There is something very inspiring and un-diminishable about Efe. It is easy to see its constant manifestation in the way he chooses the boys and girls he hangs with, in the denim shirts and trousers he prefers, and in the way he spaces the pictures on the walls of his room. As a soldier, he wins the friendship of superior officers for the way he adorns his uniforms. As a husband and father, this character mirrors through everyone under his roof. But in retirement, sadly, everything spins out of his control.
A few years before his retirement, an ugly trend emerges: soldiers start retiring and going home with empty pockets. “We are very sorry. Please, check back in a few months’ time,” they are told. Someone has refused to clean up the space around him, and no one dares call him to order: the military has become infected.
Efe cedes the bulky mass of his body on a mat at the entrance of his house. The restive air smells of mangrove swamp, blowing and rustling palm leaves overhead. A weak component of the wind sweeps off bits of dry leaves and a layer of sand, gathering them into a little storm. In the past, each time that happens, Efe feels that nature is re-drawing a calming sketch of his hometown. But now, sadly, his mind does not feel the calm. He thinks of his indebtedness and how his friends have deserted him because of it. Their egos used to soar for the mere fact that they belonged to his ring of friends. But after waiting two years in retirement without a kobo, he started spending time talking about his woes. Life around him became boring. He woke up, one day, to realize his friends had deserted him. Since then, nothing pleases him anymore.
*****
A small weather-beaten signpost stands at the entrance of the building. A portion of the wooden peg has been eaten by ants, and looks so fragile the weight of a fly could trigger its final fall. The message it flags is in dripping paint. It reads: MILITARY ZONE. KEEP OFF. Efe wonders how the men who live in the building found paint—they do not look like people who could spare a kobo for anything that isn’t basic. Of what significance is the signpost? What could it change for them?
In the writing, Efe sees an ugly mind-set that has been allowed to thrive, perhaps nurtured. Otherwise, why would you warn people of the presence of men with military connections? It is as if military men are wild brutes that jump at you the moment you get close. He is not surprised—he has been a soldier for thirty-five years and knows the psychology of a soldier: if I am a soldier, I could do anything to a civilian.
“This is where we are managing,” Bitrus tells Efe. Not trusting the impression on Efe’s face, he adds, “A civilian’s hell is always a soldier’s home!”
“Oh! Sure. With what we are going through, what else can one do?” Efe rhymes, comforting his host.
Efe met Bitrus at the Military Pension Office. When he complained about where to put his head, Bitrus told him not to worry. Now Bitrus is fulfilling his promise.
Had the building been completed, it would have been an architectural toast of the area. But its construction stalled after the roofing phase. The sign that work has long stopped is clear from the dead, clinging plants on the walls. It is easy to see that the owner of the building is far away in real distance or in death. Knowing these, the men feel the ease to settle in the building.
Bitrus leads Efe in, taking him around as if he is a landlord renting out the building to a tenant. There are all manner of rags as window veils: old trousers and shirts, old raffia and plastic mats, portions from old bags. The door shutters are made from a medley of wood pieces gleaned from construction sites. They form a kind of nauseous collage. A russet-headed lizard emerges from nowhere, stands on a portion of the wall above the main door and nods its head with a rhythm. Efe guesses it is some kind of welcome. The men who live here must be a legion of lunatics.
Even before coming to Abuja, Efe had heard about old soldiers who beg to survive in the capital. By what he has seen, he knows the men who live in the building are the beggars. He is staying here for just the night. When the sun rises, he will find his bearing. He will never return. Little does he know that he will live there until the end.
“Where are the other men who stay here?” Efe asks Bitrus.
“They will soon come back. I would have joined them if not for you. Here, it is always dull before the evenings.”
“Why is this place called Garrison?”
“Soldiers stay here!” he says, with a mild tone of interjection.
“Are we still soldiers?”
“As long as we have not been paid our parting benefits, yes.”
The plan behind moving to Abuja was for Efe to monitor events at the pension office closely. It is better than staying in Warri, where you have to find money for your trip to Abuja every time the need arises.
There are jobs at construction sites, but the jobs are less frequent than the coming of an eclipse, and the men who work there spend their hours lifting, pushing, pulling…
Efe envies the brute strength of the younger labourers, but he wishes they would also pursue education—eventually youthful strength drains out. On the first day, Efe is paid one thousand five hundred naira. Of these, three hundred naira goes to drugs to take care of aches and pains. The pains make him feel like he has fallen from the top of the towering building they are erecting. He ate two plates of rice and beans during lunch—the physically demanding nature of the job seems to have opened up an extra stomach. He pays six hundred, three hundred for each plate. After paying for the bus that takes him home and his supper, there is barely enough to take him to work the next morning.
