Henry Akubuiro

The rats suddenly twitched and scampered off as the store’s door creaked open. Their chatters had apparently aroused the commander of the platoon, Malik Zaki, who breezed into the store armed with a club. The rats quickly escaped through a hole they had painstakingly dug the other day and returned to their permanent hole moments later, scared stiff. It was a narrow escape. They knew that, with limited foodstuffs in the store, the insurgents were becoming more irate, and wouldn’t tolerate anybody coming to share their food with them. Nevertheless, the two rats returned to Zaki’s bunker few hours later with a different kind of mission.

Relaxed on a sofa with legs outstretched and two AK45 by his sides, Malik Zaki was chewing his second lob of yellow kolanut after smoking a jumbo wrap of marijuana. He loved goro, for it kept him alert all day, as he monitored the local radio stations. He guffawed with the latest news he was hearing on BBC Hausa Service. The Theatre Commander in the state capital, Maiduguri, Major General Dagogo Princewill, was heard saying the Sambisa Mujahadin was on the run following heavy bombardments an hour ago and that the Sambisa Forest would be cleared of insurgents within twenty-four hours. ‘Stupid cowards!’ he spat out. He was used to the lies of the Theatre Commander. Not even a single bomb was dropped in the forest for the past three days, and there were no reported encounters with the soldiers; so he couldn’t understand the so-called heroics by the soldiers. ‘Cowards!’ he shouted again. ‘If you think you are brave, come over; let’s know the king of Sambisa,’ he bragged and beamed as he sat down on the sofa with a contented yawn. 

At that point, the two rats rushed into the hall from a hole under the door. Startled, Hamza corked his gun and jumped onto the sofa. The rats knew he wouldn’t shoot them; they glared at him defiantly for five seconds, and made their way out of the bunker. They had made their point. They were happy that a grimfaced human like Zaki was scared of them for all his braggadocio. The two rats decided to journey to the outskirts of Sambisa where the army had an armoured division to have a momentary change of environment. It was a long, tortuous journey in the glaring sunlight, spanning several kilometres strewn with landmines.

         `                                               ***

Malik Zaki was furious for the umpteenth time. For the second time, Ibra and his squad had failed to return with any loot –in fact, they returned with five men short this time. Tomorrow was Christmas Day, and it wasn’t going to be funny.

‘We ran into an ambush by the Civilian Joint Task Force about five kilometres from Gworza.’

‘This is unbelievable!’ the irate commander retorted, and thundered at Ibra, ‘I am disappointed, Ibrahim. With all your experience in Libya and Timbuktu, you couldn’t lead a successful operation to get us food!’

Ibra didn’t like that. He had always given his everything, but what happened couldn’t have been avoided. The civilian JTF had opened fire all of a sudden in a part of the forest they had not ventured before. He was even lucky to have escaped with minor injuries.

A grim smile mounted on his face. ‘You want me to clap my hands because some lackeys opened fire on you and killed my men?’

Ibra was rooted to the spot, contrite and shocked at the same time. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘Then, it was my fault.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said, battling a spurt of blood from his left ear.

‘Whose fault is to blame that you can’t get us food and you couldn’t stop my men from being killed?’ The commander was livid with rage. ‘You must get us food!’

‘How?’

Instantly, Malik Zaki’s right hand swung into the air, and a ferocious slap landed on Ibrahim’s cheek. He staggered and steadied himself from falling. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ he gushed.

‘Sorry for yourself!’

Malik Zaki retired to his bunker a wistful man. Having failed twice to get food from his boys, he decided to send a detachment of two hundred Mujahadin to loot the armoured division some seventeen kilometres away on the northern precincts of Sambisa Forest. They hadn’t attacked the brigade for a long time, and he was convinced the soldiers wouldn’t be expecting any surprise attack from the Sambisa Mujahadin. But, attacking a brigade was no dog breakfast. He had to commit hundreds of men with heavy weapons to achieve a good result. Aware of the risks involved, he changed his mind.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and it’s a day for merrymaking for the infidels,’ he briefed Umar and other select Jihadists he wanted to dispatch; ‘but, there will be no Christmas for the infidels –anybody or village opposed to them were regarded as infidels. I want you to attack any vulnerable village on the outskirts of Sambisa, and get us food. If we don’t eat, we all starve to death. We need the food to continue the struggle. Allah won’t forgive us if we all die here without realising the dream of a caliphate.’  

Meanwhile, the Theatre Command in Maiduguri had instructed the soldiers on the fringe of Sambisa Forest to make another push into the forest to flush out the Mujahadin following the latest reconnaissance reports which informed of suspicious movements towards the location of the brigade.

***

Having eaten to satiety for twenty-four hours at the armoured division on the outskirts of Sambisa village, Wukari and Jelida decided to journey back to the other side of Sambisa Forest where they had a permanent home amid a clammy Christmas weather.

‘Guy, did you notice those mice in the army stores were looking robust?’

‘I was jealous, my brother.’

‘They look fresh and shiny.’

‘But I prefer being a rat than a mouse.’

‘You share my thoughts,’ Wukari said.

