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Baba had barely
finished speaking when a metallic white Land Rover screeched and
stopped abruptly in front of his pools office. Cakes of potopoto
splattered all over the vehicle gave it a mix of white and brown. The
words, Joint Military Task Force, written in black, were etched on both
sides, on the door. Men, women and children stood in front of their
houses waiting to see what the soldiers inside the vehicle were up to.
What were they going to dramatise next? they wondered.

While the men
wore only shorts, as they chewed pako and spat on the ground, their
distended bellies thrust forward, the women’s wrappers were flung
across their shoulders, leaving a substantial part of their breasts
exposed and only their nipples covered. Children between the ages of
eight and ten, some wearing only hole-ridden shorts and others briefs,
clung to their mothers.

Suddenly, five
heavily built men in mufti, wielding AK-47 rifles, jumped out of the
van and rushed into the pools office. One of them kicked the black
results board with white stripes, that rested on a rusty, brown pole in
front of the plastered but unpainted bungalow. The board fell down, and
the man looked at it and hissed. “Eight draws! This Kora people self!”
he drawled and stepped in, his boots thudding the floor.

“Where are they!
Where are they!” the soldiers bellowed in unison; as they rushed into
the first room, in which were only a table and a bench. They entered
the second room, which had two tables, two benches and a wire-netted
counter behind which Baba always sat to attend to customers. On the
counter was a paper on which Baba wrote his weekly offering to his
customers. That, he believed, would guarantee their constant patronage;
even though he had never for once gotten all of them right. The
inscription, written in bold, black ink, read:

Bankers Of The Week

XXX 1 XXX

XXX 4 XXX

XXX 8 XXX

“Stand up and hands up!”one of the men commanded. “If you move, I move you!”

“What have we
done?” Ogedengbe asked, perplexed. A bottle of ogogoro, his coupons, a
Bic biro and papers on which he had solved some calculations, were on
the shaky table in front of him. Ogedengbe never tucked in his shirts
and always kept bushy beards. A scrawny man who taught mathematics at
Emore Grammar school, he had a head for figures. Ogedengbe believed
mathematical calculations were the only way to forecast draws, the only
way to fortune. “Draws are fixed!”he always said with bloated
confidence.

“Are you asking us
what you’ve done? What gave you that boldness, that temerity?” the man,
who had spoken earlier, shouted and slapped Ogedengbe. “Nonsense!” He
said and hissed. “You criminal! Don’t you know that we are uniformed
men? Next time you will learn never to challenge uniformed men again!”
His broad, round face was contorted, as though he had a permanent
frown. His belly burged out, forming an oblong shape like the stomach
of a pregnant woman on the verge of delivery.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh! You
slapped me? You slapped me?” Ogedengbe screamed, covering his face with
his palms. “You slapped me? Officer, you slapped me? The Chief Justice
of the federation must hear this! Justice Kutigi must hear this!” He
raised up his face and stretched his lean neck, thrusting it forward
like an agitated duck. The mathematics teacher suddenly remembered the
school where he taught, where hordes of students waited patiently for
him in the classroom while he spent the whole day in Baba’s pools
office. If my salary was good enough, I wouldn’t be here receiving a
slap from this man, he thought. He remembered the bills lecturers at
the University of Ibadan always posted on their office doors: My boss
is a comedian. The wages he pays are jokes and the wages my boss pays
me can’t take me home, they read. He wanted to retaliate but the sight
of AK-47 rifles discouraged him.

Many in Ogedengbe’s
school believed he was out of his mind. Whenever he was teaching he
always revealed his examination questions to students. “On that day
Alpha Beta must come!” he would say. Because he was always in Baba’s
pools office forecasting draws by solving mathematical calculations, he
regularly missed his classes; as a result, he often had arguments with
Mr Mgbunwe, the school principal. Mr Mgbunwe once withheld Ogedengbe’s
salary for a particular month because of what he regarded as the
mathematics teacher’s “nonchalant attitude to work.” Ogedengbe, on his
part, refused to release the examination results of his students until
the salary was paid. He always wrote on the blackboard, backing it, and
erased whatever he had written with his bare hands. The mathematics
teacher had dreams, but felt the only way to actualise them was to take
the opposite stance. He was fond of saying he would turn the foundation
of scientific knowledge upside down, just like the way Karl Marx did
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophy. He believed that someday he
would prove that the earth was not spherical but flat, that the sun
revolved round the earth, that the weight of a body was not equal to
the force acting on it, that the more things changed, the more they
remained the same.

