Tales Of The North From The Eyes Of A Nine Year Old
An Igby Prize for Nonfiction entry from Nigerian Bernard Stevan Ayodele
Much like a dream I’d rather forget.. The memories always seem to just be within reach, meandering a little ways not too far from the surface as though awaiting their summons, manifesting with the littlest provocation for the most minute of reasons and to be summoned, they will.
The events that led me to where I live would prove to be a deciding factor that shaped me into the man I am today unbeknownst to me and much like life’s best work, the why of it all hit and did so unsuspectingly, leaving a chasm of destruction in its wake.
As a little boy of nine, life held plenty surprises for me yet. There’s that thrill of growing, a lot of things still able to fascinate you. I loved my life and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else. I am part of a family of five recently turning to six. I remember everything like it were yesterday, the smoke, screams, the stench of charred flesh dominating the air.
It was May 4th 2004, Kano State, Nigeria. I wondered why my mom’s stomach was so huge. She didn’t eat that much but the thought continued to sit with me. It had seemed ridiculous to ask her at that time. Even though I had every hint pointing towards the fact that my mum was pregnant, it still didn’t come to me. It became incessantly annoying when the neighbors would call my mum “Iya Ibeji ^1” and more confusing was, my elder brother and I weren’t twins so what were they saying. I brushed it off as playful banter — it was probably one of those things older people did- I’d know all about it when I grow up I thought to myself.
The more I think about this time, the fresher it feels. We’d been living at our current house for over five years and dad felt it was time for a change. He’d paid for a flat that’d house just us alone, with a gate and an entire compound to ourselves. Finally, no nosy neighbors anywhere in sight. The house held everything that would be termed as comfortable in that time, accommodation wise. We were about moving to the big leagues and everyone was excited. That week, we’d clamored at the chance to go wash and clean the place even if it would be more dad doing all the work, we just tagged along and made wows and ahs comments as he worked — helping in the little way we felt was necessary. We’d been very excited — I couldn’t wait to come back and gist mum who couldn’t go because of her large stomach, me still wondering why she’d pass off the opportunity to go see our new house. I didn’t dwell on it too much- excitement and all.
The week couldn’t be any slower for me. We were due to move in the next week and although I was sad to leave my friends — friends we’d grown up together, I was more excited to start living in our new house. Thursday seemed to take a new fashion of slow- it didn’t seem to want to go away from the looks of it. Mum had given birth to a girl, my last sister at that time and dad suggested we let her rest and make the move on Monday.
Finally, Monday came and we were bubbling. I woke up very early to the sound of the neighborhood alarm, a reddish brown cock with beautiful flurry feathers. Monday was a no show as well because the driver that was scheduled to come transport our Kaya² didn’t come. Dad had made arrangements with a driver the week before and was set to come transport us that Monday morning. We waited until the enthusiasm began to wane. My elder brother and my immediate younger sister shared the same excitement, I mean the world couldn’t be better than this. I had another sister and we were about making a big move.
The driver finally called to let my dad know he would be coming the next day and we regained our vigor — it was on like donkey Kong.
You probably have witnessed moments where there becomes a stillness in the air and you know something is coming. Like some spider sense that just hints you before the axe drops — probably something the universe does at focal points in history because this moment would change me forever.
Ten A.M, Tuesday, May 11th 2004 began like any other morning. We’d had the usual pap and Mama Samira’s Akara. I was in the frontage of our house playing on a little patch of elephant grass. Grasses were a very rare thing in Kano and we had one in front of ours that you could lay on.
The air suddenly had a stiffness about it — it was like the whole world stopped to accommodate the disaster that would set a cascade of events in motion. You could almost sense the impending disaster in the stillness as It was peaceful one minute and chaos the next. We could hear screams of people in the next street alongside bombs made from Kerosene placed in bottles, landing on houses. I could see houses being set on fire, people being cut down like logs of wood, machetted in the most inhumane ways. Screams rent the air as a peaceful morning quickly turned chaotic in a split second. Fear took me with a vice grip that morning and several years passed, it still sometimes is able to take a hold of me, forcing me back to that morning when my life changed forever.
“Oga, ka Shiga Chiki³” a friend of my dad’s told him in Hausa. He said there was trouble in town and he should get inside that moment. I took to my heels on my dad’s orders as he bolted the door behind.
The next hour was the longest I had ever had in my entire life. We all stood in the middle of the compound, waiting for death that would come for us. We waited and listened, drinking it all in- the screams becoming more and more horrifying allowing the mind to run wild Imagining the horrors that was being done to those people. We watched as houses in the next street went up in flames. You were asked to come out and failure to do so, you’d be roasted alive. The idea was one way or the other, death was coming and there wasn’t a way to avoid it. We all gathered around, each person praying to whoever he or she believed in. I remember Mama Farouk’s face with detail, an Ebira⁴ woman, near frightened to madness as she picked up her two year old son backing her months old daughter and headed for the door. She was shouting saying if they killed her, they wouldn’t kill her son which was a ridiculous idea by the way. Pregnant women were opened up — her son getting special treatment was as ridiculous as asking them to lay down their arms and walk away. I remember my dad restraining her from opening the door. “Mama Farouk, where you wan go for this town now as everywhere dey hot so. Calm down — ” he told her with all the pidgin English he could muster.
I stood there, shivering from head to toe as I clung tightly to dad. I can’t remember where my mom was but she had to have been protecting the baby, my new sister which I wouldn’t live to see, I thought. My heart drummed hard threatening to shatter my rob cage with such ferocity as the entourage of death slowly made its way to our home. They finally got to our street — the cleansing was done street by street and our house was the first house in the street. They would enter and purge the streets of infidels. You would be asked to recite a verse of the Quran and failure to do so would call for death straight away. They chanted a ‘holy’ song as they went on with the activity. They treated it like any other cheerful chore of taking out the garbage or setting it on fire, machetting it and so on. Just your usual Tuesday cleanup routine, no big deal.
