NOW THAT WE HAVE LOST

By the time you are reading this, the deed will have been done. I will have lost the elections to one of the main candidates. I will be grieving as I await the official confirmation of being denied what should rightfully be mine. I mean, my name and party logo did not even appear on the ballot papers! As you read, just know that it hurts really, really bad. Sometimes God allows good people to experience hardships visited on them by their enemies. What can I say?

I have many options before me. I have no doubt that there are countless people who love and believe in me. They know my abilities. They chose me. They too will be unhappy. I can cry about how hurt I am and how my followers have been hurt. We can have a big angry party where we will talk about how to deal with the people who stole our mandate from us. Because they love me, it will not be hard to convince them to begin civil disobedience in reaction to this loss. 

This option has its down sides. For one thing, it will mean making many more motivational speeches and screaming myself hoarse. I do not have the energy for that. This election has already made me lose weight. And even if I wanted to, what will civil disobedience do? It will only make my enemies get the excuse they have been looking for, to arrest me and permanently truncate my political hustle. God forbid that after losing elections, I end up getting arrested. 

Another thing is, they rape men in Nigerian prisons. I am a virgin. It would be a tragedy to get raped at my age. 

The other thing I can do is to create a parallel government. Declare myself president and appoint a cabinet. Create confusion. My followers are loyal. I know they will back me. But what will this achieve? For one thing I do not have the money to do this and no foreign government will give me backing, mostly because I have written bad things about most Western countries. The only countries I haven't written bad things about cannot help me. Like Togo. Or Djibouti. Again, as I do not have access to oil wells I am as good as useless to the world. I will only end up getting arrested by the army and then I might be tortured (God knows I cannot stand pain) and then end up in prison. And then that prison rape situation again. Not funny. 

I can also just keep quiet and let the more vocal and zealous supporters take matters into their own hands. I can claim that I had nothing to do with it and that it is not possible to be in charge of all my supporters nationwide. But then they will be doing it in my name and in 2019 when I want to run for office again, people will make documentaries about how I am a mass murderer because I allowed my zealous supporters get violent. So keeping quiet is not an option. 

I can prepare to go to court and challenge the elections. I am a lawyer and I know how expensive electoral litigation is. Where will I get 200-500 million naira to pay Senior Advocates? If I had that kind of money I would just buy a private jet and go and cry in a nice resort in Seychelles. There is crying and there is crying. Crying in luxury is not the same as crying in penury. Why would I want to make some lawyer fat? God forbid. 

All I can do is speak to my followers. Please find below a short speech, after which I would retire from politics to private life until the 2019 elections:

Dearest Supporters,

I hope this finds you well. If so, doxology. It is with a heavy heart I announce that which you have probably already heard: the temporary truncation of my presidential hustle. I am angry. You must be angry too. But pause. 

This anger can be used to destroy or to rebuild. We can go to the streets, spill blood, burn things. Or we can sit down, strategise and try to engage this government to demand good governance until we get the opportunity again in 2019. 

What can we do in the meantime? We can have a shadow government where we critique government policies and come up with more sensible alternatives. We can live above board and be leading lights in what ever we do daily. We can start to be the change we want to see. 

The road ahead will be tough. They will make fun of us because they truncated our hustle. They can flaunt their power. But we are the masters of our fate and we decide how we will react. I say we shock them. Because they think we will be violent. Let us shock them. Let us move on. But let us not give up on Nigeria. Let us keep demanding accountability and good governance until we save enough money to begin the 2019 campaigns.

Until then, stay well and God bless. 

Your one and only presidential aspirant,

Elnathan John.

MY NEW NIGERIAN PRISON

I need to clarify a few things. I was very worried when the First Lady, Dame Patience Faka Jonathan expressed fears about prison, saying that she was not ready to “feed my husband” in jail. While I can think of many reasons why her husband could land in jail when he loses the elections, that is not the point of this article. 

I am worried that she doubts her capacity to provide food for her husband if he ever gets to prison. This says a lot about the state of our prisons. A place that can make a strong woman like Dame Patience doubt her ability to fulfil her marital vows is a terrible place for anyone to be in. 

Indeed I have visited a Nigerian prison and I can totally understand the First Lady’s sentiments. Even just writing about it evokes the dreariness and pungent smells. 

