They, the Unloved

Content Notice: This story contains depictions of war violence, sexual abuse (including involving minors), and captivity. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

YOU DID NOT consent to this; however, no one ever asked for your consent. If they did, you might suggest they squabble with their words instead. Little did you know that the battle of words has long persisted, and there is only so much the mouth can express. These walls that hold your Nation have never stood without their cracks. Now more than ever, the walls threaten to crumble. Had the Nation ever been truly united, this would have been an ode to that glorious unity. Yet, what scars you more is not the war, but the events that led to it. 

If only four people were to witness an event, for which there is no other pictorial to hold onto except their feeble memories, they carry the rare ability, by forgetting, to make that event cease to exist. But if one were to remember or perhaps choose not to forget at all, the said event would exist again. For the events of 1966, you can attest that thousands will never forget. However, for the more peculiar events of Yusufu’s bunker—those events that you, Ayomide, Oyebanji, and Temi have chosen to forget—you will always remember.  

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 The Coup 

YOUR NAME IS Uchenna Kanayo Ikenna. You soon dropped your last name because, in 1966, you might’ve been safer with a live grenade in your pocket than the name, Ikenna, as your last name. The only other name you would’ve preferred a live grenade to was Ojukwu. Dropping your last name, however, didn’t change a thing. 

The first time a group of men gathered in your father’s study and spoke in hushed voices was in 1965. The month was November, and your mother was clearly uncomfortable. Your mother’s uneasiness at the presence of those men in your house made you equally uneasy. You decided to eavesdrop on their conversation, although your mother had warned against it. 

You lived with your parents in a little rented apartment in the present-day Kano state. Kano was in the Northern region, and as you would imagine, its population consisted predominantly of Northerners. With that in mind, nothing good would come out of a gathering of Igbo men in a little room, engaging in a hidden, discreet conversation in that political climate. 

You didn’t gain much from eavesdropping because their voices were so low that you wondered if they could, indeed, hear themselves. However, you recognised a couple of the names they whispered amongst themselves. Names such as Ojukwu and Balewa. You also heard someone name-drop the President as they spoke. You realised that their conversation was somewhat political, and because politics bored you, you walked away. 

The next month, there was another such gathering at your parents’ house. As you eavesdropped, Ojukwu was mentioned in the room quite frequently, and it occurred to you that he might have been one of the men in your father’s study. The most often mentioned word was coup, and most of the men in the room seemed to be advocating for it. Your father’s voice was one of the loudest in the hushed but impassioned voices. It surprised you that the pacifist who was your father was endorsing a probable murder. When the men left the house that day, your father left with them.

Christmas without your father was odd, but he didn’t return until mid-January. When he staggered into the house, bleeding from his upper arm and midsection, your mother stared at him with disgust, but quickly sprinted into action. She dashed upstairs and returned with a first aid box. She put a piece of cloth in your father’s mouth and asked you to hold him down as she tore his shirt, dug into his flesh with surgical scissors, and removed two bullets. Your father struggled to free himself from your hold, but the earnest expression on your mother’s face strengthened you. After studying all his wounds, she asked you to keep a lookout. She dressed your father’s wounds, took his bloodied clothes, and burnt them. She wiped the floors clean of blood stains, locked all the doors and windows, and asked you to stay in your room. Only then did she scold him for his recklessness. News of the coup spread like wildfire, and the riots soon followed. 

That day, you came to understand strength and love quite differently. It must be easy to love someone wise and shrewd, you thought, but to love a fool or a reckless man required a different kind of strength. The problem was that a reckless man or a fool would always leave a mess they would be unable to clean up. A lover would require this exceptional strength to clean up that mess. But the problem was not the cleaning of the mess, although it was an equally difficult task; the problem was protecting your fool because, at the end of the day, your mother would never admit to anyone other than herself that her husband was a foolish man. 

You remembered when your father came home drunk and ludicrous, wobbling from left to right. Your mother pushed you into your room and locked the door because she didn’t want you to see your father in that state. Yes, he was a fool, but he was her fool. Another instance was when two men placed their mats in front of your apartment and knelt to pray. Your father interrupted and asked them to move their mats. At first, they ignored him, but he persisted. It was common knowledge that no one interrupted those prayers, even if they knelt in the middle of the road, but your father was a reckless man. 

