A SUDDEN MUSHROOM CLOUD

No one knew when and how it crept upon the populace, but as at Ocober 2012, almost everyone that was anyone was referred to with a three-letter shrinking of their actual names. Perhaps it was a reflection of a society more in haste than ever. Perhaps it was a reflection of how social media and its restriction of space for the written word were beginning to constrict the robustness of speech. Perhaps society has never been lazier than it is now. Perhaps names are just too long nowadays. Therefore, the Tottenham Hotspurs coach is simply known as AVB; one-time minister and current religious crackpot as FFK; the Chelsea FC coach as RDM; one-time Nigerian military ruler as GMB and current Nigerian president as GEJ. But all these men are not relevant in the unfolding events. Only one is, and his sobriquet is BRF.

In 2011, BRF, otherwise known as Babatunde Raji Fashola, won a second term as governor of Nigeria’s most important state – Lagos. To a foreigner or one who has only merely heard the word “Lagos” from a distance and never been in it, the election would appear keenly contested as the candidates campaigned. But to Lagos itself, BRF was the undisputed choice, given the turn-around Lagos had undergone in the previous four years. Now, on an October day when Nature was snivelly in most parts of Lagos, BRF sat at the head of a long table, the only long table in the Governor’s Situation Room. This room, except for where Asiwaju was concerned, is where all the decisions that the Lagos State Government make is arrived at. Where Asiwaju is concerned, BRF is simply summoned to Asiwaju Lodge in Ikoyi, one of Asiwaju’s many homes around the world, and after a few hours of sometimes frantic jaw-jawing, Asiwaju’s word became law. Asiwaju was not involved today, and the decision-making had been left entirely to the State Executive Committee. The State Executive Committee consisted of BRF himself, as Governor, Madam Kuforiji Williams, as Deputy Governor, and all the commissioners in charge of ministries in the state. Of those 23, men and women, only six, all seated facing one another in front of the governor, three on each side of the table, were here today. Five Commissioners – the
Honourable Commissioner for Vehicular Movement and the Decongestion by all means of Lagos Roads, the Honourable Commissioner of Information and Sabre-Rattling, the Honourable Commissioner for Environment and the Environs of the Environment, the Honourable Commissioner for Securing Everything that is Lagos and some chunks of Ogun State, and the Honourable Commissioner for  Awarding Infrastructural Contracts. Madam Kuforiji Williams made up this group. When the governor had got wind of the issue, he had sent a Special Coded Summons for an Exceedingly Important Extraordinary Meeting using the Special Secure Phone (SSP) that all members of the State Executive Committee possessed. Before the governor could begin, Madam Williams had sent BRF a message via the SSP, intimating him that the Special Standing Order of a Sitting State Executive Committee stipulated that only six of the assembled could in fact be in attendance at an Exceedingly Important Extraordinary Meeting (EXIEXEM). She had a knack for such things. If one knew her better, one would know she pores and pores over things like that and then she commits them to memory. BRF had an astonishing ability to think on his feet, an ability which made him an exceedingly good politician for the Nigeria terrain. So, he told them that new facts, conveniently unavailable at the moment, were emerging as they were seated. It would make no sense, he continued, that they start any deliberations on a rapidly fluid situation. He’d contact them when all relevant facts were on ground. With that, he dismissed the whole Committee, and later that day sent Special Coded Summons to the five men who didn’t even know they were privy to any meetings other than Executive Committee Meetings and Extraordinary Executive Committee Meetings.

“Are we really sure this would work?” BRF asked his meeting.

The Situation Room is white, very white. But the whiteness of the room is broken by such things as the large framed photograph directly over the head of BRF, bearing the portrait of a man in glasses and declaring that one Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, is the “Executive Governor of Lagos State”. Ordinarily, one would expect President GEJ’s picture to feature as prominently as BRF’s in such a room in such a government building. Not this room and definitely not the inner sanctum of the ACN-led government of Lagos State. GEJ’s portrait better be content with being on display in the Governor’s Office. Another portrait, a much smaller one carried a likeness of Madam Williams and swore to the fact that she was “Deputy Governor” of ye Olde Lagos. A colourfully designed map of Lagos took up the mid-portion of the wall directly opposite the entrance to the room. This entrance was situated to BRF’s left. On the same side as the door, the famous Lagos badge sat midway between both ends of the wall. A digital clock with its blood red digits stared down from the end of the room that was away from BRF, to impress upon the meeting how much time was being spent. The brown table, made from Indonesian mahogany and padded with Italian leather, around which the meeting sat could occupy forty people, twenty on each side, if the jet black executive chairs around the long rectangular table were things to go by. Apart from these items, the room could have belonged to Leonidas. The EXIEXEM had been going on for about thirty minutes. BRF had tabled the information he had received. Already, solutions had been flying from every angle of the meeting. Every one wanted to be seen to contribute.

