After sitting tight for a while now, BK became restless, looking for whose fridge to get a cold drink from, as he stood up.
His phone beeped, it was reminder from his phone,
“5 iPhone 6S Plus delivery to Bonny Camp”
“Shit” He screamed as he glanced at his wristwatch, a few minutes to 5. His client will be furious, Brigadier General Hamad will definitely lose it, their appointment was for 4.30pm.
He rushed out of the office, he didn’t get to collect what he was there to collect in the first place, but his own personal business might be reading towards ruin if he doesn’t supply those phones and make some money to sustain his lifestyle.
That cash was the last cash he wanted to add to his vacation money, the Schengen visa was set. His mission this vacation is backpacking across Europe, visit Milan, Barcelona, Madrid and Amsterdam but they will have to wait till he can cover all the expenses.
As he got to his car, he looked at the backseat, and saw the bag where he had kept the phones. He dashed in and drove like a mad man, hoping to still catch the man.
Traffic was light on the way, just a little one as he navigated into V.I, into Ahmadu Bello through the Ecobank Headquarters. He stayed and observe the usual quick interview at the barracks gate after which he was allowed.
As he drove towards the man’s office, he could see those huge army trucks been loaded with soldiers, almost 15 of them, with armed troop boarding them. What is going on, he thought to himself.
He remembered, he was keeping the Brigadier General waiting, he parked quickly and rushed to the office which was quiet, unlike previous times. The senior military officer always has so many junior officers around him. He was a lively mid-50 man who could have been a comedian if he hadn’t been a soldier but had a crazy penchant for chasing anything that walked past him in skirt.
As he entered the office, the man’s personal assistant was absent, the guy was usually the first person to give him details about his boss’s mood, if its time to sell him something or just time not to bother him.
BK went to his door, before ushering himself in, he knocked a couple of times but no one spoke. He spoke and introduced himself and tried to apologize behind the door but there wasn’t any response still.
“I’m very sorry sir” BK pleaded.
“I promise you one bad ass casing, armoured one. Even if the phones fall, the screen and camera will remain intact” BK continued.
“I know say you don vex, one Unilag babe for you this night. Should I call her now?” BK continued then he pushed the door, and found it was unlocked.
He pushed the door open slowly, opening to find the incredibly annoyed man probably pointing a gun at him, but what he found wasn’t what he was hoping to find. He pushed the door open all the way, and stepped in.
He saw the usual clique of junior officers as well as the man on his work chair, with his head on the table in the pool of his blood, blood had permeated into some of the items on the table, the documents on his table were all soaked in blood.
He tried not to scream, when he looked to the ground, he saw the bodies of the junior officers on the floor, shot in the neck.
Fear reverberated all over his body, as he walked around the office for a quick minute and decided to take off, as he was about to leave the office, he saw a large envelope that had his name on it, he grabbed, and luckily the envelope wasn’t stained with blood. He grabbed it, on the Brigadier General’s table, just below the top drawer was a gun, he grabbed and exited the building, hoping that no one saw him.
As he went back into his car, he dumped them all into his backseat, dumped the gun under his car seat. He began to drive back to the gate slowly, reflecting on what he just saw in the office he just came out of.
Looking ahead, he saw the gate was shut… WHAT?! He thought to himself. He honked as he approached, the soldiers at the gate were armed to the teeth as if it was a war situation.
Two of the guards waved him down with hand gestures to wind down his windows. He obeyed like a puppy,
“Where are you coming from?” One of the soldiers asked
“I come check my friend, Chibuike” BK lied, he was guessing they’re aware of the assassination of Bridagier General Hamad, and locked down the barracks to investigate it.
“Which Chibuike?” The second officer asked
“The one that lives close to the area where dem dey sell food” BK replied, with fear in his voice.
“Well, you will have to go back to Chibuike’s house. The Barracks is on lockdown until further notice” The soldiers turned away from him to go back to the other soldiers at the gate. Gbese re o?! BK thought to himself.
“Sir, please can I speak with you?” BK pleaded with the officers.
“My friend, are you deaf? Move now!” The other soldier said
“Kabiru!!” The other officer called his fellow soldier to relax.
“Young man, you have to respect yourself and do as you have been told.” The second officer said.
“Sir, please. Please help me. I’m on my way out of the country, tonight is my flight to the United States, I only came to say good bye to my bestfriend, Chibuike” BK lied as he pleaded to the officers.
“What is your name?” One of the officers asked,
BK’s heart started to pump faster than he had ever experienced, sweat started dripping down his forehead. The images of the dead soldiers he discovered scanned past his mind.
“BK, Bukunmi sir” BK replied, telling the truth for the first time to the officers.
“Give me your driver license” The officer said
BK brought out his wallet from his back pocket, and handed the man the driver’s license.
The man scanned the license front and back, looking at the passport photograph and his face, trying to make the comparison. The other soldier went to the car, looking through the back seat and front seats, checking the bags.
The soldier gave him his license back, and was about to speak when BK said.
“Please sir, help me. I don’t want to miss my flight.” BK said to the officer who handed him the license back
“What do you have in this bag” The soldier searching his car asked.
“They’re phones that I have been asked to give someone.” He answered.
The soldier opened up the bag and saw the phones in cases.
“What is in this envelope.” The soldier asked
“It is cash, sir” BK answered, by this time, the sun was about to set
“Sir, please help” BK continued to plead.
BK rushed back to the car, and grabbed the envelope and gave it to the soldier,
“Sir, you can have it, sir”
“Just let me go, my flight is in a couple of hours.” He pleaded on his knees.
