The Secret File

Breathless! my body stretched on a couch in a ward at the intensive care unit of Madonna Hospital, Makurdi.

"Ten minutes he will be up", the doctor said. I was brought in by a do-gooder, with cold feet and a broken arm. I passed out. So I am told.

My ordeal is related to the event of yesterday, of my discovery of the important documents in my late uncle’s file. Every member of the family is curious about my uncle’s land, all eyes rolling out for a share of his wealth and fortune accrued from a tough journey from a local craftsman to a Director in the Federal Bureau of Establishment. 

Thomas Madugu – Uncle Tom for short- was the first man in our clan to have got a university degree. Climbing the Federal civil service ladder and spanning over 30 years in active service. He had retired as a director. I’m his nephew. When I lost my father, it was Uncle Tom who had taken me into his arms like his own child. 

Uncle Tom was quite unfortunate with marriage but managed to scale through one with three issues: a boy, and two girls, all of whom deserted their father. The boy, named “Angbian” -in thanksgiving to our ancestors for reincarnating his late father. His mother had just two of them from their polygamous father- Thomas and Augustine, my father. 

Angbian was wayward, he squandered his father’s money, and twice was rusticated, and finally expelled from the university.

Trouble brewed immediately Uncle Tom died, and two years after, surprisingly, his estranged wife regained her status, reintegrating herself into the family in the village. She, her wayward son, and extended family relatives formed alliances and drew daggers against me, their perceived irritant enemy. They wanted me to release to them all documents, and other legal paraphernalia relating to my uncle’s wealth, things I have no privy right to in our cultural belief. 

The fact is, I have seen my name on almost all Uncle Tom’s documents, but I am not given to the euphoria of inheriting them. I feel Angbian, his son, deserves them.

But, while I was literally bedridden with my uncle for about five years, when he came down with a strange disease that would later claim his life -putting a halt to my Masters degree in far away Accra- the rest of the family members stood a distance, enquiring the speed at which he was deteriorating. While his family gave jack shit about his existence, I stayed back in Kaduna, helping to build the wealth- I managed all the estates. In his ailing state, Uncle Tom’s pee and wee-wee was on me. Sometimes, I wouldn't bear the mess so would stay away but return to find the house messier. I re-examined my conscience: This man gave me life, was my pillar and called me son. It could only take a long explanation for anyone to accept I was not his biological son, for we shared the same surname too. So, leaving Uncle Tom in that state popped up questions of morality, and was never a decision to have contemplated.

That fateful day, before I got unconscious, I had gone to the village, amidst the family tussle, to present the documents I saw from the bunker. My intension was clear: handover whatever it was to them, guide them on how to access uncle’s money scattered across several banks, direct them to his estates in Kaduna and Abuja, and travel back to Accra to sort out my Masters program. Finish. I had no intentions to soil my fingers in the scrabble for family inheritance. Uncle Tom groomed me enough for the challenges of the world and was contented with my media consultancy services job with Arab Telecoms in Nigeria.

As I navigated the bumpy terrain from the village that day, two men trailed my vehicle, stealthily. I drove in uncle’s ecstasy Lexus – he willed it to me too – but never would have ferried it with me to Ghana, I sensed the two men on a tricycle but never bothered gesture them. I pushed on till I got to the tarred road which leads to the city, bringing to ingenious halt in the car park of the dolling mansion, the best at the Government Reserved Area of the town. I reached for the bunch of keys in the car, and transited to the doorknob to open the door. This is the last my memory recollected. I woke up on the hospital bed with strings, ropes and patches on my body. I got hysteric, repeating the doctor's words as I made moves to get up from the couch "Ten minutes and you would have been dead", he said. My assailants, my assailants scampered into the darkness of that night as would learn.

Sometimes I blame Uncle Tom for not keeping his family in order. But then, I looked at his wife’s behaviour. She was an ungracious woman for not making use of the rare opportunity of marrying a man who could bear all manner of things and never behaved like a typical African husband. She rather took to nagging. It should be said of Agnes' marriage to Uncle Tom To be her sheer luck. Her parents never consented to it. 

“He’s just little poor man”. They said to Uncle Tom when he went for dowry payment. But since it was pregnancy which prompted the marriage, my uncle told them he was ready. “I love her so much and I’m ready to spend eternity with her” he insisted. 

Given that she had only finished secondary school, my father felt Uncle Tom was getting all the degrees with no thought of marriage and might get too old. As an elder brother, and as tradition demands, he looked for the humblest girl in the village and eloped with her even before Uncle Tom was called home.

