MURDER OF A CUSTODIAN

Author: Adegoke, Hussein
Dedication: To all parents

At the best guess, it would be Mrs Adewale's ninth time on 7, in preparation for an auspicious day, in the year. At that time, It was Mrs Onawola in the picture. And as for Mrs Adewale, it was a time to repay the good times. A week before the auspicious day, Mrs Adewale had been a resident at the Onawola's house. For all that was apparent at the moment, she was busy exhibiting all sought of culinary skills that only one's imagination could capture
. Earlier in the year, Mrs Onawola had done same about the time she, Mrs Adewale, would lay her mother in-law to rest. So, this time, by all means and measures, Mrs Adewale thought that she must reciprocate a known goodwill. Down the corridor in the Onawola's residence where she was busy frying a basket of beef and "ponmo", Mrs Adewale could not but had noticed the damsel, Barrister Onawola Adelakun, who all had gathered to grant a celebration that was imminent. Adelakun was the only daughter or so to say, the only child that the Onawolas had. She was twenty-two at the time and some two years ago, she had bagged a second class upper in common law from the prestigious university of Ilorin. Her heartthrob, a graduate of civil engineering from the same university was Femi by name. They both had met at the university. While Adelakun was in her first year, Femi was in his fifth, his final year. Their love had grown over the years and in some time soon, it had promised to leap bounds and become solidified. Femi, as Lakun's husband to-be was simply called, was a man of humility and so, more like revealing the beauty in his name was beckoning on him. He was loved by all. Even Mrs Adewale who had barely known him a couple of weeks of late could not but applaud Femi's eminence. And for those who might not be able to identify the couple amidst a crowd of people, the bold inscription of "FEMI" on the back of the bride's dress and of "LAKUN" on the groom's shirt, would have made it needless to ask of the couple's identity. Through the week and the previous one, it had been this way - that seeing either of the couple would only have meant knowing the other, at least, by name.

While Lakun gracefully unfold her astonishing footsteps in Mrs Adewale's direction as she appeared from the corridor, the latter could not but admire her and her befitting dress. "Ekaaro ma," Lakun greeted her mother's friend in a language that would have passed for "good morning". " Kaaro oko mi, iyawo asesegbe" Mrs Adewale responded with a complimentary gesture. But hardly had Mrs Adewale turned around to scoop the last round of the beef she was frying than she slumped. Aptly, Mrs Adewale fainted. "Mummy, Mummy, Mummy...," Adelakun kept calling in a bid to soliciting help from her mother, Mrs Onawola or perhaps, in her zeal to reawakening her friend's mother who, by which time, had become subconscious. In a flash, all in the neighborhood of the Onawolas had gathered to lend a helping hand to Mrs Adewale however it was that they lack discretion of what was unfolding. For Mrs Onawola herself, who understood too well the plight of her friend, she suggested that Mrs Adewale, an innocent victim of ovarian cancer, should be moved out of the scene. On reaching the hospital, Mrs Onawola could have only stayed with her friend for but a little time. She had received a phone call that requested her presence at her residence. It was a call from a member of the groom's family and Mrs Onawola would just have had to leave - one, for the Yoruba custom and tradition that demands that she must oblige her in-laws and two, for the obvious reason that she must quench any raging fire of rumour about the mistakenness of her ailing friend for her family member.

On reaching her house, Mrs Onawola met Femi's brother who had come to launch a complaint about the invite card which had partly read: "a celebration of love between Onawola Adelakun and Akinolu Olorunifemi...". His argument was that his brother's name was not Olorunifemi but Oluwanifemi. The error that abound, to him, was one egregious on the part of the printing press. But all his bid to winning a listening ear was one thrown into Mrs Onawola's bin. For all that Mrs Onawola had cared, her in-law was only making much ado about nothing. To her, printing Femi or Oluwanifemi or Olorunifemi as the groom's name had changed nothing - not in the least, the perception of people about the bearer and certainly, not the fact that the groom himself was not complaining. The lack of substance in Femi's brother's argument was excruciatingly tormented by the plight of Mrs Adewale's illness. Mrs Onawola had wished at the instant, for a quick reprisal of her friend. She went in search of her phone and when she had it, she alerted Mr Adewale about the ongoings in the hospital.

Mr Adewale was a man in his forties and he worked for Texas Petroleum - as an attendant. With his wife, they had two children - Tola and Teju. The news about his wife's predicament had come about the time he had just picked his two children from their school and just at the instant that his car had hit the expressway. Having learnt about the admittance of his wife at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), which was not too far from his children's school, Mr Adewale quickly made a U-turn and the trio of himself and his children made for the hospital. They all were aware of the critical illness of Mrs Adewale and how it had become worsened as time passed. But, what on earth could they have done to help her recuperate? When she would depart them in the morning, Mrs Adewale had made it known that she was leaving for a friend's house. So, in the least, the news that she slumped at her friend's residence wasn't shocking to them.

