Fools in Uniform

By Jibrin Idris

Danladi did not plan to become a drug courier, but when the opportunity came through Dorothy, he took it. Dorothy was a drug pusher and a lesbian. Danladi saw her as God sent, the kind of girl he would have loved, but there was Betty, her lover and a chronic drug addict. He would have been glad working as construction laborer if she hadnt suggested he meet Henry Okafar, a vicious drug baron who dines with government agents. There would be money coming to him if he agrees to haul drugs overseas. But the drug business is high risk. More blood had been split on drug war than most wars and millions of naira spent, but the war is continuing. Maula was a great medicine man from Hausa land. With some airport staffs and government agents colliding with Henry, Maulas talisman was seeing as an enigma. The streets of Green Town were worse hit, youth graduated from sniffing cocaine to inhaling certain solvents with hallucinogenic effect, resulting in serious physical damage and numbers of deaths.

Things would have stayed that way if a foreign diplomat hadnt made a scanty comment. It was the beginning of problems for NDLEA and the police.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482805376

Jibrin Idris

The drug war has failed, but Jibrin Idris does not think so. He provided his readers with a most cleverly thought-out, believable, and brilliant solution in this thoughtful and wide-ranging book. He writes boldly about corruption and incompetence in the war against hard drugs and the politics involved.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Jibrin Idris.

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4828-0538-3

                Softcover        978-1-4828-0536-9

                eBook             978-1-4828-0537-6

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the love of my life, Dorothy, who endures my solitude, and to our children, Mariam, Leila, Ibrahim, Aisha, and Aisha Baby. May we not be slaves to drugs and alcohol.

Prologue

U niversities are brimming with cultism, violent politics, and prostitution. The standard of education has dropped and parents are at crossroads between foreign universities and local universities. The local universities have grown both in numbers and courses, yet they produce poor results and talents in political sciences, history, the arts, medicine, and music; standard has depreciated. Cultism flourished with great reward and ceremony and the strict adherence to leaning was replaced by membership of certain cult. Professors and student sit in beer parlours, and decide who should pass examination with upper-class or spent decade in the university trying to graduate with ordinary pass. Lecturers who refused to compromise with standard were set up, beating, and forced to give good grades to weak students.

Within the country’s universities, there were many cult groups – Pirates Confraternity (Sea Dogs); Buccaneers (Sea Lords); Argonauts; Gentlemen’s Club; Black Berets; Mgba-Mgba Brothers; Black Mamba; The Chronics; Jurists; Red Skin; Neo-Black Movement; Mafia; Amazons; Daughters of Jezebel; Eiye Confraternity (Air Lords); Klu Klux Klan (KKK); Black Axe; Red Wings … some decent, others vile and satanic but with the same purpose of uplifting its members. New cults are created, old ones are fragmented, and weak ones are suppressed and eliminated. Esoteric aspect of membership was developed and adopted by members to recognise their brothers as genuine brothers. Their blood oath is to assist in the concealment of murder, treason, or any other crime as a crime committed by one is considered a crime committed by all.

Cultism turned the universities into lawless institution, students and lecturers were killed, and schools were set ablaze and closed down for months.

New students were initiated to strengthen the old. Danladi Beki was a newcomer in Lano campus, a novice and a fool and a member of the deadly Red Wings – real killers, acid throwers, arsonists, and kidnappers. Their lawless behaviour was not limited to the campus only.

Armed with the idea that they were untouchable, they went haywire. Drugs passed from hand to hand in the open. There was a war in Lano Campus. Innocent students were killed in cold blood. Shot guns, AK47, cutlasses, and knives were used freely. Girls were kidnapped, raped and ransom demanded and paid.

Leno University was embroiled in cult war. The vice chancellor and the Red Wings fought for the control of the University. But in the end the vice chancellor won. He was an old school, a capo in the Pirates Confraternity, a don and a teacher who matched inch by inch the resistance of the Red Wings.

