For six months the Muslim Cleric Seriki Karoose Sokoto (not real names)Sokoto could not go out as his children locked him up in a room. Reason: maggots were coming out from his body (from head to toe) and the whole house was wafted with foul odour. During the day Pa Sokoto would be barking like a dog while in the night he would be screaming and begging the unseen hands flogging him to forgive him.
WHY I JOINED THE POLICE FORCE
” I finished my secondary school at Saretete Village, I worked as a temporary teacher and later joined the Police Force in 1977 at the age of 30 after a rigorous training from the popular Police College . It was a one -year training where they shaved our heads and were given a pair of shorts and Singlets . After the training I was posted to Calabar and ‘armed’ with my baton and torchlight the first compulsory two tools of a policeman . I later worked my transfer back to Lagos where I had lived for years and a lucrative city for the kind of my profession . My dream to become a police officer fulfilled .I joined the Police Force because of the uniform which was always starched and the respect they give them cum the fear instilled in the civilians’ hearts about them .In a nutshell a police officer was like a tin god in those days.
“When I rose to the rank of an Inspector , and they added the prefix ”Inspector”, to my name and started calling me Oga Inspector and I felt happy and great. Inspector? .I dreamt that one day I would become the Inspector General of the Police Force. Each time I glanced at the big photo frames of the past IGs , I would smile , and say to myself that one day my own picture would be hung there and I would be fulfilled.
BoN’s Adventure
”As a recruit then my salary was 80 Naira per month.The money though was small but I was satisfied .I always took my uniform to the dry cleaner which was always well -starched and well- ironed with the ropes attracting many. My shoe? ,always shinning . In fact I go about with a brush and polish to do justice to my shoe when dusty .I had a wife and two children at the age of 33.
I HATED BRIBE
”Lest I forget to remind you that I hated corruption, whenever my colleagues collected money from the civilians who had civil or criminal cases I always rejected and used to preach to them that it’s evil and that they would be visitors in hell fire.
”One day, before I left home my wife fell ill, my two children were thrown out of school for non payment of tuition fees. I went to work hoping to borrow money from my boss. But my boss said he had nothing on him. Full of sadness ,when I returned home I found my wife stiff . She was stone dead! .
”I broke down and wept .Her ailment was malaria cum hypertension but all the medicines the doctor prescribed for her were not bought. No money!.
”After her death my friends and family members who I once begged to borrow me money came with stupid surprises to assist me for the burial and life continued .
”One year after my salary was increased to 135 Naira per month. But after paying for house rent, children’s needs and other things I had nothing on me and in church I heard how the preachers rebuke givers and takers of bribe as they were compared with the Biblical Zacheaus the tax collector.
”One day , Ayo my son was sick, he had malaria while his older brother , Paul had appendicitis, the doctor asked us to come for the surgery which would cost 30naira , but instead I started applying palm oil as soothing balm while he was groaning in pains and rolling on the ground . Later he could not bear it .I appealed to many to assist but none came to my aid.
I MADE A ‘U’ TURN
”In the evening I went out with my torchlight , baton and gun and mounted an illegal check point .In a nutshell I realized 50 Naira that evening when my salary was 135 Naira per month!
”I quickly went back home and took Ayo and Paul to the Hospital and Paul had surgery for his ruptured appendicitis .The doctor was angry that it was almost late .
”He prescribed some drugs for Ayo and asked me to pay for another drug , I didn’t tell him that I didn’t have but went back to where I went the previous night, mounted illegal roadblock and realized 20 Naira ,used it to buy drugs and that was how he was saved .
”By and by my attitude towards life changed .I became a ”good” man to my boss for whenever they bring any case to me I would charge the two warring parties :the accused and the defendant and collect money from them .I would not settle any case without being offered money .
