Senator Ibile | Uduak-Abasi Ekong

Senator Ibile usually woke in one of three places; most often in a Super King bed at an overpriced hotel after another pointless summit, sometimes in his girlfriend’s arms in the penthouse he rented for her in Oniru, and rarely on the California King in his Lekki home – inches from his wife. So, that Saturday morning, even before he opened his eyes, he knew something was wrong as his back registered the cold floor beneath him.

When he flung his eyes open, a couple of lizards on the wall were the first thing he saw and his eyes popped. But a quick scan of the room suggested he’d been abducted so he swallowed the urge to jump. He had to be captive, and making any sudden sounds would alert his captors. What else could explain waking up in a room smaller than his closet, the walls furred with algae, a football-sized hole in the roof, and dirty dishes in the corner crusted with mould?

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember how he’d been taken. But nothing came to mind. The night before, he’d watched a football match in the living room of his eight-bedroom mansion. His team lost, so he’d downed three bottles of beer and gone to bed, hoping to forget Gabriel Magalhães’s missed penalty that cost them the cup. And now, here he was. He rose and tiptoed across the damp floor.

He reached for his phone in his pocket, but to his surprise, his hands swept through empty air where the breadth of his thighs used to fill up. He looked down and could see his feet – something he hadn’t been able to do in nine years as a senator. Heart pounding, he ran his hands over his face and body. He could feel a beard, a fresh cut on his lips, even an earring in his left ear. Where was the plump body with the smooth, unpierced face he’d gone to bed with?

‘Blood of Jesus!’

He spotted a cracked mirror leaning beside a torn green window net and stumbled towards it. His reflection nearly stopped his heart when he looked into the mirror. The short, pot-bellied senator with greying hair was gone. In his place stood a tall, slender man with braided hair. And worst of all, Senator Ibile recognised the stranger in the mirror – the man whose body he now inhabited.

Senator Ibile screamed. He seized the mirror and shook it, scrubbing at the glass with his sleeves as if a stubborn smudge were to blame for his new appearance. He snatched a half-empty sachet of pure water from the floor and splashed his face. He had to be dreaming. He slapped his cheeks, pinched his arm, even punched his jaw. But each time he looked at the mirror, the stranger looked back.

The slap of wet bathroom slippers against concrete approached the room and Senator Ibile grabbed half a pair of black shoes from the floor. He slipped behind the termite-infested door, with his heart hammering and the shoe raised.

‘Gbenga, you don wake?’ a woman called as the door creaked open.

She stepped in, wearing only a bra and shorts that barely covered her thighs. She looked no older than twenty-five.

‘What have you people done to me?’ Senator Ibile demanded, lunging out and thrusting the shoe at her, as if its stench might force a confession.

She glanced at the shoe, then at him, then rolled her eyes and walked past him. ‘I no get time for your drama this early morning,’ she said calmly.

‘What do you want from me? Where is my body?’ he pressed.

‘Shey I told you not to follow Reggae Boi and smoke that loud last night. Nobody knows where he gets his own thing from, but you no dey hear word. Dey here dey play, next thing now, Reggae Boi go say since you no well, make im drive today,’ she hissed.

‘I don’t know who these people are. Just tell me how you did this,’ he pleaded.

‘Wo, Gbenga, it’s like you will not allow me to do my makeup here in peace,’ she said. She yanked open a splintered drawer, pulled out a makeup box, grabbed the mirror, and walked out, leaving him alone with the shoe and the stranger’s body.

Senator Ibile stared at the door as it slammed shut. Gbenga. He had heard that name just the day before.

On his way back from his girlfriend’s house the previous day, while stuck in traffic on Ozumba Mbadiwe avenue, a Danfo had tried to squeeze its way past his convoy and ended up dragging its dented yellow side across his brand-new Lexus 2026. The sound alone – metal scrapping against metal – had made his ears bleed.

His driver got down first, and the Danfo driver followed. They yelled at each other till their words became fists. From the back seat where he sat, cool behind tinted glasses, Senator Ibile lifted two fingers and two of his armed escorts stepped down with their rifles visible. Senator Ibile watched one of his escorts raise a rifle towards the driver, threatening to shoot, while the driver tore his shirt and stood before the rifle, daring him to.

‘Gbenga, no dey tempt these people,’ the conductor warned. He’d been hanging halfway out the Danfo with one leg inside and one leg outside, when the bus scratched the Lexus.

‘Reggae Boi, free me. Make them shoot me in front of everybody na, since they want to be mad,’ Gbenga refused to bow. Even with blood gathering in his mouth after one of the escorts knocked his teeth with the edge of his rifle, Gbenga stood there with his chest heaving.