On the second day there is no work—there is an excuse from the cement supplier. To return to Garrison, Efe treks seven kilometres. On the last day of work, no one is paid—the contractor disappears with the day’s wages.
Then work becomes scarce.
Only God knows how Efe gets along. Everything seems to lose form. It does not seem right that he spends days searching for blue-collar jobs in the years of his retirement. It does not seem right that, because of this, he is not living with his wife and is not living up to his duty as a husband. How is she coping? If things get worse, as he is sure they would, she might be pushed to find help from one of his runaway friends. Perhaps she has already done it. When she said she was still trim, it was a joke. But now the thought of that joke wears him down. He feels he is sinking under it. He knows that poverty is the only thing that discipline fears the most.
He thinks about Thompson, a friend he has refused to trust since he caught him ogling the supple masses behind his wife.
*****
With the exception of Bitrus, every man in Garrison hates Efe—he is arrogant and treats them like residues. From his gaunt looks they know what he is going through. They love it for a couple of reasons, but most importantly because it proves they are shrewder. Looking at the true picture, though, they are not looking different from Efe.
“Things are not working as planned,” Efe confesses to Bitrus, one evening.
The energy in his voice shocks Bitrus—his frail body does not suggest he has that much energy left.
“It is not just you. It is the same with everyone,” Bitrus replies, choosing his words carefully to comfort his friend.
“So, nobody has heard anything good from the pension office?” he asks, his eyes curious.
“If there is any news, I am yet to hear it.”
The next thing in Efe’s mind is what he actually wants to talk about. The question about the likelihood of payment was actually meant to pave the way. Taking a decision to talk about the topic in his mind is one of the most difficult decisions he has ever made since coming to the city. He clears bits of sputum in his throat.
“So how does it work each day you go out?”
“You mean at the flyover?”
“Yes.”
“Not much,” Bitrus says, trying to make it seem simple. He gets the feeling Efe wants to join them. He does not want to put him off. “We have benches, there, on which we sit. We also have posters that speak for us. Sometimes we get active…”
“Get active!?” Efe interjects.
“We move around the flyover dancing and singing.”
Efe laughs at the idea of dancing and singing. Bitrus laughs, too.
“People that are touched give us donations,” Bitrus continues.
There is a long, awkward silence. Then Efe scratches his head.
“Can I join you?” he finally asks Bitrus.
Instantly, Bitrus opens his hands and embraces Efe.
“We are all retired soldiers. We came here for the same reason. We cannot stop you, if you want to join us.”
Efe wishes the night lasts longer. While it lasts, he cannot sleep, haunted by the foreboding of appearing at the flyover to beg. Not just that, he is going to roll with people he despises. It is not his fault that he does not want to associate with them. They treat pride as if it is an undesired frill. It is either that, or their sense of pride is sedated. Some have sores they treat as if they are trendy tattoos. Some wear threadbare shirts and trousers with goggles behind. The nonchalant behaviour makes them the scum of the area. It is going to rub on him the next morning, when they walk together.
But the new day rushes, not caring how Efe feels. The walk to the flyover is like a walk to the gallows. The others lead the way. Efe follows. Paranoid, he constantly turns round to see if there are familiar faces. He hates his wife hearing about what he is going through. But it is possible only if no one from Warri passes.
On this first day, everything goes well, except for Efe’s unending timidity. It enrages the leader, compelling Bitrus to spend time begging the group’s leader. “He will get used to it. You know he is just starting. Please, give him more time,” Bitrus begs. At sunset, money is shared. Efe gets half of what he often made at the construction site. There is only the weight of shame, but no physical fatigue and, this way, no need to spend money on analgesics. There is no bus fare to be paid. Still, the money is just enough for a good meal.
Efe moves from a proud upright man to a grovelling beggar. Little by little the shame of begging pales—begging becomes an accepted “endeavour.” When the first man from Warri sees him at the flyover, Efe pretends he has not seen him. But his pride stoops further. In the night, when his senses are fully rested, he sees things clearly. He grieves severely over what has become of him. The next day, though, he leads the others to the flyover—begging is not strange to him anymore. More and more folks from Warri see him. His subconscious tells him that the rumour of his spinning life is hovering like a surveillance chopper over Warri.
