The teacher had barely written the topic for the day’s lecture on the blackboard when the commotion started outside. She turned sharply, facing her students, momentarily lost. She recollected herself and limped – she had had an accident which made one leg shorter than the other – towards the large metal window on the left side of the class and peered out of it into the street. The students followed her gaze and, half-standing, looked towards the window. She turned and waved them back to their seats. She walked to Chinenye’s desk and picked up her handbag, perched on it. She slung it over her left shoulder, and warning the students to remain seated and quiet, she limped hurriedly out of the class. But no sooner had she left, than Obinna, the tallest boy in the class, who reigned supreme in the back, jumped over his desk and dashed towards the window.

His shouts of “Riot! O kwa riot o!” threw the class into a frenzied panic. The students toppled seats that had held them prisoners as they all rushed to the lone window. The tall ones covered the whole view, making the shorter ones draw desks near to climb on, for a better view. Outside, people ran frantically. Shops were locked, the windows of the many tall houses in the streets were filled with heads peering out. Mallam Sanni’s kiosk down the street leading to St. Andrew’s church had its window, usually open, tightly shut now. “Gini melu?” Onyinye asked what happened to no one in particular and just then, they saw their teacher limping hurriedly, not sure whether to run or walk. Odugo wondered at how quickly she had left the school, when, only a while ago, she had been with them in class. She chuckled when the teacher tried to leap over a large gutter which would have swallowed her up, had she not thought the better of it.

As if on cue, the students ran back to their seats and began packing up. Desks and chairs were bound together by chains in one hurried swoop. Onyinye hugged her school bag to her chest as she waited for Odugo who was trying to weave the metal chain around the legs of her chair and desk. They bound up their chairs and desks that way to avoid theft which was very common in the school. Soon, they joined the rest of the eager students who were grateful for the riot that rescued them from the ennui of schoolwork.

Obinna ran ahead of everyone, shouting and laughing, as the large school gate poured out its students. Some ran home, others roamed the streets, Obinna was the towering head above them all. He joined the crowd of protesters and asked for a machete, but seeing his school uniform, they wouldn’t give him one, so he took up a stick instead.

While out in the streets on the way home, Odugo got to know the cause of the commotion. The riot was a reprisal attack on the Hausas by the Igbos in Onitsha, after the former had parcelled and returned in a commercial vehicle, slain bodies of some Igbos living in the North. The riot in the country which began in the North and spread to the Eastern part, resulted from a caricature of Muhammad, the holy prophet of the Muslim people, made by a Danish Newspaper called Jyllands-Posten on 30th September, 2005. Tensions about the caricature spread from Denmark to other countries and took hold in Nigeria in the early months of 2006, stirring up strife between Muslims and Christians. It began in Maiduguri, a state in northern Nigeria, and saw the death of many Christians, who were mostly Igbos. The religious riot which quickly spiralled into an ethnic war, opened up old wounds and a mild clamour for secession arose among some Igbos who thought the attack a threat to their ethnic safety. Mosques, properties and homesteads belonging to the northerners were burnt down. The riot raged on, drawing in more men who quickly bought new machetes, made a great show of sharpening them on the ground and joined the crowd of protesters. The police, in a bid to contain the violence, shut down the city’s major market.