Chapter One

D anladi Beki looked at her youthful face and grimaced; she had grown tall, beautiful and bold. She smiled pleadingly at him, begging him with her eyes, the way women do, to understand her feelings and leave her alone. She didn’t love him anymore and had been trying to tell him so without being standoffish. It wasn’t her fault; since coming out of prison no one wanted to associate with him, not even his parents. She could see he was grieved with her decision. Joy Alade and his sister, Abeku, had meant everything to him after his mother’s death and now it seemed he had lost Joy. While in prison his father had disinherited and cursed him, always too angry to listen to him and his only sister, Abeku. ‘It has been a very long time since you went away,’ Joy said, trying to meet his eyes. ‘I was lonely and distracted. If you were around, things wouldn’t have been like that. Out of sight is out of mind, did you remember the saying?’ She teased, still looking at him with pleading eyes to understand her. ‘You would have probably got a degree and working by now if you hadn’t gone to jail.’

She was right; if he hadn’t been to jail he would have probably graduated two years ago and working, but that shouldn’t have arisen if she loved him. He thought of her throughout his four-year imprisonment.

He glared at Joy and wondered about her feeble excuses. He had not forgotten her while in prison. ‘If you love me, you wouldn’t forget me in four years and you wouldn’t be talking about degree and work,’ he said callously, knowing full well that degree wasn’t a guarantee to get work or love in the country.

That was a fact and Joy knew it, but she had made up her mind to let him go. He picked up the newspaper lying on the centre table and flipped through, his mind busy.

There was a long silence in the room. Danladi was thinking of what to do next and Joy was waiting.

Outside the compound, Joy’s neighbours were talking in low voices and Joy presumed that they were talking about her ex-jail boyfriend. This bothered her and she wanted him out of her life before her current boyfriend returned. They were alone in her bedsitter along Bukuru road, Jos.

Danladi brought out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his chest pocket, shook out a stick, and held it between his lips, a habit he had learnt from his association with Red Wings.

‘I don’t know you smoke?’ Joy asked trickily. ‘And you don’t smoke here either.’ She added firmly, staring at him, a situation that would have earned her a slap in the past.

‘I don’t blame you,’ Danladi said, staring hard at her, the side of his mouth twitching with anger. ‘It’s because I brought myself here.’

Joy said, waving her hands, ‘I just wanted to keep a respectable distance from you. You just came out of prison. People are still talking about you, and please understand me.’

‘Do you think I care what people say?’ Danladi said, releasing now the stigma attached to an ex-convict.

‘I do, and please, don’t talk that way to me, Danladi. You sound bitter.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be bitter? Look at the way you shunned me like a leper. You only came once to see me and that is all. I should have known better. Look, I will go away. You aren’t the only one who talks to me that way. My father hates my sight, and friends cross the road to the opposite direction when they see me coming. All right, I don’t blame you. I blame the government that locked me up without a fair trial.’ He shook his head and smiled a little bitter smile.

Joy felt touched but she knew she had to send him away. Without a degree or decent trade, he would be a clog in her life. Love without money is like tea without sugar, she had reasoned. She stood up, went round the centre table, and stood beside him, her eyes going over his haggard frame, threadbare dirty shirt, and shabby shoes. Evidences of his prison suffering were all over him like a mark. After they had sent him to jail for attempted arson, she had visited him once in prison and then lost interest going there. Now, he was out and back to her but she was well ahead of him and not willing to look back.

‘Let me cook you something to eat before you go. You are hungry and dirty,’ she said, just for old times’ sake.

Danladi shook his head. There was no point waiting; he had now made up his mind to leave town. ‘The train to Lagos leaves by noon. I better hurry.’

‘Is that where you are going? Have you considered where to stay?’ Joy said, a bit concerned but Danladi wasn’t impressed.

‘That shouldn’t bother you. People live under bridges and incomplete buildings in Lagos.’

‘Is that where you are planning to stay, under the bridges and incomplete buildings?’ Joy asked him quietly. ‘You don’t have to be in a hurry. Let me cook you something to eat before you go.’

‘Thanks for your consideration,’ Danladi said. ‘Can you spare me T-fare instead?’

‘If that is what you want, all right,’ Joy said gladly and hurried into her bedroom. She returned with her handbag, opened it, and brought out some money. ‘This is all I have now,’ she offered. ‘It will not pamper you, but it is something.’

