mercedes. The electronically-controlled gate soon withdrew under the
control of a sentry in the cubicle by the gate. He
froze as the car glided effortlessly down to the chief's office that was in the same quarters with his mansion.
The road was freshly well-tarred and macadamized. The new governor simply had it re-tarred as soon as he was sworn
in, because he knew it was the neighborhood of chief Wazobia. He reached the office at exactly 11.00 a.m. His secretary, a beautiful young woman
of twenty five soon came in to remind him of his today's appointments. She read out the appointments with the coquettishness
that never failed to entice the chief. He told her to re-schedule all the appointments against the next day because
he had to go to Abuja for he had an impromptu meeting with the veep.
She was used to the foibles of her boss so she simply smiled exposing a white even set of teeth and cat-walked
to her office.
He was picked by his helicopter which only dropped him on
the vast lawn of the vice president's villa. He came out to meet him. They hugged and he led him to the beautiful
park behind the house. He met five other guys well known to him in the Nigeria's murky political and economic world.
The six guys that converged at the V.Ps
house were all what Mbadiwe
would call men of 'timber and caliber' and 'the political juggernauts' representing the six geo-political zones
in the country. After pleasantries and boisterous exchange of banters, the vice president, a man of few words,
simply went to the point telling them about the six contracts and how they were shared. One who claimed to be a
farmer was given the contract for the importation of grains in the next four years of the regime. One, an engineer,
was given the contract for the building of new presidential and ministerial villas. One was given the contract
for the supply of vehicles for ministerial and extra-ministerial establishments etc. As for chief Wazobia, being
an oil magnet, he was given the contract for the supply of petroleum in the next four years 'before the refineries
were repaired'.
The vice president grinned with satisfaction knowing that the whole country had been pacified and
all the bickering he had anticipated regarding the sharing of the contracts never surfaced. Each of the six simply
thought that his was the most profitable. At the close of the meeting, they all waddled to their plush cars, and
Chief Wazobia to his copter, their minds busy calculating their windfalls. The VP soon made for the phone to inform
his Excellency how successful the meeting had fared. As his chopper droned on, air-bound, Chief Wazobia's mind was on his new assignment. He had told the veep already that he should be counted out in any contract that was not above a ten-digit sum. But this
one was not only a money-spinner but it was also a cinch to him, for he had a refinery in Gabon and all he needed
to do was to buy the crude here through his connections at the NNPC;refine it there and bring it here for sell.
This would only be supplemented by cheap importation through international black market. The only snag he was likely
to encounter was the labor congress which was likely to go on strike over record high fuel price but that was only
if the leaders behaved like Pa Imodu or Ciroma who remained incorruptible. He had confidence in his 'settlement
policy'
He slept that day after 4.00.am his mind aglow having calculated that at the end of this contract,
his account at the Swiss would hit the four billion dollar mark.
Mr. Biazowa
18TH AUGUST
In the same city but at a far flung quarter of the town, Mr. Biazowa had just aroused. The sun had
peaked right into his dingy room. The window close to an outside pool of stagnant water had been opened for air
yesterday night---warts and all. The mosquitoes from the stagnant gutter had a field day. They still buzzed around.
His body bore bites of the insects. His eyes fixed on the ceiling which had become brown with cobwebs. The electric
bulb was the only reminder that there was once electricity in this neighborhood. He could hear the noise of the
other tenants inside the compound. He was already late for the morning rush to the bathroom. There was always a
queue starting as early as 4.30am.
His children had already gone down to another house to fetch water from a well. He stood up and eagerly prepared
to the office. Today was going to be a happy day for he would be paid his salary. He had told his wife to tell
all their creditors to exercise some patience until today. The whole salary was going for the payment of his debt
but he knew how to hold onto half by paying his creditors half and sweet-tonguing them into shifting the rest for
the next month. He was a persistent debtor. Perhaps, from the half salary he could eke out something for the treatment
of his sick daughter who had measles at the 'Okoro clinic'---a patent chemist. His children had been sent home
from their school for not paying some fees.
