A Touch Of Madness by Adetokunbo Abiola

“You can continue to pursue the contract after submitting your pension documents,” Thomas said. “Its only for two days. After all, one should not put all of one’s eggs in one basket.”

The next morning, Agnes, Thomas, and Justin emerged out of the house and trudged to the bus stop. As the vehicle they boarded moved, Justin stared out of the window at the nondescript brown Benin City landscape. He sat close to one frail grey-haired pensioner throughout the drive. The man, whose name was Johnson Ossai, had retired the year before. Following the announcement on the radio, he had been going to the Pension Board everyday to submit his documents. When Justin told him he was going to the Board for the first time for the exercise, Johnson shook his head and became sad. He said since he had been going to the Board he had not succeeded in submitting his papers, and Justin felt apprehension run through him.

“It’s going to be hard for you,” Johnson concluded, “unless you have a touch of madness.”

He told Justin about other difficulties until the bus came to a stop at a park beside a market.

As Justin climbed out of the bus, he bumped into a group of pensioners. They were about to board a bus to take them to Ring Road, a short distance from the Pension Board. One of them, a man in his seventies, dressed in dirty brown robes, separated himself from the rest and stood apart. A woman and a young man walked towards him and stopped, but he waved his hand at them and said in an angry voice: “I came to this town two weeks ago to pursue my gratuity. I’ve not got it, I’m still here. And you say I should not be angry about the pension officials, that I should rest for today. That’s nonsense!”

Unnerved by this conversation, Justin, followed by Agnes and Thomas, climbed into a nearby bus. Inside it, a man in his sixties sat beside Justin. He wore a dirty white shirt and brown shorts.

“Pensioner?” he asked Justin.

Justin nodded.

“My name is Michael Ogbebor,” he said. “I have been living in an abandoned vehicle for the past two weeks. The pension officials don’t want to pay us our money.”

Justin had heard and seen enough. “Stop the vehicle!” he shouted. “I’m not going again.” Everyone stared at him, and the bus came to a stop.

“No!” Agnes said stubbornly. “Driver, continue! Continue!” Over Justin’s protest, the driver pressed his leg on the throttle, and the bus surged forward. Justin fell into a sulk throughout the journey to Ring Road. On getting down and on the trek to the Pension Board, he walked in silence, focusing on those around him. At that hour, early in the morning, many pensioners were already walking to the Board. Their state frightened Justin. He saw that many of them had lost both arms, others one, some hobbled on crutches and had one leg amputated, the rest wore shabby clothes. The few workers who walked up the road avoided the pensioners as if they were lepers. Justin searched for something to give him hope, to give him the strength to continue to struggle; he saw none. He thought: struggling to submit my documents will be a wasted activity; I won’t succeed.

A pensioner, a man whose grey hair was turning brown, fell in step with him.

“Do you live in Benin?” he asked Justin.

“Yes.”

“You’re lucky. Do you know where I’m coming from?”

“No,” Justin said.

“Lagos.” Justin felt the man expected him to feel appalled, but he said nothing.“I served this country for forty-five years,” the man continued. “I have to sleep under the bridge to get my entitlement.”

“Didn’t they make any provision about where to stay?” Justin asked.

“They didn’t.”

“Why are they doing this?” Justin asked. “Why?”

“How do I know? All I know is that the governor of this state will appear anytime from now. He’ll see what we’re going through.”

A few minutes later, they reached the offices of the Pension Board, housed by three blocks of ten story buildings. Justin found the office to deal with his pension at the ground floor of the middle block. Hundreds of pensioners were standing in front of it; dirty plates, cooking utensils, and torn cartons used as beds by pensioners who slept over in the night were strewn on its pavement. Beyond the block was the bridge that crossed a street called Sakponba Road, and Justin saw old men emerging from abandoned vehicles under it. As Agnes, Thomas, and Justin watched the spectacle around the blocks of building, the undifferentiated sound of conversation and cars passing on the road and on the bridge assailed their ears. Added to this, the place stank of human waste, urine, and unwashed bodies. No pension staff was in sight. Justin turned to Agnes.

“Where’s the contact you said you have?” he asked, his voice sounding angry.

Agnes took his hand and led him into the crowd of pensioners. They emerged on the veranda of the block, and they saw one young man in white shirt and tie watching the crowd disdainfully. Agnes walked up to him and asked about the whereabouts of her contact. The young man looked angry as he regarded Agnes, Thomas, and Justin.