Danladi took the money and thanked her. ‘I must go now, Joy,’ he said and folded the money into his hip pocket. ‘I’ll keep in touch.’

‘Well, you have made up your mind to go but be careful how you mix up while there. I hear that Lagos is hot. If you don’t check your steps some guys will use you as a drug pusher.’

‘Do you think I’m a fool?’ Danladi said and started towards the exit, a little angry. ‘At my age I should know what is good for me.’

Joy watched him go, a little joyful smile on her face.

When Danladi got to Jos terminus, the time was 11.30 a.m. He had half an hour before the train left to Lagos.

He was awakened by bites and the noise of mosquitoes. It was a chilled and quiet night at the railway station. Danladi had arrived at Lagos by the previous evening train, sneaked into one of the abandoned coaches like a thief and decided to pass the night there. The coach stood 500 metres away from the station platform among other disused coaches and lubricant oil tanks. He had run out of money after paying for his train fare and could not afford a hotel charge. He clapped his hands over his head and more mosquitoes dispersed noisily into the chilled night in protest. He needed a stick of cigarette but the fear of the night guards seeing the light or smelling his smoke restrained his urge to light one. With nothing to do and the cold weather, the urge to smoke overwhelmed his resistance. He sat up on the threadbare train seat, found his crumpled packet of cigarettes in his chest pocket, and put one between his lips. Cupping his hand over the lighter to hide the flame from being seen by the station guards, he lit his cigarette and then stretched out on the train seat.

Lying quietly, he wondered what would happen to him at dawn. The distant noise of thunder and the noise of bus conductors from downtown Lagos, calling on passengers to board their buses disturbed him. Lagosians hardly slept; always on the move like ants, building and storing food for the rainy days which never came.

He cupped his hand over the cigarette and pulled very hard. The cigarette glowed and he was able to look at his cheap wristwatch.

The time now was quarter to eight and the clouds were pregnant with rain. Overhead, small clouds were racing across the moonlight sky, joining up with each other rapidly.

He smoked slowly, thinking of how to sneak out of the station to buy some snacks and then sneaking back to his new abode without being seen.

According to the train schedule he saw at the notice board, the next train would arrive at the station around eight o’clock, and there would be some commotion caused by passengers struggling to get out of the station and hawkers hustling to sell their goods to arriving passengers. That was when he planned to sneak out, buy some snacks to eat, and then sneak back. If he had known, he wouldn’t have left Jos.

Twice in the evening, one of the station guards had nearly caught him when he was checking round the station. He was lucky to have seen the guard first and had lain very low on the dusty, choking board of the train until he heard the guard walk away.

Lying in the dilapidated coach he remembered his father telling him that education is the key to success and he was poor because he had got no formal education. His father had put him in school to become somebody but now, he was nobody and he couldn’t go back to school because he had been rusticated by the education board. He had been stupid to join the Red Wings, the most dangerous and violent cult in the campus that specialised in burning down schools. But there were several paying trade he could have learnt in Jos but his mind was fixed on Lagos to avoid being stigmatised. Without education or decent trade his future looked bleak at the moment. He thought about his late mother, his only sister, Abeku and her future. She was finishing secondary school when he went to jail, and now at eighteen, she hadn’t been able to make her papers. His mother had been the bread winner and the power house of the family. She had died of heart attack when she heard that he had been arrested and his father had blamed him for her death.

He stubbed out his cigarette on the coach floor and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. Mosquitoes flew over his head, singing their blood-seeking music, waiting for him to sleep off.

The lightning was now frequent. It leapt about the dark sky, lighting the station and the surrounding buildings.

Then he felt vibration under him and he knew a train was approaching the station. He got up and peered through the broken train window. The approaching train’s huge headlight, round like the full moon almost blinded his eyes. The train blasted its horn to announce its arrival as it slowed down and snaked gently into the station with it passengers, some hanging between the coaches and others sitting on top of the train roof. He could hear shouts of hawkers and porters as they rushed towards the arrival platform from their adjoining stalls with their wares, their loud voices renting the air, calling on passengers to buy their wares.

