Part 43

Soldier Gani and the five other military men arrived at the village market a little later in the day to see that the traders had only just begun to sell their wares and thus were too busy to allow any intrusion without a custom. To the military men, it was a routine patrol, but to the tradesmen and women it was almost an intrusion.

Part 42

The Sage was always a welcomed guest at Madam Jolie’s home. Madam Jolie as was her custom, liked to be known to be close friends with men of importance in her village and the Sage was no exception, to her advances.

Part 41

The village dwellers of this village were people known for their habit of being interested in other people’s issues, so much so that men and women visited each other with the sole objective of exchanging news and gossip about what was transpiring in the other villages. At one time it was a common pastime to meet at the communal family square by moonlight to listen to the tales and anecdotes told by the Sage or any elder that may have had something to tell by way, for example, of tales from other villages. It was this way, the village dwellers got news from other villages, besides traveling to those other villages by themselves.

Part 40

This went down badly with Madam Jolie. Her sentiment was that she was a very important person in the village, so she should get her requests granted. For this reason as well as for the reason her child’s father was a titled man of first class emissary. The sentiments most young women had, in Madam Jolie’s village about entering into a relationship with titled men was that it was a thing to covet; to be attached to a chief of first class emissary. But  it also depended on how wealthy the chief was and the kinds or amounts of respect he garnered amongst village dwellers.

Part 39

‘‘I knew you would come early, but I did not expect you will be this early and without Abani for that matter, maybe you should not have left without her,’’ she said.

‘‘I was afraid you would be out for one of those government meetings, I was told the Sage and the chief are meeting the government men today at the king’s palace.’’

‘‘No, not the king’s palace. The village square. My new land and money is yet to get to my hands. The government is just making promises they would not keep.’’

Ibinabo answered,’’there is a reason for this, they are making great sums of money from these companies, so there is no way they would help you.’’

Part 38

Madam Jolie Jolie was a pretty middle-aged woman: old enough to be Ibinabo’s elder sister. She was unmarried but not childless. Her son was a child she had had when she was in her very early twenties for a chief who was only too married to three wives, to marry her. But he had made sure she was well off, without marrying him. As a rule Ibinabo would often offer to help whenever she arrived at meal times at Madam Jolie Jolie’s home because she knows she would be partaking in the meals as well. So it was only natural she helped with the preparation. Madam Jolie’s son was obedient that morning. He was the one in the said kitchen. Outside by the kitchen’s doorway was Madam Jolie Jolie, on a small seat picking melon seeds from a green plastic bowl rested on a brown tray. Her hands were smooth and youthful. Her nails were painted pink and her hair had been combed into an afro. Her black beautiful facial skin glistened in the hot sun. she had a small facial mark on her right cheek, given her as when she was a child

Part 37

Ibinabo appeared to have arrived at the time the negotiations ended. She picked up the pestle that was lying on the hardened mud caked floor on the corridor to Madam Jolie’s kitchen. The kitchen to the building was an extension of the main building. It was a small doorless hut constructed with corrugated zinc sheets, built to keep most of the sun and rain away. Ibinabo placed the pestle, she had picked up, against the wall of the detached hut. The smell of kerosene burning with hot flames on the stoves had become apparent. Madam Jolie had not gone out yet as earlier anticipated. The corrugated sheets that were the walls of the kitchen were rusty brown, and black from the smoke that bellowed from the firewood Madam Jolie had once used to prepare her meals.

 

Part 36

Earlier on; a few weeks earlier, the Sage had heard of a certain farming community that had negotiated a relocation successfully. Apparently, negotiating with the officials was a possible solution to their problems. But this time luck was not on the side of the villages. The officials declined instituting the compensations requested by the representatives.

The farming community two villages away, that were successful had approached their negotiation as if it was a festival . Perhaps that counted in their favour. Perhaps they were simply fortunate, the state government was yet to implement proceedings for a right of way on the farmlands. But it turned out that they were one of the few lucky ones.

Part 35

The government officials listened, not amused by the cross talk going on between the Sage and Chief Iyagbaye. As far as they were concerned it was totally within their power to decide the fate of these villages. So they expected a little more proficiency in negotiation, if there was to be any negotiations between them and the villagers’ reps. A fact that did not go down well with the Sage who sensed this when he saw the reaction of the government officials. At first the meeting had seemed like a public presentation; it looked like it was ending as one anyway. The Sage had hoped to get a free reign on presentations but Iyagbaye was putting his fist in on the proceedings. This was becoming a difficult session of negotiations.

Part 34

‘’Yes I agree with what Chief Iyagbaye is saying but more importantly, we should negotiate for a quick response by the state government to our needs. We need the government to evaluate the fertility of our farmlands and how the transportation of crude has affected it.’’