Before I proceed let me just say that observing Dame Patience Jonathan on the campaign trail recently has made me wonder if I should not just swallow my pride and get married. Everyone needs a partner like Patience Jonathan: someone who can shamelessly defend you in public. I have friends, but they only defend you when it will not make them look bad. Once they have something to lose they politely pretend they have been struck by lightning and can’t speak up for you. But Patience is different. She opens her mouth and loyalty for Goodluck Jonathan just oozes out. It is impressive. I need a Dame in my life. 

I think that somehow the fear of imprisonment should at least make those in power think seriously about decongesting and upgrading prisons. If Jonathan had decongested and renovated prisons, his wife would not be petrified of jail. 

I suspect that President Jonathan watches only Africa Magic or NTA. Because if he watched nice foreign films and TV series like Prison Break or Shawshank Redemption, he would have seen how nice their prisons are and probably extended his transformation agenda there. 

If I become president I will make sure that all our prisons (except where rapists and child molesters are) have point-and-kill on the menu at least once every week. That, and things like banga soup on Sundays. Patience Jonathan would have nothing to fear. She would not need to cook. I cannot speak for Buhari, but I nothing can derail my plan to ensure all prisoners have a balanced diet - fruits, vegetables and all. 

My plan is also to have a gym in the prison. I saw one of Jonathan’s campaign ads where he was in a gym working out with fancy equipment. Our prisons currently do not have any provision for someone like Jonathan. My government will change all that. 

When I last visited prison, I asked the head if there was any provision for conjugal visits. He responded with an emphatic no. “It is prison!” he reminded me. “Prisoners don’t have such rights.” No wonder Patience Jonathan is afraid of Buhari. I would be afraid of anyone who was planning to stop me from having lawful carnal knowledge for many years. That kind of frustration can lead to further crime. As president I will make sure that every prisoner (except for sex offenders), has conjugal visits at least twice a month. We will provide beds and rooms for that purpose. We will even have plus-size beds for people who are on the big side. Nothing will be left to chance in this new Nigerian prison. 

***

There is only one week to the elections. The Americans sent one of their officials to speak to the Presidential candidates. Instead of speaking to all the candidates, he chose to speak just to Jonathan and Buhari. This is not right. It feels like the rigging has already begun with America. Are they trying to say to the world that the rest who want to be president are not important? America is like those aunties who would buy gifts for your siblings and not for you. They want us to fight amongst ourselves. I am protesting this action of the Americans by boycotting some of their very important products that have found their way to Nigeria. Like Jerry Springer and Kim Kardashian. 

PS. I am serious. I am looking for my Dame. Someone who will unconditionally, shamelessly defend all my inadequacies before man and God. If you see someone that fits, email me. Thanks. 

FEMI FANI KAYODE SHOULD BE CLEAR

So, Femi Fani Kayode recently accused some APC leaders of showing “an unhealthy interest in the affairs of little boys” and indulging in “gross and perverse intimate acts with them in his spare time in an obscene, indecent, shameful and completely unacceptable manner.”

Now I have spent the last few days thinking of this. I hate to jump to conclusions. What does he mean exactly? Does he mean like giving young boys too much chocolate or other sweets? Or does he mean allowing them stay out late or letting them watch things like Game of Thrones or 50 Shades of Grey? I am confused. I think Femi Fani Kayode should be clearer in his accusations. But if he means that APC leaders are allowing young boys watch things like 50 Shades of Grey, then I will be very upset. That is why I am glad that our censors board banned the movie in our cinemas. Because I believe that if you want to see naked men and women having sex, you should work for it by doing things like reading a book. The last time I checked it was still legal to sell, buy and read 50 Shades of Grey. 

Femi Fani Kayode made further accusations. He said that a certain APC leader “ended up eloping with and eventually marrying the house girl of his former leader.” This one I disagree with. I am a firm believer in human rights. That means the rights of all humans whether they are men, women, pastors, sex workers or house girls. I believe in the right of a house girl to be upgraded through marriage. I believe that this APC leader deserves praise, not condemnation. He has shown no discrimination based on class or social status. These are the kind of men Nigeria should trust to care about the masses: men who see a woman and do not allow what she does for a living to prevent him from eloping with her. Again, I think Femi Fani Kayode should mention names so that we can celebrate these people appropriately. 

