Before the riots, it had pained him that his personal story was not as straightforward as he would have wanted. Over the years he did everything he could not to remember the parts that he knew. If people said anything about the delta or about the Atlantic Ocean, he would quickly change the subject, because, in his mind, that was the shameful place of his birth. He equated southerner with infidel, and even when someone told him there were Muslims in the south, especially among the Yorubas of the southwest, somehow his mind had refused to accept that these southern Muslims were real or genuine. He felt privileged to be a northerner and did everything to groom that part of his identity.
When people talked about the oil wealth of the south, he would feel anger rising in him and wonder why Allah would have given the oil to the land of the infidels. So he was relieved when during the recent campaigns, some politicians started telling the crowds that the crude oil actually belonged to the north and not to the people who lived in the oil fields of the delta. Like many, Jubril was swayed by their spurious argument: that the oil deposits in the delta were the result of years of sediments being carried from the north by the River Niger; the politicians wondered why the delta people should then claim the oil as their own; they wondered why they should ask for a bigger budgetary allocation from the new, democratic government. As they spoke, Jubril, who had skipped taking the cows to graze, had applauded and roared with the crowd. Though he could not read properly, he gladly received two copies of the booklet that propagated these arguments, one for himself and the other for his mother. Other northern politicians who came to town but did not say the oil wealth belonged to the north or that they would introduce total Sharia did not get a big crowd.
Now Chief Ukongo’s sarcastic “Who are you?” cut deep into Jubril’s soul. The events of the previous two days had knifed through his Muslim identity. Running in the bush from Khamfi, Jubril’s mind had become a whirlwind of questions: Allah, is it true that once a person is baptized, as my mother said I was at birth, he remains a Christian forever, never able to remove the mark from his soul? Are you punishing me for this infant baptism that I did not choose? You know that as long as I can remember, I have always felt every inch a Muslim, and to prove my steadfastness, I did challenge Yusuf ’s apostasy and sacrificed his brotherhood to you. . . . If the world will not accept me as a southerner-northerner, will you also condemn me as a Christian-Muslim? Though I was attacked by Musa and Lukman for being a fake Muslim, Allah, please, give me the wisdom to convince the Christians in this bus that I am truly one of them. Lead me home, merciful one, lead me to peace. . . . Allah, your religion of Islam is a religion of peace.
Suddenly there was chaos in the bus. The irresistible pull of the cable pictures was gone, replaced by grainy black-and-white pictures of refugees in a police-and-military barracks in Khamfi. The images were unsteady, as if the local cameramen were trembling with the pain of their compatriots while filming. When the pictures steadied a bit, you could see the people who had been displaced. They sat everywhere, in the fields, on the verandas, and some were still running into the barracks. Many were like the people in the bus or in Lupa Motor Park, clutching the few belongings they could escape with.
The passengers were now standing, agitated, searching around for the cause of the change in TV stations. The first person to find his voice was Emeka. He pointed at the screen and shouted, “My cousin, my cousin. . . . Let me see my cousin! Let me see my friend! Give us cable TV.” Then he pointed at the police officer who had the remote control, and everyone glared at him. The officer dangled the remote from his fingers like it was the ultimate symbol of power.
“Which cousin? Shut up!” said the officer to Emeka. “Listen, dis foreign TV channels dey spoil de image of our country. Dese white stations dey make billions of dollars to sell your war and blood to de world. . . . We no bad like dis. OK, why dem no dey show corpses of deir white people during crisis for TV? Abi, people no dey kill for America or Europe?”
“You dey speak grammar!” someone shouted. “Wetin concern us wid America and Europe? Abeg, give us cable TV.”
“Remove dis toilet pictures!” said another.
“So our barracks be toilet now?” the police answered. “What an insult!”
“You na mad mad police,” Monica said.
“OK, cable TV no be for free anymore!” the police said.
“But, it’s our pictures we are watching on cable TV,” Madam Aniema said. “Why should we pay you to see ourselves and our people?”
The police answered, “Because government dey complain say cable TV dey misrepresent dis religious crisis.”
“Officer,” said Ijeoma, pointing to Emeka, “you no hear dis man talk say he done see his cousin for inside cable TV? We no go pay notting. We done pay for Ruxulious Bus arleady!”
“Government order!” the police said.
“Which order?” said Ijeoma, grabbing her Afro in frustration. “How you take hear dat order? No be you and we dey dis bus togeder?”
“Amebo woman, you understand police work? Stop interrogating us!”
“Please, show me my cousin!” Emeka said, tears running down his face. Please, return to that channel. . . . I want to see my cousin again! Is he alive?” The police did not even look at him. “Officer, I’ll give you whatever you want later . . .”
“Later? We no dey do later for cable TV,” the police said, watching Emeka’s hands like a dog expecting its owner to offer something. “Give us de money now now. . . . Cable TV, life action . . . e-commerce!”
“E-commerce?” Emeka said, looking around.
“Oh yes, e-commerce no reach your side? You tink we police no dey current?”
“My brothers, whatever it is, I’ll pay you later . . . I swear!”
“Show us de money, we show you your cousin . . . quick quick. White people call am e-commerce.”
“Which white people?” said Monica. “Abeg, leave white people out of dis cable talk.”
“Please, don’t shout at them,” Emeka begged Monica.
She laughed at him. “I no tell you before? Now you go beg me tire o.”
As Emeka searched in his pockets for money to give the police, many refugees intervened and begged Monica not to exact her revenge on Emeka by insulting the police.
“Please, show my cousin,” Emeka said. “I know he’ll never let Jesus Christ down in this battle. . . . I pleaded with him to run south with me, but he said Khamfi was the only home he knew. He was born in Khamfi . . .”
Seeing the ten-naira note he was offering them, the police laughed and asked him the last time he saw a N10 movie. He told the police he had lost everything in Khamfi. They told him to also consider his cousin and friend lost.
Emeka looked as if he had been thrown out of a film premiere and sat down. His disappointment infected the whole bus. Some cried, though nobody wanted to give the police more money. Jubril felt like giving Emeka a N50 note but did not, fearing such charity might draw attention to him.
Others prayed aloud for the day when they—the talakawas, the wretched people of this world, who were the subjects of such black comedy on TV—would be rich enough to watch the irresistible pictures of their pain and shame. The murmuring in the bus gathered momentum; people pounded their seats. Everybody was talking except the chief and Jubril. The chief sat tight, like most postcolonial African heads of state. Jubril realized he was the only other person who did not condemn the police publicly, so he joined the protest to be in step with the majority.