‘’Sorry my Sage but there are more urgent needs than the evaluation of our farmlands. It is clear that the pipelines and oil spills have had an adverse effect on our farmlands. That is why we should not have them going through our lands.’’

Part 33

The Sage spoke convincingly and appealed for twenty minutes. This infuriated Chief Iyagbaye who had a long list of demands to make from the government officials. It sounded as if the Sage was joining sides with the government officials.

‘’I think we shouldn’t take this things for granted, you ought to see the evidence. The constructed pipelines on our lands have been more problematic than resourceful. We have petitioned the state and national government that this pipelines ought to go through the forest and not our farmlands. But you officials have refused to reason with us. We are being pushed into the Ossiomo river.’’

Part 32

‘’First of all Madam Jolie had petitioned and won an appeal to divert the route of the pipeline through the edge of the forest but the government had promised her a compensation for her farmland and a relocation  to another empty plot of farmland instead.’’

‘’Since the last two meetings we have had, as I speak she is yet to be compensated and relocated. Months ago, I spoke to her about what options may be available to her. she complained that she was forced to plant her crops on this same farmland as the season for planting was almost over and she had not received a favourable response from the state government’s ministry. No one had called to see her she complained to me.’’

Part 31

‘’I believe it would be inappropriate to start this meeting without bringing to your awareness the case of the pipeline constructed along madam Jolie’s ancestral farmland.’’

Part 30

The Sage of the Ossiomo Rivers     Chapter 2

The Sage was out early, on the day the negotiating team was to meet the government officials about the new right of way on the farmlands of the said village. The government officials consisted of a team of six officials from the state government appointed by the Federal ministry of Petroleum Resources. Fortunately Iyagbaye had also arrived early bringing along files of signed petitions and pictures of farmlands destroyed by pipelines construction and oil spillages across fields. Even though it was a ready leverage for negotiation the Sage believed it would be a distraction rather than an advantage to show the government officials the signed petition and the pictures. As it turned out the petition was signed by a few of the royal emissaries of the villages, with most of the signatories  being thumb prints. The Sage expected that the government officials were well aware of the state of the pipelines constructed along the farmlands, so instead he relied on appeal.

Part 29

‘’If I am not mistaken, I think this journey may not be as anticipated. It should have been two days ago. I should have arrived a little earlier. Perhaps that would make it easier for me to catch her before she leaves.’’

Part 28

When they got inland, Soldier Gani took the decision to first of all visit the village square of the said village. The previous day they were in the next village a little over twelve hours keeping watch from the early hours of morning to evening dusk. Ibinabo settled for paying a little over the usual fee. she appreciated how hard the men of the ferries worked . she reckoned, that Efehi would make for a good companion, so she asked if she was heading for the same part of village as she was. As it turned they were both heading the same way, so they set out together. At first she thought it prudent not to talk about the reason she was journeying to this village. But Ibinabo eventually gave in to her fears about the person she was going to see. Eventually she was forced to explain her reasons for the journey to that village that day.

Part 27

At the other side of the river, there were a lot fewer tradesmen and tradeswomen looking to be ferried across. The soldiers moved one after the other out of the longboat onto the river bank’s jetty and made a small orderly formation before they set off-marching into the mid-morning sun.

At the river bank, a little after the soldiers had marched off, were the two of them haggling over exactly how much Dagogo should take from them. Dagogo was angered, because the soldiers had only paid half the usual fare. Soldier Gani had suggested they pay the fare in full, but the other military men had loathed parting with their money. For all they cared, it was Dagogo’s duty to ferry them across. This was unusual, usually the military men honoured the custom whenever they waited to be ferried across.

Part 26

‘’So why are you travelling to the next village today?,’’ Ibinabo asked.

The maiden refused to offer a response. She refused to answer the question. It was like she wanted to say something entirely different instead of answering the question. So she said instead, ‘’If I don’t travel to this village in a week, it is long enough to be impatient about it.’’

Part 25

‘’Two weeks ago, there was a big fight; a big fight between the tradesmen and the boats men. Iwinosa and I had chosen a certain boats man from the next village only to discover that the boat man had only just extracted himself from the upheaval that was leading to a fight. I would say to you that we were not held up in the riverbank for such a short time as this. It was the soldiers who stopped the fight that afternoon.’’

Part 24

‘’I often go to this village, whenever I want to replenish my market stock. I am surprised I haven’t met you on this route before. Only two weeks ago, I was on this route and I would say it was not a sight to remember. I mean the sight of the place; the river bank that is. I was travelling, but not alone; I was travelling with a male companion; my cousin Iwinosa. and from what I saw two weeks ago, I would say today’s sight of tradesmen and trades ware was not as bad as two weeks ago.’’