Soon they were up to speed. They had to throttle for most parts of the journey to avoid the prying eyes of predators. On their way, they saw a battalion of soldiers in vehicles moving deeper into the forests. Wukari and his brother climbed up a tree to watch the advancing soldiers.

‘Wuka,’ called Jelida, ‘Are you seeing what I am seeing?’

‘Jeli, they are planning for another confrontation.’

‘That shouldn’t scare you; we are used to seeing such movements. Sometimes the soldiers withdraw without firing a shot.’

‘Wuka, I am scared.’

‘I am not,’ returned Jelida.

‘Why aren’t you scared?’

‘These soldiers are not after us.’

‘I am only scared of stray bullets. Remember how we escaped the last time they came face to face. Shots rang out from all corners, and we were almost consumed by a snake inside a strange hole we ran into.’

‘I don’t wish to remember that frightening experience. If we hadn’t rushed back to the open, we wouldn’t have been dead.’

‘My brother, it was a scary experience.’

Admiring the soldiers’ camouflage for a moment, Jelida asked his brother, ‘You see how smart these soldiers are dressed?’

‘They look smart and organised.’

‘Ibra and his group look ratty and hungry, that’s why they see us their rivals, which we are not. Are we?’

‘Please, don’t mention Ibra; he is no good. We can’t help going back to his tenth to torment him again.’

‘Have you noticed he is leaner now?’

‘Yes, I have. That’s what hunger can do to a man who moved to the forest to compete with us.’

‘I am beginning to pity him.’

‘Don’t. Ibra deserves no pity at all.’

The two rats climbed down from the tree, and continued their journey. The long distance they had to travel to get home was one thing that kept bothering them each time they visited the armoured division on the outskirts of Sambisa village. Usually, they would leave the army base filled only to return to their hole hungry and exhausted. They didn’t want to stay permanently on the other side because the preferred the naturalness of the forest. Besides, the mice in the soldier’s stores didn’t like their presence. Often times, the two rats would avoid them and concentrate on another portion of the store where they were absent.

‘Wuka,’ Jelida called his brother, craning his neck,’ can you make out anything happening in front?   Both had climbed a tree again to see what was happening in front.

‘Yes, the soldiers have stopped moving.’

‘It seems they are afraid of going any further.’

‘Perhaps they will be camping here for the night’.

‘Or they have noticed something.’

‘But that shouldn’t be our concern,’ said Wukari.

In unison, they climbed down, and raced towards the dense forest. On getting to the end of the open woodland where the soldiers were massing up, they waited for minutes to survey the front. Convinced there was no danger on their part, the two rats moved past the battle tanks and jeeps.

‘The soldiers are afraid of crossing over,’ Wukari said.

‘But we aren’t.’

‘Aren’t we brave?’

‘No doubt about that.’

The two rats were stopped in their track some ten minutes later by some seemingly dispirited fighters coming towards the woodland. Climbing up a treetop quickly, the rats could spot Ibra, wiry, in the midst of the Mujahadin.

‘There goes Ibra,’ Wukari announced to Jelida.

‘Looking harassed and hungry as ever,’ Wukari teased.

‘He doesn’t look happy at all.’

‘His hair is bushy.’

The chatter was abruptly ended with the appearance of two bombers in the sky followed by a disarray, huge explosions and howls of pain. The intensity of the bombardments shook Wukari and Jelida, and they plummeted to the ground and hid under a ticket, frightened. A bomb from one of the fighter plane landed not far away from where they were hiding, and the impact threw the rats into the air. While Wukari landed on his back on shrivelled leaves with a woozy head, Jelida landed on a log of wood and blanked out.  Sadly, the later never recovered from the fall. Wukari mourned the death of his brother in hiding and trembling, and continued the journey home alone six hours after the guns had fallen silent.  

Malik Zaki was rattled by the debacle. Hitherto, he had stayed back in a sulk waiting for the boys to return with booties when he heard the news of the rout. Now, he was having a bad case of blues, pacing up and down the bunker. Ibra and Sadiq, two of his most reliable fighters, had died in the aerial bombardment by the Nigerian Air force. Besides, over fifty of his men had been mown down by the Alfa jets and Scorpion tanks firing from a close range. He was facing hunger for the first time in a long while. He had gone all day without food. He didn’t know what else to do. The spirit in the platoon was low, and it wasn’t the best time to send any squad on another risky mission.

Meanwhile, the hole housing Wukari under the bushwillow tree was enshrouded with gloom. His brother was no more. Vivacity had gone with him. In a world surrounded with enemies, he had nobody to chat with and share in his agony. Also, hunger stared him in the face. He decided to creep into the bunker to see if he could get any crumb. It was a wrong time to visit.

Malik Zaki was sitting on the sofa with sagged shoulders in the silhouetted bunker when the rat stole in. He stiffened himself and allowed it to enter the store. Grabbing a club, he crept to the store for a showdown with Wukari. The rat never made it out alive. Malik Zaki relished the protein moments later as winds swished through the red bushwillow trees outside.  Two Alfa jets circled in midair. They had spotted a suspicious bunker.

 

 

 

 

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