As Odugo and Onyinye walked home that day through deserted streets, they saw in the faces of the machete wielding men, blatant anger and sheathed sorrow over brothers brought back dishonourably. A fat middle aged woman clad in a blue wrappa stood crying and clutching a rusty machete with her right hand, and with the left, kept the loosely knotted end of her wrappa under her arm. She was surrounded by women who consoled her, dressed in similar fashion. Some cried, some looked on dry-eyed, but in unison, they all comforted “Ozugo, it is okay, leave it to God.” But the bereaved woman cried all the more, “Mba, I will kill them all, Uchenna na Obiozo umu m ka fa gbulu– they killed my sons Uchenna and Obiozo.” Just then, the attention of everyone shifted from the woman to the motorcycle that sped past. On it was a young man carried on the laps of his fellow, with his head swinging loosely from his neck, like a goat that had its head severed halfway. Lumpy blood dripped from his neck as the motorcycle sped fast. Odugo and Onyinye stopped and looked on, wondering if he had fallen victim to a friendly blade or from the brash struggle of a northerner who, finding himself at the mercy of death, had fought back furiously. The woman was soon forgotten and everyone shouted “Okada man, go very fast before he dies, Chineke.” The bereaved woman threw her machete on the ground and looked on, she knew, too, that saving the living was more important than mourning the dead. Odugo thought sadly that the young man on the motorcycle would not have in his wildest dreams envisaged this end. He would have gone to market that day as usual, hoping for good sales, and when the chaos began, had been forced to fight just like his mates, pushing aside the pumping fear in his chest. Somehow, as she looked at him, she knew he wasn’t going to survive, even though the motorcycle rider had stopped in front of Hope Hospital and he was being rushed in. She knew he was going to die a victim of forced bravery. She bade Onyinye goodbye distractedly as she got to the bend of her street.

She noticed the grave silence in the streets now that she walked alone. It was February 22 in that year 2006, the Harmattan blew strong, making its presence felt on shrivelled faces and shiny lips. The dusty environment was forlorn, except for the noisy activity going on in Aboki Uthman’s kiosk. Igbo men surrounded the defenceless kiosk, carting away cartons of Indomie noodles and beverages. The kiosk was rooted off the ground afterwards and children pounced on each other, scrambling for sweets and biscuits. The fireplace of the Mallam who sold barbecue beside it was completely destroyed too.

Odugo met her father seated with his friends on the veranda of their low bungalow when she got home. He was dressed in a red wrappa tied round his waist in the male fashion; with its ends gathered and knotted generously below his navel. He had just passed The Punch Newspaper to Ilonze his friend and had picked up his snuffbox, tapping at it with his knuckles, when Odugo walked in.

“Daddy good morning, Uncle Ilonze, Uncle Nebife, good morning,” she greeted. They nodded their heads. “Fa achunatalu unu?” Ekwedike asked his daughter. “Yes Daddy, we were asked to stay at home until the riot ends.” “O di mma, good. Go inside and take off your school uniform. I fear this riot will go on for much longer.”

“Eziokwu,” Ilonze said. What the Hausa people did is too bad. They don’t care, once their machetes and daggers are raised, they don’t put it down until they kill every Igbo, O joka, it is bad. If I say Biafra is the answer now kita, Dike, you will say I’m raving mad, yet look at how they kill us. They want us wiped off.”

Ekwedike eyed him. He looked behind him and noticed Odugo was still standing at the door. “Get inside the house this child,” he said to her. She went in sulkily. She would have loved to sit down on the floor and offer to fan him with his raffia hand fan so she could listen to them talk. She loved to hear stories he told about the war. She knew their conversation was soon to take that turn. She went into the sitting room and saw her brother Chinonso, still in his school shorts, perched on the seat nearest the door, listening to the men. She sank listlessly into the seat with him and took off her dusty brown Cortina and white socks. She looked over at him and made to talk, but he silenced her by placing his index finger over his chapped lips. She knew he was waiting patiently for the men to leave so he could go to their father to argue about what he had heard. Ekwedike encouraged that. He loved to watch him argue. He loved looking at his brown-coloured son with the golden hair, this son who was just like him and who made him very proud. Odugo envied the rights that were given him because he was a male child. She loved to sit and argue too and didn’t like it when her mother called her to the kitchen during such times, telling her to leave ‘male talks’ alone and help out in the kitchen so she could know how to manage hers when the time came.

Outside, Nebife coughed from the snuff he had sniffed in too quickly. “Utaba nwaanyi a is too strong Dike, did she add pepper to this snuff? It gets too strongly to the head,” he said after the coughing bout. Ekwedike and Ilonze laughed at him. “Is it not the same snuff we are having or is it another, gbo Nebife? Just say you have been buying weak snuff all these while. This is the best, don’t you know? It is meant to wash your head and clear your nose and eyes,” Ekwedike said.

“Dike biko leave Nebife, this thing I am saying about the war, don’t you see reasons with me?”

