The Coup

Mike and Linda are caught up in a coup.

The Coup

31 December 1983

When Mike turned on the radio to get the BBC World news; that last day of 1983; he never expected to hear the Colonel Bogey March. He did not object to it. He had always liked it. It reminded him of one of his favourite films, The Bridge on The River Kwai with the British soldiers marching into the Japanese prison camp. It did however puzzle him.

He stepped back into the bedroom.

Linda yawned. “What’s in the news?”

Mike pulled on his briefs.  “I have no idea. They’re playing Colonel Bogey.”

Linda frowned. She wondered if she would ever understand Canadians. “Who is Colonel Bogey?”

“A march. Doo Doo. Do Do Do Do Do Do. Doo Doo. Scallops and Fish and Chips for Tea.Scallops. . . .  Have you ever seen The Bridge on the River Kwai?”

“Is that in Nigeria?”

“No. It’s a film.”

"Did you put on coffee?”

“Ah.” Pulling on a t-shirt Mike returned to the kitchen. Sighing, Linda placed her pillow over her head.

***

Fatima sat reading a crime novel, next to her silent typewriter. Above her looking down with a benevolent gaze was Shehu Shegari, president of the Second Republic of Nigeria.

She did not look up when Linda and Mike entered. “Headmaster’s gone to Kano. They’re having a meeting there.”

“About what?” Mike asked.

Fatima shrugged. “No classes today” she added.

The other three Filipino staff members, Alfredo, Priscilla and Eulia, were in Eulia’s house playing Mah Jong. They did not look up from their tiles when Mike and Linda came in.

“Does anyone know what’s going on” Mike asked. He was greeted by a shrugging of shoulders.

“Long as they pay us;” said Alfredo, “Who cares.”

“Well we might as well go to the market then” said Linda.

***

They were just approaching the baobab tree when an army lorry passed, a green truck filled with green uniformed soldiers clutching Kalashnikovs. Some of the soldiers smiled and waved at them.

Linda waved back.

Mike frowned. “Odd; never seen soldiers here before.”

“Something wrong,” Linda asked.

“I don’t know."

A few minutes more they were in the market.  No one seemed to be in their stalls. Instead people were crowded around soldiers who were waving their guns in the air. The weapons though were not being waved in anger.  Everyone was smiling and jumping up and down in excitement. “Barayi,” the people and soldiers chanted.

Linda, spotting the old dealer she bought fruits from, asked: “Mallam, what is Barayi?”

“Barayi Mallama?”  He hesitated, trying to think of the English word. “Thief. Thieves, mallama.”

A legless man propelling himself in a four wheel cart with two pieces of wood turned towards them.

“Mallama Linda” he shouted with a broad smile. “They are taking the thieves. Nigeria is a wonder, ma!”

From a distance Linda could see two men being pushed into the back of the army truck. Linda recognized them as the men who had conducted her civil wedding; Al Haji Salisu and his assistant Ahmed. Their hands were bound behind their backs.

The old man spat. “Barayi.”

Looking on Mike nudged Linda. “They are arresting the thieves” said Mike.  “Let’s go home.”

***

Mike flicked the radio off. He never thought that he would tire of Colonel Bogey. Attempts to tune into other stations had failed. Everything was jammed, except the irrepressible Colonel. “If we go to Hadejia, maybe we can find out something,” he told Linda.

“Is it safe?”

“I think so. Better bring our passports.”

***

The oddest thing about motoring up the road to Hadejia, Mike thought, was that it was so ordinary. No more army lorries. No police checkpoints. The battered, dirty white Hadejia Mallam Maduri van sped by as it did on any other day. People walked by the road, not in a great hurry, no looks of alarm on their faces. .  They passed a farmer on a donkey. He waved at them a cheerful sannu (hello). An ordinary day Mike thought.

***

The tiny Filipino community was in Dick de Jesus’s house. As in Mallam Maduri classes had been suspended in Hadejia.

“A coup?” Mike asked.

Dick poured Mike and Linda cokes. “That’s what it looks like. The army’s taken over. Things will probably get more chaotic. The naira’s already overvalued. Within a few months It’ll collapse. What we’ll be earning will then be worthless. We’re finished here. Our contract ends next year. We’ll go. Joy and I have property in Virginia. Get Linda and yourself to Canada.”

“We should try to contact WUSC.”

Dick shrugged. “Why? So they will send the mounties? Have supper with us, and then go back to your place. No one will harm us. This is a Nigerian thing. Tomorrow classes should resume.”

Mike thought of Dan and Colleen. Their contracts ending on 30 June, they had left in early July. Traveling through southern Europe from Rome to Lisbon, they had returned to Canada in August in time to snag  teaching jobs somewhere in Northwestern Ontario. Colleen was now expecting her first child. They had done well. Perhaps it was time to go home.

***

Classes did resume the next day. The headmaster had returned the previous evening. He called an assembly in the open yard outside administration building. There he told the school that Major General Mohamed Buhari was now president. The former president’s picture now sat forgotten in a waste bin.

***

Stepping into the office Mike looked above Fatima typing at the newly hung picture of General Buhari. He then glanced down at the discarded president’s picture. Reaching down he picked up the ousted President Shegari.

Fatima, puzzled looked at him.

“Souvenir for Canada,” said Mike.

Fatima, ceasing her typing, stared at Mike and then at the picture. Shrugging she resumed typing.

Author's Note

Some Hausa words.