The elders in our street met the area boys at the entrance of the street. They had a logic of taking the area boys from a street to another street to go do the killing there and unless you were a cold blooded killer, you wouldn’t like to know who you’re killing especially when you sell milk to him daily, you know his family, you know her son and such like that. To ease their conscience, they devised that method. We’d later found out this method when Musa returned that evening from his blood bath in another street, his machete dripping with fresh blood as he quietly sneaked into his shop in front of our house, his ‘Jellabiya⁵’ soaking wet and reddened with blood . His shop was part of our house’s building so it was impossible not to notice his comings and goings. We watched, shocked to the bone as the nice looking Musa that had nothing but a warm smile to give walked in with a deathly look on his face.
I would like to believe God saved myself and my family for a reason because a bunch of old men stood against young boys who could have had their way with them if they wanted most especially on the basis of protecting infidels. We were saved by some divine intervention when the boys finally left with a promise that they’d be back to hit our street and hit it hard. We didn’t need to be told twice — dad quickly called his friend, a Mopol officer that stayed in the GRA. That place was always safe from any happenings of the lower ring. He wore his uniform and came to get my entire family later that evening in his car. That was how we escaped death that starred us in the face. We spent two weeks in the GRA where my sister was named Elizabeth after 8 days of her birth. We all said a prayer when dad said he was going back to check on the house. We moved back when everything died down a little, the city still recovering from the aftermath of the Shockwave that had recently happened. May 27th and dad had gotten us a bus to leave Kano. He went to check on the other house he’d paid for. The caretaker was so happy he was alive and thanked Allah that he hadn’t moved in yet and strongly advised him not to. He narrated how the Igbo man in the next house and his family were massacred and the same blood bath would have been extended as a courtesy to us should we have moved in at the time we slated. I would like to believe everything happens for a reason and there is a higher power that wants my family and me alive. The man asked dad how much he spent on the house.
Dad told him he had spent over fifty thousand plus fixing the pipes, the rent, the light and a host of other things. The caretaker was able to refund thirty thousand naira back to my dad. Without further ado, he quickly got a bus that would take us to the village. Like I said earlier, just like a dream- because it all happened so fast but still proves to be the longest day of my life, the most memorable and not in a good sense. The neighbors were happy for us, they wished they could leave Kano too but it would take a lot of money and at that time, thirty thousand naira was quite a lot. It was all so swift as we packed what we could and left the state. We left May 29th and the tragedies didn’t end there. Strongly adhering to my earlier ascertainment that a higher power wants us alive — the journey to the village took nearly 16 hours.
It was Ten-thirty P.M and we were still on the way. Robbers accosted our vehicle on the way and chased us for nearly a full state until we were able to shake them off after we’d gotten to a residential area or they gave up the chase. They thought it was a vehicle carrying goods that could be stolen but nothing changed the fact that it was death nonetheless should they have caught up with us. The robbers on that highway were rumored to be bloodthirsty, the driver later told us.
I sat at the back of the J5 car, a popular car Hausa men use for transporting goods to and fro the country and was just suitable for transporting our belongings. I just sat there, squished between a huge pot and cushion chair as I endured the journey. Poetic justice for a rock and a hard place because none offered any sense of comfort.
We got to the village around twelve-thirty A.M on May 30th and thus began a new life. I am a native of Sosan Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria. We had to settle in the village for a few years until we could move to the state’s capital.
The air feels different here and that’s not all that seems off. I’d like to say I miss the drafty wind Kano always seemed to have but I don’t. The mornings here aren’t so bad. The coldest mornings don’t remotely compare to least cold morning I’ve experienced in all my years in Kano. Nearly fourteen years later and the memory never dreams of fading. I live in Akure, the capital of Ondo state, Nigeria. I laugh at these natives that think they’ve witnessed cold. They know nothing of cold. The harsh weather of Kano is strange but I came to love it. The Sun is scorching too in such a way you would think someone up there must really love a good barbecue. Rain wasn’t something that happened a lot even in the rainy seasons.
Akure makes you dress for two occasions because it could be sunny one moment and instantly go dark with clouds, tearing down on you with such fury. Sometimes, it even rains with sun in the sky. The adjustment to my new life has taken me a decade over and still counting yet I don’t think I’ll ever understand why they don’t sell their Akara with pepper amongst other things or sell it in the morning. It beats me. The clouds reminded me of my life, the one that could have ended even before it started. I stood under the rain as it poured, forgetting I had a laptop in my backpack as I reminisced.
I live in Akure because disaster uprooted my family, showing us the cold reality of life. Here lies the tales of the north as seen by a nine year old boy.
- Iya Ibeji: Mother of twins (Yoruba Dialect)
2. Kaya: Belongings
3. Oga, Ka Shiga Chiki: “ Oga, Enter Inside “(Hausa Dialect). Oga is used for most family men, even though it roughly translates to Boss and is derived from the Yoruba dialect.
4. Ebira: The Ebira tribe is one of the many tribes in Nigeria
5. Jellabiya: A traditional Arab garment also worn by the Hausa.
Bernard Stevan Ayodele is a Nigerian writer and a part time poet as he loves to call himself. He was born in the North, raised in the West. When he’s not making girls swoon with his guitar and voice, he is studying for a degree in Plant science and Biotechnology at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko Ondo state. He delves into freelancing , content development and Ghost writing. He loves chess, music, food and thinks petty people would run the world someday. A jack of several trades he is, aspiring to use his words to touch lives in and across Africa for a start, then the world. You can follow him on Twitter @Mc_Martian.
