Yola, My Nineveh. Continued…

In that precious moment, I knew that nothing would ever go wrong with me. I therefore became so relaxed, without any worries whatsoever.

 

       The bland, insipid voice of the bus conductor stirred me into physical reality as the conductor announced our arrival at the bus stop opposite the Road Safety office complex, Jimeta, Yola. This was after about sixteen long hours of a rough journey, disrupted several times by mechanical faults. As the bus slowed to a halt with a rumble, I remembered the words of Job:

                     

“But God knows the way that I take.

When He has tested me,

I will come forth as gold.”

 

Then began the process of my disembarkation—extrication from the bus. The bus-conductor had to shove and heave some load aside to create enough space to enable me squeeze myself through. Finally, I was disgorged from the ‘bowel’ of the bus. The great fish had vomited Jonah out of its belly!        

Jonah was compelled to travel to Nineveh in the belly of a mighty fish, a most unlikely means of transportation, just as I was buried underneath all sorts of load in an old sixty-seater bus. What an uncanny similarity! And silently I sang the following lines:

 

O Yola

My Nineveh

Reluctant though, I set off,

Compelled to journey through                      

Vast, strange lands:                   

Here at last come I into

Your blazing embrace.

 

Though scary, unsavoury tales

I did hear of you,

Yet I come

Blessing your sun-seared earth;

My greetings begotten of

Love from Soul.

                     

O Yola,

O my Nineveh,

The student is ready.

Yield, I pray you,

Yield now

Your lessons of Life, and Love.

 

Having reported in Yola, I sought and got the permission of my then Zonal Commanding Officer, Corps Commander Osinuwa, to travel back to Enugu for the purpose of finding accommodation for my family.

Meanwhile, Danyak, the acting Commander General, was threatening to forcefully eject my family from my official residence at Enugu, despite the fact that statutorily I still had three months to occupy my residential accommodation at Enugu. Moreover no appropriate accommodation had been provided me at my new place of posting. I decided therefore to relocate my family before a full assumption of duty in Yola because I did not want my wife and little children embarrassed or humiliated in my absence.

  

Yola: The Artist’s Delight

I started appreciating the physical beauty of Yola as soon as I arrived.

Yola is naturally a beautiful place—an artist’s delight. Some parts of the town perch precariously on rocky uplands; some nestle in craters hewn by nature from rocks. Other parts are littered on wind-swept planes of a sub-desert landscape. In the very short rainy season, much of the planes are swamped.

In terms of human population and infrastructural development Yola could be described as a moderate population concentration centre with scattered signs of halfhearted attempts at urbanization.

The streets of Yola permanently host bands of straggling emergency petty fuel dealers peddling black market gasoline. At virtually every street corner could be seen pavement hawkers selling suya, kilishi, kuli-kuli, groundnuts and a wide variety of local groceries.

The climatic condition of Yola usually peaks or dips to the extremes. When it is cold, it sends shivers down the marrows. When it is hot, it is hellfire. When Iska the demon-wind, comes howling; spiralling in its dervish funnels of fury, tree branches, roofs and sometimes whole huts could be seen violently being sucked up and tossed about in the air like pieces of paper caught in raging, whirling vortices.

 

The Three Rocks and the Muezzin

From within my official residence, through the glass louvered window facing the East, I behold the first faint glorious rays of daylight streaming in, ushering the beautiful early dawn into my apartment. In the light of the wee hours of the morning, I could see the hazy outlines of the three silhouetted rocks sitting together in the centre of my backyard space, and the sun-haloed acacia tree in their midst.

The three rocks always reminded me of the trinity of God’s manifestation in creation—the three-fold nature of God, and of man. The one acacia tree which I named the ‘tree of life’, standing in the midst of the three rocks, kept drawing my attention to the truth that Life or Infinite Spirit is that which is in the centre of all, and that, when one unfolds in consciousness to become truly alive, he comes into the realization of the unity of all life.

Then, the sweet, silken voice of the muezzin gently cracks the early morning serenity; caressing the cold fresh dawn as it heralds the new day. Gently it slices through the silence of the early morning, flowing like a gentle rivulet. Fervently, steadfastly, that sonorous voice keeps chanting the praises of Allah; calling the faithful followers of Islam to prayers.

Usually, I would stir to physical wakefulness and listen to that pleasant voice for a while. Its music sounds much like the captivating renditions of some of the canticles of the Old Church.

