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                               CHAPTER THREE

Rotimi Jegede was returning home from the days work and he was held up by the
humdrum traffic jam at the Bank Anthony Way Ikeja on the way to his home at Ogba
a suburb just outside Ikeja. The traffic hold up started all the way from Maryland, he
spent an hour coming through Ikeja overhead bridge. He was driving a Mercedes 230
V-boot, and he thanked his stars it was fully air conditioned. The heat was maddening
and the traffic chaos was drawing out perspiration from him, despite the perfectly
working air conditioning system in his car. He thought about the heat, and all these
talk about green house warming, and depletion of the Ozone layer, and wondered how
Africa will cope, if the worst comes to woes. A giant looking man with two dilated eyes
that appears like it was going to burst out of his socket whenever he was talking. A
lawyer of many years standing Rotimi is well known throughout the country as the
people’s lawyer. He is one of the pro-democracy activists currently engaging the
military government for a return to democratic governance. Rotimi who is
contumacious, has seen many walls of prisons in the country due to his antagonistic
stand against the successive military governments and also due to his pro-democracy
activities. But he’s not complaining.
Rotimi Jegede was born of a very pitiable beginning, he had scratched through
secondary and university education through the free education scheme and the
scholarship scheme of the defunct western region government. And when he
graduated from law school, he was confronted with the mundane problems young
lawyers in Nigeria grapple with, which is the exploitative tendencies of the senior and
more established lawyers, who has held the law profession in a stranglehold for
themselves and their offspring’s whom they always groom to take over their sprawling
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law practice. Rotimi as hard working and brave as he was, could not break into the
clique of these affluent and powerful lawyers, therefore he has resented them with all
his might and has decided to break the rules a little in order to get to the acme of law
practice. The feudalists sitting on the pinnacle of law profession has banned lawyers
from engaging in public advertisement. But Rotimi had gone ahead to place a public
advert. The Bar Association debarred him, but Rotimi took them to court and won.
That was his first challenge of the established other. Many more were to follow. And
that brought him to the limelight. Rotimi love the glare of the media, it made him a
household name in the country and he relies on them profoundly for his antics and
also for survival. He knew quite well that without his challenge of the established
order, he will be nobody today, just one of the copious lawyers out there on the streets
struggling for survival.
The death of Chief Femi John had hit him like a tidal wave today. He was
shocked beyond word and he has not gotten out of the daze of the shock. He has an
appointment with the chief tomorrow; in fact the chief was the main financier of his
pro-democracy group known as Lawyers For Democracy. His appointment with him
tomorrow was to collect some funds for some surreptitious operation against the
military government.
That means my life is in grave danger he kept thinking since the news hit him. If
they can get Chief John with his array of guards, who is Rotimi Jegede, they will just
squash me like a fly he reasoned. But he has started thinking up contingency plans
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already. That is what has kept him alive and relevant. Tomorrow he will address the
media, to condemn the brutal murder of Chief Femi John and also to allege that his
life was in danger, everybody knew who his adversaries were, the military government
so the tide of public opinion will keep them at bay in case they were planning any
harm towards him. Besides, he will allege that he has noticed security operatives of
the federal government keeping tab on both his residence and his office, that he
doesn’t know the motive for such surveillance. And in truth, men of the State Security
Service (SSS) has been deployed to monitor his movement day in, day out, due to his
pro-democracy activities but this was the time to use it to his advantage.
His coruscatingly brilliant mind was still thinking about what to do tomorrow
when he arrived his residence. Rotimi at the age of forty-three was still unmarried
and lives alone with just his steward, who also doubles up as his cook and valet.
His security guard opened the gate for him and he drove in. He sent his steward
immediately to go and purchase for him some wraps of Indian Hemp, that he might be
able to suit his frayed nerves. All through the day, he had been itching for it but he
had a lot of visitors and also phone calls because of the death of Chief Femi John.
Right from his days as a student union activist in the university, Rotimi has been
addicted to Indian Hemp and a day does not pass without his taking it. His steward
Obong makes sure he gets fresh supply of it everyday. So when Obong brought him
some wraps, he locked himself inside his room lit up a wrap took a drag in and
allowed his brain to flow with it, he lay down on his big bed and lost himself in the
embrace of the Indian Hemp. Sometimes, he use to wonder why these government
security operatives have not busted into his house one day to arrest him. Possession
of Indian Hemp is a criminal offence in Nigeria and he was quite aware that these
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security operatives detailed to snoop on him knew that he smoked Indian Hemp on a
daily basis. He remembered his friend and client the music Maestro and his constant
rumble with security operatives over the use of Indian Hemp. Although his friend
unlike him, do not lock up his doors to smoke Indian hemp.
Sometimes, he resented this media glare and popularity because he was easily
spotted anywhere he went; now he cannot have a good time with friends relaxing in a
bar and guzzling as many bottles of beer as his stomach can accommodate. He still
looks back to those years as a young lawyer hustling for survival at the streets with a
lot of relish.
How he use to storm one whore house after another and how he would spend all
night at one bar after the other, and break some bottles over a hot squabble if need be.
Now he has to conform to some accepted way of living and behaviour. He has been
stilted right from his youth and trying to leave naturally or normally, as they would
like to call it has been very difficult for him. He often wondered at the level of
dissimulation in our world and all the effort people put in to facade their real self.
Look at his friend Kola, the renowned musician; everybody says he is mad because he
lives his life without all these charade of conforming with the status quo.
His bosom friend Segun Azeez, interrupted his relaxation, and he came out to
receive him at his sitting room. Segun and Rotimi had come a long way. They both
attended the same primary school, secondary school and university, and had been
close friends from primary school.
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I was shocked at the murder of Chief John, Segun began.