‘Officers abeg, na small scratch, we go repair am,’ Reggae Boi pleaded, jumping down and laying flat on the ground.

Some of the passengers in the bus, who’d gathered by the window with their phones out, began to plead as well. One of the escorts glanced back at the car, as if to mentally ask Senator Ibile if he should let them go, but Gbenga followed his gaze and his eyes met Senator Ibile’s.

‘God punish you, foolish old man!’ Gbenga screamed. ‘Look at the traffic on this road because you people have refused to repair it. E no go better for you!’

The escort drove another punch into Gbenga’s face and he staggered for a moment as if his vision had suddenly blurred. He crashed to the ground, and blood continued to trickle from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and staggered to his feet shortly after. He glared at the Lexus and fixed his sight on the young woman sitting beside Senator Ibile.

‘Ashawo! You no even get shame. Dey follow person wey old pass your Papa,’ he shouted.

Reggae Boi wrapped both arms around Gbenga’s waist and dragged him towards their Danfo before the escorts descended on him again.

‘Free me! Free me!’ Gbenga yelled, kicking his feet. ‘Senator Ibile, I know say you dey hear me so. One day, your cup go full and na me you go dey beg.’

Reggae Boi shoved him into the Danfo and drove off, leaving a cloud of black smoke. Gbenga’s words stayed with Senator Ibile. They followed him home, sat with him while he ate, and echoed in his home office while he tried to read some documents. Your cup go full and na me you go dey beg. Who was this insolent nobody with the audacity to threaten him? Did the fool have any idea what he was capable of?

His phone rang some hours later, and he picked it up to hear his girlfriend crying.

‘Baby,’ she sniffled. ‘Someone posted the video and now my face is everywhere.’

He sat upright as he clicked on the link she sent him. Someone had zoomed in when the madman, Gbenga, was shouting at the window and even with the tinted glass, people could make out who she was.

‘My baby, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I will show that idiot pepper.’

After they ended the call, he remained seated in silence as he scrolled through the comments on Instagram. How dare this nonentity humiliate his baby girl? Worse still, he’d opened the floodgates for his own humiliation as well. The comments had moved from his girlfriend and people were now dredging up every allegation ever levelled against him. The homes he’d demolished to expand his liquor business and the road projects he’d received money for but never executed. It was only a matter of time before people he would rather avoid started calling to ask why he was trending. Party leaders, the governor, or God forbid, the presidency. All because one stubborn Danfo driver had refused to keep his mouth shut. This Gbenga person had to pay.

That evening, just before the Champion’s League final, Senator Ibile found himself in Makoko, ducking into Baba Ife’s shrine.

‘Baba, I want this man to run mad,’ he said.

Baba Ife did not ask many questions. He never did.

‘I will conjure madness to enter his body,’ Baba Ife said and Senator Ibile smiled. The ₦1,000,000 he paid Baba Ife monthly to have him at his beck and call always proved a good investment. Without Baba Ife, he wouldn’t have won his first, second, and third elections. It was also Baba Ife that made his girlfriend, the most beautiful woman in Nigeria, fall in love with him. Baba Ife also made sure all his bills were voted into law. He blessed the day he’d met Baba Ife.

Baba Ife wrote Gbenga on the side of a calabash in chalk that squeaked against the dry surface. He placed a small photograph inside it – the one Senator Ibile’s aide had quickly printed from social media. He knew Baba Ife would need a picture like he always did, and it had been easy to find Gbenga online when people kept tagging him in the comments of the video.

‘Dance around it three times,’ Baba Ife instructed.

Senator Ibile started dancing, serious and angry in the first round, he was sweating by the second round. Halfway through the third round, his phone rang. It was his girlfriend and he stepped outside to answer it. She said there were more videos of them circulating and people were starting to send her death threats.

‘I will send some of my boys to guard you. Don’t worry, my love. Nothing will happen to you and that useless Danfo driver will pay for what he did,’ he said.

When he stepped back into the shrine, the candles were low and Baba Ife waved a dismissive hand.

‘It has entered,’ he said, squatting before the calabash as fire erupted from it and consumed Gbenga’s picture. Senator Ibile smiled in satisfaction as he imagined Gbenga’s shock when the madness started to kick in. If only he could rub it in his face and let him know it had been his doing.

Now, standing barefoot in Gbenga’s damp room and wearing his body, Senator Ibile wasn’t sure what had entered what.