*****
The leader of a nation visits Abuja. On this day, Efe does not go to the flyover. He is not ashamed of this leader seeing him. He just feels like resting. He sits on the terrace, watching people passing by. He can hear the distant wailing of sirens. Then he begins to think about how pregnant Warri is with the scandalous rumour of his withering life. Will he be able to go back home? Yes, he should be able to go home. After all, he is not in this world to live up to anybody’s expectations. When the time comes, he will go home.
The sun moves beyond the limit of the eaves, making him squint. He leaves the terrace and goes in. Minutes later, the rickety wooden gate opens with a rasp. He hears running footsteps.
“Efe! Efe!” a voice shouts.
It is Bitrus. Bitrus surges into the building with the same commotion as he did at the gate.
“It is happening,” he shouts.
He is delirious, holding out a copy of the day’s Vanguard newspaper.
“They are going to start paying,” he screams.
The next morning, the mood within Garrison is not interesting, whatsoever. It is as if there is no news of payment. Efe is left wondering if what Bitrus told him, yesterday, is not a dream.
“Bito!” he shouts from his end of the building.
“Did you not come running yesterday to announce the news of payment?” he asks, when Bitrus shows up.
“Yes, I did,” Bitrus answers, not surprised—he expected Efe to ask.
“But why is Garrison as dull as if there is a funeral? There should be joy everywhere here!”
“Actually, not everyone is going to be paid. Guys do not want to start celebrating when they are not sure if they would be among those to be paid,” Bitrus clarifies.
Almost instantly, Efe feels a stomach-turning mood taking over the air in Garrison.
It is a monumental waste of badly needed cash to pay any bus fare. The men opt to walk the three kilometres to the pension office. It has gone past 09:00 AM, when the sun has become aggressive, with the air simmering like a kiln. In the hot humid air, the men sweat. Efe constantly uses a curved finger to wipe sweat from his forehead.
A military truck passes by. The human cargo in it chants in weird clashing voices. Efe feels pity for them, wondering how bad the situation will become by the time they eventually retire. Abuja roads are, as often, wide and sparkling. Efe recalls a joke often told about Niger Deltans breaking down and crying on arriving Abuja to see the modern city their money is building when their villages share drinking water with flocks. Extravagant cars drive happy people. Efe wonders what these people have done for the country that he has not done. Teenage kids, mostly below driving age, are behind the wheels. Efe figures painfully how Peter is robbed to pay Paul—any hard-earned money would not be used to buy trendy cars that end up with kids. Kids should be riding bicycles.
On a notice board in the pension office, there are neat sheets of white paper on which names are neatly typed. The men are led in, through a small steel gate in groups of five, to check their names. The outcomes of name inspection are mixed. For some, the elation is rapturous, taking off their shirts and waving them like lariats. For others, there is an extremism of heartbreak, breaking down and crying like babies.
Soon, it is Efe’s turn. He is led in with four other men. He strolls casually to the notice board, bends his figure so his eyes stare at the pages point-blank. Then he scans from the beginning of the long list to the end. But he does not spot his name. Perhaps, he is too fast. He runs through the list again, tracing the line of names with an index finger. Still, he does not see it. He wants to try again but hears murmuring voices behind. The voices are distractive, forcing him to give up.
Walking back to the gate, Efe stops midway. His eye is fixed to the ground as if the way out of his mess is buried somewhere in it. He broods about the number of years he has waited, how many more years he is going to wait: one, two, three? He is not sure. If he has ten souls, there is only one left. It will not endure such a long period of suffering. What his eyes have seen, he does not want to remember. They would be omitted if he has to write the story of his life. If he has another chance to live again, he is going to decline the offer.
The world cares less about Efe’s endless tribulations: the sun rises and sets as always; angelic froths of clouds in the foreground of a pale-blue sky never cease to form; distant honking, distant sirens, human chattering, and droning between every sunrise and sunset are always part of a new day. There are no signs of grief on the faces of the men, women and kids who stroll and saunter past Garrison.
Garrison becomes under-populated for a few months, but there are new faces. They build up the population again. Hours roll into days, days roll into weeks, weeks roll into months. Though emotional turmoil is the only thing worse than physical death, Efe is the phoenix, enduring countless emotional spins until a pleasant piece of message arrives from the pension office again. It is needless to try to dispel a foreboding from a hazy expectation and the mental agony tied to it. The men from Garrison labour on cheap slipper shoes on which heels have drilled huge holes. They watch handsome cars on beautiful roads, and the embroidery of colourful edifices on the road flanks.