In the middle of the melee, Danladi quickly scampered out of the disused train and went towards the crowded concrete platform. Everybody was talking to be heard over the sound of the loud train engine before it finally jerked forward and stopped with the scratching and whining of its wheels. Crowd of hawkers rounded it up, trying to sell their wares.

Suddenly, the railway station came alive with more noises from passengers disembarking from the train. Hawkers and porters fussed about the long coaches of train, trying to earn a living and the passengers were trying to find their way out of the station. It was a confused and interesting sight. Every passenger was acting as if the train was about to leave the platform with them whereas it had at least a quarter of an hour before crawling to the shed.

A police constable, standing beside the exit, watched the excitement from a safe distance with bored attention. A large woman with a baby strapped on her back pushed and shoved her way out of the train and plodded into the crowd, cursing in Yoruba language.

‘Oga! You don tear my bag!’ a passenger shouted in pidgin English at another passenger as he stepped on to the concrete platform, dragging the passenger’s leather bag.

‘You dey crazy!’ the man howled back in pidgin English.

‘Oleh! oleh! … Thief! Thief! Barawo!’ another shouted.

‘Vita bread! Vita bread!’ a hawker hollered.

‘Brother, buy water!’

After one day at the station, Danladi knew his way about the station and was now familiar with the train schedules. He knew that in fifteen minutes’ time the train would leave the arrival platform to the maintenance shed and by then every passenger would be gone. Then the station would be silent again. He had to find something to eat quickly now that the station was rowdy and returned to his hiding place to avoid being arrested, he told himself as he sneaked through the moving crowds like a naked man in search of shelter. There were many policemen around the railway station and Danladi, knowing exactly where they were, was careful how he moved.

As he climbed the short staircase to the heavily lighted platform, the sight of two beautiful girls, dragging a huge dirty sack out of the train attracted his attention. He paused and stared curiously at the girls. They were too beautiful to be dragging such a dirty sack. Just the kind of girls he would like to take out if he had money, but what would they be doing in the railway station? he asked himself, not that there was anything wrong with the railways, but he would have expected girls like that to be at the airport, after what the country’s rail system had become in recent times. One of the girls was dark, slightly overweight yet very attractive, while the other was taller with a very fair complexion. The shorter girl wore a red silk blouse which showed her heavy breasts and a waist-less jeans skirt. Her hair was done in long braids and cascaded over her shoulders and part of her heart-shaped face. But in spite of her beauty, she had the habit of spitting around as if she had been living hard or pregnant. When she noticed that Danladi was watching them, she suddenly frowned, and her thin lips stiffened. She straightened up, adjusted her heavy breasts, and spoke quietly to the taller girl. The taller girl looked wildly around as Danladi went by them, and he seeing how tired she looked decided to offer help.

‘Hello, do you need a helping hand?’ he asked smiling.

The girls regarded the thin tall man with a beard staring at them and smiling.

The taller girl suddenly became tensed. She knew the railway station was filled with pickpockets, vagabonds, and tricksters. Many passengers had lost valuables to criminals who wondered into the station and thinking that Danladi was one of them from the way he was dressed, raised her voice and said. ‘We are not looking for porters.’

‘I’m not a porter,’ Danladi replied with a raised voice. ‘I just wanted to help you.’

‘You look no different to me,’ the shorter girl said and spat on the ground, her eyes going over him suspiciously. ‘Go away,’ she said rudely, waving him away.

Danladi suddenly wanted to say something nasty to the shorter girl who was looking very hostile but the reality of her voice restrained him. He was obviously looking like a porter, no doubt about that. He looked at her and then at himself. He was unshaven, smelt of unwashed body, and hadn’t changed his clothes for several days. The girls looked fresh, well dressed, and beautiful. The shorter girl’s frontage alone was something to behold; it seemed as if she had gone under the knife for 32 DD silicone implants.

‘Don’t talk like that to a stranger, Betty,’ the taller girl cautioned and moved away from the sack, equally staring at Danladi. She was probably nineteen or twenty, no more. But in spite of her immature face and beauty, anyone could see that she was in control of herself. She had big eyes and a pointed slim nose with a silver ring through it. She had a love symbol tattooed on her left cheek and wore a white sweater and acid-washed jeans trousers.