“If you are asking whether I’m in support of another war, then hear this Ilonze: NO, I am not. It is alarming how people who never experienced bloodshed clamour for it,” Ekwedike said, trying to control the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“I know, Dike, some of us may not have fought during the war but we are not unaware of all that happened. I am just saying that secession is the best for us because if you think that the presidency will get to us one day, then you are dreaming, biko come down from that tree you climbed to see that ridiculous sight.

“But who said I am in the fight for that Ilonze? Mba, all I want is that whoever rules us should do so remembering that we are one. And this riot is simply a case of religious conflict, nothing more!

“True, Dike, but you know how quickly it takes an ethnic turn. And while I am not in support of another war like Ilonze, I am angry with our brothers in the north. Yes I am. Ask them to come back home and establish all their multi-million businesses and erect mighty houses? Mba, they will not. But Hausa people keep burning their buildings and killing them. Ekedolu fa ebe anwa? Are they tied there? How many of the Hausas can you count here gbo? And how many buildings do you see them build here? Only wooden kiosks. Whenever you see them, they are always with their small radios glued to their ears, ready for any news of riot like this one, so they will take off overnight, Fiam! I do not want war, we all want peace, except for Ilonze” – he laughed – “but all I am saying is that our people should come home and invest here, because, home is always best.”

“True. East or West, home is best, like they say in Dutch ‘Oost West thuis best.’ But I understand why our people who are there do not want to return here and set up businesses. It is because things are easier and cheaper there than here – he coughed – I am coming,” Ekwedike said, going into the sitting room. He stopped in the middle of the room on seeing his children, perched on the edge of the chair close to the door. He smiled. He walked to the dining-room, took out a bottle of water from the fridge and asked Odugo to take some to his friends. He reclined in one of the dining chairs, resting his neck on its cushioned edges, cup in one hand, bottle in the other. Chinonso hovered over him, impatient for an opening, but thought it best to wait until the men had gone.

Odugo served the men and went back inside. Stories her father told them about the war occupied her mind. He told them about how he had to journey from Eziowelle his town, to Umunnachi on foot, disguised as a mad man, to find out if his younger sister, who was married there, was still alive. But that was before he fought fear and joined the fight. He had feigned madness in order to avoid forceful conscription. He also told them about how his successful return with good news had thrown the scared family, afraid for daughter and ‘mad’ son, into jubilation that involved them kneeling down and bowing their heads on the red earth and eating the biggest lizard they had smoked and dried, with garri and salt, afterwards.

Ekwedike jumped up from the chair and stood still, as a noise, which sounded like running feet was heard from the back house. “Stay right where you are!” He snapped at Chinonso and Odugo who made to dash towards the direction of the noise. Ilonze and Nebife came into the sitting room, and all three men rushed to the backyard through the backdoor, stopping at the sight before them. Standing in front of the kitchen door, at the centre of the yard, were three Hausa women, all in black flowing hijabs, with babies strapped to their backs and bags on their heads. Hiding behind them and peering at the men were two children, a boy and a girl of about five years of age. Ekwedike looked at the open gate that had led them in and made a mental note to chide his children over their forgetfulness. “Oga sorry, abeg help us. Chineke ga gozi gi – God will bless you,” they said, speaking Igbo and making a toneless music of it. “From where una come?” Ilonze asked.

“From Ose market Oga, we run to everywhere then come here. Abeg help us, hide us. They kill us,” the woman who looked the oldest begged, bowing to them.

Ekwedike returned from locking the gate and spoke to them in Hausa. Relief spread through their faces, heaving chests rested and darting eyes settled. Odugo and Chinonso came out just then and looked on silently.

“No problem, una dey safe here, I go take you people to the barracks.” Ekwedike said to them. He instructed Odugo to take them to the kitchen and give food to the children.

“I fugo? Can you see? Helpless women, where are their husbands?” Ilonze asked, turning to Nebife.

“Ilonze, let it alone. You know in riots you run first and think later. They must have parted ways as they ran for their lives. Dike, I suggest you drive them to the barracks later, when all quietens, if there’s no curfew, that is,” Nebife said. They sat on the bench beside the stairs of the kitchen, talking, while Odugo and Chinonso warmed up the ofe akwu and rice their mother had prepared before travelling to visit her ailing mother in Nanka.