There are flocks of other men, perhaps from other Garrisons in other corners of the city. Yet, there are others who come from the comfort of their homes, perhaps waving to wives and children –different strokes for different folks.
The inspection proceeds. There are vignettes of sorrow on one hand and those of ecstasy on the other. Efe is lucky and cannot believe he has been short listed. The likelihood of getting paid had become so difficult he had wondered whether it was truly going to happen. Now, it feels like a dream.
*****
Just thirty minutes before, a convoy of three vehicles had driven into the premises. The three cars glowed from wheels to panels, the engine buzz is musical. The windows were tinted, concealing what clearly was a VIP. The three vehicles drove round to the heart of the pension office, on the far side of the building.
“That convoy could be carrying the Director of Military Pension,” one of the men notes ignorantly.
“Well… perhaps,” another one dithered, unsure.
“Could be that they are bringing our money,” a third man notes stupidly.
The next day is pay day. As Efe and friends draw closer to the office, something about the scene seems strange. It appears there is no security man at the gate. People move in and out at ease. A few, obviously dejected, men walk resentfully against the direction of Efe and friends.
“What is happening?” one of Efe’s friends asks nervously.
“The office is deserted,” one of the returning men replies, his voice struggling with the devastation of the twist of events. “There is only a notice there,” the man adds, his stocky finger pointing over his right shoulder.
Wanting to see things for themselves, Efe and friends proceed.
The notice reads:
“As a result of unforeseen events, the payment of short-listed ex-servicemen as it appears in the new list, released yesterday, 3rd March, cannot proceed as planned. A new date will be announced subsequently. We acknowledge the sacrifice the veterans have made towards ensuring the unity of this country. We, therefore, apologize for any trouble this may have caused affected ex-servicemen.”
The First Lady was the visitor in that three-car convoy. She had come with an order from a high office that coerced the Director of Military Pension to issue her a check of three hundred and fifty million naira. The figure was twenty million ahead of what the office had. The Director issued a check of three hundred and thirty million naira and apologized for the deficit, making the payment of more than a hundred ex-servicemen an opportunity cost.
*****
“I am traveling home,” Efe tells colleagues, the next day.
“But you once said it is shameful, travelling back home with empty hands,” one of them reminds him.
“Yes, I did say so, but I rather travel home to face my shame than die here,” Efe declares.
He does not leave, though. Something holds him—perhaps the same stubborn hope that kept him alive through the worst of it. He stays.
*****
On one January morning, folks wake hoping to listen to domestic and international news and pop music from their radio receivers. Instead, they are greeted with bleak military music. It plays all day long. Intermittently, the music is interrupted so a hoarse, ugly, voice airs a broadcast to the effect that there is a new military regime. The voice gives excuses that incite his group.
There has been deep disaffection about the ousted regime across the country. So, there are thanksgiving prayers in mosques across the North. The Yorubas—in the Southwest—play talking drums, dance and feast, eating the best meals. Igbos across the country close businesses, and there are wild jubilations in the Southeast. But with success, the regime sleeps in the vastness of power and glamour, turning out worse. The rot across the country only becomes more vigorous and deeply rooted.
Efe watches the news on a neighbour’s television. He feels nothing. He has seen regimes come and go. They all promise change. They all deliver the same thing: more waiting.
*****
The leader of the military junta sits reclined in his office, at the base of a picturesque mountain. The feel of power radiates from every item in the office: in the mild scented breeze that wafts inaudibly from air distillers on every corner, in the subtle green walls, in the polished mahogany furniture, in the smoothness of his dark skin and the script-directed splendour of his conduct.
The door opens. His secretary walks in with the morning papers. Rather than dropping them on the table as he often does, he holds out one of the papers to his boss.
“I am afraid there is tragedy,” he says, holding out the front page of The Transparent World newspaper.
The General disrupts his relaxed posture, bringing his eyes point-blank and squinting.
“Can I have it?” he requests, his voice grand as always.
He places the paper on his table, puts on his spectacles, and focuses hard on a photo that consumes half the space on the front page. Inset is an inert body. It hangs grotesquely from a line hitched from a mango tree. The caption reads: EX-SERVICEMAN COMMITS SUICIDE.
From the picture, the General gets a haunch he has met the man before. Given that the dead man was a soldier, there is a good chance they had crossed paths in the course of military service. He reads through the first few lines of the story until he locates a name: “Efe Tonye.”
He slowly pushes the paper aside as if there is something foul in it. Then he reclines back to his seat.
Efe Tonye, he thinks deeply.
