I Know One Someone

                                                   I KNOW SOMEONE                                          

Last Monday I went to the beautiful but boisterous city of Port-Harcourt for the second time. The other time I made myself a promise that nothing would make me live in that city save my love for God should He ask me to live there for, say mission work. There were so many people everywhere; the traffic was terrific, the roads a nightmare, but all tried in vain to conceal the innate beauty of the city.

 I went with a sister of mine and her colleague for a business meeting that last time and I recall we lost our way to the hotel and tried to get directions from a young girl in her teens trying to cross the road. She ignored us as I pulled up to her to ask. For all she cared we can’t be anything other than those predators in the form of men scavenging for young women they would have quick sex relations with. That was and still is the situation of that city. What with so many foreigners eager to toss some bucks this way and that for some vain pleasure as they do business in the oil-rich city. And so they sow their wild oats every now and again and believe it goes with the job.

My mission was simple this time. My sister had asked me to go pick up the company car that was used by one of her bosses who had just moved on. She had asked me to look for company just in case. Riding alone for hours in a car was a chance she didn’t want to take with me. What with numberless police men at every tenth pace on our highways eager to fleece road users especially when they are young men.

 Because of the need for precaution, I tried to get someone who would go with me without asking to be paid but I couldn’t find anyone. So I gave myself a good talking to.

“Aren’t you old enough to hold a job of your own?” I asked myself.                                                            
And the answer was yes, I was old enough. I figured that if part of my job involved shuttling from this town to the next it wouldn’t be a problem, I wouldn’t need anybody. So I admitted to myself that my sister’s fear had caught me too. I shed it at once and got ready to leave, alone.

“I could talk to my husband to join you,” Nek, my sister said. “I think he is free today.” But I wouldn’t hear of it. If her man can afford to join me, I couldn’t afford to let him, not out of fear or precaution or whatever word you use for the puny effort we put out to protect or save ourselves from what we can’t save ourselves from. Then I prayed again and asked God to go with me as if I needed to ask him twice.

 I do not know all about how our policemen think but I do know every human being judges you first by your appearance before they have a chance to open up your heart to see if it only pumps blood or has the potential for some dubious business. So I put on a white shirt with blue pinstripes and black trousers and with those fine glasses on I was a young bank executive. I bussed to the city and was there around noon. And as I expected, it took quite some time and some phone calls to get to this boss’s house but when I did get there we concluded our business in less time than it took you to get to this point in this paragraph because I told him how much I needed to be on my way so I can get back home before dusk and that’s good for him for then he didn’t have to offer me a drink or something.

I didn’t salivate when I saw this relatively neat and sound silver-coloured Chevrolet Optra but I swallowed and thanked God it’s the kind of car you can speed with and without fear – it was balanced and wide and heavy so it wouldn’t fly. And in about half an hour I was out of the maze they called streets and was on the freeway.                                                                                                                                        

In a country where the police didn’t have ‘offices’ on the highway it wouldn’t take three hours to get to Enugu, but here it’s a completely different story. And you didn’t have to do anything to deserve the delays and the searches and the frisking and the examinations and interviews and the interrogations and the intimidations and what have you. And I don’t want that so I prayed. I asked Him to help me get home fast by, well, blindfolding some of these agents when I get to the check points or making them see me as a dignitary or a politician on special assignment that didn’t need to be delayed and that’s by making them see a government plate number, or by making them see me as a law-abiding citizen with complete vehicle documents and I.D. which is true about me.

Folks, I don’t know how God did it; I don’t know which one He did or whether He did all of them, alternating the means or method as I drove past check points after check points with some of the officers giving me a wide berth or waving at me or giving me a salute or just asking where I was from and where I was going and then wishing me a safe journey or politely asking if I had anything for them and when I said I didn’t they were happy all the same. Or maybe they saw a big man at the back reading the papers or using his computer. Or maybe He made them see some weird or angelic creature ride shotgun. It was so unusual you knew something was right, not wrong. I think I was stopped only by a check point out of dozens that day but I can’t remember being so.

So, did I get back on time? You bet. And that’s not because the president and my dad are friends nor because I had a note from the police commissioner but because I know Someone – the One who pulls the strings that pull those who pull the strings down here.