“De Guv, like I’ve submitted earlier, we cannot afford to tackle this in a way that would raise public suspicion. To do that is to cause complete and utter chaos. How do we then control a panicky Lagos, given what Lagos is to start with? I believe we would deal with whatever flak there is from Commissioner Opeawo’s suggestion easier, and to make it better, we already have a pretext for affirmative action on that front. We’ve paid enough lip service. ”

Several heads nodded agreement. Kolade Opeawo, Commissioner for Vehicular Movement etc etc, sat back in his chair and allowed himself a small smile. If this goes well, especially since the Commissioner for Information etc etc had just put forward my case better than  even I could imagine, then I would have snuffed the life from a couple of birds with just the one stone. He removed his black-tipped gold-coated walking stick from beneath the table and placed it on the table. The bastards who had shot the legs from under me had sped by on one of those things. Those things covered the metropolis like flies on uncovered food; an unpleasant sight, a buzzing nuisance, bringers of death! Lagos is the Special Land of Plenty for all, true enough, but for these visiting riff-raffs, it was to become the Special Land of Empty! Now is time to cover the food. Now is time to remove them. Vermin, vagabonds, all... vamooze! And now, they would be employed to do the unthinkable? Lailai!

The murmur that hummed about the room subsided as BRF cleared his throat. All eyes now turned towards him at the head of that table again.

“We will do exactly as Opeawo has said and Adeyemi has reiterated. However, we must realize that this is by no means a permanent solution. What we are counting on now is that the suddenness of this decision and the decisiveness with which we will enforce the decision will throw them off their balance and make them panic. I am not a security professional, but hopefully, the Police and the SSS are able to take advantage of this disruption to flush them out. If not, they can, and will strike. Not even this decision is a guarantee that they will not strike now. There are many ways of course to evade a ban. I am also aware that something pertaining to this issue is in court, but in 2007 as in 2011, I swore to be the chief security officer of this state. I hold that promise in the highest regard, first, over any other thing.”

BRF hunched his back and then placed both hands on the table. “You,” he said, and pointed to Adeyemi, “prepare a Special Statement of Immediate Intent.” He glanced at his watch. “This is 12:05pm. By 3pm, I need to hear that statement on every major media outlet. Got it?”

“Yes sir.”

“You,” he said, pointing to Opeawo, “you, Adeyemi and I will handle the inevitable media backlash.”

 Aunty Williams, you will get on the phone now to the Commissioner of Police, and enlist his cooperation effective tomorrow. I want to see some immediate action, and please tell him to curtail the excesses of his men because I can foresee casualties already. Please be prepared. I can, and will, convene this meeting at any time as the days go by. Thank you very much for your time. You are dismissed. Eko o ni baje.”

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On one hand, Highway Managers is the name of a company that offered to, for a handsome fee, arrange for men and women to clean Lagos roads. The Highway Managers are also a group of men and women recruited specifically to keep Lagos roads free of dirt, in line with the Special Beautification Drive of the government. A typical highway manager at work is always kitted in bright orange coveralls with the company name emblazoned smack on the chest. Every highway manager is also issued a plastic broom and a special orange dirt bucket. On this Monday morning, the 12^th of November, Mr Babadiji, Equipment Coordinator for the Third Mainland Bridge Stretch, noticed that three Highway Gears – the generic in-house name for coverall, broom and bucket – lay in the Equipment Room, uncollected. Company rules dictated that he made this visit at 6:00am in the morning. That would mean three workers had not reported for work. He made a mental note to pinpoint the rascals, and deal with them as appropriate. Having inscribed this audacious slight – upon the company, and the fact that he would check the duty roster for the identity of the bloody deserters – on his subconscious, Mr Babadiji – tall, gaunt, ugly, balding and cicatrized middle-aged man in a faded blue shirt and billowy light brown trousers – made his way back to his cubicle with the same measured and brisk gait he had acquired in a military career that ended as a Lance-Corporal.

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Where there is a will, there is a way. When one door shuts in a house of many doors, there is a good possibility that another door just might open. The news of the ban had hit like a storm. The bad news had first come through as an encrypted message from their special anonymous source. The source had a special interest in what was to come and in fact had been an instigator of sorts. The source was obviously a man of means, as only such men could reach into such uncertain depths of darkness as was needed to have contacted us. Hours after, the message had been all over the news. The next day, scores of apparently jobless police men had trooped to the streets, totting guns and brutalizing both man and machine to submission. Three month’s preparation had just gone poof, like a balloon one pricked with something sharp enough. But something had to be done. He agreed with that. So did the source. You must find a way! Those had been his exact words. I thought long and hard, but first I gave the order to hold fire, to retreat to our dark, dank and clammy trenches and to await word. I thought long and hard some more, before it finally began to take shape before my eyes. The reel ran. The film rolled to its fiery end. I smiled, for only before my eyes could such movies play out. It had taken a week, but I had found a way. I called Fareed Usman Salami.