***

They say it is bad to rejoice when tragedy befalls your enemy. That is all they say. But what they do not say is that, it can be deeply satisfying when your enemy lands in trouble. It was exactly how I felt when the King of Morocco said that Jonathan lied about speaking to him on the phone. I did not rejoice, because it is bad to rejoice. But it was satisfying. Because everyone who knows me knows how often I have tried to call, text, and WhatsApp Jonathan to discuss how we can move this country forward. He has ignored me for the past few years. It all makes me remember secondary school when this one guy kept telling everyone he had kissed the mixed race girl. Meanwhile he snubbed the many black girls who liked him. Then one day when he was bragging to everyone about kissing the mixed race girl, she appeared from behind him and said: “You kissed who? You liar!”

He stuttered as he replied: “I was just playing na. Don’t you know play again?”

Perhaps Jonathan should have done this to save face. Told the country that in fact, the lie that he had spoken to the King of Morocco was just a joke in the face of all the heat from the Presidential campaigns. I can understand that. Nigerians would have forgiven him for attempting to provide comic relief to Nigerians during this tense period.

But because I like to give the benefit of the doubt, I have one other scenario I want to propose. Perhaps it was all 419. Someone collected money from people in the presidency to arrange a phone call with the King of Morocco, then arrange with some Arab sounding person to speak to Jonathan on the phone. If that is the case, then my sympathy is with President Jonathan. It can be annoying to be conned. 

(I hear Jonathan has recently admitted that he actually did not speak to the Moroccan King. That is not good enough. It is like you and your family going to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage and when she says no, you showing up to deny that you ever even liked her.)

***

Professor Ben Nwabueze has called for a Government of National Unity, whoever wins the elections. I do not like this. However, if all the other candidates agree, who am I to say no? I believe in democracy. All I ask is that I become Minister of the FCT in that new arrangement. I am not asking for much. The other parties can share the remaining positions. I do not mind focusing on fixing all the traffic lights, replacing the manhole covers, taking care of urban poverty and homelessness, treating sex workers better and making sure that we have 24-hour ice cream shops. Because I care.

My Penis Makes Everything Ok.

I am taking a walk around Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent onto Ahmadu Bello Way and back. So far I have counted two men peeing in public. Last week, I started counting the number of men I see everyday peeing by the road side in the city. Not as research for an article or anything, I quite like to do pointless things like that - count the number of Peugot cars, the number of women with chin hair, the number of men with moustaches. And like a game of cards, the results don't matter at the end of the day. Public peeing survived one night and now, many days after, I still can't stop counting.

If you know Abuja city, you will agree that it is one of the most difficult cities in which a man can pee publicly. There is concrete everywhere and to the public peeist (you are right, I made the word up) there is nothing as inhibitive as concrete. Grass or earth are the preferred spots. Grass and soil do a perfect job of soaking up all the guilt involved in expelling one’s pungent waste in the open. Concrete is unforgiving, constantly reminding you of the consequences, in wetness and in dryness. It takes a peeist with a faulty bladder or no conscience to do it on concrete. 

***

I walk past a woman in front of an ATM, off Ahmadu Bello Way. I assume she is trying to jump over an open part of the sewer as she starts to lift her loose, pleated skirt. When the skirt reaches about halfway up her thighs, she straddles the sewer, arches her back slightly and lets out a single stream of urine. Both men and women look on in horror. People tap others and point at the spectacle. A taxi slows down and the driver screams, asking if she has no shame. People shake their head in that what-has-this-world-come-to? fashion. 

I am curious about the mechanics: how she is able to get the urine to flow straight down without squatting or pulling up her skirt completely. She is looking straight ahead, not at what she is doing. And she is making no errors. I almost want to ask her how she does it. 

Only a few blocks before, I had passed by a male peeist doing his thing against the fence of a hotel. He didn't seem to be in any great rush so I knew he didn't have a bad bladder - he was one of those no conscience peeing-on-concrete ones. No one stopped or stared at him. But for the fact that I was counting, I might not even have noticed. 

***

I am thinking of Rifkatu who is submitting a bid for a contract with a government agency. She wants me to go with her to see an older civil servant who can advise about the bid, because each time she sees him, he tells her how great her figure is and makes her sit for a long time while he tells her about his holiday home in Houston, Texas. 

“Now he wants me to come to his office at 8pm to talk about the bid,” she texts. We both know what bid he wants to discuss alone after working hours. 

***

There are some things that never leave you no matter how hard you try. 

