COVID BLUES
By: Jibola Oladiran
Tags: Nigeria, Police Brutality, Taxes, Poverty, Covid 19

COVID BLUES

Chapter 2: OUR MONEY

The sun was blinding as rays of hot sunlight hit him square in the eyes through the leaves of the tree in front of his compound. He quickly shielded his eyes before his problems included blindness. Dele had been some kind of tough guy while in the university, but life had somehow humbled him, slowing him down with poverty and frustration. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually smiled in contentment, or the last time his wife smiled at him in adoration. He knew he couldn’t blame her; she had held on gallantly for so long. It was out of concern for her that he had decided to let go of the last job to have time to explore millions of other jobs he knew were out there.

News had carried it that the coronavirus had started spreading like wildfire in Ogun State; it was just a matter of time before Oyo State would be hit. Then the lockdown would be more severe and he wouldn’t be able to go around looking for jobs anymore. He needed to lock something down before the full lockdown commenced.

At this point, he had hit the main road. He felt something in his pocket and brought it out: his nose mask. Barring the virtual pulse of the country promoting the use of nose masks, he couldn’t see any telltale signs of the spread of the virus being prevented. Everybody was going about their daily affairs as if nothing was happening. He tried to imagine the envy of places like Italy and China watching Nigerians moving around freely and without any real form of panic. There were even rumours that the virus was not a real thing. If it were that real, Africans, especially Nigerians would have been wiped out in droves. Anyway sha, better safe than sorry. He quickly put on his nose mask. He understood he still had a responsibility to keep his family safe.

The rude wail of sirens pierced the air. Looking behind him, he could pick a convoy racing towards the nearby roundabout. Sandwiched among police vans were a few top-of-the-range SUV’s. Police heralding the movement of another big man. Na our way. Useless people. No food, no work, and they would still be harassing poor mortals like us. Understanding that the police escorts were usually drunk with power in these situations and could easily hit him and continue their drunk-with-power antics, he moved as far into the pedestrian area as he could.

Without warning, he felt a biting pain at the back of his neck. Quickly ducking to minimize any form of repeat of whatever must have hit him, he jumped into the roadside gutter, drenching his feet in black muddy filth. The convoy raced past and disappeared around the roundabout. An old man came to his aid, and pulled him out by the hand.

“Hope your feet are not cut sha”, asked the old man in genuine concern. Gutters are usually home to various infection-causing objects like broken bottles, pieces of sharp metal and sundry unspeakable evils.

“I think I’m fine, Sir. Thank you”, replied a visibly shaken Dele after checking and confirming that he was actually fine.

The old man smiled. “One of those policemen whipped you with koboko”.

Dele was lost for words. So that was the sharp pain he felt. “Why did he whip me? I gave enough space for them to pass. I wasn’t obstructing their movement”.

The old man continued smiling. “Young man, you seem quite naïve for someone your age. Didn’t you grow up in Nigeria? Do the police need any good reason to whip anyone? They just do. It gives them joy. At least I saw it all happen. I know you weren’t in their way, I even saw you trying to get as far out of their way as possible. You need to be more careful next time. When you hear a police siren, just skip to the other side of the gutter, or better still bury yourself in the wall if there’s a wall between you and safety”.

The old man asked one of the roadside sellers for two sachets of water. Drinking the contents of one, he gave the other to the still shaken Dele. “Wash your feet with this. When you get home, wash your trousers. That smell isn’t healthy”.

Dele thanked the man and got busy taking care of his feet to the best of the capability of one sachet of water.

“But”, he said after calming down a bit, “Are these people aware that we pay their salaries?”

The old man laughed loud and long. He had this look on his face that Dele couldn’t quite place.

“You really don’t know much, do you?” he asked. “Lemme ask you a question. “You see this girl we bought water from, when do you think she last paid her tax?”

It was Dele’s turn to chuckle. “Does she even know what that means?”

Then the old man asked, “What about the okada rider? When do you think he paid his tax last?”

Dele thought a bit. “I don’t think okada riders pay tax, but I think they pay something to some unions”.

“Is that tax?” the old man asked.

