By: Abdullahi Oladeji Popoola
The last time I coughed, I looked around to confirm that Banku was not at my back to demand a tax. Anything you do here, you must pay for it. This is how we live in the Bolebaji community. The only thing Banku and his bloodthirsty boys are satisfied you do for free is shedding tears of agony. Tears of joy are not free.
Banku and his boys do not own a parcel of land anywhere one could think of. When they show up while you are turning the sod on your site, you don’t argue with them. Those who have argued with them in the past do not only blame themselves after the dust of chaos settles but also risk court proceedings for manslaughter. Those who know Banku do not argue with him when he and his boys infest a site or ask for a tax.
It is only on a few occasions that he comes with ten boys to ask for his levy when someone is siting a building on a plot of land in the community. He comes with ten thugs only when he has been informed the landowner won’t cause trouble. However, if it were otherwise—that is, the landowner would also station thugs—Banku would be accompanied by a drove of thugs in a cloud of marijuana smoke.
Many things can be said about Bolebaji, but how Banku rose to the status of god is especially interesting. Hearsay has it that as a young boy, he was known to cause trouble in school. If he was not caught in a fight with a classmate, he was walking around the premises engaging with vagabonds and political thugs. One day, the principal was fed up and expelled him. This drew the curtain on his education, and Banku began to build his name on the street. He first gained prominence in the media when he snatched ballot boxes for an opposition party announced as the winner of a free and fair election some years ago. He wines and dines with politicians. At one point, he began to grant press interviews. It is right to say the media helped him gain more popularity.
In Bolebaji, Banku owns a house he received as a gift from a generous politician. From this house, he receives first-hand information about whatever goes on in the community. Perhaps it is better to say it is from here he governs the community.
Everyone knows Banku’s house. It is painted white, and as the day breaks, throngs of old women and men line up at his gate for alms. On many occasions, his boys chase them away with canes and curses. That is Banku’s boys anyway, but sometimes they leave them while they await Banku, who might not show up till dusk. The Baale of the community wines and dines with Banku. No one even cares to report Banku to Baale when he and his boys threaten the community with tax. On a few occasions when people report to Baale, his response was always the same, “Go to station.”
There was one bloodletting event that claimed the life of a man in Bolebaji. The news is still everywhere on the Internet. One famous newspaper’s front page proclaimed, “Banku Saves Bolebaji from Thugs as Man Feared Dead.” Funny enough, that they do not attribute the thugs who murdered the landowner to Banku. They simply say Banku’s swift intervention led to the restoration of peace. What makes everything helpless is how other media outlets copycat the distorted stories.
What caused the death of the man is not sketchy. Banku was informed that he had bought land from Baale and was planning to begin the construction of a building on the land as quickly as possible. It was said that the man who bought the land had just returned from a foreign country. That morning, people were already working on the site when Banku’s boys descended on it. They came on a hundred motorcycles, and there were around three hundred thugs holding all kinds of substances and weapons.
On sighting them, the landowner spoke vocabulary, but none of the thugs seemed to understand a word. All they wanted was money, not stories. When the landowner said he would call the police, the ringleader said the police were their patrons. This became clear when the landowner phoned a police station and was informed to “settle them.” The landowner threatened them with soldiers; they claimed the army was their “padi.” Baale told him to give them what they wanted when he called Baale. That was when the landowner furiously told the ringleader to go to hell. The words did not sit well with the ringleader, who ordered his boys to treat the man.
It was the second day after the man received the treatment of Banku’s boys that he was pronounced dead in a private hospital. How Banku intervened is what every sensible person in Bolebaji is still asking the government and the media.
When the family of the deceased threatened Banku, he told them — half-laughing — to go to court.
Abdullahi Oladeji Popoola is a short story writer, poet, and freelancer. He hails from Ibadan. In 2024, he self-published a memoir titled Call Me Kopa, which chronicles his experiences during the NYSC program in Osun State. A passionate lover of African stories, Popoola was once a campus journalist. He finds solace in reading and storytelling. Twitter: @Ladejipopoola