For a long moment, nothing comes. The name is familiar, but its face refuses to emerge. He closes his eyes, and the memory arrives not as a sequence but as a single image: the Abagana ambush. The bodies. The smoke. The smell of burning metal and flesh. He had lost three quarters of his men—good men, brave men, reduced to meat and memory.
He had been useless afterward. Unable to speak. Unable to lead. Just sitting in the mud, staring at nothing. The war continued around him, but he had stopped fighting it.
And then someone knelt beside him. A young soldier, his face streaked with dirt and tears, his voice steady despite everything.
“Sir,” the soldier said. “We are still here. The men who are left—they are waiting for you.”
The General—then only a Major—had looked up at this young man. He remembered thinking: This boy is younger than my son. And he is the one telling me to stand.
He had stood. He had led what was left of his men out of that valley. He had survived. He had risen. He had become this—a General in a beautiful office, with air distillers and mahogany furniture and a secretary who brought him the morning papers.
And this young soldier, this Efe Tonye, had been left behind somewhere in the years. Not forgotten exactly—just outgrown. The kind of man you owe but never repay because the debt is too old, too inconvenient, too easy to ignore.
Until now.
Now the debt is not a debt. It is a body hanging from a mango tree.
The General pushes the paper farther away. He stands, walks to the window, and looks out at the mountain. It is beautiful. It has always been beautiful. He has never thought about what it costs to live at its base.
He turns back to the paper. He reads the full story. The pension. The waiting. The flyover. The shaming. The slow erosion of a man’s pride until nothing was left but rope and a mango tree.
There is no way he can make this up.
The thought arrives without warning, and it will not leave: If not for the First Lady. If not for the check. If not for my silence.
He had known about the pension office. He had known about the delays. He had done nothing because it was easier to do nothing. It was easier to let bureaucrats absorb the blame while he sat in his beautiful office and thought about his beautiful mountain.
And now a man who once saved his life is dead because of a conversation he never had, a call he never made, a check he never stopped.
The General does not weep. He is too old for weeping, too trained in the art of not feeling. But he sits very still for a long time, and when his secretary asks if he is alright, he waves him away without speaking.
That night, he dreams of a valley. The smoke is still rising. The bodies are everywhere. But this time, when the young soldier kneels beside him, the General knows what is coming.
“Sir,” the young soldier says, “we are still here.”
The General reaches out his hand. The young soldier takes it.
But when the General tries to pull himself up, the soldier’s grip loosens. The General falls back into the mud. He looks up, and the soldier’s face has changed—it is older now, gaunt, empty.
“I should have had a pension,” the soldier says. “I should have been able to go home.”
The General tries to speak, but no words come.
“Every day I waited,” the soldier continues. “Every day I hoped. And every day the hope ate me from the inside.”
The General shakes his head. He tries to say, I am sorry, but the words will not form.
The soldier looks at him with eyes that are not angry—they are worse. They are tired. The eyes of a man who has run out of everything, even the capacity to blame.
“Thank you for saving my life,” the General finally whispers.
“Then save my death,” the soldier replies.
The General wakes in the dark, his chest pounding, his hands trembling. He reaches for the light. He reaches for water. He reaches for anything that will make the dream stop.
Nothing works.
In the morning, he drafts a memo. It is addressed to the Military Pension Office. It orders immediate payment of all outstanding benefits to all short-listed veterans, effective within the week. It carries his signature. It carries the weight of his office.
It will not bring back Efe Tonye. It will not undo the years of waiting. It will not make right what was made wrong.
But it is all he has left.
*****
Three weeks later, the payments begin. Men who had given up hope receive letters. Some cry. Some dance. Some simply sit and stare at the money in their hands, unable to believe it is real.
Bitrus is among those paid. He takes his money and goes back to Warri. He visits Efe’s wife. He tells her what happened. He gives her half of what he received.
She does not cry. She has run out of tears. She simply thanks him and asks him to leave.
At the flyover in Abuja, the men still gather. New faces replace old ones. The benches remain. The posters remain. The dancing and singing continues.
No one knows what happened to the General. Some say he retired quietly. Some say he was removed. Some say he still sits in his beautiful office, looking at the mountain, thinking of a young soldier who once knelt in the mud and told him to stand.
The mango tree in Warri still stands. The rope is gone, but the branch is slightly bent from the weight it carried.
Children pass under it every day. They do not know what happened there. They only know that the mangoes are especially sweet this year.
*****
Image: Abdulrhman Alkhnaifer Unsplash remixed