The Big Bad Wolf (BBW) was the first inmate to gain my confidence. He would not answer to his name if you simply called him the Wolf, or the Big Wolf, or the Bad Wolf. You were not calling him at all until you completed the adjectives in their right and proper order, the Big Bad Wolf, and then he would stir in his corner and give you a soft friendly smile.
The Big Bad Wolf passed his time in prison playing chess. Only one cell mate, Tammy, could compete with the Wolf in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night, so long as there was some space between them to hold the chess board and enough light to see the next move.
Both players, lost to their individual calculations, listened to the endless arguments with half a heart. For the sake of this narrative, let’s call the Big Bad Wolf in shorter terms. Let’s call him BBW. Or, what do you think? He wouldn’t mind so long as the letters stood for Big Bad Wolf.
As I said, BBW gained my confidence. He was the first of my fellow inmates to read my book from cover to cover, and ask for another, and another, and another. I began by giving him the slim first volume of Epistles to the President, spotting the smiling face of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
He took a cursory look at the blurb of the book and saw me in a crystalline red image cast against a white background, a red top hat atop my head. He did not hide his admiration for me after that. He came to the swift conclusion that the world was truly unjust, if indeed a man can be cast down a pit for pushing his pen. The Wolf was that reasonable.
He had an obvious limp in the left leg, but he walked as if he was not conscious of it. His mood was tolerable as long as he was sure of the next stick of Benson & Hedges. If he saw the barber today and had a haircut, the Big Bad Wolf could easily transform from a bearded old man with a bald head into a handsome young man with a winning smile. In a space of seven days, in the absence of a barber, the Wolf could change again into the old man with the bald head.
By the way, the Big Bad Wolf did not like any reference to his bald head. That’s the sour point. Feel free to insult him constructively, but please don’t let that insult get anywhere near his bald head. You would not like the Wolf if you made that mistake. That’s how he clashed with the rambunctious IG of the cell one drunken evening. The IG had pointedly called him bald headed. The Wolf ran out of words and raged with an elemental force that sent a fry-pan and a pot flying from one corner of the cell to the other, and back again.
Minus his raw temper, the Wolf was a great friend to have around. Whenever he chose to speak, he brought a sobering point of view to the relentless chatter in the cell. He was well read, and well informed. He was blessed with excellent powers of analysis. He knew everything there was to know about ancient and modern history. Specifically, if you sought his opinion about the crisis in the Niger Delta, or the dichotomy between the Urhobo and the Itsekiri, you are bound to get a fresh perspective on the matter.
Yet, the Wolf would have committed murder in the cell that moment, if I had not been there to remind him of Freedom Day, that far away day he was waiting to see, to be free again, outside this cell, out in the open world, doing whatever he wanted to do with himself and going wherever he wanted to go, a free man all over. If you kill your cell mate, I said to him, how do you hope to be free again?
The Big Bad Wolf gave me a long distressed look, his chest rising and falling like a drum full of tempest, and then his eyes dropped. His hands fell to his side as the fact of the matter hit him, and he went back to his corner like a good son penitent of his sins and willing to bide his time.
Till date, the Wolf remains grateful to me for my timely intervention. It could have been worse. He is a free man now, and we speak on the phone from time to time. He is asking me if I have written another book for him to read. I have since told him I am working on it.
But the turbulent encounter of that day brought him close enough to tell me his story. We took a slow walk across the field one morning when the gate of the cell had been thrown open, right across to the isolated hut behind the outer goal post, and BBW told me how a combined force of the SSS and the JTF had hunted him down for a crime he did not commit.
The Wolf was evidently bitter against the state security apparatus. His grudge against the powers in high places was deep-seated. He feels aggrieved at the injustice he has suffered since the night of the raid on his house, and if he has his way, he will sue the Federal Government to the last kobo. As if to start his story with an appropriate allegory, the Big Bad Wolf smiled at me and spoke about a dream he had.
“I was restless in my sleep, and when I woke up I missed chess,” he said mysteriously. I nodded as if I knew what he was talking about, just to encourage him.
“I’ve lost a lot in the interval. I’ve been here for two years now. I was in love at the time it happened. Now I’ve missed all that. I was to marry Nengi Olali. I knelt down and begged her to marry me, and then all of a sudden I was nowhere to be found. Nobody knows where I am, except my parents. My love doesn’t know what happened to me, and I am not in a position to make her understand.
“The last time I checked her Facebook wall, she had attached a new name, her husband’s name, to the one I know. So why shouldn’t I sue the SSS? I’m bringing everything against them. I’ve sold my property to raise funds. I’ll match them cash for cash till I win the case. They have already apologized to my Dad, but you can’t apologize to my Dad and not do so to me. I’m the aggrieved party.”
I did my best to calm him down, and take the story step by step. How did it happen? What brought you to Okaka?
‘They would have blown off my leg if I hadn’t spoken Fulani’, he said, recalling the events of that woeful night.
Yes, it was almost midnight. He lay in his five-bedroom bungalow with five members of his extended family in Warri, including a five-year old girl. Everyone was ordered to lie flat on the floor when they broke in. The girl, too sleepy to understand what was happening, had taken too long to do so, and one of the officers had put her head under his boots. That was what provoked the Big Bad Wolf.
‘I was sleeping’, he said. ‘My cousin came to wake me up with fear all over him. I thought there were thieves in the compound. I opened the door. They barged in, grabbed me roughly, handcuffed me, and dumped me on the floor. One of the officers pointed his nozzle on my lap and cocked the gun loud enough for me to hear. That was when I spoke out.
‘Manaine? Meisa zaka barbenir? I say what did I do? Why do you want to shoot me’?
But the squad was on a mission. They turned the house over, scattering the furniture, tossing everything out of place as if they were in search of everything and nothing. The questions began to pop out, and the Wolf answered them one after the other with the certainty of a man who saw all this as ridiculous.
“Are you into oil and gas”?
“Yes”.
“Were you in Bayelsa on 9 August 2014″?
“Yes”.
“Where is the money”?
“Which money”?
Without further ado, the squad descended on the Wolf and beat him silly, breaking his head with the barrel of a gun. They had no doubt that he was lying.
