IN EXTREMIS

 

"Jesus is aware of our situation and has made the General come the way of my niece, Victoria," Mrs. Ishaqu said after examining the pack of new clothes and a bag of rice the General had bought for her for the coming Christmas. "You must not fail us now, Vicky! Do not throw yourself at those good-for-nothing army boys again. Be a good girl and do as he says." Victoria stared at her aunt's beaming face and thought of the job she had gotten herself into for her aunt and her five children to have food to eat during a time of armed conflict. She, a 15-year-old secondary school dropout, now means the whole world to her and her family through the 64-year-old General in the Nigerian army. 

Following the annexation of the Republic of Niger by the Nigerian government and the eruption of militia groups in Niger, which resisted the Nigerian occupation, Victoria's hometown of Malumfatori, at the Borno state's Nigeria-Niger border, had come under fire from militia's insurgency. For two years, since her community was razed down and her parents were killed during an attack by the Niger liberation forces (NLF), Victoria had moved in to live with her aunt. Her aunt, who was her father's immediate sister, had also lost her husband to the raging violence. They were forced to live in a makeshift tent at a camp for internally displaced persons, unable to go to school or eat well. Victoria found herself sleeping with the military boys in exchange for food, grains, bread, and soft drinks — an action her auntie had encouraged her to continue, as it was keeping her and the children away from hunger.

Victoria was well known in the camp, among locals who called her "Gogo," and the soldiers, "Mia." She was young, fair in complexion, and dazzlingly beautiful. However, she became objectified and commodified among the military men. Exposed to sexual acts at a young age, rumors of Victoria's insatiable libido spread throughout the camp, resulting in both scorn and popularity. This changed when she met General Akpan, a poddy and fiercely dark-skinned man who desired her exclusively and transformed her life. Although Victoria cursed herself for involving herself in an intimate relationship with a man old enough to be her grandfather and engaging in questionable activities, she found solace in the fact that he provided her aunt and her hungry children with good food. With General Akpan, Victoria was living a dream. She wore the finest garments and no longer feared being reprimanded by the men she used to serve whenever she failed to "eat their banana," apprehensive about throat cancer as she had heard in the news.

Months passed, and General Akpan became a recognized figure in his small family. He was always with his family at Ojo Barracks in Lagos and only visited Victoria once or twice a month. When he did, there was enough food for everyone to eat and share. Victoria would braid her hair, dress her mattress in the corner of the tent, polish her nails, and wear one of the clothes that General Akpan had told her he liked: a skimpy skirt that exposed her thigh and contours of her bosom, a topless shirt that showed much of her small breasts, and flat shoes that allowed her to dance with ease later in the evening when she visited the officer's mess with the General. She would do everything to please him and get what she wanted: food to eat and clothes to wear, even if it meant sleeping with his dog, as he had first requested the other night at his apartment in the Army's guest house.

Victoria's aunt was always in awe of the General and the gifts he bought for her and her children. She constantly reminded him about the two-bedroom flat in Maiduguri that he had promised to buy for her. Mrs. Ishaqu was adamant about what she needed, and by the time the local women from her church choir paid a visit to warn her about Victoria's behavior, she wasted no time in sending them away with a wave of her hand.

 

Victoria had long nurtured the dream of becoming a nurse and had made the General aware of it. "Nurse? What do you need it for? Am I not enough for you?" the General had said another time when Victoria approached him with the same issue. Since the incident with the dog and reminded by the fact that the General had said in the past that he was not willing to make her his wife, all she wanted now was to go back to school and was already getting tired of her hustling. Reluctantly, the General had agreed, and by the time Mrs. Saratu had arrived at their camp with an admission letter for Victoria, her joy couldn't be contained. Mrs. Saratu was the General's right-hand woman and had just told her that she could go back to secondary school and continue. Before the General agreed that Victoria would be allowed to go to school, he had tossed a bundle of currency notes into Mrs. Ishaqu's hand and struck an agreement that would see him travel to Maiduguri with Victoria for a few days before Christmas "for sightseeing," as he had said that night, laughing sheepishly behind the spirit lamp before the two left in his car in the depth of the cold December night.

 

Days passed by, and Christmas was fast approaching, but the two did not return. Mrs. Ishaqu was initially not worried but became concerned when she inquired from the soldiers to find out who General Akpan was and where he might have taken her niece. She was stabbed by the replies she got. "There was no army general named Akpan at the Military Base, and the man who used to go out with her niece was just a car cleaner who usually went into the Military Base, picked up the officers' cars, washed them, and returned them." Mrs. Ishaqu was shattered and confused about where to start looking for Victoria. Afraid of the backlash from her church and community, she had kept the issue to herself and quietly went looking for Victoria alone, from the brothels where she knew she worked, to the officers' guest houses, and the roads where the sex workers stood at night, waiting for "customers." On the eve of Christmas, Mrs. Ishaqu, unable to hold on to reality, ran to her church and cried about her niece's disappearance with a strange man. Swiftly, the whole camp was alerted, and some army officers volunteered to go and search for Victoria in Maiduguri.

 

On Christmas morning, Mrs. Ishaqu was awakened by one of the local women. She was asked to confirm if the man sitting on the ground, in the midst of a large crowd, with no clothes on and his hands tied behind his back, was General Akpan. "Yes, he is!" She struggled to find words. "Where's my daughter, Mr. Akpan? Where's Vicky?" Choked by emotions and guilt, Mrs. Ishaqu quickly strapped her 9-month-old baby on her back and fled the scene in tears. She never returned to her children, who were still asleep in their tent, leaving them in the care of nature at the camp. General Akpan was the leader of an organ harvesting ring. He had dismembered Victoria and sold her body parts to buyers who often traveled abroad for lucrative sales. He was infamous for such barbaric acts and admitted to being responsible for a hundred other similar crimes in the Lake Chad region, spanning Nigeria, Niger, and Chad, where the Boko Haram insurgency had reigned supreme, further complicated by Nigeria's invasion of the Republic of Niger following a military coup in Niamey, the capital.

 Victoria, young and budding with so many dreams like every other African child, was disadvantaged by a senseless show of political power and interest. The ensuing conflict, which cost her the lives of her parents, was a trajectory that precipitated her mayhem. Like many other African children who yearned for Christmas but never lived to see one, she was a product of Africa— "the capital of child promises and heartbreak." While her dreams hung in the balance, she was pushed to the point of death, in extremis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ogwucheson Rabiu Munkaila is a pan-Nigerian and Pan-African multi-talented writer who hails from Benue State. He has works in poetry, prose, and even drama. His works are usually a dedication to the African struggles and search for cohesion. He is currently a 4th-year Medical Student at the University of Maiduguri.