SOAP OPERA 🚿

By the ending of 1966,  I was living my best life in the bustling University town of Nsuka. After completing my two year apprenticeship under the tutelage of the legendary Emeka Okoye at Onitsha, I  had opened a photography  studio close to the University of Nigeria, the very first studio there.

Every single photograph around the town,from the matriculating students with their bell bottom trousers ,afro styled haircuts and MaryJane shoes to the traditional marriages and weddings all had my insignia ," J.I OKAGUE PHOTOS" inscribed on them.

 

             2 years later, everything changed with the Biafran insurrection.  Within two years i had left the fallen Nsuka after watching my 4 year old studio turn into a rubble  to flee to my  friends house at Abakpa  before  i trekked all the way with some Onitsha traders who were running away too for three blistering days till we reached my hometown Nando. The calamitous sound of  advancing gunfire, bombings and airstrikes kept on dictating my movement like a bloody compass.

   Our village Nando was a very bucolic town then , so it was  really a safe heaven from the war, though you could see the Angels of death flying in the air on their reconnaissance and bombing missons.

    We weren't close to any  sea or any of the commercial cities like Onitsha ,Oka and Nnewi  which were the focal points of the federal attacks.

 

  Life as a refugee in my father's house in Nando was quite interesting not because of the war but the persons around; Miller the annoying teenager, who made a football out of concrete, painted it and made my junior brother kick it so hard, not knowing what it was,  Ejidike my nephew , an apprentice at Nnewi  who always entertained us with his escapades in his master's shop and Oluoma my sister, who knew everything. 

   We were very lucky our whole family was still complete as my father had vowed that none of his sons would fight a war they didn't cause .

   Food was not so much of a problem too since my father was a  prosperous  farmer who had turned us all into careful farmhands as the war raged on.

   The only problem we faced were the disturbing tales about the army recruitment officers who  permeated every single village on the Biafran map as the searched for  young men to enlist into the army, but my old father would alway encourage us to hide, recounting tales he had heard at Osumenyi where he had gone to buy yam seedlings about how bad the war had become for Biafra.How two soldiers shared one rifle, which also had only one round of ammunition.

  Those times I would wonder how the brave volunteers who had gone to the warfront with only one  dane gun for two managed to withstand  the celebrated Kalashnikov  rifles of the federal forces , talk less of the grenades, mines , Ilyushin Beagle aircrafts and the Delphins which Biafra never had  . I never really considered myself a weakling then, i only thought of myself as a realistic person who was simply being sensible.

   One day i had gone into the bush to get fodder for the annoying goats that kept on bleating all night as my father had requested before they all left, leaving me home alone. It was actually very important to always feed them since the bleats were their way of saying " hey biafran motherfuckers, get us some food" and their noise also attracted highly unwanted wartime attention .

   I finally got the fodder from the dwarf palm trees,  , the greenish palm branches heavy on my shoulder as i trudged on like the ijele masquerade.  

  I was almost home when out of nowhere , a rickety van, ridden with bullet holes and a shattered windscreen  drove into our compound and screeched to a halt, two hungry looking Biafran shoulders jumping down and waving their their rifles at me.

   "Oyah!! " Enter the van!... Its time to finally serve your fatherland!

   I lowered the palm fronds on my shoulder to the ground, dimmed my eyes, dropped my head to one side, stuck out my tongue slightly to one side and replied

   "Abeg Sah, i no well".

   "Don't worry, we'll make you well again " the taller of the two replied,

Sah bikonu, i begged, seeing he meant business.

He pointed his rifle well above my head and released a  deafening gunshot.  I realized things were about to get serious and shouted  "okay sir "okay sir "  trembling with fear.

I tried again, " Sah let me go and bring my trousers from room sah.

"30 seconds, i shoot", the other officer with bloodshot eyes shouted.

I ran inside and wore my trousers, and dissapeared to the backyard, entering the small kitchen, i bent over the small basin my sister used in washing plates, picked the small soap crumps there and stuffed them into my mouth. I poured some water in my mouth too and ran out to meet the soldiers , rinsing my mouth vehemently while retaining the soapy water in my mouth, which was now foamy and thick.

Immidietly i reached where the soldiers were, i threw myself down and started  shivering like a leaf, writhing and rolling on the earthen ground like a salted earthworm,  jerking my arms and legs forwards and backwards, my eyes wide  open and scary. I slightly opened my mouth and the soapy foam trickled out, looking  like frothed saliva.  

The Biafran officers kept on saying "tufiakwa" while they snapped their fingers in disgust as i lay  stiff on the floor now like a lifeless cadaver.

The officers eventually left, after binding the three goats in our pen with ropes  and hoisting them to the back of the van. 

I  got up when the sound of the  dissapearing van and the bleating goats became distant enough ,dusted my clothes and poured litres of palm oil down my throat incase things got serious in my system.

 I had just done what i had seen happen to a student during a photoshoot in my studio some years ago, "epileptic seizure" they had called it, an award deserving performance which made me a local hero in Nando.

The soldiers would later enlist me forcefully, a month later after many boys from my village started suffering from self inflicted epilepsy.

Ren ..

World  Bundo day🎊🎊🎉🌞🎂