THE BIG CURSE
”One day, I was broke and needed to entertain my friends who would be visiting in the evening , since I had been used to the road block and known, I changed my style. I with two of my colleagues went to Agege Pen Cinema as Traffic Wardens , we stopped an old man and checked all his papers which were all perfect in all sincerity . Since there was no offence to charge or accuse him of , we lied that his car tires were not of the same product .The old man came down and pleaded that they were of same sizes but different make , we demanded 20 Naira or else he would go to the station.
“The fairly old man begged us and said that his son was sick and was taking him to the hospital .We ignored his pleadings , I went to the front of the car and wrote down the plate number and put it in my breast pocket. He pleaded and later handed 20 Naira over to my colleague after saying some inaudible words we couldn’t hear.
”After 30minutes the old man left, my colleague who collected the money started laughing and dancing showing everybody the 20 Naira note. My colleague , would look at the money, laugh and run around showing everybody the money . At first I thought he was playing until he removed his clothes and started walking about naked till this day.
“For weeks I became confused with what I saw. Later I summoned courage and said it was his destiny . I was there and knew that popular Police officer called Iya Toyin who was a no – nonsense Police Traffic Warden and feared by all motorists in Lagos. Her story was known by many motorists in Lagos.
”I remember a colleague of mine who collected bribe from a woman early one fateful morning , immediately the woman left my colleague started climbing electric poles until he climbed one and went ahead to hold on to the wires, and the rest was history. Another officer kept on saluting electric poles anywhere he sighted them till he died. I remember Inspector J who kept on dancing throughout his lifetime without drum .When I saw these I thought I should refrain from collecting bribe but I had been used to it , my salary was no longer enough for me .I had no choice than to go back to road blocks.
THE BIG CRIME
”One day , two men approached me and asked me to cooperate and to look the other way during their robbery operation. They gave me 50,000 Naira . Imagine how much it was then.
”Not quite 30 minutes I heard the sound of guns and saw smoke dancing towards heaven. I saw four people on the ground , lay dead. I ran there to have a look, alas , one of them was my immediate younger brother who went to cash money from the Bank. The robbers killed and made away with thousands of Naira from the bank. For days I could not eat and could not tell anybody .Blood money!”.
”One day I was broke and needed money .I contacted a friend of mine who said he would assist me if I could keep the secret to myself .
MORE ATROCITIES
”Two days later this my friend came to see me in the office and told me there was a problem , he narrated how two fresh heads were found in his bag. He confessed that he along with his friend beheaded two young men for money making ritual. Before you say Jack Robinson , money had exchanged hands .I was given 50,000 Naira , and this money was distributed among my bosses and the rest as they say, is history. In fact as if this was not enough, a woman was caught red handed for killing her husband ,first degree murder, but when she came with money , the rest again became history as usual.
”I was involved in many atrocities in my life .I knew a Pastor who was charged for rape , an Imam was nabbed for gun running and human rituals . A man who was caught red handed during robbery was changed with another innocent man in the night and was charged to court and sentenced to death while the original sinner was going about , walking free!
”My sons don’t trust any police officer for they could set their parents up because of money.
”One day I shot a Youth Corper , a young graduate of engineering because he failed to give me five Naira I demanded from him .It was dead in the night and he was the only one in the car, dead drunk. He exchanged hot words with me . After shooting him , I dragged his corpse into a nearby bush. Nobody saw me or suspected me to date!
”The second day I went there and still saw the corpse but kept quiet.The case was reported that a dead body was sighted and I was asked to investigate it . Some of the friends he once quarreled with were arrested as suspects but after many investigations by the police, and court ….they were discharged and acquitted.
SOURCE OF MY POWER
”There is no Babalawo, Alfaa and Spiritualists that I did not patronize from Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo and Eastern states .I have one room full of juju, in the four bedroom flat I built .There were days I had to fast and must not sleep with women. There were days I slept with mad women in Lagos and Ibadan in the dead of the night and I would pretend to be a mad man. There were days I had to go out naked chanting incantations in the night in market places . I had soaked myself in human blood for hours and I had bathed using twins’ placentas. I had shaved many ladies and used their pubic hairs for rituals all to make sure I was not killed or caught and to cover up my evil deeds. I had slept with dead bodies in the mortuary and gone to the cemeteries in the dead of the night to receive power. I ate the tongue of a dead man raw!.