“I’m not really sure that is tax”, Dele quipped.

“Ehen, now check out those guys who do daily labour, like bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, and the likes. Which tax do they pay?”

Dele was silent. He had come out to seek for employment, but he had ended up getting a sound commonsense beating from an old man. He had never thought of that before. However, what had all this analogy got to do with his being whipped by a koboko-happy police officer?

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what payment of tax has to do with your being beaten by that policeman”.

Dele stared at him. Who was this guy?

“Okay, okay”, the old man said smiling. “Lemme burst your brain. Which money do you think the leaders chop? We say they’re chopping money, right? Whose money are they chopping?”

“Our money nau”, Dele quickly replied. “They’re stealing our money”.

“Then you would die poor”, the old man retorted.

Dele thought he didn’t hear well. He wasn’t sure if he should feel angry, sad, or scolded.

“If only few real people pay tax in Nigeria, how do you think these people get paid? You think the little tax white and blue collar people pay amounts to anything? Listen, the police and other institutions maltreat the general public because they don’t get paid with our tax. You speak good English and you carry yourself well, so I know that you have a little experience with office work. Imagine your security at the office who is paid when you and your colleagues gather money and pay him, imagine such a man harassing you at work, using his baton to hit you or slapping you while at his duty post. Would you people imagine he would ever do such a thing?”

“We would sack him immediately, that’s a mad dog!” Dele said. “He would be gone that same day”.

“Exactly”, the old man agreed. “Now imagine that such a man was being paid by someone someone who you people don’t know. You only know he gets paid, but don’t know how. If he attacks you and your colleagues, how quickly would you sack him?”

Dele had no immediate answer. “We would have to make enquires, and then when we know who his employers are, we would call them and tell them what’s going on”.

The old man nodded. “That’s exactly what’s going on with our politicians and policemen. They don’t get paid from just our tax. The get paid from oil money and loans. We are not their bosses, and no matter how much we shout, ‘Our money, our money’, they only look at us and laugh. The only time they would begin to take us serious, and we would have a case is when we all pay tax. That’s when we would truly have power to ask them questions. You think the oil belongs to the people? It is supposed to belong to the people, but some people know the truth: the oil belongs to a few big men. We……we are just mere mortals. We are the ants they step on. The system has not created a proper way to get tax from all, and that makes them unaccountable, simple. So stop all this nonsense about ‘Our money, our money’. It’s irritating. If you want to have your money, work for it. Create something that is yours and sell it. Stop making stupid claims. You don’t have money with the government. Create your own business, your own brand, your own work. Then you can say ‘My money’ and I would give you thumbs up”.

Dele was soaking everything in blow by blow. Before he could recover from the climax the man had just reached, the old man simply gestured with a slight salute and walked away. As he was walking away Dele could hear him muttering under his breath, “Talking to me about ‘Our money’……….”.

As he watched the man walk off into perspective, he couldn’t shake off the nagging realization in his heart that there was some truth in the ranting of the old man. But who was the man? He had never seen him before. And why did the man offer so much information? Did God send the man to him? Was this a well-disguised answer to his prayer?

His feet were dry now, and he resumed his interrupted walk, thinking about how the education he just stumbled on was going to help him have a better shot at life. There was a new spring in his resumed step. Something had changed since speaking to the old man. He no longer felt sorry for himself, sentencing himself to a life of self-pity and dependence on the system to make him have a good life. His destiny was now in his own hands; the government would not cater for him. They really didn’t not know he existed: he had not paid tax since he left his job. He was a ghost, able to create a new narrative for himself, a new story, a story not written by a third party, an employer: a story written by himself. He had found it: he had found himself. That police officer had whipped sense into his head. Something good can actually come out of all this wahala.

He turned back, the sun was already making its downward journey in the sky. He had not secured a job, or even a faint promise of one, but he had found something else. He needed to share this with his wife. Someone needed to hear what was cooking in his mind. He tore off his nose mask, it was choking him. He could see his house around the corner. As he walked past the meat seller at his junction…….

“Dele!”

He turned around. He stared long. Was this real?

Story by: ‘Jibola Oladiran

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