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Three men stood before me. They were dressed casually in round-neck T-shirts and jeans. I regarded them with disdain. They were Hausa boys, no doubt shipped from some state in the backward North. The tallest among the three seemed to understand some pidgin English and had explained in that heavy Hausa accent that “Oga say make we con meet you”. The MD, Highway Managers, had called ahead and asked me to expect three men in my office. He had told me that I was to give them jobs, immediately, with the most minimum of hassles. As the MD had explained, Mr Fareed Salami, a company director and CEO of Leedmost Ventures, a top venture capitalist firm, had leaned his considerable bulk on the latter to grant him this favour immediately, despite whatever language difficulties the men may have. After all, a broom and dust bucket only signified one thing – to clean. What legitimate choice therefore, did I, as Human Resources Manager, have to refuse them, despite my misgivings? The request had also included that they be sent to a specific location, so I sent them on their way to the Ikosi office, to meet Mr Babadiji who was to tool them up. I had better things to do than to attend to three illiterate, potential Boko Haramers on a mid-October Monday morning. There was the buxom but bodacious Feyi to chat with on Facebook for instance, to convince her to leave her Ogun State school to spend the next weekend at my house.

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I had a job interview to get to that Monday morning. The events of that day still send occasional shocks down my spine. I had applied for a thousand jobs. Nobody ever called me to write a test or attend an interview. I had begun to regret not working harder for that Second Class, Upper Division Botany degree. Every job advertisement after my heart would eventually break my heart as I read the qualifications they required. It was always “Second Class Upper”. Even the ones that stipulated the Second Class Lower degree I had obtained from Ife didn’t ever contact me. So much for the impressive English and personal achievements on my CV. I kept at it religiously till last week Tuesday I got a call. The caller wanted me to be at the UBA Headquarters at Marina by 9am on Monday, November the 12^th. I was elated. Mum had begun to complain about the handouts she always had to hand me and Pops, well, flat out refused to give me one kobo since I completed youth service. I hadn’t asked a girl out in months for fear of whatever monetary considerations that might entail. I got up quite early that morning, at about 5:30, I think, and by 6, I was ready to go. I had a maintained a healthy collection of suits from my university days so I just picked the sleekest, a black Kenneth Cole number that was to have been my final year dinner jacket. The dinner never held. Staying in Agbado always meant you had to get out of the house earlier than many if you planned to get anywhere on time. Luckily, Pops, a time-conscious freak of a man had a court date at Ikeja and so he had to leave home earlier than usual too. I tagged along till Awolowo Way, Ikeja, where I found one of those big boxy Danfos that plied the Ikeja-CMS route. The bus was half full when I reached it but it filled up quickly after I had arrived. Soon, we were on our way, after the conductor had obtained the usual fare of 150 naira. We made our way past Allen, past Alausa till we finally got on the Express. Soon, we had climbed the Third Mainland Bridge. This was about 7:10am. We were moving rapidly and I could see UNILAG's Senate Building in the distance before the traffic began to slow down till it ground to a total halt on the patch of bridge right in front of UNILAG's famous Lagoon Front. This had better clear soon, I thought in my head. Twenty minutes dragged by – because I kept glancing nervously at my watch – and the traffic hadn’t budged an inch. The driver, a decent enough stocky man of average height, who had killed the engine a while back, now got out of the car and began to make his way forward to see if he could find out what was happening. Five minutes later, he was back. Apparently, one of the cleaners had mistakenly thrown something on the road, and this thing had caused a collision of cars big enough to ensure that everyone was stuck in place for the foreseeable future. Some commuters had accosted the cleaner and had begun to harass him. Some others had disagreed with that treatment and so a melee was ensuing too. I turned to look behind me as I was in the back seat and a sea of cars had made sure we were hemmed in. Why did this have to happen today, of all days it could have happened? What could the idiot person have thrown on the road? Did cars skid on banana peels too? These thoughts were running through my mind before they were rudely replaced by apprehension. Time actually paused before it happened. Our bus shook violently as a great, explosive sound rent the air. Then a mushroom cloud of vehicle parts, fire, and human parts followed. I pushed the doors behind the back seat open and clambered over the seat and unto the road. I could feel hands over my body. I ran backwards. Other people had gotten out of their cars and had started taking to their heels. I didn’t run for long because I wanted to be able to see what was happening. The explosion seemed to have stopped four rows of vehicles short of the bus I had been in a little while ago. Fire was spreading now. I could hear those distinct cries of anguish. Tears rolled from my ears. I thanked God for my life as I trudged backwards, and then broke into a run. The fire would spread like Californian wild fires. Fuel tanks would explode causing more fires. I best not be anywhere around. Tears streamed from my eyes as I ran. I prayed, hard, harder than I remember praying for the past 3 years. Only living people attend interviews. But, what had happened back there?