“Don’t ask me,” he snapped. “Go and ask someone else.” And he marched away from them.

Not knowing from whom to ask, Agnes, Thomas and Justin climbed the staircase of the block and roamed the corridor of the next floor, hoping to stumble on the contact; but they found empty offices, as well as men in thick coats who took one look at them and hurried away. Finally, they entered a large office and stopped. A woman in glasses was poring over some files on her desk. On informing her about their mission, she stood up and beckoned to them to follow her. They came out of the office and walked down the corridor. At the end of it, they climbed a flight of stairs and got to the next floor. Feeling fatigued, Justin stopped to ease the pain in his legs. They waited for him to gather his wits together, then they walked down the corridor. They passed offices which had name plates of officials such as Commissioner, Permanent Secretary, Accountant, and Auditor; they got to a door which had Registrar written on the nameplate. The woman in glasses, who called herself Janet, knocked at the door and pushed it open. The smell of a deodorant filled the air.

“Wilson, where’s Mr. Aghahowa?” Janet asked a sad-looking man who sat on the desk by the door.

“He has just gone out,” Wilson said. “He’ll be back in a minute.”

“These people want to meet him,” Janet said.

Wilson waved a hand to a set of chairs that stood adjacent to his desk.

“They can wait,” he said.

Janet nodded to Agnes, Thomas, and Justin and left. Justin sat on a chair, the two others taking the remaining seats.

Tired from the climb and the subsequent walk, Justin leaned his head against the wall and dozed off. An hour later when he woke, he found that Mr. Aghahowa had not arrived. Yawning, he suggested to Agnes and Thomas that they go for a walk and then return to wait for Mr. Aghahowa. His advice accepted, they all stood up, walked out of the office, and climbed down the staircases to the ground floor. By this time, the sun had climbed up the sky. They bought three sachets of water from the young boys and girls that gathered around the army of pensioners, who sat in the sun while they awaited the pension officials to attend to them. After satiating their thirst, Justin, Agnes and Thomas climbed up the stairs and moved to Mr. Aghahowa’s office. He hadn’t returned. Four hours later, Agnes and Thomas told Justin that they were going home and that he should wait, Agnes not forgetting to give her husband a note for the registrar. When they left, Justin leaned his head against the wall again and dozed off. Waking up an hour later, he noted that Mr. Aghahowa had not returned, so he asked Wilson where he had gone to and how could he be recognized.

“I don’t know where he has gone to,” Wilson snapped. “But he usually wears a brown coat, brown trousers and brown shoes. If you see anyone like that here, he’s the one.”

Bristling under the man’s unfriendly tone, Justin got up and waddled out of the office. He climbed down to the ground floor and was going to buy a bottle of coca-cola from a kiosk near the gate of the compound of the Board when he ran into Janet.

“Have you seen Mr. Aghahowa?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m just from his office.”

“He’s just gone up,” she said. “You’ll meet him at his desk.”

Turning away from the direction of the kiosk, Justin walked back towards the block containing Mr. Aghahowa’s office, but there was commotion at its front. A group of pensioners had blocked the way with chairs and tables, shouting on top of their voices. A pension official, the young man in tie and white shirt, shouted from the first floor balcony that they should dismantle the barricade or he would invite policemen. One pensioner, the old man in dirty brown robes whom Justin met in the bus in the morning, told him to go to hell. Seconds later, a gun shot rend the air, and it was followed by explosions of tear gas canisters. The pensioners started running out of the compound of the secretariat; Justin, coughing, joining the horde. Everyone scrambled under the bridge and gazed towards the compound housing the Board. Justin saw Michael Ogbebor and some other pensioners being herded into a police lorry packed along Sakponba Road by gun-toting policemen. After the men were forced into the vehicle, its driver started the engine and it moved into the line of afternoon traffic that had gathered. For three hours, Justin stayed under the bridge. When it was about 6 p.m., he went to the secretariat building, climbed up the stairs, and trudged to Mr. Aghahowa’s office. He met Wilson still sitting behind his desk.

“Where have you been?” he asked. “Mr. Aghahowa has been around for the past three hours.”

“Is he still around?” Justin asked.

“He hasn’t gone home yet,” Wilson said. “Hang around.”

Wearily, Justin sank into a chair, leaned his head against the wall, and fell asleep. He woke up to find Wilson angrily shaking him by the shoulder.

“Why are you sleeping here like this?” he asked. “Is this your home?”


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