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.