THE COLLEGE CHRONICLES (Episode 5)

My second year in school came with a punch. A kito punch.

I remember I got chatting with Obinna on 2go in my early days in school. According to him, he was a police officer working in Ebonyi as a sergeant. He sent pictures of himself in his uniform, enough to make me believe he was on the level with that.

Obinna first invited me to Abakiliki in May 2015, an invitation I declined twice. I don’t really recall what happened that then caused us to have a misunderstanding and stop talking to each other for a while.

Then almost a year passed with no contact with him – until a fateful Sunday. On my way back from Mass, my phone rang and the number was unknown. I answered and the voice on the other end sounded familiar, and when I asked, Obinna confirmed that it was him.

After exchanging pleasantries, he said he came to Awka the previous day for just a week-long break, and he would like us to see where he was in Eke Awka with his colleagues. This time, I agreed to meet him.

When I got to my lodge, Duncan was around. I told him of my movement and he tried to dissuade me from going. But I’d already given my word to Obinna that we would see this time, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

So, I went to the agreed rendezvous, where I met him with his friends who were also officers. Because of my unwillingness to let my guard down, I didn’t take anything alcoholic; I just had a soft drink. I got along quickly with his friends; they didn’t seem like bad guys.

Obinna came with his car, and after the hangout, he drove us – me and him – to his place in Oko. This wasn’t the plan, and I tried to excuse myself from going on this trip. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I wasn’t really keen on disappointing him. I’d never been to Oko before then, and I strived to memorize the different turns and routes we took on our way there.

Obinna lived in a smartly-painted bungalow. The house appeared very quiet and just two women lived in that house – Obinna’s wife and mother.

He took me straight to his room, letting the women know that he didn’t want anyone to disturb him. In his room, he made a short phone call. I don’t understand Igbo much, but I got the part where he said, “I am with him now.” Those words triggered something in me, an uncertainty about my fate here. I was caught between dismay that he was not the honorable person I thought he was and hope that I was just overthinking this situation. But I didn’t let him see my anxiety; I tried to remain outwardly calm.

Then he excused himself from the room, after telling me to freshen up and wait for him, that he wanted to see his mother. Even though he left the room with what was supposed to be a reassuring smile thrown my way, my anxiety was dialing up. You know, that sixth sense you get of something imminently bad gearing up to happen to you. That feeling firmed into a solid block of ice lodged in my chest when, after he left, I went to the door to let myself out, only to realize that it was locked.

He had locked me inside.

It finally dawned on me that I’d allowed myself to be led into a setup.

I didn’t panic. I tried to stay calm to face whatever was about to come.

He soon returned to meet me standing in the room. I didn’t even bother pretending with him any longer. Giving him a level look, I said, “What do you want?”

And Obinna immediately transformed from the jovial guy I’d just had drinks with to a beast. His face turned into a snarl as he ordered me to surrender my phones. I did this with no argument.

As I handed my phones over to him, I said, “You really should have figured out a better place to do this sort of thing than your own house.”

I don’t remember what angle the slap came from, but I recall going mentally unconscious for a few moments as his open palm whacked viciously across my face.

He went through my Media Gallery, Facebook, WhatsApp, E-mail and Twitter, most likely looking for any gay-related things. He didn’t find any. I have a habit of not keeping erotic chats or pornographic content on my phones.

He upended my bag to find my ATM cards, school ID, voter’s card, National ID and passports. The last place I went to on Friday when I used the bag was to the immigration office. Obinna seized my cards and two passports. As he went through my stuff, I watched him, weighing him, trying to decide if he was someone I could knock out in a fight. But that budding plan died at once when two other guys suddenly appeared. One of them happened to be someone I knew on 2go, but it was obvious he didn’t recognize me and I had no interest in reminding him. Olu22 was his username on 2go. Olu22 had wanted to visit me in school but I gave him no chance.

Things escalated after they came into the room. First, they were slapping me, as they said things like: “So, na you wan tear my oga nyash!” Then, when I asked again what it is they wanted, they took up the canes they came with and started whipping me. “You still dey get mouth dey yarn okpokpo English, abi?” Olu thundered. “Oya, off your clothes!”

Stripping myself naked was something I was so not going to do, so I braced myself, determined to fight these scumbags over that. As Olu yanked at my trouser, I lashed out at his face with a punch, knocking him out. His nose began to bleed as he dropped to the ground, unconscious. The others began trying to revive him while I stood there, waiting, prepared for the worst.

And just then, the message tone on one of my phones beeped. When I heard it, I began praying for it not to be an alert for the transfer I was expecting from my mother. Obinna confirmed my fear when he looked at the phone screen and muttered, “First Bank.”

Then he turned to me and commanded, “Unlock your phone.”

I had no choice. I did as he instructed, and when he read the text, he smiled evilly. “Your account has been credited with forty-five thousand naira,” he crowed.

Obinna asked for my pin. I reluctantly gave it to him. The other guy said something in Igbo to him, and he looked to see that there was also my GTB ATM card with him. He demanded for that pin as well, and I felt my heart sink. In that account was my house rent and school fees. I cursed myself for falling a victim to this scum.

