A story by Baby Geh

It was a thrilling day in the ancient city of Ibadan. My sisters and I had just vacated from our military boarding school after the long periods of starvation, early morning drills, Saturday inspections, and the never-ending torment of those evil seniors. I was so excited to go home and eat my mother’s cooking. Her delicious meals were a sharp contrast to the watery beans with floating weevils or the hard, undercooked fufu that was our standard fare at school. Kai, but that school fufu was hard, far too hard to eat so we used them as missiles in our dining hall fufu wars, ending up with fufu all over the ceilings, floors and our house wears. We chatted excitedly in in our father’s brown Datsun or was it wine? It was so old that I could barely tell, looking forward to the long drive to our home in Enugu.

We drove through Ibadan, past the rusty, brown zinc roofed houses and the famous yellow and brown buses that were bustling about, reminding me of soldier ants. Ade Boy, my father’s military orderly was seated in front. My two sisters and I were at the back, snacking on our oxford cabin biscuits and gala gingerly, we knew not to get any crumbs in my father’s newly washed car. My father certainly didn’t make the task easy for us as he drove rapidly over the large potholes and heaps of sand on the bumpy road. I missed my mouth several times from all the jostling and had to scramble to catch the errant fragments of food.

My father’s favorite track was playing on the the cassette player; the heavy horn sound of Fela’s “Water e no get enemy” vibrating through the car. My father played that song so much that I knew all the lyrics and could even sing the instrumentals.

About five hours later, we arrived at the populous city of Onitsha. I longed for a taste of the soft, yellow Onitsha bread that the traders were hawking enthusiastically. I could see them as I looked out through the dirty windshield to the free-flowing highway. There were all shapes and sizes of loaves with names like “Ebere Special, God’s Chosen, Delite Milk bread”. All of them looked like they would all taste great with blue band butter.

My bread daydream was cut abruptly by the crash. Our good old Datsun had run into an older model Mercedes Benz which in turn had hit a new-looking, cream-colored Mercedes V Boot. The car we hit had a heavily adorned vanity plate; “CHIEF” it read.

The driver of the brand new Benz, the first car in the pileup didn’t seem to care about the situation. He took a quick look at his side mirrors then drove off, with a dent in his back bumper. 

My father, a military officer, who was seemingly cool-headed scrambled out of his car together with Ade boy to check on his car. The front bumper was hanging on by a single screw, the bonnet now had an ugly hump shape; looking swollen as trails of smoke escaped from it. Orange and white fragments of what were the Datsun’s headlights littered the road. Ade boy had dashed out of the car to go find help. Then a short dark looking man with a shiny egg-shaped head, wearing ill-fitting shorts and a tight pink shirt that emphasized his overgrown potbelly, briskly walked out of the second car.

“You are checking your car, when you have jammed my Mercedes!”, the man said, “I am a chief, a red cap chief!” the man severally boasted as he chewed loudly on what seemed like bitter Kola.

My dad tried to apologize but chief yelled even louder “Do you know how much this car cost; you must pay me fully for the repairs!”.

After almost eight hours on the road, my father clearly did not want any wahala, so he quickly stuffed his hands into his pockets and brought out a roll of cash. Before my father could even hand over the money to the chief, he had snatched it with his big-knuckled, chubby hands and started flipping through as fast as a bank teller. Then he threw notes back at my father.

“Me! A chief collect this, you must be pulling my leg,” he stammered in his adenoidal voice.

“Oga, calm down,” said my father as he dragged his feet towards our car.

After rummaging through the whole car, he was finally able to find a few spare notes. He gathered all the money he had and handed it over to the Chief, but this was still not enough. Luckily, the ever agile and performing, Ade boy just arrived with a towing van and some additional cash. All the cash went to the greedy pockets of the chief. After he reluctantly collected the money from my father, he drove off with barely a scratch on his bumper and a sneer look on his face, while my sisters and I looked on as Ade boy and the truck driver prepared us for a tow trip to Enugu. The rest of journey was far from pleasant, there was no radio and there was no usual breeze when you look out the window as we were driving slower than ever. Finally, we were home. My worried mum was so happy to see us as we packed our heavy luggage boxes into our rooms and in a matter of some minutes, hit the hay. Sad to say, I never got to taste Onitsha bread.

A few days later, we were all watching home videos when my father arrived in his decorated military uniform with his black brief case which was usually paired with a stern, strict face. But today he had an unusual smile. He went straight to the dining table waiting for the table to be set. My sisters and I quickly set up the table eager to know why he was in such a good mood.

“How was work today?” my mom asked.

“You won’t believe what happened today. There was a huge contract pending my approval to renovate the soldier’s living barracks. Many contractors had tried to get the contract for months. Finally, I thought we should give the lowest bidder, Emeka and sons. He was scheduled to meet with me today. Voila! I was shocked when I saw the contractor, you won’t believe who it was” he said.

“Mr. Emeka, he constantly talked about containers and contracts – it is so annoying” Tolu said.

I begged my father to tell us who it was because I could not think of anyone he could possibly walk out of his office, although he seemed tough outside, he was a nice, soft person.

 “It was the Chief!” giggled my father “The red cap Chief!”

“The Chief!” we all exclaimed, looking at each other in puzzlement. We did not even get a chance to hear the rest of the story as we all burst into laughter, thinking of the look on the Chief’s face as he learned the hard way that the jollof rice wey dey bottom pot today, go dey for top of inside cooler tomorrow.