THE LAST STRAW
”The last straw that broke the camel’s back and made me to voluntarily resigned from the Police job was the one that jolted me most .
”One day I was alerted that some armed bandits were raiding some houses and a bank .I called the Police station ( Division A) and we reinforced Mobile Policemen there .There was rain of bullets on us as we struggled to get some of the robbers , two were mowed down and four arrested .The robbers’ strayed bullets had killed three people and a pregnant woman who tried to escape from their house to another safer place. The operation lasted two hours and we went back to our station. I slept at the station and the second day went back home. As I got to the entrance of my house I saw many people wailing and gnashing their teeth. I thought it was one of the family members of the victims. I went to relax in a beer parlour to cool down with a cold bottle of beer before going back home. Here we discussed the operation that took place the previous night and how we fired the robbers and arrested four of them while four of them escaped with bullet wounds .
” Again my cellular phone rang and it was emergency from the office as I was instructed to join some Mobile policemen to arrest some suspects with bullet wounds at an hospital .We got to the hospital and saw four of the suspects with bullet wounds.
”The suspects were arrested and thrown into a waiting van.Two of the suspects were my two friends that I entertained the previous week. One of them borrowed my uniform after paying 20,000 Naira .That was why I had been using one uniform for two weeks .
”While in the van they behaved maturely as they didn’t look at me but only saying ‘Don’t worry, don’t kill us , you are safe’ .As I wanted to silence them with my gun and report later that they were trying to escape , they laughed and said ‘Just don’t worry , hold your peace, you all are in safe hands , don’t shoot’.
”At the Police station they made statement and did not reveal where they got guns and ammunition including uniform despite being tortured.
”At the station I was informed that my family had been hospitalized and should come home .When I got home the news was broken that my pregnant wife ( I married after the death of my first wife)was killed by armed robbers who raided the area the previous night. I was dejected and lost control of myself .The case was reported at the police station while their corpses were dumped at the mortuary .
NOW THE MESS
”In the evening when the robbers wanted to eat one of them asked me to summon courage and put rat poison into their food . I thought of it and knew the implication . I said ‘No’. They assured me they would not implicate me .
”The third day some notorious armed robbers colluded with some policemen came to the station with sophisticated weapons , killed some police officers and freed the suspects.
“I went to bury my wife, and two children . I was no longer comfortable in the uniform .I told some of my colleagues that my health was not good as I had acute hypertension, diabetes , heart disease and ulcer, and I took medical report from a doctor .I resigned after serving for 16 years .I relocated to another state in far north in Zamfara State where nobody knows my story. I have spent 26years here now. Yes, I can speak Hausa very well and I am Seriki .I married an Hausa lady and that is your mother who bore me two kids and that is the two of you.
”Please my sons all these nightmares are haunting me. There was a time I used to have strange dreams, I used to see strange faces of those I killed. I abandoned my house in Lagos and nobody ever dreamt to go there yet nobody knows where I am .’Thou shall not kill’ but I have soaked my hands in blood. Now I am running about as the so Boko Haram are raiding everywhere and killing. I cannot go back to my hometown again for nobody knew where I am since I left over 26years ago. If I die please bury me here .You can imagine why I didn’t use cell phone and use facebook or any social media for I know I could be spotted one day.
”I have been to many churches to confess my sins and begged for forgiveness. But will God forgive me ? ” he asked without an answer.
As his knees , feet, and hands turned mottled bluish-purple and his breathing was no longer normal cum with his irregular heart beat yet he was restless. He started twitching for some minutes, then suddenly gave a loud cry and then became still and cold.
The two sons wept profusely realizing their father had soiled his hands in blood. They quietly buried their father without inviting anybody.
This story is fiction