By the time the other guy set out to withdraw my money, Olu had woken up. Soon after, Obinna left the two of us in the room. Olu began talking to me, asking me questions, and from my responses, he began acting like he was feeling sorry for me.

Well, you can fuck off with your empathy! I wanted to spit at him.

It was past 4pm when Obinna returned to the room with the other guy. They had a nylon with them which obviously contained my money. He handed over my phones to me and said I was free to go.

I rushed over to my account statements as I left the house to confirm the worst. It was all gone. Ninety-eight thousand naira all gone. Where would I start from? I searched for tears but found none. All the emotion that crowded my heart was rage and confusion. I thought of calling my cousin who was in Oko Poly, who knew I’m gay, to tell him of what had happened. But then I knew it would be of no use.

I returned to Awka still very shaken. My temperature had shot up and I could feel a fever coming. It wasn’t until I got to my room that the crying jag came over me. I wept uncontrollably. Duncan tried to console me but I was just inconsolable. Eventually, I slept off.

I woke up hungry around past 9pm and I had to stay strong enough to plan my revenge. Once the shock of what happened to me had worn off, I was now ready to think of all the ways I would get back at Obinna.

I remembered an old acquaintance. A Police Chief Superintendent who was in charge of one of the divisions in Anambra State. He was also queer. I met Chief in a State Government House function I attended with Uchechi. I searched for and found his complimentary card. I dialed the number and he picked up. It was the gruffness in his tone as he said hello that alerted me to how late it was. I quickly apologized and introduced myself by my surname, which was the name I gave to him when we first met. Thankfully, he still remembered me. I explained my ordeal to him and he asked me to meet him in Irish Garden, where he was.

I went with Duncan to meet Chief that night. He recognized me and I introduced Duncan to him.

“That mugu wey kito you don enter one chance,” he said jocularly and we all laughed. At least, I tried to.

He made a few phone calls to some people who he said were his boys. He added that they too were gay. The two of them arrived shortly after the call. They were incredibly good-looking men; even though I was still in a bad place over what happened to me, I still had the presence of mind to admire what God had created with these two.

By this time, it was already really late. So, Chief paid for a number of hotel rooms for the night, one for Duncan and I, and the others for him and then his boys.

We moved out the next morning by 5am to Oko in the police van the two officers had come with. And I led them to the scene of the crime. As we drove to Obinna’s house, I remembered the words I said to him: You really should have figured out a better place to do this sort of thing than your own house.

We soon got there and leaving Chief and one of his boys in the van, I walked up to the front door with Duncan and one of the officers. I knocked. Obinna’s wife was the one who opened the door. She recognized me and, the nice woman she was, asked me why I left the previous day without even letting her know. Poor woman didn’t know the circumstances that mired my visit to her house. Probably didn’t even know her husband was both gay and a crook. I apologized and asked about her husband, and she told me he was still in bed. I introduced Duncan and the officer to the woman as Obinna’s colleagues, saying we had something important to discuss with him. She let us in, and without asking, I simply walked straight toward Obinna’s room.

I got to the door just as he opened it, and he stood there, looking from me to the two other guys standing behind me. And the expression on his face was something I thoroughly enjoyed seeing. It was the look of a man who had recognised defeat even before anything had happened.

He was bundled into the van and he took us to his gang house, where we fetched the other two. Then we drove to the State Police Headquarters in Awka. Almost all the officers there recognized Chief and were deferential toward him. Chief called an officer he knew very well and could trust to be in charge of the case. This officer was apparently queer too, and Chief encouraged me to be frank with him. I made my statement and Obinna wrote his, but the IPO wasn’t interested in what he had to say as he and his cohorts were charged with kidnapping, cultism, assault and theft. The Chief threatened to take the case to court, but they were on the floor, begging for their lives. At the very least, Obinna was facing dismissal from the police force.

At some point, I reminded Chief of my money. I wasn’t really interested in whether they went to jail or not. I just wanted my money back. The criminals pleaded that they would pay my money back. Obinna used the IPO’s phone to call his wife and instructed her to go to his room and bring the same nylon they’d used to package my money. She was soon at the station with the nylon, and when I checked, it was to see that the money was already far spent.

Chief instructed the IPO to detain them until the money was complete. We left them at the mercy of the IPO and headed back toward my school. We stopped by an eatery to have what was a very late breakfast, and it was at this time that Chief properly introduced his boys to us. Duncan and I eventually got back to my lodge very tired.

Two weeks later, Chief called me to meet him at the police station. When I got there, he handed over my money to me. It was complete. However, he refused the discharge of Obinna with his boys from the cell until a month later. Whatever happened to Obinna afterwards, I have no knowledge of. He however did send me a friend request on Facebook several months later, along with a message apologizing for what happened. I didn’t bother to reply. I read the message and denied his request, blocking him at once.

And all this time, I was living peacefully in school, minding my business, until towards the end of the semester, when my lodge mates tried to kito me.

Written by GT