About 12 years ago, in university, my friend Udi told me about this huge, soft-spoken bodybuilder with a pleasant mien who had tried to violently rape her in his secluded room far inside the wooded staff quarters. A friend of hers who was present, asked her why she followed such a huge man to such a secluded location. Udi maintained an apologetic silence. 

One year after, I was in that wooded silence, visiting a friend of mine who had rented a room from a lecturer. He too told me about his bodybuilder-neighbour who tried to rape almost every girl who ended up in his room. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes they escaped, looking dishevelled. I was upset. I asked him why no one had reported the matter. He was upset, feeling judged by me. He said I didn't understand. 

That afternoon we heard commotion coming from the bodybuilder’s room. A woman was screaming, fighting. The bodybuilder was silent. When the falling and breaking sounds stopped, they were replaced by shrill, desperate-but-defiant screams. 

“Help me,” she shouted, “Mummy help me!”

“You see what I was telling you?” my friend said. 

We agreed to go and confront him. My friend who knew the bodybuilder very well, knocked on the outer wooden door. There was silence for a few seconds followed by the click of the key in the inner iron door. He thrust his head out of the slight opening asked what we wanted.

“Is everything ok? We heard screaming.”

“No, it is just me and my girl, we were having a little quarrel,” he said to my friend. 

“We heard shouting, thats why,” my friend insisted. 

“Don’t worry, everything is ok now,” the bodybuilder said and slammed the door shut.

We both walked away and sat on a bench in the open courtyard to hear if there would be more shouting. There was silence. About thirty minutes later he walked out of the room with a bucket and walked into the shared bathroom. After taking his bath, he spread his prayer mat opposite his room and faced the east to say his late afternoon prayers. I wondered if she heard him from inside the room as he bowed and whispered the words Allahu akbar, God is great. 

About an hour after that, the bodybuilder emerged from the room, holding the girl's hand. He said hello to us as they walked past. She too said hello, without looking at us, in that subdued tone of humiliation.

My friend and I talked about reporting the incident for weeks. We had no idea who the girl was, whether she was a student of our university or from somewhere else. Although we knew another girl who admitted to us that the same thing had happened to her, she said there was no way she was going to report the incident or even admit to the school authorities that anything of the sort happened. 

I have never stopped thinking of all the other things we could have done. 

***

Khadija calls just as I get to Adetokunbo Ademola Way. 

She asks if I know how she can find an institution where she can learn how to paint, something formal. I do not know much about this but I suggest she finds a good artist and intern there. 

“I tried one,” she says. Then, right after getting her number the painter began calling her very late at night.

“Why will he start calling me in the middle of the night just because I left my number with him?”

I know it is a rhetorical question but in my head I try to answer why. Because he is used to doing it. Because he has gone through life believing it is ok. Because he can. 

She will try to find another painter. Preferably a woman. 

***

As I reach my house, I feel the urge to go out dancing later at night. Alone. Sometimes I just want to go out and watch people dance without having to dance or talk to anyone. Partly because I like watching people but mostly because compared to most club-going Nigerians, I dance like a three legged dog. All I will need is money in my pocket. I will not need to worry about the officials in Abuja who randomly arrest unaccompanied women at night who they think are sex workers. I will not have to think about cat calls or what people will say of a woman having drinks by herself. 

I guess my penis makes everything ok.

HOW TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR YOUR CANDIDATE

Give me a minute here. You think this is a waste of your time and you have nothing to learn from something that you should know how to do instinctively. I’m sorry to break it to you, but only few things come to us humans naturally, like lying and cheating (but just the act of cheating- getting away with cheating is something you have to learn). Every other thing must be learned through reading or observation. 

I see you got to the second paragraph. You are one of the smart ones. This shows you have at least one of the qualities of a good supporter: willingness to believe anything. Let’s start there. 

A good supporter must suspend all common sense during the election season. People who hate your candidate will fabricate all sorts of lies and spread them in the media. It is your job to first, deny those facts to yourself without thinking them through and next denouncing the peddler of that fact as a god-forsaken liar. It is important to not give those ideas a chance to breathe in your head otherwise you start believing them. You know like those friends who will come and tell you they saw your significant other in this place with this other person just to plant seeds of doubt in your mind and make you break up - next thing you know they are dating the person they made you break up with. Bloody traitors. The world is full of them. So if you read something bad your candidate did in the past, like killing people or stealing public funds, reject it in your mind - cast and bind it in the name of whichever God you worship.

