Читать книгу Welcome to Lagos - Chibundu Onuzo - Страница 19

12

“MR. WỌLE ODUKỌYA IS here to see you, sir,” Chief Sandayọ’s receptionist said into the intercom.

The ministry waiting room overflowed with teachers, students, widows, pastors, marketwomen, journalists, Student Union presidents, principals sacked for indecency, parents with photos of sons expelled for hooliganism, daughters dismissed for pregnancy. Yet no matter who was in line, Wọle Odukọya must be shown through.

Sandayọ knew Odukọya from his YPC days, when the latter had been one of the younger members, flashy but earnest, eager to please.

“Great Yoruba people,” Odukọya said when he swaggered into Sandayọ’s office. It struck him anew each time he saw Odukọya how tasteless the man was. Rhinestones glittered down the seams of his agbada and his shoes shone a patent red. Sandayọ did not rise to greet him. Godfather or no, the man was still more than a decade younger than he was.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you. The work of a minister is not easy.”

People said Odukọya made his money from drugs. He also dealt in philanthropic causes: widows and young girls who couldn’t afford their university fees. People said he slept with them. Sandayọ had wondered what Odukọya would demand for passing on his name to the president. A year had gone by and still no requests, not even for one of the smaller ministry contracts. All the man wanted to do was play this “do you remember” game.

“Do you remember when we went for adult education in Kwara and they didn’t want us to enter because some of the women were wearing jeans?”

With the YPC, Sandayọ had set up classes in village clearings, evening schools for city workers, language courses for the culturally estranged children of the rich, children like his son in America who stumbled over the simplest of Yoruba phrases. He had not known himself to be an organizer or a public speaker, gifts hidden from him and all who knew him.

“I was speaking to Mallam the other day about giving my friend an oil block.” Mallam was their code name for the president. “I know Mallam wants to give him, but that witch he married is stopping the deal. Between the First Lady and the new marabout Mallam has hired, I don’t know who is running this country.”

“There’s a new one?” Odukọya often let titbits like this fall; gossip swept up from the corridors of Aso Rock.

“Yes. The old one’s prophecies were not big enough. This one has predicted that Mallam will win his second term and he will be honored internationally when his tenure is up.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“Abi. But on a serious note, Chief, Mallam is expecting big things from you.”

“Is that so?”

Sandayọ’s exploits had not been scalable. He had found himself at the head of a body paralyzed with bureaucracy, almost laughably so, his orders reaching their destination months after being issued, replies reaching him after a year. He could not find his way to the field of illiterate Nigerians he was supposed to educate, his path blocked by strategy meetings and PowerPoint presentations.

“OK, let me leave you to all these papers,” Odukọya said.

“Yes, I must return to them. Greet your family.”

Odukọya’s visits always left Chief Sandayọ with contempt for President Hassan, a man in the pocket of his simpering, vindictive wife. After winning a suspect election, the president now wished to play the reformer on the global stage, desperate for foreign money to flow into the cracked pipes of local industry. Mallam’s newest World Bank–approved plan was the Basic Education Fund. Ten million dollars to improve literacy at primary level. Ten million dollars to leak through the bureaucratic holes in his ministry.

The fine teak detail of Sandayọ’s table was hidden by a forest of paper, trees pulped and bleached into minutes, memoranda, appendices, and addenda. If you bribed his receptionist, she would place your file near the top. In his early days as a minister, he had thought pressing matters were being hidden by this system. He would choose from the bottom, from the middle, from the folders that did not make it to his table and were left in a column by the door. Only to discover that in one way or the other, these crisp sheets were asking for access to ministry money. No matter how innocuous the heading, the end was always the same: funds.

Next, an application for a fifty-man delegation to Scandinavia. The Norsemen had the best education these days. The trip would be all expenses paid. Stipend large enough for tribute: handbags, perfume, et cetera. His permanent secretary had signed her approval. He wrote his signature under hers and began gathering his things.

He was scheduled to attend a gala that evening. He would make a quick dip into the hum of the hall, champagne slopping into wineglasses, young carnivorous women flitting around in semitransparent silks, an excitable MC announcing his entrance, bland food, expensive crockery, handshakes, backslaps, and then outside again, his ears relieved from the din. Perhaps he would just go straight home.