When one of the praying men brandished a dagger, your mother fell at his feet and begged him to forgive her husband. She scolded your father at night when the neighbours had slept. Your mother protected her fool whenever she could because he was hers. She never mentioned any of these events and only spoke of your father as a great man. To her, he was a fool, but to everyone else—and she made sure of this—he was Ikenna Agu, a strong man.

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TWO DAYS AFTER THE COUP, you were awakened by loud knocks on the front door. You rushed into the living room to see five Hausa men in military uniforms, brandishing guns. Your mother’s face showed no fear, but the beads of sweat that decorated her forehead told a different story. She stiffened when she saw you. 

“Where is your father?” the youngest one asked. He spoke like an educated man. That must’ve been why the others let him speak for them, you thought. 

“He is unwell,” your mother answered. 

The young man ignored your mother and spoke to you again. “Bring your father here, now!” 

Your father staggered into the living room before you could move. He fell on the sofa and exhaled. Because of the tension outside, you couldn’t take him to a hospital; his gun wounds would’ve disclosed his participation in the coup. Your mother nursed him as best she could, but it wasn’t enough. 

“Where were you two days ago?” the young man barked. “He was here,” your mother replied sharply. “He is un—” 

The young man hit your mother’s head with the butt of his rifle before she completed her sentence. That was the first time you saw her break so quickly. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but your father said nothing. 

“I did not speak to you, woman! You will not speak to me!” The young man barked, kicked her stomach, spat at her, and turned back to your father. “My name is Ibrahim Yusufu,” he said. “What is your name?” 

“Ikenna,” your father whispered. 

“Ikenna! You will not leave this house until I return,” Ibrahim Yusufu barked. “And if I find out that you were involved in this coup, I will drag you to hell.”

He kicked your mother’s stomach again for good measure and left the house with the others. Your mother picked herself up immediately and rushed to check your father’s temperature. As usual, she protected her fool. You watched her lips quiver as tears rolled down her cheeks. For the first time in your life, you felt the urge to protect someone. 

When your mother woke you the next morning, something was unsettling about her calmness. She held you close and kissed your forehead.

“Your father was not very perceptive,” she told you. You noted that she spoke about him in the past tense. “Do you remember Adamu?” 

You did. He was even less perceptive than your father. One morning, a mad spirit must’ve possessed him because he entered a mosque to preach about Christ. There was no shortage of daggers to shut him up, but your father rushed into the mosque with an AK-47 to rescue his fellow fool. Adamu owed your father his life. 

“The Northern region is no longer safe for us,” your mother said. “Igbos are dropping on the streets like flies. Adamu will sneak you out of the house and take you to Dala. When you get there, Ba Sani will introduce you to Sheku Ali. Sheku would smuggle you back to the East. But if this chain breaks at any point, go back to Wudil and find Ayomide. You remember Ayomide, don’t you?”

You did. Ayomide’s father was an equally unperceptive man. He rented an apartment in a part of the Northern region that was predominantly Muslim. The issue was that his daughter, Ayomide, was the only female who walked on the streets unchaperoned and without a hijab. The inhabitants of that area urged him to cover his daughter’s hair at least, as she could influence their daughters negatively. Ayomide’s father disagreed with their logic and refused. One night, when Ayomide went out to buy fresh peppers, a group of men cornered her. If she would dress like a woman of the night, they thought, they should treat her as such. 

It frightened you that certain men viewed rape as a cure for pride or an instrument for humbling. When a woman grew into herself—grew wings, forgot her place in society—one man would agree to bear the burden of humbling her. When a man also needed to be so cured, another would take up the burden of ravaging his wife to humble him. When a woman appeared too attractive and a man noticed and approached her, believing that for noticing her, he deserved to have her, if she refused, he would take it upon himself to cure her of pride. What else, if not pride, would make her say no? Your father did not deign to this logic. He was only verbally a pacifist. He belied his words in practice. His most prized possession was his AK-47, which he always called by its full name: Avtomat Kalashnikova. His second most prized possession was his pistol. He rescued Ayomide that night with the second, and her father was indebted to him. 

“Ayomide’s father will help you reach the East,” your mother said. 

When she finished speaking, you heard a familiar patterned knock on your front door. The same one each of the men who met in your father’s study used. Your mother kissed your forehead again and led you to the door. Adamu stood outside your house, carrying a human-sized sack. 

As the three of you—and the sack—tore through the darkness with a lantern, you saw some dead bodies by the road. Your mother covered your eyes and pushed you forward. Adamu led you down a path in the bush until you reached a spot where there was another lantern. You noticed a shovel and a jar of water beside the lantern. Adamu dropped the sack onto the dirt and held your hand. 