I have not even gotten over it, in fact I was just trying to drown myself with Indian
Hemp before you came.
But what irked me most was the gruesome manner he was murdered. Segun
continued.
My source from the police headquarter told me he was tortured before he was
murdered. I tell you my life is in grave danger, you know I had an appointment with
him tomorrow before he died.
I think they’ve made a bandobast, they want to clamp down on pro-democracy
activist, those of us that are lucky to be alive after this onslaught should be ready to
go to jail.
These malevolent men that sit on top of us they want to raze this country down
before they leave.
But they will never succeed, we will drive them out, the awareness have never been
like this before, everybody now knows that military rule is an aberration, we will chase
them out not only in Nigeria but the whole of Africa. Yes the time has come for total
revolution.
Now look at the decadence everywhere, the pernicious penchant for pilferage has
eating deep into the fabrics of our society. These military boys, encourage profligacy
and mediocrity, everything about them is dilettante. They are stagnating this country.
Rotimi lamented.
But they hold our arms and ammunitions and they are pointing it on our heads,
holding us hostage.
Our people have been cowed into numbed silence, no more temerity to stand up
and say no to these vermin.
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Look at our treasures, all looted and stashed away in foreign banks, now how are
we even going to rebuild our country after they have left. They want to drain the
nation before they leave, a gradual diminution. All the public utilities are in shambles
and the infrastructures too.
Sometimes when I think about our dear nation and our predicament, tears well up
in my eyes in solicitude, abundantly blessed with human and material resources yet
we wallow in deprivation, it is really despondent and heart rending. Rotimi lamented
sorely.
And they went on discussing politics for most of the night until it got late and
Segun left. Rotimi still hasn’t calmed down, even his chitchat with his friend has not
changed anything, and he was still down. He needed to drown himself in alcohol, yet
he cannot go to any public bar this night not with his life in danger, and he hated
drinking alone. He knew what he was going to do and he called Obong.
Although Rotimi days of sleeping at whore houses were over yet his debauchery
were not, so even though he can no longer go to whore houses himself for the fear of
being recognized and the bad publicity it will generate. Yet he has kept contact with
some choice prostitutes who had really satisfied him in time past. Now he knew he
has to send for Christy his favourite. He instructed Obong to go and fetch Christy
pronto. And he went about preparing for her arrival. Yes, he felt concupiscent
excitement in the air and he is going to have some. He knew that Christy loves to
drink so he arrayed choice booze in readiness for her arrival. He knew that
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immediately Obong instructed Christy that she is needed by Rotimi, she will
accompany him, even if she had a customer to attend to throughout that night. Rotimi
pays them handsomely more than any other person would, and they all know that a
night spend with him is a night of hedonistic revelry, lot of things to eat, drink and
smoke and prostitutes loves carousing. Rotimi wondered whether, the security men
keeping a tab on him has picked up this deprecating habit of his.
Well he thought he can’t understand all these dissembling disapprobation about
prostitutes. To him they are the best set of women that can properly satisfy a man’s
concupiscence. Rotimi was always disgusted and pissed off by all the emotional
pretence and stress involved in having a relationship with a woman, but he loves
prostitutes because they do not pretend at all. In fact, he feels more relaxed and at
home in the company of prostitutes. He can bare his mind to them, with out
somebody pretending that you have hurt them. Rotimi is considered a churl by most
women, he has a sharp tongue and women always feel uncomfortable in his presence
because of it. Nigerian women he will tell anybody who cared to listen are not
forthright, they are always hiding under their supposed feminine coquettish role their
grandmothers instilled in them. They have made themselves so convoluted hiding
under their docility and humble demeanour. The very few relationships Rotimi has
had with girl friends had left a sour taste in his mouth and perpetual bachelorhood
starring at his face. He was not bothered by that, he is not among the marriage crazy
men that fills unfulfilled without being married. Sometimes, he wonders if everybody
has gone insane, so much poverty around yet people are doing all sorts of ridiculous
things to have children they cannot provide for adequately. Each day the sights
confronts him on the streets of Lagos, while driving to work early in the morning and
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also while coming back from work. Children that should have been in school, hawking
all sorts of wares on the streets. Revolting sights, sometimes Rotimi wondered if these
boys and girls sleeps at night at all. Because late at night at any traffic hold up, you
will find them there, and early in the morning at any hold up, you will equally find
them there. He wondered why the government is not doing anything about population
control. Because their tacit approval of uncontrolled births and lack of family planning
is only increasing the circle of poverty in the land. One can even say, without fear of
doubt, that diminishing returns has set in. Because there are more poor Nigerians
now than we had in the sixties and seventies. That is what the statistics are saying.
I know you will come, Rotimi told Christy when she finally arrived with Obong.
Yes, but it is going to cost you a fortune, I had to discharge a client who has
already paid me for the night, you should try to inform me on time so that I do not
book a customer until day break, Christy replied.
I am sorry, you see the desire just came spontaneously, and he went over to kiss
and embrace her.
Well it is going to cost you a fortune not those stipends you use to pay me, Christy
replied while returning his kiss and embrace.
My dear you know I pay you better than that carcass you had for tonight did or
any other customer for that matter, so why are you being exploitative, Rotimi asked.
I am in business to make money and I left the customer I had because I know you
will pay me better.
Not because am an ogre in bed.
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Don’t be ridiculous, I have seen all sizes, I have had all the styles there is to, and
honey, yours is just ordinary like the rest.
Now enough of these silly talks, what do you have to entertain me, Christy
continued.
Rotimi brought out the booze and some wraps of Indian Hemp and they smoke, drank,
and made love until early in the morning when passion and aggression had drained
out of him and he finally slept.
                                                BY
                                       OKEY     ENI
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