“Foolish man!
You’ll know what you’ve done by the time you get to the station.
Foolish man. That’s how all of you go about kidnapping innocent
citizens, planting bombs everywhere, bursting oil pipelines and seizing
flow stations. All of you are criminals and saboteurs,” the officer
said; and a hush fell like a withered leaf. The commander stared at the
three civilians one after the other, as though waiting for their
reaction.

“OK boys! Search all of them thoroughly and leave nothing. Do you hear me?’

“Yeees siir!” the
soldiers answered and, immediately, turned towards Baba, Ogedengbe and
Obidi. They frisked their clothes, and searched their pockets inside
out. One of the soldiers brought out a brown, defaced metal detector
from his trousers’ pocket and ran it all over their bodies, including
their eyes, ears and buttocks as though they hid explosives there.

“Make sure you scan them very well o. These bloody civilians are capable of anything o,” the commander said.

“Yeees Siir!” The
soldiers continued their search with furious intensity. They looked
under the tables, benches and inside the counter to see if anyone was
hiding there.

“Are you sure there is nobody in the ceiling?” the leader asked.

One of the soldiers
squatted suddenly, while the one who was holding the metal detector sat
on his shoulders and was raised up. The two soldiers moved sluggishly
around the two rooms, as the one holding the scanner ran it over the
unpainted ceiling.

“Make sure you scan
the ceiling thoroughly,” the leader said again hoarsely and glanced
around the room. He touched the unpainted ash-coloured walls and felt
the hardness. With both hands he raised his trousers up to the lower
part of his pot belly and sniffed, taking two deep breaths, as though
he could perceive the smell of ammunitions. “Make sure you scan
thoroughly.”

The soldier,
satisfied that no ammunitions lurked in the ceiling, asked the other to
squat. As the latter was bending down, a loud boom! erupted out of his
anus. “Sorry Sir!” he squirmed. This is not one of those bombs. It’s
just a natural gas!” But the leader pretended as though he didn’t hear
any sound, as though his junior didn’t talk to him. And the former
disembarked; both of them heaving breathlessly. And immediately the
soldier wielding the metal detector ran it all over the men’s bodies
again.

“What have we
done?” Baba asked, speaking through his nose. A man of few words, Baba
was hard of hearing and often had to be spoken to repeatedly to hear
what others were saying. And he was fond of speaking louder than
others. His hair stretched out like Kenneth Kaunda’s; and a
centre-parting ran through it.

“What have we done, eh? What have we done that you are beating us like criminals? Don’t you know these are my customers?”

“Are you asking me?
Are you asking me?” the leader asked. “Don’t you have respect for
uniformed men? You will know what you have done when you get to the
station.”

“Are we going to
camp?” Baba asked, perplexed, as he stole a glance at last season’s
record he was using to forecast draws just before the military men
barged into the office. Though Baba believed draws were fixed, he
didn’t believe they were derived from calculations. Rather, he relied
on working out systems from past records. The older the system, the
more he believed in its reliability. To him the secrets of unlocking
systems were derived from keys. “This system is many many yeaaars”! he
always said, with glee, whenever he discovered a new method of
unravelling draws.

“Oya, start moving to the van! One… Two…Three!” the leader commanded.

“Please let me lock up my office,” Baba said and reached for a bunch of keys on the table in front of him.

“Which office? Do
you think you have any right to lock up your office? Do you think we
came here to have fun. There is no sweetness here. You want me to allow
you to lock up your office, as you said, so that you could take up your
ammunitions and fire us? My brother, there is no sweetness here,” the
leader retorted and pushed Baba to the door connecting the two rooms.

“I am just a
businessman!” Obidi pleaded hoarsely. “I’m supposed to travel to Lagos
today to collect my container at Apapa Wharf!” Obidi’s massive frame
belied his young age. The youngest of the three, he was in his forties;
yet was bigger than Baba and Ogedengbe put together. His face was round
and large like a mask, his nostrils those of a gorilla and ears a
chimpanzee’s; and no neck connected his head and shoulders. Obidi
believed neither in systems nor calculations but in forecasting papers.
“Bookmakers like Willy Ehi Obinyan have made forecasting draws easy.
Then why rack your brains?” he always asked his colleagues. His
favourite forecasting papers were Pools Telegraph, Shoot Pointers and
Harold King Pools Guide.

