OIL CITY EP 4

TOSAN ’S NARRATION

Tosan, a bunker into illegal fractional distillation of oil started with what made him join the business. He complained that the load of catering for his needs was just too heavy for his mum as his dad was lost and yet to be found. He explained that his needs and wants were increasing the older he got, and his mum couldn’t meet his expectations with her low income and low standard of living. He complained about a few 

leaders who promised to give him a job, “they prefer hiring you as their thugs, endangering your life while their children are flown abroad; they give to you, so you will come back for more, they never want your progress because they are afraid you will get richer than them. All they want is for you to be their slaves forever”. I can’t stoop low to being a gate man, waiter or errand boy, he replied when asked if he went job hunting. “What do you think girls will say when they see a big boy like me doing miserable jobs like that?”, he added. After giving his stance on education in Nigeria which he felt was a waste of time, he expressed his frustration about the Police being on the tail of street boys trying to earn a living but ignoring leaders who they knew obtained their wealth illegally. "Corruption like a cankerworm has eaten deep into the Police force and the government is to blame for this", replied Barrister Akomire. Lack of payment of salaries has encouraged Police officers to accept the foolish choice of teaming up with criminals for money and also for fear of their lives because these criminals have better ammunitions compared to those of the Policemen. She concluded with, “Patriotism is now seen as foolishness with personal interest now placed ahead of national interest”. Urged by Barrister Akomire to head to the real story, Tosan began narrating:

“After, I [Tosan] and my friends joined the business, we began to blossom. While some envied us, others like Ovie wanted to be part of us. Ovie, like super glue, stuck to us, bugged us like bed bug and interrupted our in-take of oxygen [no space to breath]. His eye-service was out of this world; he washed our clothes, filled our drums with water, swept our environment, and went on errands we didn’t ask him to. He even got beaten defending us while arguing with friends. He was also a great liar, he went as far as lying that his mother was ill and needed money for her treatment. His aim was to make a living for himself, he wasn’t the lazy begging type. After much pressure, (although warned by his mum to stay away from him), we felt pity for him and came to an agreement to make him a part of us. After two weeks, the sheep-like Ovie we knew incredibly grew into a Wolf. At first, he was a plus, but when his hunger grew like an unfed lion, it became a reason for thought and for immediate measures to be taken. He wanted more, and before we knew it, he wasn’t a part of our team anymore; he relocated to where we feared the most, “Cooking base”. This is the heart of the bunkering and those who work there are always naked incase of fire emergency. We turned his enemies the moment we advised against it. He called us 'enemies of progress' and when his success in a short time was compared with ours, he simply said, “Overtaking Is Allowed”. He made times five of what we made from the supplies, and as humans, we envied his success. After we had a quarrel with some of the boys at the site who called us cowards and errand boys, comparing us to Ovie, and also saw that the young men in the community shifted their attention and respect to Ovie, we made up our minds to switch and aim bigger but were still afraid. Ebele was first to overcome fear, he, in no time earned a slot at the ‘cooking base’ but when the time came for him to begin work, he took ill and was immediately replaced by Ola [Ovie’s friend].

A day after, on our way after distribution, I and Tega heard voices and quickly we rolled our boat to the nearby creek where we had a better view. An army gun boat was raiding a nearby bunkering site. We were excited to see our competitors in trouble but our mood changed when our bunkering location was mentioned. Fear soaked our being and in haste, we started our boat and took off. We sounded the alarm first to our boss on phone but the response we got wasn’t satisfactory. He advised we calm down saying he had everything in control, stressing that there was no cause for alarm but we could sense fear in his voice and we were already pissing in our pants. Immediately we arrived the site, we sounded the alarm but the workers paid little or no attention to the news we casted, they believed the boss more than the words that came from our mouths. Not everyone exercised faith in the boss, Ovie’s friend, Ola and a couple of others wanted to leave but were persuaded especially by Ovie who called us ‘frustrated liars’ not to. ‘You can take a horse to the stream but you can’t force it to drink water’. We left them to their fate, and some minutes after we left (as we were told), the army gun boat we warned them about, showed up. Too late for “Had I Knows” as some of them wished they'd hearkened to us. While they were being ushered into the gun boat, a soldier saw a fellow colleague smoking. Surprised at his ignorance, he warned him to put away the stick of cigarette if he had no intention of roasting everyone alive.

The soldier wrongly obeyed. Fire not out completely, he threw away the stick of cigarette to where he thought was a far distance.

Unfortunately, the cigarette located a vandalized pipe and provoked an explosion. We almost took a u-turn when we heard the explosion but fear didn’t permit us. We waited somewhere around to see if we could rescue some survivors of which we actually did. We rescued Ola [Ovie’s Friend] who briefed us of all that happened and couldn’t give an account of Ovie’s whereabout. We patrolled the river all night to see if we could recover some bodies especially Ovie’s but found nothing. We were worried and found no sleep because we knew we would be held responsible if anything bad happened to him. The next day's news about the accident reached our community as bodies were recovered by the traders close to the shore. The moment we heard cries we knew we were done, the worst had happened! Ovie’s body was amongst those recovered by the traders; we were in trouble, the looks on our faces said it all. Still thinking of what to do, we heard Mama Ovie crying outside our house asking us to open up and provide her son. In no time, we were summoned to the town hall and questioned but lied our way through to freedom; however, we knew the lie wouldn’t last forever. Earlier than we expected, our little secret got threatened by a young boy named Ochuko; he excused us somewhere and to our faces he called us liars. He said he saw us when returning after net casting at the river bank the morning the accident happened. He named his price and with no argument, he followed us home to collect his package assuring us our secret was safe with him. He stressed that he was doing this because we had been nice to him and that telling the police was never an option, calling them a group of corrupt lazy folks in uniform whose only job is to oppress those they are to protect. He also apologized for billing us but explained he needed the money to bail his innocent elder brother”.