“Like Kongi said, the man dies in all who keep silent in face of tyranny”. He lost us all when he mentioned death; one after the other we started yawning, stretched our limbs and stole away into their rooms.

            “I know Kongi too shall fight this, it is a battle we must all fight, man woman and child”. I was the watch detail for the compound that night, I checked the pad locks on the gate, and fastened the heavy chains across it. My mind regurgitated the words again. “The man dies in all who keeps silent in the face of tyranny”, I shall add it too, to my notebook to join numerous other saying though by alien names. Names I only hear from Teacher Ajose, Kongi, Tai Solaring, franz fanon, Malcolm X, Kari marx, and Edward said. My favourite was Teacher Ajose’s own saying.”  THERE IS NO WEAPN TO FIGHT INJUSTICE LIKE A RADICAL SPIRIT”. I drifted away from the strained thoughts of my mind as one of Haruna Ishola’s Apala songs flared from afar like the smokes of abonfire, my ears caught some lines from the song. It became my lullaby that night.

            I woke up to the dumb snivels of Rahila at my window, Madam Bolewa’s niece. I did not like Rahila but pitied her. Though sometimes, I feel an awakening when I stare at her for too long. My mind had judged her as an untouchable ripe mango. Rahila was deaf and dumb, but nature had made up for these defects in her beauty. It was this beauty that had been the weakness of the compound’s virile hands. Madam Bolewa’s Ise’wu restaurant had lost a succession of managers. They had always let their libidinal urges grow fanatical. A tiny left-handed scrawl had always shown them the way out. The last of these notes was “Mr. Malachi touched me up and down, yesterday”. Rahila’s heart was rebellious in its quest for love, for she had chosen me - a nobody, to translate her thoughts into an affair. She would wash my clothes, cook for me, all in a bid that I shall one day marry her. As she always indicated by pointing a finger at me, then no to herself and locking them into crescents shape bounded chains. The tenement men always chided me for not giving her back what she craved for. Rahila did not want my songs of pity, and it was what my heart had for her in abundance. It was my pity for Rahila that became my adoration to Mosun. Mama Sikira though was the Gibraltar Rock that stood between the days of our desires. To her I would always be the stranger who came to live amongst the city dwellers. I was always an ‘Omo Hausa’ ‘a Gambari’. The Northerner who left cola chewing twilights of listening to the BBC Hausa service, under baobab trees to come and stay by the Lagoon of civilization.

            On the nervous night of the annulment, I had gazed out intermittently outside my window onto the street, to see if there was any sign of the heralded uprising. I sat in darkness. I had refused to on the lights in the room. Thought a tiny red light burned from the tip of incense. It was to douse the ordour of ice fishmeal, I had taken earlier. When the knock came it was gentle like soft raindrops on zinc. Then the voice followed.

“Idrissi, are you in?

“Yes! Come in Mosun

            She entered bringing with her, her smile that that always glinted like the moon on dark nights. The smile like a plague infected me, as I was soon smiling too. She sat on the hand of the only settee in the room. I sat on the floor by her feet; for I was slavish to her love, my adulation to her was a chain that bounded me to her.

            “Idrissi, most you leave? We can go to my Aunty in IlIiaro, she would welcome us”.

“Yes or we go to my people in Wukari”

She pouted her lips in defense. “No Idrissi, I don’t see you as North or South; my South, my North, my everything.”

“But, I sense trouble this thing will blow up soon, people left Kano today in droves….”

“They overreacted nothing will happen, you’ll see” she touched my nose lightly and then my ears; she grazed my face smoothing the wrinkles of tension. I gazed into her eyes as if it was a crystal ball. What I saw comforted me, it was longing and hope. For soon enough time passed, ticking away the hourglass of our emotions. It was then a din erupted outside my door, interrupting the rhythmic flow of our passions and making my heart palpitate. “Yes” “No”, bend the ‘area’ Yes! Left, No right”. All the dwellers of house. No fourteen Komoma Street had gathered outside to watch the Network news. The static was obscuring the pictures. At last they adjusted antennae, and parkarimis TV on beamed a gaily-dressed broadcaster.

“Mosun lets go and watch the news!” 

“It will just be filled with politics!”

“That’s why we must see it, you know the update on the annulment.” She hissed loudly. I knew the tale behind the hiss. Mosun hated politics, political talk and politicians. To her it all meant deceit. To us it was the key to a prosperous life. She hissed again, making a singsong of hisses.

“Please, Idrissi stay with me, and leave them to their polities”. The plea in her eyes arrested my strides to the door. “Please, Idrissi!” The commentaries started. Teacher Ajose’s voice shot out in anger “We are spectators in this drama, it is a farce! The military are our puppet masters!”