“If you are a
businessman, as you claim, what are you doing here? Doesn’t Henry O the
leader of your group claim he is a businessman?”

“Who’s Henry O. I don’t know any Henry O,” Obidi said.

“I didn’t come here
to bandy words with you. You don’t even have respect for uniformed men.
If you are not afraid of me, are you not afraid of my uniform… and my
gun? OK boys, take these men to the van!” The leader carried the
Aromatic Schnapps bottle containing the ogogoro mixed with some barks
and helped himself to it. “Hmmm!” he winced, smacking his lips, his
forehead furrowed. “This is hot!” he said. “What is the name of this
paraga? Pepper soup? Manpower? Iba? Jedi?” He turned the bottle around
and tried to ascertain what was inside; but the brownish liquid he had
just drunk looked greenish and syrupy inside.

“I hope this
paraga will cure my backache, malaria, jedi jedi and lethargy. And I
hope it will give me power to fire my woman tonight,” he said and burst
into laughter.

Power? Ogedengbe thought, and grimaced.

“Oya let’s go, boys!” the leader commanded.

But no sooner had
he dropped the bottle than the other soldiers took turns to help
themselves to the ogogoro. “Oya, let’s go! But we want power, too.
Medicine is not meant for only one person. It must go round. Oya, let’s
go!” the last to take a shot repeated.

The three civilians were herded to the waiting van, their hands still raised up.

It was already past
midday. The onlookers, who had been standing in front of their houses,
riveted their attention on the vehicle; as the three men entered the
back, followed by four soldiers; while the commander, still smacking
his lips, sat at the passenger’s seat. Immediately the four soldiers
entered the van, they pointed their guns aimlessly outside. The driver
speedily reversed the vehicle, the tyres making creaking sounds, and
leaving deep marks on the road. The van zoomed past the onlookers, some
of whom raised their hands up in wild jubilation. “Up JTF!” “Up Just
Terrify Them,” “Up JTF!” they hailed. But the soldiers, still pointing
their guns outside, looked at them menacingly.

The drive from
Irri Road to Isoko District Council Road, where the station was
located, was quiet but rough. The driver, a lanky man with three bold
and deeply etched tribal marks that extended from the two ends of his
mouth to his neck revved the van intermittently, bumping on potholes
that dotted the road. He was wore a white perforated t-shirt that had
turned brown from excessive perspiration and lack of a wash. When the
driver negotiated the bend connecting Irri Road and Emore Road, passing
by the old Post Office and Odhomo Bookshop, Ogedengbe sighted some
students of Emore Grammar School in their white and blue uniform. He
stretched out his long neck to see whether the students could identify
him and, perhaps, report his plight to the principal, but the vehicle
zoomed past them. His mind was racing, too. They ought to be in their
classrooms, he thought. And suddenly, he realised that he had left his
jotter and biro on the table.

Why were the
soldiers taking them to the station? For execution? What crime did they
commit? Did they have any moral justification to arrest them? Though
Ogedengbe wasn’t sure of their fate, he believed one should always be
ready for the unexpected; for life was a game of chance; and out of the
unexpected always came life-changing events.