“Come,” Adamu whispered as he led you back down the path. You turned to see your mother, but she looked away, picked up the shovel, and dug. When you reached the tarred road, you stopped. 

“Shouldn’t we wait for her?” you asked.

“No,” Adamu smiled and shook his head. “She is with her husband. After taking care of him, he will take care of her.” 

You weren’t convinced by that statement, but you acknowledged that your mother transformed into a different person whenever there was a question of love and strength. It would take all the powers in the heavens and the earth to impede her from protecting her husband, even if he were a corpse in a sack bag. 

Adamu gave you your father’s second-most-prized possession. As you hid it in your belt, you understood that your mother was with the first. You noticed, ironically, that you were wearing your favourite shirt. The one with black and white buttons. 

When you neared Ba Sani’s house, you saw Ibrahim Yusufu before he saw you. He aimed his pistol, and Adamu fell to his knees beside you. You noticed the blood before you heard the gunshot. You must’ve had more stamina than five horses as you fled. Ibrahim Yusufu and three others were in hot pursuit. You kept running until you saw an open mosque which you turned and bolted into. 

When Ibrahim Yusufu and his men followed you into the mosque, you pulled out your pistol and gunned one of them down. Ibrahim Yusufu aimed at you, but the other man stopped him. Perhaps, he thought it sacrilegious to kill inside a mosque. You felt powerful as they turned, carried their dead, and left. Ibrahim Yusufu smiled at you. Perhaps he was impressed. 

When you reached Wudil, Ayomide was playing with two other girls in front of her father’s house. She smiled when she saw you, but her friends screamed and ran away. You realised that you had blood on your clothes, and the pistol was still in your hands. When Ayomide saw the gun, she stared at you with pity and led you into the house. She knew that your father wouldn’t let you look at the gun—talk more of touching it—if he were alive. 

You remained in that house for a few weeks. The coup was successful. General Aguiyi Ironsi seized power. Chukwuemeka Ojukwu was the military Governor of Eastern Nigeria. Word on the street was that Ikenna Agu had fled the country with his wife after leading the coup with Major Kaduna Nzeogwu. Igbos were no longer safe on Northern streets.

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The Counter Coup 

IN THE DARK study of another house, a group of men stood across from Ibrahim Yusufu’s reading table, plotting a counter-coup. He called his house Aljanna Jahannama, Heaven Hell. There was no conjunction because it was a paradox. Some were lucky to view his house as paradise, others found themselves there only after he promised to drag them to hell. 

Coup plotters such as the men who stood with Ibrahim Yusufu did not have the time to flirt, nor did they possess the necessary charm or confidence that was required to “woo” a woman, but they needed to relieve themselves somehow. Ibrahim Yusufu took it upon himself to make provisions in that regard in exchange for a reasonable payment. To those men, his house was paradise. 

Some of those men had peculiar needs, and it amused Ibrahim Yusufu how much they were willing to pay for that satisfaction. He made those peculiar arrangements as they brought in more money than any of his businesses. Some of those men, such as Sheku Ali, were attracted to educated boys because they themselves were not so educated. Others admired strong and bold boys who put up a fight. Ibrahim Yusufu was one of such men. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about Uchenna Kanayo. 

Ibrahim Yusufu knew that Kanayo was still in the Northern Region, and he was willing to turn it upside down to find him. After months of searching various houses, Yusufu knocked on the wooden door to a small bungalow in Wudil. Ayomide opened the door and stared at him, unfazed by the weapon in his hand. 

“Go and call your father!” Ibrahim Yusufu barked at her. 

“Why?” she asked calmly, holding his gaze. 

Yusufu opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him. He had never been questioned, let alone by a little girl. He pushed past her and entered the house, tailed by his men. Inside the house, her father sat beside her mother, feigning indifference, but Yusufu saw past the façade. 

“I know you are hiding someone here,” Yusufu smiled. “I can perceive the Igbo odour.” The truth was that Yusufu had seen a piece of clothing outside the house that had black and white buttons. 

“There is no one here,” her father said sharply, standing to face Yusufu. 

Ayomide usually accompanied her mother to the farm, but she was fond of asking questions about snakes. Her mother warned, endlessly, mentioning that speaking or thinking about snakes invited them. Younger Ayomide would try to empty her mind, but the thoughts of a snake always crept in on the farm. However, on the day a snake eventually attacked her from behind, biting her heel, she wasn’t thinking about snakes. She never saw it coming. 