He rushed to the window and looked outside. He was met with rusted brown roofs that crowded in uneven rows, a wide lagoon amidst wooden houses on stilts and canoes sliding between them. His eyes lit up for the first time since waking up. He was in Makoko. The same Makoko where his face was plastered all over Adogbo and Oko Agbon every election season, the same Makoko he always promised to prioritise in ‘the next term.’ As he looked past the squalor in front of him, he realised that there was finally mercy in this madness. Baba Ife’s shrine was not far away.

Senator Ibile dashed out of the house onto the ‘street,’ which was a patchwork of narrow wooden walkways nailed to stilts driven deep into black water. Each plank dipped slightly under his weight and he walked as slowly as he could to avoid breaking them. He squeezed his nose as the smell hit him – stagnant water and smoked fish. He walked past women on low stools, frying Akara in blackened pans, children brushing their teeth over the lagoon, and a woman bathing her baby with water scooped straight from it.

Someone recognised the body he wore.

‘Gbenga, how far? I see you for video yesterday. Omo, you get mind o.’

Senator Ibile did not answer as he kept moving. When the planks gave way to sand, he sprinted towards the bushes and didn’t stop running till he arrived at the mud building with red cloth strips hanging from sticks planted in the ground. He walked past the empty bottles that circled the entrance and the white chalk symbols across the doorway.

‘Baba?’ he called out, pushing his head past the hanging beads.

The room was dim, thick with incense, and a goat skull sat on a wooden stool like it was watching.

‘It’s Ibile,’ he called out.

‘Ibile ke?’ Baba Ife squinted at him as he emerged from the dark corner. ‘Young man, you better tell me who you are.’ He lifted a red handkerchief, ready to fling it at him.

Senator Ibile knelt and raised both hands quickly.

‘Baba, na me, Ibile. Your Ibile,’ he pleaded.

Baba Ife’s eyes did not soften. Senator Ibile moved closer and lowered his voice as he began to remind Baba Ife of all he’d done for him. How, during the last elections, Baba Ife made the other candidates’ names mysteriously disappear from ballot papers in three key wards. He mentioned the election rerun that never happened, the tribunal case against him that dissolved like salt in water, and the white cowry he wore that protected him from bullets.

Baba Ife watched him for a long while. Then, slowly, he lowered the red cloth.

‘Ah, Ibile, how did this happen? What happened to your body?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, I’ve been trying to remember but…I don’t know, nothing is making sense,’ Senator Ibile said.

‘It is because you did not finish the third dance,’ Baba Ife shook his head.

‘But you said it was fine, and besides, since I did not finish the dance, he should have just ran mad small, not….’ he gestured to himself. ‘This.’

‘Are you questioning the gods?’ Baba Ife’s eyes flashed.

‘God forbid,’ Senator Ibile snapped his fingers quickly over his head. ‘When I’m not mad. I’m just asking, Baba, what do I do now? How do I get my body back?’

Baba Ife began to circle the room while chanting and shaking a small gourd rattle. As the candles flickered and the smoke thickened, Senator Ibile’s mind raced. What if the solution required something unclear, like the time the gods asked for a mature virgin’s blood and he brought a woman’s, only to find out too late that the gods wanted that of a man? That mistake still sat between him and the Governor’s seat. He could not afford another technical error.

Then, Baba Ife stopped chanting abruptly.

‘The gods have spoken,’ he said, breathing hard.

Senator Ibile leaned forward with his chest thudding.

‘You must look into the eyes of your real self before midnight today,’ Baba Ife said.

Senator Ibile waited for more instructions. When none came, he frowned. ‘That’s it?’

‘That is all, but you have to make sure you do it o. There is no other way,’ Baba Ife warned.

Relief flooded him so quickly his knees almost buckled. ‘That one na small thing, Baba. Please, tell the gods I said thank you o,’ he said, smiling. For the first time since he woke on that cold floor, Senator Ibile felt in control again. He adjusted the borrowed shoulders he now carried and stepped out of the shrine, already planning his return home, to his body.

The plan was simple. Senator Ibile knew his own schedule. By now, Gbenga – inside his body – would have woken up on Egyptian cotton sheets, beside his wife. He would be confused and she would assume he was still sulking over last night’s match.

But, when the hysteria increased and Gbenga started shouting that he was not Ibile, that he was a Danfo driver from Makoko, his wife would panic and call their family doctor. The doctor would insist on a proper evaluation, so they’d have to take Gbenga to the private wing at Maliver Hospital in Lekki Phase 1. That was Senator Ibile’s window of opportunity. All he had to do was get to the hospital and await their arrival. As soon as Gbenga got down from the car, he would give a good look at himself. Easy peasy. Problem solved.