The soldiers all assembled, and looked into the envelope, they were saw stacks of cash, in N1,000 notes, roughly around N600,000. The soldiers deliberated amongst themselves, one of them went to the building down the road with the envelope with the cash while the rest went back to the gate.
One of the soldiers approached him and asked him to enter into the car. The soldier opened the backseat, opened the bag and grabbed one of the iPhone 6S in the bag and closed it back.
“This one is for my wife. Goodluck on your travel” His hard face softened with a smile, then to an hysterical laughter that smirked of sarcasm to his travel plans.
“You have one minute to leave here now”, as the man finished speaking, he could see the gate begin to open up.
He drove out and he could feel the gate slammed shut as his car got out of the military compound.
“FUCK!!!!!” He screamed as he drove out of the island, everywhere seemed normal but he knew the nation was gonna change in the next couple of hours.
It took a while for his heart palpitations to reduce, the sweat didn’t stop streaming down his entire body, from seeing all those dead officers to been scared shitless by the soldiers that he lost money that he stole from the dead brigadier to. This day couldn’t get any worse.
The Muritala Mohammed Local & International Airport was its usual beehive of activities, from people arriving to people scampering around not to miss their flight, from ticketing to cargo check, to airport security carrying out their jobs.
Things were about to change as the soldiers trucks from different barracks descended upon the airports.
The fully armed soldiers bounced into the airports, sealing off all the exits, asking all the passengers and everyone present to please gather around the main airport hall. They had locked the gate as they got into the airport before locking the glass door in the arrival and departure section.
About 15 soldiers stormed the departure gates instructing everyone to go back to the main airport complex. Ushering everyone to a common place, at the vicinity of the airport would have been over 300 soldiers.
The only plane that wasn’t disembarked was just about to take off on the runway, and it had the most unlikely passenger on board.
It was too late for that plane to disembark, the only other solution will be to blow it up which is an overkill but other than, every other flight was grounded.
The soldiers were orderly in the way they operated.
After everyone was gathered into the complex, a tall dark officer came around with a microphone that was connected to the sound system of the airport, talking about having everything been properly been planned.
He was a man with athletic build with a very straight face.
He was of Fulani descent with a clear accent.
“Good evening everyone,
I’m sorry that we have come to disrupt all of your travel plans but what I promise is that this wouldn’t take long at all.
Thank you for your cooperation. You are not under arrest or been held hostage. Our nation is just going through a really painful period right now.
Let me explain this as easy to understand as I can.”
He saw a family all hurdled together, young family, a mother, father and their little 5 year old son. He stretched forth his hand to the boy, and asked him
“Hello, my little boy” He tried to smile but it failed.
The little boy approached him after his parent signaled approval by nodding simultaneously.
“What is your name? Fine boy” He asked.
“F-F-Francis” The boy stammered frightfully.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Francis. I promise not to hurt you. I just wanna use you to explain something” He said to the boy.
“Please gather around me, that is very important.” He said to everyone.
People shuffled around themselves to form a big circle around the man whom they all seemed terrified of.
“This is Frank, Lets say for instance that little Frank wounded himself on his leg, and the parents refused to treat him. The wound will get infected, isn’t it?
If you don’t treat a wound, it will get infected and get worse, and if left untreated, eventually it may lead to amputation without proper care.
If you pretend to treat it by washing the surrounding area of the wound, without attending to the wound itself, it will not work until someone comes to treat the wound, get some antibiotics and give it a proper medication.
This wound, the bad treatment and real treatments are all metaphors I’m using to describe, this country-a long untreated wound, bad treatment-our politicians and big business owners, real treatment-true patriots like us.
We are here to make things better, just bear with us. We will do this without blood shed.
You will soon hear from our Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
”
A similar take-over of all airports, other borders, sea and land has been executed, every important government parastatal has been taken over.The country is on full lockdown, activities that have been co-ordinated to the highest level of commitment to the littlest attention to detail.
Day Zero is almost here.
BK went back home, and everywhere was in disarray in the compound, especially in Nnamdi’s flat, blood spatters everywhere, and the family is nowhere to be found.
Kemi and Martin were having another couple’s fight. BK could notice that, Kemi was visibly ignoring Martin as people gathered around Nnamdi’s flat.
No one knew where the entire family was, BK knew there was an operation to rescue them away. He prayed in his mind that the blood won’t be the blood of the family members.
BK went into Nnamdi’s house like everyone else, scanned around, and came back out and empathized.
He went into his apartment, took a small bag, packed a decent amount of clothes, opened his safe, took out the forex he had been saving for rainy days, it doesn’t get rainier than this, he told himself. The one safe place he could think of right now was the JTF office, he had been earlier before the operation to retrieve the family started.
He got into his car without warning anyone, drove back to the place he thought was the safest right now. He arrived at the JTF to find an ocean of rubbles of what used to be JTF building he left a couple of hours ago.
Several ambulances at the venue, treating victims of the explosion.
He got out of this car, and tried to look far into the space, where he noticed someone who resembled Nnamdi’s wife crying and she cried hugging her little girl close to her chest.
Things were getting out of hand really quick.
Outside Kuje Prison, Hassan Bako and Aliyu were escorted out of the compound with armed personnel into a bulletproof G-Wagon. Just behind him was a fire and a full-blown prison riot that continued, the only people to escape riot untainted was Hassan Bako and his right-hand man, Aliyu.
As he was about to enter the car, his phone rang,
“I’m out!!!! Baba” He said
“We will burn this nation to the ground” Hassan said as he entered the vehicle and their journey began.
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