An excerpt from another one of my short stories specially added for those who’ve already read about Kiete here and ever wondered a little about her past. And for Anthonia, who simply wrote “More, more, more!” as soon as she read a little about Kiete. Lol. (Thank you for all, Ant). Funny enough, this was the very first story I ever wrote and the very first time I tried to write anything but just my random opinions down. I kept saying, “I can’t write a story, of course I can’t! I don’t know how to!” Namdi said, “Just write!”. Lol. He started the Writer’s Block in law school, that lot was definitely instrumental in my finally gaining enough confidence in my style (and skill?), to write. Thank you. 

Here goes:

“Kiete, show me where you hid all my clothes or I swear to God, I will kill you today!” a shaking Furo screamed while licking her index finger, crouching to swipe the digit on the sandy floor and pointing straight to the sky with it, presumably at a god who honoured that most serious and dramatic threat of the Nigerian child.

Kiete stood staring like a passer-by with no investment in the outcome of the rising altercation.

Noticing the lack of impact her ferocious promise had on her sister, Furo Kokoma switched threats. Employing another infamous intimidating tactic of the Nigerian child, the eleven year old tried again, “You better give me my clothes before I count to three. One. Two…”

A glimmer of a grin flashed in Kiete’s eyes, leaving the rest of her face impassive and causing her older sister to stutter “…Two and a half. Two three quarters. Two three ninths…”

The boredom neatly settled on the nine year old’s face, belied her age, only shifting to mildly rearrange itself into an even more rested pose to Furo’s chagrin. Kiete calmly informed her sister, “You’re making noise. I’ve already burnt all your clothes. Next time you won’t report me to papa like that!”

Furo’s screams were still ringing in Kiete’s ears when she felt her mother’s palm whack her buttocks.

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As a child, Kiete Kokoma possessed two traits deadly in a Nigerian girl child, a mischievous spirit and a vicious temper. She was combustible; effervescent in excitement and maniacal in anger. Such feistiness was intolerable in a woman. In a man perhaps, as the world was after all a tough place for men and spiritedness was essential for survival. “What need did a woman have for a man’s boldness?” Neighbours wondered as they watched Kiete outrun, outfight, outwit and undermine the boys in the neighbourhood. Women were created to marry. Submissiveness not spiritedness was needed for feminine survival.

Dr. Kokoma disagreed. The disciplinarian was the reason Kiete often refused seats at neighbours’ houses, her buttocks paid dearly for her impulsiveness. Yet each smacking was accompanied by an empowering lesson. Dr. Kokoma curtailed but never cut, undergirding each spanking with a frank talk to his daughter on the twin theories of personal repercussion and perception. By the age of ten, Kiete, the last of Dr. Wonodi and Fabia’s Kokoma’s seven children, had more self-awareness than her schoolteachers. Her confidence brimmed her eyes and poured from her pores.

The Kokomas lived well as “The Good Doctor” was the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Education. Three things had helped Wonodi rise to his enviable position of eminence in the Nigerian Civil Service. He was learned, extremely disciplined and a Southerner when Nigeria was desperate to prove its unity. So skill, character and favour had served the Good Doctor well. At a time where people applied the words ‘integrity and merit’ to the Nigerian government without a liberal sprinkling of qualifiers, Wonodi was a champion in the nascent Nigerian democracy.

He was popular and well liked with enough enemies for Balance’s sake, for Nigeria even from its earliest days of independence was heavily spiced with fresh herbs from the Tribalism tree. That a Southerner, not just any Southerner but one from one of the minority tribes littered on the shores of the Niger-Delta region, had  broken ranks in the Yoruba-populated Lagos state and become a Permanent Secretary to a Minister was for many a bitter pill, indeed a ground capsule swallowed without water. Dr. Kokoma became the virus that needed to be purged from the body of the Lagos Civil Service! And so the coup plotting began….

…and finally ended when Kiete turned ten.

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At ten Kiete lost her father to his plotters. The actual cause of his death remains a mystery as the Good Doctor’s killers frustrated attempts to get an uncompromised autopsy report. In an insidiously worsening nation where you may as easily bribe as breathe, hiding wickedness was easy to do.

At that time of coups and counter-coups, plots and intrigues, the atmosphere at the Kokomas residence after the loss of their breadwinner mirrored the state of the Nigerian nation. Nigeria, a space so heavy with fear and pulsing suspicion that you could slice huge portions of it from the air, smuggle it into your purse and run home to discuss it -in hushed tones- with your spouse. It was bad.

Many suspected that some of his ‘friends’ at the office had poisoned his drink. Others gleefully informed his distressed family that “He died because he refused to ‘Make Medicine’”, referring to Wonodi Kokoma’s disdain for the fetish. The Good Doctor often teased his superstitious colleagues, mocking the more diabolic and refusing to indulge in the perceived powers of witch doctors to create charms and amulets to protect himself from the attacks of enemies. Actual or perceived.

If Kiete learnt things from her father while he was alive, she grew far more in knowledge as he lay mute in his mahogany, six by six feet casket.

In life Wonodi Kokoma was a toffee-coloured vision of Virility, his heightened belief in his own usefulness and assurance of his purpose on earth branded his raw intellect, his wry wit and perceptive mind. The handsome fifty one year old was a man with a keen sense of duty and a simple sense of morality. He was a servant of God and served Him simply and privately, considering all forms of voodoo practiced relentlessly by many Lagosians in his office, ignorant at best and obtuse at worse. The idea of her father seeking protection from a half-naked cowry-clanging, skin-totting, raffia-swinging medicine man made Kiete smile.  Her father would have far more likely flogged the shocked medicine man with the raffia he brought to consult the gods, and forced him to put on clothes and make himself decent in the presence of company.

Kiete laughed for the first time since her father’s death.

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For Grandads We Wish We’d Met.xxx