‘Maimuna, you don’t know what you’ve started!’
I knew what I’d done was crazy,
but I said ‘I don’t care’.
‘Like hell you don’t!’ I turned
to give him a cold, icy stare, and returned to watching my show on my ipad.
‘What are you going to do now?’
He was pensive, looking around like he’d
done something wrong. ‘Finish my show if you’ll stop shitting yourself and
screaming like a little girl for fifteen more minutes’.
I was done. Done with putting up
with false smiles while his parents stuck every knife they could find in my
back and watched me bleed. They would stand there smiling as they watched me
try to stick my guts back into my body and patch myself up, too spent to shed
another tear.
A cut here, a slash there; no
harm done right? I’m done with that shit.
‘You don’t have to hang around.
You didn’t do anything. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.’
‘I’m not leaving you here alone’
he shot at me, ‘Then you need to calm the hell down’ I shot right back.
I ran over the different
scenarios in my head. Importantly, they had no idea it was me. I had come across
certain papers last year; papers that proved that Mr. Ojuade had been evading
taxes and helping himself to huge sums of company funds. Mrs. Ojuade had a
charity she had been using to help her darling husband launder money across
continents. I was going to leave well enough alone, but this time, they pushed
me right over the cliff. Well, suckers, someone should’ve told you I would
climb right back up that ledge and kick you in the nuts. If only you knew what I
knew, you’d have been more careful with me. Or tried to have me killed.
Right now, there were scores of
reporters outside, 3 TV station vans and more on the way, and it wasn’t even
7am yet. These people get up early sha. LOL.
Sharing is caring. You’re
welcome.
Mrs. O could be heard coming down
the stairs gingerly, as though she expected to meet a robber in her living room.
Right on cue, the house phone rang and she jumped nervously. ‘Will you get that
Maimuna? Or are you planning to lie on your fat lazy ass all day long?’ She
turned to her son ‘Sola olowo ori mi, what in the world is going on out there?
Why are there so many people outside? What do they want? Why have we not called
the police to remove them from our lawn?’
‘Mom, we haven’t called the
police. We were waiting for you and dad to come downstairs. They’re journalists,
you know’. ‘And so WHAT?’ She said the ‘what’ in a sort of whisper-scream that
betrayed the fact that she did care that they were members of press who couldn’t
be treated like her beleaguered office staff.
Mr. O finally made an appearance.
‘What’s going on here? Sola, who are those people outside and why did Musa not
keep them out?’
‘Oko mi, they are journalists!’
Mrs. O tried to act like she was in control of the situation. Mr. O gave a
short laugh. ‘I think I know what this is about. The Senate must have approved
my nomination as Minister last night. Let me get dressed so I can attend to
them’.
The phone rang again. Chewing my
gum noisily, I asked ‘What should I tell them sir?’ ‘Tell them I will be with
them shortly and I cannot take any calls until 10am, when my P.A. will be here.’
As he walked back up the stairs, he muttered ‘So early though! Hmm. Uneasy lies
the head eh?’, and another short laugh.
He hadn’t made it to the top of
the stairs when police sirens started blaring as squad cars pulled up in front
of the house. ‘Ah, thank God they’re here!’ Mrs. O’s relief was so great she
went to get the door herself.
‘Good morning madam. Are you Mrs.
Ojuade?’
‘Yes I am the lady of the house. Thank
goodness you’re here! When will you start dispersing the crowd? I was worried
you know?!’
‘Where is Mr. Ojuade please? We
need to see both of you.’
‘Daddy!! Daddy Sola please come
quickly. The policemen would like to see you’ She offered the five men a smile
and gestured at them to be seated. I knew precisely what that smile meant now.
It said “I can’t wait for you to do what
you came to do and get out of my house. Don’t get any ideas or get too
comfortable. The last time your colleagues were here I had to have the upholstery
dry-cleaned. What an inconvenience!”
‘Yes gentlemen. I suppose you’re
here for crowd control. I don’t have a speech ready but I will be magnanimous
enough to meet with them, and then you can escort them away for trespass…’
‘Mr. and Mrs. Ojuade, you both
under arrest for tax evasion, fraud and money laundering. Here is your warrant
for arrest. Please come with us peacefully or we may find it necessary to use
force’
‘WHAT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN???’
‘You have the right to remain
silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You
have the right to a lawyer…’
Still shell-shocked, both of them
were handcuffed by the policemen and herded out the door. The second the door
opened, it could have been the Academy Awards night with all the flashlights
and cameras out there. Yes, the Ojuades liked to be in the limelight, and I’d
made sure Christmas came early for them.
The leader of the policemen
turned back to us and asked ‘Will any of you be coming along?’. We both shook
our heads silently. ‘Alright then, we are taking them to Obalende Police
Station, where they will be in custody until a magistrate decides whether they
can post bail’.
Sola managed to say ‘OK sir.
Thank you.’
As the police cars drove off with
the reporters running after them, I went back to my couch and picked up my ipad
to finish my show. Sola turned around as though in a trance, picked up his car
keys and walked out of the door.
Sola would probably never marry
me now, but I hoped we could survive it. Today was for all the ways they had
humiliated me publicly, ruined my chances of getting several jobs and insulted
me to my face, simply because my mother had been a prostitute. A prostitute and
one time mistress to Mr. Ojuade.
Karma is many things. Not just a
beach in Lagos.