It was the same way when the butt of Ibrahim Yusufu’s gun connected with her skull. She didn’t see it coming. Her father fell beside her with tears in his eyes. Yusufu spat at him, convinced he was a weak man. The greatest misfortune that could befall a family was having a weak man as the head. A stupid man was better than a weak one, Yusufu thought. 

Three bullets left Yusufu’s gun and met Ayomide’s mother. The next round of bullets was meant for Ayomide, but her father proved in his last moments that he was not, indeed, a weak man. The bullets met his skull gracefully, his neck, chest, and thigh as he fell to his death. 

“Where is the Igbo boy!” Yusufu yelled, aiming at Ayomide. 

She spat at him, unrelenting. Before Yusufu could react, Uchenna Kanayo jumped down from the hole in the ceiling and faced him. There was no fear in Uchenna’s eyes, only rage. Yusufu aimed at him, but his fingers refused to pull the trigger. There was nothing he admired more than overdaring, senseless boldness. Uchenna possessed the right amount of it. Yusufu aimed at Ayomide, but the venomous look in her eyes betrayed no fear. He knew that if given a chance, she would strangle him with her bare hands. Nothing, to him, was more attractive.  He didn’t lean toward male or female. His only affection was for that recklessness that Ayomide and Kanayo possessed. He smiled and lowered his gun. Aljanna Jahannama would have two new guests.

Ayomide was angrier at Kanayo than Yusufu. Her mother and father had died for him already. Why did he think it wise to come out of his hiding place? She detested him for his foolishness. Kanayo noticed that the gun Yusufu held was his father’s AK-47. His mother was dead. 

Aljanna Jahannama was ugly. The building looked as though three bungalows were stacked on each other against their will—this amused Ayomide. Its walls were yellow, Kanayo’s favourite colour—this intrigued him.  Yusufu built the horrendous house above a bunker. The bunker was hell. 

Ayomide and Kanayo see other people in various cells in the bunker. People ranging from five to others in their mid-twenties. Each of them had forlorn, distant expressions—ghosts, they were. When Kanayo tried to talk to Ayomide, she almost attacked him. He retreated. 

“Igbo boy! They didn’t beat you? You must be special,” Oyebanji Adesanya said with a grin after Ayomide and Kanayo were shoved into his cell.

Kanayo stared at him and said nothing. 

“Don’t worry, nothing happens on the first night,” said Oyebanji. “You can sleep well tonight—it will be your last peaceful night.” 

“You talk too much!” Ayomide barked at him, and he withdrew the coy smile. “If I must share a cell with so many idiots, they might as well keep quiet.”

At the other end of the cell, a girl, Temi, sat quietly, not wanting to be noticed. Ibrahim Yusufu and his men had raided her parents’ home at night, looking for the Igbo boy. When Temi’s parents told Yusufu that they knew nothing about the boy, he decided to take their daughter as his prize. 

Oyebanji, on the other hand, saw Yusufu attacking two Igbo women on the streets of Dala. Adrenaline surged through his veins and propelled him to lunge at Yusufu. If Yusufu were unarmed, then Oyebanji would’ve killed him. The thought of what would’ve been his untimely demise filled Yusufu with a strange longing. He dragged Oyebanji to Jahannama. 

If the quartet weren’t trying too hard to maintain the silence, they would’ve noticed that while the other cells had at least 20 people in them, theirs had only four. They did not, for a while, notice that while their cell had two beds for four of them to share, the others fought for a single mat. When they eventually did notice those things, they wondered why Yusufu offered them special treatment. They did not wonder for too long.

Yusufu invited the four cellmates to his bedroom in paradise the next evening. The events of that evening were one of those events they agreed to forget. For the purposes of this story, that evening does not exist. There were more such evenings and more loss of memory. 

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ON JULY 10, Ibrahim Yusufu hosted another meeting in his study. After a heated discussion, he agreed to move with the men in his study to Ibadan for a rendezvous with Major Theophilus Danjuma. However, he did not leave without his playthings. The quartet found themselves outside, feet touching the soil for the first time in 3 months. 

When Danjuma spoke, all the power Yusufu seemed to wield paled in comparison. It amused Kanayo that Yusufu could quiver in someone’s presence. Oyebanji didn’t seem to notice, and Temi didn’t seem to care. Ayomide, on the other hand, wondered how it would feel to see him bleed. Her mind was made up to kill him. 

