The ground began to swim a little and he rubbed his right hand over both eyes to wipe the fatigue away. He felt as if his body was about to cave in on itself. So he chided himself, not here, not now. In his head, a whistling sound began to grow louder and take shape, slowly, till it became bigger swirls of white noise that blew out of his ears. He waited for Oba Odion’s ruling, as all the men did. And when it came it was this, “Welcome to Benin.”
Journal Entry December 12th 1955 Peter Lowon
I am not a sentimental man, but on this day, the eve of my 26th birthday, I Peter Lowon have joined the ranks of the Nigerian army as a second lieutenant. So, I am tasting a kind of happiness that is hard to reign in. A few of us are in Lagos staying in the house of General Akhatar. Earlier this evening, my fellow officers and I celebrated in style, having been invited to another higher-ranking officer’s house party. There, we drank Guinness and watched the women shaking their waists in that effortless way that African women do. A few of my fellow officers mocked me, joked about the way I speak and my education at the hands of British missionaries. “Ah Ah Peter! Sometimes you sound just like a white man from the BBC,” one said chuckling into the mouth of his beer bottle.
Predictably, some of the men there were also high-ranking officers and generals. You could spot who they were even out of uniform. It was there in the respectful way others hailed them, and how they carried themselves tall, crooking their fingers at the houseboys and girls in someone else’s home to demand “come come, more beer for my friend.” As though it was their right. Watching them chuckling mid conversation and absentmindedly patting the fat wads of Nigerian British pound notes in their pockets. I can tell you that power is an aphrodisiac. It is an infection difficult to describe but you know you want to catch it, you like the reception it commands. I am a man of potential. I like to keep my eyes open because you learn so much from doing so.
At the party, I exchanged jokes with my group, hemmed into a darker corner of the room as more people arrived and the noise reached the ceiling. High Life music was keeping people shimmying, and one or two had conked out indiscreetly on the floor and on chairs. Something else was playing on my mind. I was on the periphery of the exclusive club of big players! So I was looking to see whose ear to bend. The British colonial influence is still visible in Nigeria but grumblings have continued. Things are changing here, and change means opportunities. Oil production is increasing, an exodus of people are leaving the villages to rush to the cities. In Lagos you see rusty Volkswagen cars defiantly pushing along the roads, their bonnets almost bursting open with engine noise. On some streets there are children and adults with their heads tossed back gulping Coca Cola from long, elegant looking bottles.
I am sharing this room with Obi and Emanuel, also new to the army and both of whom snore so loudly, it is a wonder this room is not vibrating. Lazy boys! They still have their party clothes on, Obi on his back with his arm carelessly flung over his forehead and Emmanuel nearly off his creaking mattress face down into the floor.
Right now the kerosene lamp is burning a steady, low flame of light as the night sounds of the city become fainter. I am leaning this journal against a short stool that wobbles initially before stabilising. It is only a stool but I like this flaw in it, so applicable to human beings and the new situations we often find ourselves in. There is something about being here and seeing how the rich live that makes you yearn for more. Here, everybody “wan chop”, so I want my piece as well! I cannot sleep; it is my excitement over what is to come that has me reaching for this journal, a parting gift from my father along with his letters. And his neat handwriting seeming to say: “ Be careful! Say your prayers, God is watching.”
This writing and reflection is giving me an appetite, I wish I could go down into the kitchen to help myself but since I am only a guest, I will have to bear the stomach rumblings till morning. To the left of our room is a stiff wooden door and hanging on a nail is my uniform, a dark green tunic with patrol collar, light coloured khaki-style trousers and a peaked, jaunty cap with gold braid. Something strange happens every time someone comes through that door. As logic would have it, I don’t expect it to make my uniform fall in a heap on the floor. Instead, I see the yanked door handle lift my uniform off the nail so it stands to attention before me. One sleeve of the green tunic raises to the cap in a salute. I actually want to try my uniform again right now, it fits very well, but if Obi and Emmanuel wake up and find me dressed in it at this time, I will be the butt of their jokes for days.
Somebody else is awake; I can hear their feet shuffling downstairs, the creak of a window sliding open. By the time that sound ceases, it has become a different window from the past. My mother is leaning out, reliable shoulders hunched up, bits of springy hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, screaming for me to come in from the streets. Usually, I would be loitering on a corner somewhere when I heard it, swapping marbles with boys who bore neighbourhood war wounds of freshly scraped knees and healed cuts. Or I’d be testing catapults from a safe enough distance on strangers who crossed my eagle-eyed view.
Whoever was moving downstairs must be trying to get back to sleep. I am admiring the round buttons on my tunic. They are spotless and a coppery colour, I polished them yesterday. They could be coins, like the ones my father used to give me to buy white Tom Tom American candy from the sweet seller that were so sweet your teeth hurt and gave your mouth a zingy coolness. Inside the copper buttons another memory is moulding itself to them. This time I am twelve or thirteen, my head is buried in a book as my father points out the inconsistencies in my arithmetic, teaching me the way good missionaries do. This lesson would then be followed by English. Then later on, sitting in a church pew wriggling my bottom in anticipation of the ending, of the clapping and singing out of tune. Obi has now turned onto his front, dishevelled, doing a very good impression of a tortoise. He sleeps too deeply; this is a weakness for an officer. I will make a good officer; I am controlled and swift to react in most situations. There is no way I could have failed the recruitment process. Tests, endurance exercises but more importantly, who is open to bribes.
I watch people because human beings are fascinating. A person’s body language can tell you what you need to know, even shows when they are weaker than you. Look at an unsteady arm and you will see a lie reflected there, a sweaty upper lip in a tight situation and sooner or later that person will crack from fried nerves. My most useful skill is my ability to adapt, something I learned early having been the child of Christian missionaries, a child with no real interest in faith whatsoever. Since it was clear that you couldn’t escape God because he was either watching you, having plans for you, or making a way (God will always make a way!), I decided to have a talk with him. When I was nine, I took him aside right by the guava tree that dipped its branches into our small compound. I warned him, don’t give me any wahala and you and me will be okay. Of course, I did not tell my father this. I believed he would have had a heart attack, his thin-rimmed, round spectacles steaming up, his body keeling over right there on our black and white squared linoleum floor.
I have made friends with Obi and Emmanuel, not because they are my sort of people but because you have to have team spirit in the army. You cannot be seen to be a loner or an outsider looking in. In fact I am not a team player, never have been and never will be.