Part 23

By the time Dagogo had restarted the Yamaha engine, it was already 25 minutes past the hour. Soldier Gani was no longer talking. He was just sitting still, smiling broadly at the two women as if they had shared a funny secret in their interaction. Efehi turned towards Ibinabo to speak. The boat swayed slightly as she turned.

Part 22

The ten of them were more or less motionlessly seated as Dagogo worked on the boat’s engines. Soldier Gani continued his colloquy.

‘’In those days, there was no such thing as the brave and cowardly soldier. If one survived the terse heat of the killing fields one was considered brave. If one died on the battlefield, chances are that one was considered cowardly.’’

‘’As often as I thought about it, I drew the opinion that bravery was not necessarily earned on the battlefield. It was stumbled upon. I pondered that one could, by some providence, live through one battle to yet another, with some impulsive survival intuition. This is what I reckon would make for a brave soldier. I recognized that with a hard working attitude and a lot of spunk, one could survive a whole lot, in the battlefield. Surviving is the key for a military man. Winning a war is not even as important as this.’’

Part 21

‘’Ten years ago in one of the battles, I fought alongside this infantry soldier I was ordered to mentor, we were deep in the heat of warfare. We were shooting from our semi-automatic rifles, when the soldier stopped shooting and turned to me to say that if we shot intermittently without offloading ammunition continually, we would hit more of the enemy. This was because the enemy was on the move as they shot. As I reckoned it the infantry soldier fell a total of fifteen enemy soldiers. In that battle that day, the casualty rate was indeed very high on both sides and the battle did not pass without an official acknowledgement of the bravery of the men of both sides of the opposition. Men had died giving their all to that battle. The loss in lives was indeed great that night.’’

Part 20

Elders in the village were selected to participate in the negotiations. Iyagbaye was an elder in this village. He had a size-able stake in the lands that were seized. So he was also selected to join the negotiation team. Just like the Sage, Iyagbaye was a great orator and negotiator, but he was also a man of controversies. Like the first rate chief he was he lorded his authority about. But the Sage could do him no harm because he had a detailed knowledge of the arable lands of his village and he knew which families owned what.

Part 19

The Sage lives. He lives as a learned man; part learned and part guru. But the word ‘’guru’’ was a poor choice of words to describe him with. The Sage lives in the psyche and the collective consciousness of the villagers. The Sage was trusted. The Sage was in the next village. He had spent a prolonged stay of three months there, making consultations and some negotiations on the villagers’ behalf.

The day, the Sage had arrived at the village there was a meeting between the village king and it’s elders. The reason for this meeting was the notice the local government had handed to the village head. There was to be a cessation of all farming activities on the lands set aside for the new pipeline networks right of way. The elders were as one would expect, slow to respond to the state government’s directives. they thought they could get the government to negotiate and increase their monetary compensations as well as allow usage of some parts of the lands set aside.

Part 18

Ten years ago Ibinabo was a student in one of the village schools; two villages away. Fortunately the village was on the same side of the river with her village, that she needed only to walk and not ride the boats to school; or when she was really lucky, ride a bicycle to school.

They are to blame for everything, even the Sage’s prolonged absence. Ibinabo was truly discontent. She thought hard in conclusion that since the soldiers arrived to guard the villages, things had not been going on well.

Part 17

One of the five soldier smiled and spat into the river. He said something in bad English. The others laughed. Then it occurred to Ibinabo that it was possible the other men had gone without noticing the gift money Soldier Gani had given her. These men are untrustworthy and are to blame, she thought. They are to blame for the hike in fuel prices. They are to blame for the restrictions hindering travellers. They are to blame for everything. She mumbled an ungrateful discontent at everything; the weather, the speed of the boat and the insects. Just when it seemed things could not be any worse than it was, the engine of the boat stopped guzzling. Dagogo assured them, that they need not panic. It was obvious he had encountered a similar situation with the boat’s engines before.

Part 16

The journey across the river took the best part of an hour. The boat was controlled by Dagogo with much talent and energy, though it was a narrow boat and as was the case with such boats on high river currents, it was hard to manoeuvre . The atmosphere in the boat was strange; the general attitude was impulsive. Ibinabo was feeling just as all funny as Soldier Gani felt but it was him who felt compelled to make conversation. It was a one sided conversation and one in vain. But Soldier Gani persevered. He began talking about himself. Ibinabo pretended to ignore him. Efehi listened in awe.


''Ten years ago, I was a foot soldier posted to the battlefields in a small company of men like me. I had a fellow soldier whom I was responsible for as I was a few years and rank senior to him and I was mandated to mentor him. On the battlefield it was very difficult. It was difficult looking after your own skin without having to deal with looking after another.''

''But we looked out for one another, I and this soldier; even unto his death.''