At the hospital and while at the visitor's corner, Mr Adewale could not but reveal the critical state of his wailing heart. His tears must have been those that blinded him when he mistook a nurse for the doctor. "Sorry, I am Mr Adewale...how is my wife?," he quizzed. "Your wife...Mrs Adewale, you mean?," the nurse retorted or maybe, she quizzed. "Oh yes, Mrs Adewale...how is she?," Mr Adewale asked. The nurse apparently knew not who the patient asked about was. But since she was quite familiar with how some visitors ask strange questions, the nurse gave the typical apposite response that she would give to unsteady visitors like Mr Adewale. "She is fine and the doctor is with her," the nurse hastily responded and she left. Drenched in the pool of his tears, Teju, the older between the kids of the Adewales, managed to ask, "Dad, where is mummy?". And to calm the innocent child, Mr Adewale assertively consoled, "don't worry son, Mummy is fine...she will be fine". Inside the ward, there was the doctor, a surgeon by qualification, who had successfully revived a patient, the victim of ovarian cancer, Mrs Adewale.

For two consecutive years, Mrs Adewale had been this way - wrestling her ailment and recuperating intermittently at presumptive instants. One thing however, was evident - she was strong and dauntless. But her condition had become worsened with time. Survival too, was not any easy. Earlier in the morning, she wasn't too surprised that she slumped at the instant she did for she knew she had not taken her required medication - one tablet - that sold for twenty-five thousand Naira! Being in the know of the most obvious, the doctor came out of the ward and demanded the presence of Mrs Adewale's husband, Mr Adewale. "How is she ma...how is my wife?," Mr Adewale asked spontaneously as he grappled with a chair on the opposite side of the doctor's seat barely seconds after his entrance. "You must be Mr Adewale, Sir?," the young doctor calmly asked. "Yes I am, ma," Mr Adewale sharply replied. The tenseness in Adewale's voice wasn't shocking in the least to the doctor before him. Though, the young doctor was in her thirties but her expertise in her job would justify any wrong notion that she was beyond that mark. And beneath the piles of paper on the doctor's table was a document - a duplicate of the evidence of her professionalism. Anyone who would look around keenly like Mr Adewale did would not have missed the part of the doctor's certificate that read in part: "Ezeonu Amaka, graduate, MB;BS, University of Nigeria, Nnsuka...".

So, Dr Ezeonu's first Inquisition to Mr Adewale was why he never supervised the procession of his wife's medication process. But as instead of the explanation or maybe, excuses, expected from Mr Adewale for his negligence, he became entrenched in hot tears - those appearing to have encroached his two cheeks and that were just superfluous enough to be a pool for her inhale wife to dine for comfort. At that sober stance, Mr Adewale started narrating his ordeals, one that was unsolicited by, not in the least, anyone who was a medical doctor around. "She is a civil servant - a government worker - a teacher! And I work at the filling station. I am a gas attendant. All along, she has been the breadwinner of the family. But here she is, both inhale and unpaid by her employer for roughly seven months - in a row! Tell me doc, how could she have afforded her pill that sells for thousands of Naira when we can barely live on my daily expense that is just a token? Friends are complaining; our families are lamenting; my wife and I have incurred enough debt. Who again can I run to, for assistance? Who, doc? Who?!," Mr Adewale lamented in a sober voice that threatened the hospital's tranquility.

"Okay Mr Adewale, I understand your predicament," Dr Ezeonu empathized. The very kind and compassionate doctor knew within herself that at her own end, the best had been done. Ever before she came to the know of Mrs Adewale's salary denial, Dr Ezeonu had felt pity for her patient and had given her a pill, her costly medication, for free - as this appeared as the only means to get Mrs Adewale to stand back on her feet. "So, sir, your wife is now hale; if it's her wish, she could even be discharged," Dr Ezeonu stated. "But, there is a caveat and it is about ensuring that before the end of the week, your wife must get a similar dosage of this medication," the miss doctor furthered. Still drenched in the pool of his tears, Mr Adewale managed to raise his head and he thanked the doctor for her kind gesture. He knew quite well about the implications of not obliging the doctor's prescriptions. It appeared that upon the mountainous debts he had incurred to fight his wife's ailing health, Mr Adewale was dauntless. He would see to it that the last of the virus in her wife was seen. However, with Mrs Adewale's concession to leaving the hospital and with no substantive reason for her admittance, she was discharged and was left to go home with her family. While Mr Adewale led the way, Teju and Tola walked their mum and all were safely back home.