Especially on social media, do a search of your candidate’s name and anywhere you find people talking about him, jump in and attack. Think of it this way: if you were riding in a bus, and two people were saying negative things about your spouse, would you let it go? Wouldn't you stop them and say, that’s my spouse you people are talking about? It is better to shut those kind of people up quickly because, think of it: what if someone hears those lies in the bus and before you can attack the lies, the person drops from the bus? That will be it! You may never see them again and forever and ever, they will believe the odious lies that they heard and somewhere in the world, someone will believe that your spouse is a horrible person and there will be nothing you can do about it. Isn't that a spine-chilling thought? Think of this possibility every time you hear someone criticising your candidate and do the right thing: attack. That may be the only chance of saving him from a lifetime of infamy. 

There are times when you want to tell everyone about your candidate and praise everything your candidate does but then you are filled with guilt because, you have never done the same about your parents or even worse, about the God you worship. You may feel that your God will feel slighted and jealous about this sudden reverence you have for a fellow human being. Don’t let that guilt get in the way of telling everyone about how much of a saint your candidate is. Your God will understand. I think so - I mean I don’t know about every God but the main ones might not mind. Who knows, your God may even like your saintly candidate. (We can never know until after the elections and INEC reveals which of the candidates your God preferred to ruin the country.)

Never fail to say that you know that your candidate will win. Even though you have only one vote and you cannot say for sure how the rest of the country will vote, there is one thing you know: your party and candidate are God’s gift to Nigeria. In fact people should be thanking God that your candidate has chosen to abandon personal pursuits and has decided to sacrifice time and resources to serve Nigeria. And as the singer Tuface famously sang: Who God have bless no man can curse. God has stamped the victory in heaven, and whatever is decided in heaven cannot be stopped on earth. Your candidate will win. There is no other way. 

In the unlikely situation that someone does find incriminating evidence that your candidate has done something not particularly praiseworthy, you must react by pointing out how the other candidate also does similar things. In other words, as Doyin Okupe, the presidential spokesman once said: ojoro cancel ojoro. Or in English: two wrongs make it all right. While you are at it, do well to use very effective catch phrases like: He who is without sin should cast the first stone or No man is perfect or My candidate is only human. 

It is important to be vigilant to the fact that anyone who stands in opposition to your candidate must have been paid by the other party. You need to regularly accuse people who do not support you of being paid. Because anyone with half a brain should know that your candidate is the only hope for Nigeria and if he does not win, Nigeria will crumble. God forbid that Nigeria should crumble. 

Thank you for sharing your candidate with Nigeria and the world. It is my hope that everyone will join you in seeing the light that only you and your candidate can provide. God bless. 

GRANDFATHER, DEAR GRANDFATHER

I just threw up. Honey irritates me. The sticky, nauseating taste of tumultuous dreams. False sweetness. Discomforting viscosity. I had to chew on bitter kola to get rid of the taste and smell - the pleasant after taste of truth following its initial almost unbearable bitterness. A familiar, bitter start to cure a discomforting, sweet ending. Sweet irony. 

My grandfather systematically takes out and lowers his limp, wrinkled penis into the toilet seat. He needs to find the right angle so he doesn’t mess up the hospital toilet seat like he did yesterday. I can see because I am with him in his final days of pain. 

I am patient. I will not descend to the depths of irritability and its attendant violence. Like my grandfather’s which happens not due to his age and illness but from seventy years of habit. It seems less now - he has little energy to be the man he was.

I was taught to revere age in spite of what oddities accompany it. So, I respect my grandfather and care for him, especially now that his proud heart is failing. Every evening I bring in his tasteless dietaries and escort him on his torturous trip to empty his inflated bladder and bowel. I am by him when he groans at night and when he cannot eat and when he shivers from the cold in his weak bones.

He has had his day. He once drowned in pools of sinister, cacophonous laughter, playing draught with his loud arrogant friends. Day and night. He would walk in just before midnight and wake my mother up with the heavy descent of his wide swarthy palm upon her back. The effective awakening was a reminder that even after twelve hours of working in the neighborhood bakery, a good daughter ought to wait up for her father. A good daughter ought to know that when her father has a night out, he needs some food. Grandma had died of a bad kidney and there was no submissive wife to lighten my mother’s load. Grandfather would scream and bicker to make the slightest point. He would curse and spit and slap. Effective communication. 