Senator Ibile checked Gbenga’s pockets and found two crumpled notes – one  ₦1,000 and one ₦500. He shook his head, but at least he had enough for his commute. He’d board a keke to the nearest bus stop, then a bus to Obalende, and another bus to Lekki Phase 1, and probably still have some change to spare. This nightmare would soon be over. He squirmed as he flagged down a keke along the road. He had not used public transport in fifteen years.

The tricycle was already full, with two sweaty, older men squeezed shoulder to shoulder, and their knees knocking against his. As the keke drove past one of his posters, one of the men hissed. Another turned to the hissing man.

‘Wetin Ibile do you?’ he inquired, then he continued, ‘The man don try.’

‘Try how? Because of ordinary borehole that he did?’ the hissing man asked.

Senator Ibile sank into his seat as the men argued, resisting the urge to clear his throat and correct their statistics. He’d dug three boreholes, not one, though two no longer functioned.

As they approached the main road, the keke driver suddenly swerved into a narrow, sandy path lined with bushes on each side.

‘Young man, why are we going the wrong way?’ Senator Ibile asked.

‘Police dey front,’ the driver said. ‘Dem go seize my keke.’

And then, it hit him. His proposed bill to ban Keke Napeps from major roads two years ago which had recently been passed.

‘We have to restore order on our streets,’ he’d said, while watching police officers set fire to the confiscated vehicles.

‘Are you new in Lagos?’ the hissing man asked, looking at him but Senator Ibile ignored.

‘Oga, please,’ Senator Ibile said, leaning forward. ‘Use the main road so I can quickly catch my bus. I promise you will not enter trouble. Just give me your name and details and I promise you, tomorrow, I will change your life.’

Everyone in the keke burst into laughter. ‘Oshey, commissioner of changing lives.’

Senator Ibile tapped his legs on the floor as the keke bounced through potholes and finally dropped them far from the junction. He jumped down and ran. By the time he got to the nearest bus stop, sweat had soaked through Gbenga’s shirt. He asked a stranger for the time and was told it was midday. One hour had gone. Would he even meet Gbenga at the hospital?

He squeezed into a bus heading towards Obalende with one leg half outside. His mind drifted as the Conductor shouted destinations. What would he do if Gbenga had already left the hospital? He’d built his house in a way that commoners were not allowed to even hover close to his fence without receiving threats of getting their lives wasted.

Suddenly, the bus came to a halt. Senator Ibile looked up and saw the wall of vehicles lined up ahead. He took his hand to his head as he remembered. The President was visiting Lagos today. In fact, he was supposed to be among the people welcoming him, seated in the front row and smiling for the cameras. Instead, here he was.

As the bus crawled forward inch by inch, people’s complaints began to swell. Senator Ibile buried his face in his arms and listened to strangers dissect his and his colleagues’ failures. They spoke ill of the President, of all who were going to welcome him, and threatened violence if they ever met them. Senator Ibile kept his head down.

When the traffic finally loosened, the relief lasted barely five minutes. A few young men appeared between vehicles, knocking on windows, and demanding ‘Transport union tax.’

‘For Senator Ibile,’ one of them said when they got to his bus.

Senator Ibile stared at the boy who looked like he should be in school. He didn’t remember ever asking him, or anyone else, to collect money from drivers in his name. After the young man left, the bus crawled shortly and then the engine coughed and died.

‘You have got to be joking,’ Senator Ibile screamed.

‘Oga calm down, fuel don finish. No be my fault,’ the driver said, wiping sweat from his forehead. He spoke to his conductor about pushing the vehicle, but Senator Ibile could not wait for them to finish their conversation. He got down from the bus and ran as fast as his new legs could carry.

By the time he got to Obalende, he’d already lost another hour and there was no point going to Maliver Hospital. He had to come up with a new plan. He walked hungrily down the road, past posters of his own face smiling above the words, Progress and Continuity 2027, stapled to electric poles. One was fluttering loose in the wind and he stopped, stared at it, then ripped it down.

Senator Ibile staggered into the shade of a kiosk where a woman was selling cold drinks. He bought a bottle of coke and some puff puff and lay under the shade.

‘Madam,’ he said in a thin voice. ‘Abeg, wake me in one hour. I need to rest my head small.’

She nodded absentmindedly and he slept sitting up.  When he opened his eyes, the sky was dark, the kiosk was closed, and the woman was gone. Night had come in what seemed like a literal blink of an eye. His heart dropped. He scrambled to the street and begged a stranger for the time. It was nearly 9pm.

