The Tale Of A Kidnapping

ALABA and Trouble suddenly became a consultancy on any issues of life and death. If you have travelled the length and breadth of this world as the African has, everyday matters are matters of life and death.

And we are not speaking of insurance, re-insurance and outsurance! Where there is scarcity of air, of water, of food and therefore of leisure, there would always be strife. Every day survival would be at a premium.

Titi was a special girl, tall, slim, intelligent and always helpful. Her parents had perished in a ghastly accident on their way to a waterfall somewhere in the South West geopolitical zone. They had insisted on finding as many beautiful places in Nigeria as possible to begin to market to the world as a sideline to their interest in ecological health of the Earth. They left Titi with her father’s younger sister who had never married and so did not have a child of her own.

Titi was barely five years old. After the ceremonies were over, Titi’s mother’s people, specifically her grandmother had asked to have Titi to care for. Her Aunty would not hear of it. She prepared the papers and adopted Titi as her child.

Living was good. Aunty owned a number of clothes and shoes outlets in Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Onitsha, Yenagoa as well as in the northern geopolitical zones.

In addition, she had petrol stations across the country. The houses and flats she owned and rented out would exhaust anyone counting.

Every day, money arrived in her various accounts effortlessly. The house they lived in on Victoria Island had four bedrooms all en suite. Downstairs were the sitting rooms and kitchen and dining rooms, small and large.

There were the kitchen staff made up of two cooks and three stewards. Two cleaners were in charge of keeping the house spotlessly shining. Kanki was the driver who cared for the various vehicles as if they were extensions of his body.

Even in his spare time he would care for them and prepare them for their outing as if they were going out to outshine other vehicles on the crowded and chaotic roads of Lagos. He was the same age with Titi and in a world where there was justice, Kanki and Titi could be a package of great promise. But as Kanki reminds himself always, he was the servant and she was the princess of the HomeSweetHome.

Titi studied Management Logistics and specialized in marketing in a globalising environment, all these with an eye to joining her mother in the management of her businesses. But Mother did not want her to bother her beautiful self about anything. She was still strong and able to manage her affairs without the help of anyone. She was in control of her staff and she received reports every day from across the country about the state of things. Would Titi like to travel, see the country, see some African countries and then see the world? She was excited. She would begin with Nigeria, with looking for her birth mother’s relatives. She heard from them from time to time, at Christmas and Easter and her birthdays. Now she felt that she would like to go and see them. And she would like to travel by public transport, to get the feel of the country, see the country as everyone else saw the country, from the inside of a luxury bus or even one of those battered minibuses that flew over the forever unfinished and unfinishable and dangerous of the country.

Mother agonised over this wish Titi had. She would deny her nothing. She would let her see the country and meet her mother’s people but why not do so from the comfort of a 4 X 4? Let Kanki drive her there and back or even beyond, through the rest of the country? Titi would not hear of it. But what about Kanki driving her to the motor park at Iddo. Even that Titi wanted to take okada or keke Marwa! Here Mother put down her feet. Kanki would take her to Iddo motor park.

At the motor park, Kanki stopped and told Titi he was going to check out which of the buses were ready to move. He would pay for the priority front seat next to the driver and then come back to get Titi’s dainty suitcase and place her in the bus. She left the car engine running so as to keep the air-con running. It was hot and humid outside, although Titi would soon have to get used to that un-conditioned environment.

As soon as Kanki left the 4 X 4 a horde of beggars surrounded the vehicle. Sisi, help me. This child has not eaten for three days. My sister help me I cannot find work. Have mercy on me. I am old and feeble and cannot find food, help me. Those God has given plenty please give me little! Titi was confused and. She brought out her purse and then put it away wondering how much she could give to how many people.

Then suddenly the doors of the car were yanked open and three young men entered the vehicle. They were out of the motor park before Titi realised what was happening. The two who sat with her at the back pinned her down and subdued her. In another thirty minutes she was in safe house and they called her Mother. Fifty million naira or you will never see Titi again. She would never see the Jeep again.

While the Mother was putting together the ransom money the young man guarding Titi could not resist raping her and killing her. When they dumped her body Kanki and two others took the guard and cut off his penis to make sure he would never again deprive them of good pay day. Kanki consoled Mother on the rape and murder of Titi. He also began to plan how they would kidnap Mother.

There would be no idiot to deprive them of that big earning of the future. Only the particular understanding of human motivation by Alaba and Trouble found out the guilt of Kanki.