No sooner had Odugo and Chinonso led the women and children into the kitchen, than angry voices were heard outside the gate. The men sat still and stared at each other. They seemed to be thinking that a lot was lined out for the day. “Who lives here?” a coarse voice shouted, banging on the gate.

“Who is that trying to pull down my gate?” Ekwedike shouted back. He stood up and made for the gate. Nebife followed. Ilonze shut the kitchen door. Chinonso signalled the women and children to remain quiet.

“We heard that ndi-awusa ran in here, we just want you to release them to us, that’s all,” the coarse voice said.

“You heard? Who told you that and who are you people?”

“We are your brothers Oga, just open the gate,” a shrill voice said in Igbo.

Ekwedike opened the gate and saw several shiny-headed, dust ridden men. They all had their chests bare, as if they had forgotten to throw shirts over swollen bellies before rushing out of their houses.

“Oga Dike dalu, we will just search the yard and leave, just to be certain, we come in peace.” The man with the coarse voice, who appeared to be their leader, said. He had a machete in his hand.

“You come in peace, yet you have a machete to cut down innocent people not so?” Nebife shot at him. The bald headed leader merely eyed him and looked back to Ekwe, waiting for consent. He moved aside to let them in. “Just do so quietly, I don’t want a noise,” he said as they trooped in, the nine of them. They searched the entire compound, opening plastic water containers and raising gallons lined up against the wall, as though the people they sought had magically become ants. The leader eyed the kitchen door and climbed the rough cemented steps leading to it. Ekwedike calmly said to him, “so I will be hiding ndi-awusa in my kitchen where I cook my food eh kwa? Come down from there.” The man stood looking at the door, he seemed to be weighing what Ekwedike had said. Finally he smiled self-consciously and turned away. He joined the rest of the men and soon they left, thanking Ekwedike.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, the young girl had run to Odugo and clutched at her hand. She had looked up at her and cried “Aunty, abeg, no let them kill me,” her hand, hot and shivering in Odugo’s. She had brown hair, almost golden. Odugo looked down at her little face and hugged her close, pressing the side of her face to her tummy. Odugo had said nothing but inside she raged. Death was supposed to be a thing understood and feared by adults, but here, was a frail little girl, barely six, robbed of her childhood carefreeness and given the fear of death. She fed the children while their mothers ate, with their nipples in the mouths of their crying babies.

Ekwedike couldn’t take them to the barracks that night because of the curfew placed on the state by Governor Ngige, so they slept in the spare room close to Odugo’s. That night, Odugo dreamt her father disguised as a mad man and killed the men who had come to carry the little girl away. Ekwedike woke up early the next morning and took the women and children to the barracks in his car.

Later, when the two-day riot in the state which began on the 22nd day of February, ended and school resumed, Odugo got to hear of how the cattle market close to the River Niger Bridge was attacked by the Igbos. The traders who were northerners were slaughtered like their rams and their livestock divided as spoils of war. She also heard about how a little boy, who sold sachet water, gave away the hideout of some Hausa men. The little boy with his bowlful of cold sachet water had been called by the men who had hidden in a mattress store owned by an Igbo man. They had called the little boy to buy water to relieve thirsty throats and had paid him afterwards. He must have tipped off the angry men roaming the streets, because within minutes, the Hausa men were dragged away with their hands, up in surrender. Their tortured bodies were dumped in a shallow hole in the street, until they were carried away at night by unknown men.

All the students would talk excitedly about all they had seen and heard afterwards, but no one talked freely about Obinna who had been found dead, lying among slain Hausa men at Bida Road. No one knew what had happened but perhaps he had fallen to the dagger of a Hausa man struggling to keep himself alive. News spread of the body of a student in green coloured shorts and yellow shirt, found with his school bag strapped to his waist, his name on his books. His classmates didn’t talk about him even when they looked at the space where his desk had been before it was carried away by his father. No one ever filled that spot; it was as if they had reached an unspoken agreement to retain it for him. But the continued absence of his cackling laughter was there to remind them that he was no more.