It was a new day - a Saturday - the D-day for Mrs Onawola's wedding ceremony. All, to include the invited and even the uninvited guests, were on seat. The arrival of the couple (Barrister Adelakun and Engr Femi) was awaited. The Adewales (to include Mrs Adewale) too, were already on seat. Earlier in the day and despite her tight schedule, Mrs Onawola had managed to check on her ailing friend. No one seeing the latter would know of her wrestling with any illness, not ovarian cancer in the least. Mrs Adewale had then insisted that she must put up a presence at the imminent occasion. But all the plea made by Mrs Onawola to discourage her friend from attending her ceremony had fallen on the latter's deaf ear. So, with her family - Tola, Teju and Mr Adewale, Mrs Adewale had left home for the wedding ceremony that morning. Again, anyone not told would surely have guessed not that Mrs Adewale had health issues. She was robbed in the "aso ebi" chosen for the occasion and with her majestic footsteps, her short-lived eminence was portrayed.

At the occasion, the atmosphere was becoming hazy as all on seat were disturbed with the absence of the bride and the groom. All that was spewed recurrently as news was that the couples were on their way. No one knew where they had reached. And so, in a bid to subverting the tenseness of the air, Mrs Onawola decided to call her daughter, the bride, Barrister Lakun, to know her whereabouts. The bride would not pick her call. The three phone numbers that were of some three varying networks identifiable with the groom were tried too and all were summarily unreachable.

It was obvious that something was amiss but who could have guessed at what it was? A couple of hours later, the news that the couples, together with the driver of the car they rode, Olu, an intimate friend of the groom, have been hospitalized, started filtering the crowd from all angles. As an eyewitness, a bypasser, recounted, it was a road accident. It was learnt that the couples had earlier taken a lone route which was quite unfamiliar to the groom's friend who drove them. This, perhaps, was done in a bid to surprising their waiting admirers at the wedding ground as they would approach them. Riddled with ditches and potholes, the road they took was degradingly spiteful. And upon how strange the dilapidated road was to Olu, he had managed to dodge seven holes out of the eight he encountered. The eighth pothole however, was the catalyst of the couple's misfortune. Having sited the big rotund thing from afar, Olu became unsteady with the wheels and in just a twinkle of an eye, the car he drove had half-filled the hole, a ditch so to say, that he feared.

At this juncture, Mr Onawola beckoned at the recounter of the event, a hawker, who was at the time of the misfortune a bypasser, to stop her narration. He had heard enough and he thought everyone present had. The audience at the hospital were partly a constituent of the crowd at the wedding event and partly a congregation of the "mogbo-moyas" (call them bypassers). Everyone who would pass for an invited guest at the wedding ceremony had literarily morphed into a visiting guest at the hospital except for one person - a few people so to say - the Adewales! At the shock of the incident, around when the trio involved in the road accident were learnt to have been hospitalized, Mrs Adewale had yet again slumped. No one had noticed her did except her husband who had sat next to her. Then, with Teju, Tola and Mrs Adewale who was becoming subconscious but would yet stand up to her feet, Mr Adewale managed to slip past the tense crowd. At the briefings of all these, Mrs Onawola became enshrouded with the fabrics of dilemma. She could not decide in a record time whether to leave her only daughter for her bosom friend she just learnt about her hospitality at LUTH. At long last, she settled for the reasonable option of sending emissaries to the hospital where Mrs Adewale was a patient. At LUTH, the hospital where the Adewales were, it was a tug of war between Dr Ezeonu and death itself. With the realization that another pill of twenty five thousand naira would be needed to rescue the life of Mrs Adewale, one that was evidently unavailable due to financial constraint, Dr Ezeonu sought for other means to recuperate her ailing patient; other means that will seem to have never worked! If no one would become traumatized with this tragic tale, it should be said that within the minutes of the rescue mission, Mrs Adewale gave up the ghost and her children, Teju and Tola, were left to fatal fates thereafter.

Meet the Author: Adegoke Hussein is a storyteller and a final year varsity student. His attempt in his short, original and fictitious story, "Murder of a Custodian", justifies his intent to explicate the cruelty of the Nigerian government. Through its denial of the salaries of its employees, through its abandonment of the nation's delapidated roadways, through its non-subsidization of dear medications and products, the government of Nigeria has become the literary murderer of the lost souls of the Nigerian workers - those of some innocent parents - of some custodians - who have been victims of the avoidables!