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No one was sure what had happened. There were survivors near the incident enough to tell any useful stories. The response to the incident had been unsure. Was it a bombing? Was it an accident? The Lagos State Government had issued condolence messages and promised that investigations were ongoing to determine what happened. At the insistence of a reporter covering the news conference, BRF had mentioned that one of the options being explored was the possibility of a bombing, but people need not panic, as nothing was set in stone yet. The Lagos State Government was coordinating with the Federal Government and progress was being made, BRF assured Lagosians. The Third Mainland Bridge, which had only just been reopened, was shut again, to aid investigations. The President made the usual noises and declared that agents from the FBI were expected any moment from now to assist with the investigations. In-house, both governor and president, along with other security stakeholders on both sides agreed that it was a bombing. Both sides also agreed that it was ridiculous to release that information without any concrete explanation as to how it had happened. The attack – because that was what it was – had claimed some 400 hundred lives and countless others were injured, according to official government estimates.

The FBI team had arrived on Tuesday, the 13^th of November and had a preliminary report ready by Friday the 16^th. The FBI forensic team, headed by Special Agent Barry Dukaski from the Washington Field Office, had examined debris from the scene and using divers had recovered some evidence from the ocean that swept under the Third Mainland. Some of the evidence included a charred bar of wood from which nails jutted. This, they concluded, had been used to puncture the tires of the car under which it was found. This car had miraculously escaped the explosion although its tires had melted and the paintwork was barely recognizable. The driver would have then stomped on his brakes, gone into a high speed skid and that would have caused the multiple collisions. The perpetrators would have then waited long enough for more cars and more people to gather before setting off the bomb. Divers had gone in on both sides of the bridge and had found a great amount of iron splinters, which had been painted over in autobase orange so that it appeared like plastic. The orange was still visible to a microscope even though the heat from the explosion would have mostly peeled it off. These particular splinters did not appear to be from car parts, the team concluded. They were most likely from a smaller object, like a box, or a bucket, or something that small. Residue from the splinters had been obtained and upon tests, traces of C4 had been found. The divers had also found detonators – three in number – in various states of disrepair. Quickly, Matthew Rove, the electronics expert on the team had examined and found them to be remote-controlled. Matthew Rove marvelled at the crude but very effective throw-up. The remote control could not have been effective outside of 5 metres, so whoever detonated these bombs had died with them. The destruction covered some 500 metres including destruction that resulted from the fire that would have resulted from the explosion. Therefore, it made sense to assume that they had spread themselves out over that short stretch of road and detonated the bombs at different distances. The location of the detonators in the sea would mean the bombs had been placed by the roadside – roadside bombs. Improvised Explosive Devices, a term made popular by the Iraqi insurgency. The team’s work was essentially done and it now fell to the domestic security agencies to piece together the clues so far and fish out the perpetrators. Who could be related to metal objects painted over in orange on the bridge? Why hadn’t it raised suspicion from any of the commuters, or did it?  Was it part of the usual landscape?

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Asiwaju had waited for the dust to settle before making any sort of suggestion. He had sent a condolatory message to the governor in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but stopped short at that. Now, in Asiwaju’s Ikoyi house, BRF listened but nothing really sank in. Asiwaju had mentioned something about the state’s security vote being quadrupled now.

“That is the only piece of good news from this episode,” Asiwaju droned on, bulging eyes staring down at BRF from beneath bifocal lenses. He always made sure anyone that came to see him here sat in a  lower position than him, as the governor now did, on the lower end of a special table – constructed with stairs so that it tilted at 15 degrees to the horizontal – in his special meeting room. He used this room and this table for one-on-one meetings. That way, he already had an edge in bargaining. “You must insist on that. Such a terrible tragedy cannot happen again, and we need adequate funds to put in place measures that will make sure that it never happens. A few foreign contractors have already contacted me. I only need your go-ahead to begin to make plans. Do you understand?”

BRF nodded. Yes, he understood.

The End.

NOW, THE PLOT QUESTIONS.

1. Who is the source?
2. Who carried out the bombing?
3. How was the bombing carried out?
4. How do you think the ban affected the planners of the bombing?
5. What do you think BRF understood at the end of the story?

Let's see your thoughts in the comments. Cheers!