It was on a Tuesday that I was to become “Kolo”, the hardened armed robber of renown. Yet at noon of the very day, I was unaware of the fact.
At noon, I was packing my backpack readying to leave campus. I was with Ogechi at the time. She was a girlfriend that I had the misfortune of knowing that I shared with several other guys on campus. She was your typical on-which-side-my-bread-is-buttered kind of chick. Sitting in the Police wagon, I watched an officer with brown teeth ‘recognize’ her on my phone’s photo gallery as Sade, some local prostitute they were seemingly all quite familiar with (apart from the name, some would commend their excellent detective work).
I was a little dizzy (many slaps had flashed by). My t-shirt was attached to me only by its collar. The shirt had cost me five ‘k’, (probably enough to buy their collective uniforms) but on sight of their automatic rifles I’d have helped them rip it up, given the chance. I counted my teeth with my tongue and wondered how many I would lose in my evolution into the notorious ‘Kolo’.
We were on our way to the dreaded Area J station; there I would confess to having been born by Immaculate Conception if that was what they required of me. I made a note to thank Sheriff, my best friend for showing me the shortcut that was to be an exclamation point in my life.
I had found the narrow alley he’d described to me as leading to the ‘Express’. On the other side, I’d found people a-running (lots of them). So, like any mother-born Negro, I bravely decided to run. Then someone had pointed at me in midflight; next thing, a mob came after me; next thing Kolo the Nefarious, I was. The stories say that Kolo is tall. I was tall. The stories say that Kolo is dark. I was dark. The stories said that Kolo had powerful native medicine and so could never be overpowered. Well, two out of three was enough.
In came the police. And the rest is history... my history.
I don’t know any important people. But I do have a lawyer uncle that I probably won’t get to call until ‘the investigation was concluded’. So, with no clout to speak for me, it’s fair to say that I am doomed.
I had heard so much about Area J’s interrogating techniques. A friend had told me that it had taken their houseboy six hours at Area J before realizing that he’d stolen Madam’s jewellery. The Six hour endurance is still reputedly the in-house record. I intend to hold out for maybe an hour or so... to salvage a little pride, before I confess in dust and ashes.
I was ‘shown’ into a dark room lit by a single bulb. The room was an oven saturated with the stink human sweat and marijuana. I needed no tour guide –I was in the interrogation room. So, here I sat, Kolo the notorious; formerly a student of Engineering struggling to make Second Class honours, now a candidate for the firing squad.
After a seventy-five minute wait I hoped would never end, a hulk called detective swung the door open. I think I screamed in Frigbo –an unorthodox mix of French and Igbo.
The detective looked at my crotch and laughed himself to tears. As he turned to leave, he barked in vernacular what I hoped meant: “You have brought the wrong person; this one has already urinated on himself!”
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