Although I have never been an adherent of Prophet Mohamed’s faith in this life time, I had come to always look forward, without any attachment whatsoever, to being woken up in the early morning by that particular muezzin’s voice. His voice was the faithful alarm clock which chimed me up every morning. He also called me to prayers, for I usually would, after briefly listening dispassionately to him, start singing God’s most sacred name—the Sacred Song of the Wind—the Sacred Song of the Spheres, preparatory to my early morning contemplation which always started by 540 hrs.

 

While in Yola, I was the Zonal head of Operations and the second in command to Corps Commander Osinuwa the Zonal Commanding Officer. One mid-morning after my first six months in Yola, Osinuwa invited me to his office. I thought he wanted to discuss a particular assignment which he wanted me to do or may be call my attention to certain issues he wanted me to personally address.

“Good day sir” I saluted. 

Osinuwa returned my compliment. Looking straight into my eyes, and motioning me to a seat by his executive office table, he said:

“Please sit down.”

I sat down, zeroed my mind and waited to hear from him.

“They posted you to this place and told me that you were a very bad person; that you were stubborn, mean, mischievous and undisciplined. But I have watched you for the past six months, I have made inquiries about you, I have given you all sorts of assignment and have found nothing against you. Honestly, my opinion of you is that you are rather a very honest and very hardworking person. Above all, you are quite intelligent and creative. You have taken positive and bold initiatives that have saved us from embarrassment. I want to sincerely thank you for the unalloyed support you have given me so far. Please keep it up. They might be thinking they brought you here to punish you, but God brought you here to polish you.”

And the concluding part of Commander Osinuwa’s address to me, made me remember again the words of Job:

‘But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold.’

Standing up, he offered me his right hand. I quickly stood up too, and stretched out my right hand towards him. He smiled, saying, ‘thank you my brother’ as our hands clasped in a handshake. I could feel the sincerity of Osinuwa’s smile and the friendly warmth which flowed through his hand.

At the next Zonal Commanding Officer’s parade, Osinuwa dedicated much of his address in eulogizing me, and, urging all officers and men to emulate my conduct and dedication to duty.

 

The Witch-hunt continues.

I was summoned to the National Headquarters, Abuja from Yola and instructed to see Azzab, the then Head of the Corps’ Intelligence Unit. On my arrival at the NHQ, I went straight to Azzab’s office and asked to see him. Soon I was ushered into his office. Azzab paid me the compliments due to me, and bid me sit down at the only other chair in his office, directly opposite him.

I observed that Azzab was ill at ease. I immediately noticed those tell-tale signs of fidgeting. He would pick a piece of paper here, drop it there on his table and pick it up again; make an uncertain attempt at rearranging the items on his table with unsteady hands. I fixed a steady gaze at Azzab—a gaze that drilled through him into the very core of his being. He kept displaying unmistakable signs of nervousness as he desperately tried to avoid my eyes. Then he stammered out:

“For some time now, we have been receiving petitions against you. That is why we invited you to tell us all about what transpired at Enugu State Command while you were the State Commander there.”

He was still moving uneasily as he put his hand underneath his table. A very faint click from under the table said it all. He had just switched on his midget tape recorder.

“You do not need to hide your midget tape recorder because I will give it to you the way I feel. Why don’t you specify what exactly you want to know?” Unperturbed, I responded.

“In any case, don’t you think it is unprofessional and dishonest of you to have written an indicting report on me without ever hearing from me?” I pressed on. “And if petitions were written against me, why have you not given me copies for my reaction, even up till this moment?”

Azzab was visibly jolted.

“No, it’s not that way, sir. We have only made a preliminary report. That’s why we have invited you here to state your own side”, he said.

“So you are now, for the first time, asking me to make a statement, after you have in your ‘preliminary’ report arrived at conclusions based on false allegations concocted against me? And you still have not made the allegations known to me” I uttered a mild retort, looking straight and deep into his eyes. Azzab was quick to turn his face away, in his bid to avoid my penetrating gaze.

The Corps under DanYak was indeed a theatre of absurdities. Once you are categorized as his ‘enemy’, petitions could be conjured from anywhere against you—petitions which you would never be served with their copies for your appropriate reactions. Yet a kangaroo court would be set up to try you based on allegations therein. DanYak dispensed ‘justice’ as it pleased him, from his ‘babanriga’ (large traditional overcoat) pockets.