His wife a former village beauty, who had withered and aged with hard work, breezed in looking quite
happy; knowing that today the family would have a meal with some meat. She brought his breakfast of gruel and some
several pieces of bean cake. He wolfed down the fare quite hungrily and belched deeply indicating his not being
filled up; regardless, he sprinted outside in a hurry to the office so that he could dust off the table of his
boss before he arrived.
He reached the office earlier than even his blue-collar colleagues. As a messenger to the Perm Sec
of the ministry of community and rural development, Mr. Biazowa was a hard worker doing his job ungrudgingly to
the latter. The day wore out and the Commissioner, Chief Oga, had not arrived. He only heard later from his colleagues
that he had traveled abroad for a medical check-up and the cheques would only be cashed when he returned and signed
them. He felt as if he was stabbed. His whole hopes were dashed. He was only thinking about how he was going to
grapple with his creditors. At
the end of the day he dragged home bereft of spirit. Today was the 18th of
August and the salary to be paid was for July. He was disappointed but looked at his problem as a child of bad
luck. His thought never moved further from that. He never thought anything bad about his superiors all that he
believed was that he was created to be a subordinate and it was the god-given right of his superiors to behave
as they liked. If they were good to him that was his good luck, bad to him, his bad luck. He felt frustrated but
he never knew the basis of, and where to place, his emotions; but his superiors or his leaders were certainly not
within the purview of those he was frustrated with.
As he nearly reached home, he saw some smoke going up from his neighborhood and there was a crowd
of people that looked like an irate mob. He soon saw some rushing down in fright. The dusty road and the smoke
from afar had made the atmosphere foggy. He rushed to the scene and was soon gasping for breath and his eyes in
stinging blindness. The police had shot tear-gas canisters. He mingled into the crowd already in the melee as they
scampered covering their faces with their clothes. Some houses had been torched and he could see some corpses of
hacked people. He asked someone just close by what was happening. The youth clutching a blunted club shouted that
they were fighting tribe A because they heard that the ministerial
slot for the state that should come from their senatorial zone had been given to somebody from the tribe instead
of Chief Oga from their tribe.
On hearing the name of their commissioner mentioned, his
blood soon stirred. (This was the same commissioner who traveled abroad not signing their salaries) He felt that
he also had to fight because the person was not only his boss in the office but was from the same tribe and community
with him. How he craved to lay his hands on those people from that useless tribe to teach them some lesson for
purloining what should belong to some one as distinguished as the chief! He picked one iron bar on the ground and
surged forward to the front where the ringleaders were stationed facing the police.
The police stood in line clutching their Danish rifles. They covered members of the attacked tribe;
while those at the opposite side hurled stones and broken bottles. The captain was ranting away on a walkie-talkie
seeking for re-enforcement as the mob was becoming bigger and more violent. He took a megaphone and told the crowd
to disperse or they would use bullet. Nobody seemed to have heard him and even if they did they thought it was
a bluff. They dashed closer and the police fired yet another round of tear gas; the rioters scampered and later
regrouped again to continue their carnage. Then the Captain gave out the alert for operation-no-mercy and soon
the trigger-happy policemen started shooting and the crowd soon dispersed some felled by bullets and some wounded.
That did it. Everyone escaped for his dear life while many were even killed. Mr. Biazowa managed to escape but
not without some bruises as a result of hitting a stone while running.
When he reached home, he found the house in chaos. Part of his room had been burnt and one of his
children was nowhere to be found. There was a curfew. It rained heavily while they were salvaging what they could
of their charred property; and his disorganized abode was drenched in rain. His sore foot throbbed. His sick daughter
cried. His other children groaned of hunger. His wife grieved of all the sundry misfortunes of the day. They finally
slept shivering not only of the bone-chilling cold oozing from a gaping damage on their room but of the reality
of tomorrow. 'What bad luck' Biazowa mumbled before drifting into a tortuous slumber.
Diary of two Nigerians
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