Chief Maga, our clan head, had also poked his head in this family matter, but his motive is very clear: He too desires a share of the wealth. He’s not even in position to begin to think rationally, because rationality of any sort would be against his personal interest. 

The first day I was called to appear in the village, I was forced to bring a goat, 3 bottles of wine and ‘kola nut’, according to the elders. The eldest man in the family clearly informed that “you have delayed in briefing us about the wealth of our son”, even though it was just a week after his burial, and all the properties were willed to my name. By their own right, “all the properties belonged to the family and not one person”. This was the tradition and no one would do otherwise.

It was at this meeting I began to fear.

Some women gossipers came to my car as I was about to start the engine to tell me that Uncle Tom did not die an ordinary death, That Agnes and the Clan head killed him to continue their love affair while swimming in the wealth left behind. The gossip also had it that my uncle’s only was not his. 

“Your uncle didn’t die an ordinary death, Agnes and chief killed him”. The first woman said with certainty.

“They plan to kill you too”, and even “your uncle’s son was conceived with chief here in the village before Agnes moved to town”, added the second and third women. They warned me to be careful and said how good my own mother was to them when she married into their family. I did the needful, sliding one thousand naira note into their eager hands.

My late uncle’s lawyer, whom I visited. Sitting face to face, he told me I should allow tradition take its cause, who knows? My uncle might have been under charm to have willed everything to me.

“Who charmed him?” I asked.

“Just saying, I don’t know” he remarked rather sarcastically.

“They have bought you, right?” I quipped, looking him in the eye.

He rumbled a sound and ate his words.

This is the same man my uncle trusted with everything, my uncle made him rich. He too now wants a share of this wealth. Everyone wants to reap where they did not sow. Nonsense.

I stood up in my pale condition and opened the door for him to leave. He turned at the door to utter some words but I shut him out with whatever rubbish he wanted to spew.

“Get out and don’t come back”. He did not hear my last statement.

I returned to the couch, dialled my girlfriend's number. Sengohol is my therapy. She picked and told me she was in the market buying foodstuff. I hung up. I called Lord Silk, my friend from secondary school who was now a lawyer, for legal advice. This is me against them. 

***

It is morning. I’m putting together my papers. Last week I made enquiries and was told I had one more opportunity to get done with my Masters degree at the University of Eastern Pacific, Legon. This is my second attempt at acquiring a Masters. The first got truncated by Uncle Tom’s health. 

There’s a knock on the door.

“Yes, come in. The door is not locked”. 

My early morning visitors are six, who file like stubborn primary school pupils who are regulars at the headmaster's office. They are elders in my village and Chief Maga is among them.

“I was not notified of this visit” I said standing without offering them seats.

“Do we need permission to come to our own property again?” Chief Maga asked “I told you this boy is very disrespectful”. He added

 “Anyway, let’s sit down” elder Atume Suggested.

They all sat except elder Adogo, who stood marvelling at the beauty of the palour that divided the reading room and the dining. Most of the pictures on the wall were those of me with Uncle Tom. In one picture, I was with him in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, where we holidayed. 

“Just look at him with Thomas everywhere laughing”. Elder Adogo said while pointing at the big frame.

“No wonder he is feeling like Thomas’ son’. Chief Maga said.

As I made my way into the bedroom to drop the documents I was holding, my girlfriend badged into the building the same time with my uncle’s lawyer, giggling. This is a planned issue. I stood stiff with wild thoughts running through my mind, like setting the whole place ablaze with us inside.

I took a few steps backward, stood still, then exited through the alternate door at the kitchen, leaving my assailants inside. For all I cared, they could go to hell, but I’m not giving into any useless tradition. The documents were firm in my hands.

***

It was Chief who moved in with my uncle’s wife. They had access to the house but not any other thing. This evening, Dr Ukpai, the Chairman of GRA Landlords called. He informed me that a man they didn’t know, who was occupying my property with a woman he learnt to be my uncle’s divorcée fought dirty, They set my cars and house on fire. Angbian, my uncle’s son arrived from prison and shot them both for it. I needed to come home.

***

At the village, two separate funerals are held. People say it is shameful. No woman has gone close to Agnes’ body. After all, she divorced my uncle. Some people said she should be taken to the chief’s compound so they could be buried together, yet Angbian wants to show his children their grandmother’s grave by traditional belief.

I still have not changed my mind. The documents to my uncle’s wealth are intact. They are mine as against the belief that it belongs to the family.