During the days that preceded the counter-coup of July 29, Yusufu felt weak or inadequate because, unlike the state of things at his house, he was not in charge. All the wealth he amassed from his little enterprise didn’t matter when placed before more pressing issues. He used the quartet to reestablish dominance every night. Those events, Ayomide did not forget. 

While Ayomide refused to speak with Kanayo, Temi started laughing at Oyebanji’s jokes. It was quite unusual, their friendship. The thought of her face was what revived him after each evening with Yusufu. Kanayo didn’t need anything to draw him back to life—he dared death to come at him, and Ayomide hid a dagger in their bed, waiting for the perfect time to kill Yusufu. 

Ayomide’s coldness frightened Kanayo, and her words were even more cruel, but people would always forgive what others say when they are grieving, and so Kanayo forgave. He understood her grief because he also grieved. 

“The inevitability of death is not what scares me.” Oyebanji told Temi, “But its suddenness and finality.”

Ayomide wondered why he was talking about death, but Kanayo understood that love made you worry about those things. One evening, when Oyebanji stated that their dinner tasted like sawdust, Ayomide wondered if he had ever tasted sawdust. Kanayo understood, however, that when love’s sweetness meets a person’s tongue, they notice the bitterness in other things. 

Ayomide admitted that love was an odd thing. It was especially odd in the way it provided people with a sense of contentment. When in love, there comes a moment when life becomes enough—even in misery—so that you no longer wish to gain or lose anything. Love becomes sufficient. Your beauty is enough. The air in your lungs and the blood in your veins are enough. Your lover’s smile offers an escape from the cruel realities of life. Your lover’s voice drowns out whatever drums of despair replay in your mind. Your lover’s touch creates a gentle daze that empowers you to face death each day and declare “not today” regardless of how unkind life may seem. That oddity defined Temi’s friendship with Oyebanji. Sadly, Ayomide did not care for such contentment—she desired vengeance. 

Days before the counter-coup, the quartet saw General Yakubu Gowon. He addressed Major Theophilus Danjuma, who then addressed Yusufu. Yusufu was enraged because he wanted to speak directly to the General. He took out his frustrations on Temi that night. Oyebanji wordlessly helped Ayomide sharpen her dagger, and they became friends after that interaction because she understood that he was also willing to kill Yusufu. 

On July 29, the soldiers dispersed. A group of soldiers, led by Major Theophilus Danjuma—Yusufu included—abducted General Aguiyi Ironsi. They killed and buried him in Lalupon. Perhaps it was the urgency of the situation or a mere oversight, but Ibrahim Yusufu did not lock the quartet in their cage before leaving. Kanayo found his pistol, Ayomide caressed her dagger, and Oyebanji held Temi as they awaited his return. 

Yusufu returned three days later, elated. He saw his men fall at his feet before he heard the gunshots. The last thing he noticed was that it was Kanayo who pulled the trigger, but before he could draw his gun, Ayomide welcomed him with her dagger, between his legs. As he fell to the floor, she kicked him repeatedly as he used to do to them. She froze, however, when she saw Kanayo aim his gun at her. 

“Stop,” he said dryly. 

She did because her feet had frozen in bafflement. During the three days that the quartet awaited Yusufu’s return, Kanayo was doing a lot of thinking. Although he harboured more hatred for Yusufu than the rest of them, the thought of freedom led to more important thoughts. The counter-coup was successful; General Yakubu Gowon, a Northerner, had become the Head of State, and Northern streets were still unsafe for Easterners. 

Kanayo concluded that Yusufu would be more useful to him in life than in death. He didn’t expect the trio of Westerners to understand, so he didn’t discuss it with them. 

“You have your freedom,” Kanayo said to Temi after snatching his father’s AK-47 from Yusufu. “We will forget the events of this miserable year and go our separate ways. Leave Yusufu with me.” 

Ayomide wanted to kill Yusufu with her bare hands, but Kanayo was still aiming at her. As she turned to leave, she noted that her hatred for Kanayo eclipsed her disdain for Ibrahim Yusufu at that moment. Oyebanji didn’t have a problem with the new arrangement. He hugged Temi as they turned to leave. Kanayo stared at Yusufu and lowered his gun.

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Emmanuel Uchendu-Onu is a Nigerian law graduate from Abia State University, a writer and a poet.

Cover credit: Ebumnobichukwu Agu.