“My business is
suffering terribly!” Obidi said and hissed. The three civilians, who
were sitting on one side, beside a soldier, looked at one another.
Obidi, frowning, thought Ogedengbe and Baba would talk with him. They
didn’t, because they were enmeshed in their thoughts. Baba observed
that this was the only time they did not argue over whose method of
forecasting draws was more reliable. Ogedengbe always claimed that the
secret of unearthing draws lay in numbers; Baba believed that draws
were hidden in records, and that you could only get them by studying
weekly fixtures and arriving at the keys. Obidi was of the view that
those two methods were too tedious. “Why waste your time when you can
easily get the ready-made draws from papers? Anyway, I don’t have time
for such rigorous exercises. My business will suffer!” he always said
during those arguments. Yet, Ogedengbe believed that his colleagues
were both living in the past. “Mine is more reliable and modern because
it is tedious. And when you solve a mathematical problem, you arrive at
a definite answer,” he often submitted. But Baba never believed that
because something is difficult, that made it authentic. “Pools betting,
like life, is as simple as ABC. You don’t need to rack your brain to
achieve results. When you look at the weekly fixtures, there are some
matches that are natural draws. These are what they call local derbies.
If Manchester United is playing with Manchester City, for instance,
that is a natural draw,” Baba would say. At such moments, Baba would
hold his frameless glasses close to his eyes with his hands and look
above them, Ogedengbe would bang the table repeatedly, while Obidi
would rummage through the papers hurriedly in search of draws. In spite
of the hot arguments, and their differences, the three friends believed
that draws were fixed. They also nursed a secret dream of hitting the
gold mine someday and becoming instant celebrities. The legends about
how some pool stakers had hit the jackpot and became fabulously rich
always went round the pools offices in Oleh. One of the greats was
Patrick Osakwe, a staker who became wealthy, and later became a pools
promoter and owner of Flash Pools Limited in Benin City. Osakwe was so
rich that he later studied Political Science at the University of
Benin, graduating with a first class honours degree. He, a three-time
senator also had a degree in Law; and was always in the news,
commenting on national issues. Another former staker who became a
celebrity was Willy Ehi Obinyan. Obinyan later became a successful
bookmaker. The mansion he built with proceeds he got from the pools,
was located near the popular Ojodu-Berger bus stop in Lagos.

As the vehicle
moved, the driver continued revving, taking twists and turns; and
zooming past men, women and children riding bicycles, as they twisted
their waist up, down, up, down on their way to farms that rusty oil
pipelines transversed. Immediately he negotiated the bend linking Emore
Road and I. D. C. Road, Ogedengbe stole a glance at the building
housing the Delta State Library, hoping he could see the librarian or
any of the staff. But they were all inside the long bungalow that
tailed inwards. The library, whose walls were already peeling off like
human skin in the Harmattan, had a deceptive appearance. It looked
small from the outside. But anyone who entered inside, would see that
the adult section, which led to the children’s, was a long stretch
bordered by polished book shelves on one side and tables on the other.
Ogedengbe could count the number of times he had visited the library.
But each time he went there, he always read the Encyclopedia
Britannica; a habit which Obi, one of the staff, never liked. When
Ogedengbe got to the library one Monday morning, he went straight to
the first shelf, which contained reference books, and picked one of the
encyclopedia. And as soon as he sat down to read, Obi walked over and
asked him to leave. Ogedengbe remonstrated and a heated argument, which
attracted other reader’s attention ensued. Asked why he ordered the
Mathematics teacher to leave, Obi, a lanky man who never tucked in his
shirt, said Ogedengbe was fond of reading ‘big books,’ Yet, Ogedengbe
did not leave until he finished reading. While he was leaving the
library, Ogedengbe walked up to Obi, who was sitting behind the counter
at the entrance and said, “I can bring down this building and build it
up in three days.”

Immediately they
arrived at the Police barracks, which was opposite the Isoko South
Local Government Secretariat, the soldiers jumped out of the vehicle
and, aiming their rifles at the three civilians, commanded them to
alight one after the other. “Oya, move straight to the station!” One of
the soldiers shouted. The three civilians moved quietly, followed by
the four soldiers; while their leader, his pot belly pulling him
forward, was at the rear.

“Where are you taking us to?” Ogedengbe asked, boiling with indignation.

“Will you shut up your dirty mouth before I waste you here?” a soldier shouted back.

“What have we done? I can’t take this any longer. Justice Kutigi must hear this!”

“If you like, you
can wait for Justice Kutigi. Is he your uncle? Before that Justice
Kutigi will come and rescue you, you are already a dead man. Foolish
man!”

“Did they say they were taking us to the station? I thought they said they were taking us to camp,” Baba said loudly.

“Which camp?” Obidi
spoke loudly so that Baba could hear. “It doesn’t matter where they are
taking us to. What I am concerned about is that they should release us
quickly so that I can go and face my business. My business is
suffering.”

“Your business?” Ogedengbe asked, stealing a glance at Obidi. “We might not come out of this place alive!”

‘A Game of Chance’ continues next Sunday in The Lagos Review.