I am patient. For the first time I understand mother’s brashness and aggression, her temper and delirious tantrums. I have seen that beneath it lays a good heart, battered by years of brutish treatment. When she loses her temper as she often does, I know that they are only echoes from a childhood gagged by filial piety. In these few weeks with grandfather, I understand when mum tells me that even an imperfect marriage became paradise for her. Instead of being irritable when she screams, I pity her as I would a person suffering from some hereditary disease.

I am learning patience. 

These are his final days. It is a bit early for him, considering the history of longevity in the family. His pain is getting worse by the day and mother still refuses to see him as have his two older children. I see frustration lined up in every crease on his perpetually frowning face when his weak lungs do not allow him to raise his voice. He has not spoken for sometime now. Not that he cannot speak, but the pain in speaking is very great.

As he groaned last night, I looked into his jaundiced eyes and tried to see beyond the unpleasant phenomenon grandfather had become. I couldn’t see beyond the grim testimony of seventy odd years. But life has judged him and will go no further. 

Mother has agreed to attend the funeral together with the rest of the family. They want a quiet funeral. They will not indulge the old man even on his way to the grave.  They will shed quiet tears at the graveside. Not sorrow. Tears of freed slaves finally leaving a brutal master. At last, they will live their lives without crouching under the shadow of his heavy hand. I will watch it all, feeling vicariously, the new lightness in their crushed hearts and the numbness in their cicatrized souls. 

Gracious death. 

Bad ending. 

Good start.

COLD

I hear the myriad bellowing voices like the howling of a sandstorm over me. Across the blood-soaked asphalt road, dust rises from a hundred boots stomping frenziedly. All the boots have the same dreary cocktail of dust and blood and sweat from kicking and smashing. I watch as bullets shoot from the sea of black and green… and white; white teeth flashing as adrenalin and spirit run through their veins and blind orders through their ears. I hear Malam’s blessed voice in my head as he says, I will be with you always. 

My beard is dusty and so is my white jallabiya. It’s time for Asr prayers and I should be joining my brothers for ablution. I like the communal ablution in front of the big mosque. Today, there is no call to prayer save the stutter of Kalashnikovs and the loud revving of military trucks but I know it is time. I have no water for ablution but does Allah not say: “if you find no water, then perform tayammum with clean soil and rub your faces and your hands therewith”? They do not know but they have done it for me. My faces and hands are covered in dust.

I am cold. Yet I can think of nothing but what has happened to Malam. Even as the mobile policemen dragged me out of the broken down truck, I thought, ‘is this how they dragged Malam too’? Did they ask him questions or did they just look at his beard and kaftan and say, we got him? How many of them used him for target practice and did he shiver from the cold like I now do? 

I had been promised Malam’s second daughter from his first wife. But for these bullets Malam would’ve become my father. I had never set my eyes on Umm Ayman’s face, but I was assured by Malam that she had heaven in her smile. I wrote her letters with permission from her father and she wrote me back. Her Arabic was excellent and not a few times I needed help with some of her phrases. 

I recall once as she thrilled the judges at the Quranic recitation competition for women. I tried to peer, astaghfirullah, through the dark green niqaab she was wearing. I could see nothing but a tale of beauty in those dark eyes shining through the tiny slit. Her voice was musical and if women could lead prayers, I am sure her call would rouse every lazy believer. That was the only time I actually saw Umm Ayman but her sonorous voice is still clear in my head as she started with Sura al-Fatiha: Bismillahi r-rahmani r-rahim. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful...

 Allah has been most gracious. I have lived the dream of being with Umm Ayman through every word of her well crafted letters laden with romantic innuendoes. She astounded me with the way she infused life and love into her words. I have followed Malam as he grew to become a father and leader to thousands and seen how he was demonized and called a terrorist. 

Allah has been merciful. I did not have to watch what evil was done to Malam and all I can do is speculate and wish that they did not make him suffer on his way to the hereafter. 

I will not go for the next hajj as Malam promised and neither will he. I will not be his son. I will not see the country united in the peace that only submission to the will of Allah can bring. But Allah be praised, we did what we could. We lived good lives, we fasted and gave to the poor. And insh’allah we shall be united again. La ilaha illallah…

 I am cold…