‘If you don’t go away, I will call the police,’ the shorter girl called Betty threatened in a voice that told Danladi that she meant it.

Danladi stiffened. ‘Police?’ he asked, surprised at her unruly behaviour. ‘I only wanted to help when I saw you struggling with the sack.’

‘Wait until you are asked to help,’ the shorter girl went on querulously. ‘It’s your type that steals passengers’ luggage … thief … ole,’ she shouted, clapped her hands, and struck her hip with her right palm, the way young girls do when they are excited. The sound of her palm against her hip and her querulous voice attracted attention; passengers turned to look and the police constable who stood at the gate noticed the commotion and suddenly became watchful. And before they knew what was happening the shorter girl was waving at the constable to come over.

‘Are you out of your mind, Betty?’ The taller girl suddenly said exasperated when she realised what Betty had done and moved further away from the sack. ‘You shouldn’t have called the police. The porter is trying to help us.’

‘He looked like a thief to me,’ Betty said and turning to look at Danladi said, ‘Go away.’

Embarrassed, Danladi turned and started walking away, mumbling incoherently, but a sharp voice stopped him before he went far. He turned and stared at the police constable with the sharp voice, his heart beating fast. He regretted offering to help and the girls saw his sad and scared face.

‘Is there any problem here?’ The policeman asked, staring at the shorter girl’s heavy chest.

‘It’s all right, Constable,’ the taller girl immediately interjected, smiling contemptuously. ‘Don’t mind us. We were just haggling for price with the porter and my girlfriend here thinks he is too expensive. There is no problem at all, Constable.’ The taller girl told the police constable in a calm voice that surprised Danladi. Now facing Danladi she said, ‘Please don’t mind Betty. Can you give me a helping hand? Let’s get the sack out of here.’ She spoke in a very friendly voice and went closer to Danladi, backing the policeman who was still staring lustfully at Betty. ‘What is your last price?’ she asked aloud for the benefit of the policeman and blinked her eyes at Danladi.

Realising the danger he was in and believing that the taller girl was trying to help him out, he said, ‘It will cost you plenty of money,’ and laughed, aware now that the constable has shifted his gaze from Betty’s bosom to him.

Dorothy laughed aloud too and hit the side of her hip stylishly. ‘Name your price and I will double it, old porter.’ She laughed again.

The policeman watched them closely for a moment and then hearing the roar of thunder in the distance went back to the gate to keep it orderly.

As Danladi bent to lift the sack a very faint smell of marijuana hit him. It was so faint he could have imagined it, but he knew he didn’t. He looked over his shoulders and saw the policeman standing at the gate, talking to a porter. He suspected that the constable was asking the porter about him. To forestall being questioned by the policeman, he decided to act fast. He looked at the sack on the platform and then at the girls curiously. ‘What do you have in here?’

The taller girl looked quickly over her shoulder at the policeman standing at the gate. ‘Garri and some vegetables,’ she told him.

‘Dry vegetable, eh?’ he asked, lifting the sack to a standing position before placing it on his left shoulder. While in prison, Danladi had heard how drug peddlers smuggled drugs inside food stuffs to beat detection and most of the drugs he took while there smelt of various kind of food stuffs, depending on how it was smuggled into the prison. Pieces of garri fell on his shoulder and onto his body and his hand touched something that felt like dried grass. He began to wonder if these pretty girls weren’t using him to ferry marijuana out of the station.

‘This way, please,’ the taller girl whose name was Dorothy said and started walking towards the station exit. The shorter girl followed sulkily, swinging her hips here and there.

Danladi followed silently behind, wondering what he was carrying for them.

Outside the railway station, at the car park, Dorothy opened the boot of a red Honda salon and asked Danladi to put in the sack.

The car park was lit by heavy floodlights, and bus conductors were shouting names of places they were going to at the passengers coming out of the station. ‘Oshodi … Oshodi,’ a conductor shouted. ‘Veei … veei,’ another hollered.

There was lightning and heavy clap of thunder as Danladi dropped the sack into the boot of the car. Startled, he locked the car boot and stepped aside to admire it. It was big, long and unkempt. Anyone who could drive a car like this must have good money to keep it running. He thought at once that the girls were probably from a rich home and this observation increased his hope that he would be helped.

‘How much?’ asked the taller girl, bringing out some money from the handbag hanging on her shoulder. She appeared to be in charge and wanted to pay him off and get on with her journey, but during the short walk to the car park, Danladi had decided not to take their money and to tell them his problems. He observed, in particular, the taller girl looked cool-headed and who knew, she might help him.

He shook his head, ignoring the money in her hand. ‘I told you I’m not a porter,’ he said and told them that he was from Jos and that he had come to Lagos to look for work. As he spoke the taller girl kept shaking her head in pity. He ended by begging them to help him. ‘As I speak I have no work and no place to lay my head. I need your help.’

‘Let’s get out of this place!’ Betty shouted, ‘I told you he is a … thief. How can a man travel without an address?’ Then abruptly she stopped talking, sneezed violently, and spit on the floor, her body shaking.

‘Wait in the car, Betty,’ the taller girl said as Betty sneezed again and again. She turned and looked at the taller girl, her eyes suddenly red. ‘But we can’t take him. He could be a thief.’

‘Look, I don’t care. But I would like you to wait in the car!’ the taller girl repeated decisively.

‘Don’t push me around, do you hear me?’ Betty said angrily, opened the car front door, slid in and shut the door.

Then it started drizzling.

Thinking that Danladi needed more money, the taller girl brought out two more 1,000 naira note from her bag and held it out for him. ‘You can do with this.’

Danladi again shook his head. ‘I told you I’m not a porter.’ He repeated what he had told them earlier.

Unsure of what to do, Dorothy stood in thought, the line on the side of her face showing her surprise. Most station porters would have snatched the money out of her hand before she offered it, but this man didn’t. He might be speaking the truth but her policy was not to get acquainted with anyone while on her drug mission; she might as well be talking to security personnel. She folded the money, put it back from where she had brought it, and looked at him.

The hard line on the side of his mouth, his beard, and haggard frame told her that he was probably an ex-jailbird. She turned, opened the car door, and stepped in beside Betty. Then she rolled down the side glass and spoke to him, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t even know you.’ She then inserted her car key into the ignition.

Danladi laughed. ‘It’s okay, but I know you can help. It takes a moment to know someone,’ he quoted. ‘I have been in the railway station for one night with no food or decent shelter over my head. I am harmless.’

Dorothy was not surprised at his revelation. All sorts of people wondered into Lagos with no clear plans about their future. A lot had died, knocked down by hit-and-run vehicles, and a lot had been forced into child labour or killed for rituals. Others, like her, survived. She has had a very hard struggle with life and was now faring better. She was brought from Calabar by a woman human trafficker and was being taken to Italy to work as commercial sex worker when they had a ghastly motor accident at Shagamu. The woman trafficker and most of the teenage girls died; Dorothy survived with a head injury. Dorothy never knew her parents; she was born in a baby factory to a teenage mother and sold out to the woman trafficker, who also operated a fake motherless home. When she was discharged from the hospital, she found herself roaming the streets and begging for alms to survive. She had been living on the streets until Theresa Nickolas, an American socialite and a chronic lesbian, took her in, first as house maid and later molested her. Theresa had come into the country to do research work on the troubled street urchins – almajerai system in Nigeria – and had found Dorothy roaming the streets one night with some street urchins and had picked her up. She interviewed Dorothy and when she realised that Dorothy had no guardian and was intelligent and smart, took her to her house. Theresa had been sincere with Dorothy from the beginning of their relationship and had told her about her vice. Dorothy had been perplexed when Theresa told her that she was a lesbian. She was sixteen years old and had no idea what lesbianism meant. She hadn’t even been loved or fallen in love before and the way Theresa pampered her with gifts and provided for all her needs endeared her to the woman. ‘How many men have you befriended since you have been on the streets?’

Dorothy shook her head. ‘None.’

She was very inquisitive, and Theresa liked that. She liked how smart, honest, and neat Dorothy was. She was everything Theresa liked. ‘I want you to know that I like you.’ She was straight with Dorothy. ‘I have gone out with women in America, not girls. It is common there … you seemed not to understand. I don’t even know if