‘Blood of Jesus!’ he screamed. How had he slept for so long? Did the woman put something in his puff puff? Was Gbenga’s body such a deep sleeper?

‘Sir, are you okay? Do you want to call someone?’ the stranger asked, looking at him with pity.

‘Yes, yes,’ Senator Ibile said.

As soon as the stranger handed him her phone, he rushed to Google and typed in his name, hoping for any posts or tweets that would give him an inkling of where Gbenga was. Maybe Gbenga would be so freaked out in his body that he’d cause a scene during the President’s welcome. Maybe he’d see where Gbenga was rushed to and await him there.

But what he saw shocked him. There was Gbenga – in his well-tailored blue kaftan – smiling and waving as he cut a ribbon beside the President. Gbenga didn’t seem nearly as stressed as he was. He seemed settled, like he was in the body he was supposed to be in. Senator Ibile couldn’t help but wonder. Had this all been Gbenga’s plan from the beginning? How did he do it? Was Baba Ife in on it? Luckily, Senator Ibile knew what happened during these Presidential visits. They’d have dinner at Eko Hotels afterwards. He would camp out there and wait for Gbenga.

Senator Ibile waved frantically at passing bikes till one of them stopped. The Okada man named a price which felt like robbery because bikes weren’t allowed there. Senator Ibile agreed to pay, hoping to get down and run as soon as the bike slowed down. This new agile body was very fast.

They had barely moved 2 kilometres when a van screeched to a stop ahead of them.

‘Stop there,’ someone said and Senator Ibile’s stomach tightened. This was no time to get kidnapped.

They dragged the Okada man down first.

‘Come, don’t you know that you’re not supposed to be riding Okada here?’ one of the men asked, knocking his rifle against the Okada man’s head.

‘Officer, no vex,’ the Okada man pleaded.

‘Na Yahoo boy you dey carry?’ the officer asked, looking at Senator Ibile.

‘Excuse me?’ Senator Ibile frowned. The audacity of these men—whose salaries he had a hand in—to speak to him that way.

‘Shhhh,’ the Okada man pleaded at Senator Ibile.

‘See this fool,’ the officer said, letting go of the Okada man as he walked towards Senator Ibile.

‘You are the foolish nincompoop. Just because you’re seeing young men, you’ve decided that they are Yahoo…’ Senator Ibile began but a punch landed on his face.

‘E be like say you wan die. Why you dey run your mouth like tap?’ the officer asked.

‘How dare you? Do you know who I am? I am Senator Ibile and you will pay for this. Is this how you harass young…’ he said but the officer pushed him to the ground.

As Senator Ibile looked at the stars while boots landed blows on his body and face, he remembered his days as a Senior Prefect in secondary school, when his interest in politics began. He’d made so much impact he decided to pursue politics when he grew up. He had hoped to change Nigeria one policy at a time, but a few envelopes here, a few fake contracts there, and here he was, getting kicked by officers who were supposed to protect civilians. Officers he wouldn’t have run into if his journey was as smooth as it should have been, as smooth as it would have been if someone better was Senator.

‘Today na your lucky day,’ one of the officers said. ‘We no get time to waste bullet.’

They got into their car and left, and the Okada man fled on his bike. Senator Ibile lay there, surrounded by his blood and tears. The stars in his view began to spin as bystanders surrounded him. Then, he closed his eyes.

When Senator Ibile woke up, everywhere was quiet. He looked around at the blue sheets and health education posters around him. He knew this place, he’d donated those posters. He tried to sit up but someone held him back down.

‘I’m the one that brought you here. You get luck say you still dey breathe,’ the stranger said. ‘Doctor said you should rest small, that they have stopped all the bleeding.’

Senator Ibile looked down at his body covered in bandages. He glanced at the clock in the corner. It was five minutes to midnight.

‘No, I need to get to the private wing. Call the doctor for me. I need to know if Gbe…Senator Ibile is here,’ he pleaded.

Maybe Gbenga hadn’t pulled off impersonating him, and his wife had figured out something was wrong. Maybe she’d asked his guards to bundle him up and keep him here under 24/7 supervision by his doctor. Maybe the gods were still on his side, and everything had led to this moment, so he’d be able to easily look into Gbenga’s eyes.

‘It’s like they really hit your head o,’ the stranger said.

‘My head is fine, just…please, I have to check. There is a chance he’s here,’ Senator Ibile said, trying to get down from the bed.

In the distance, they heard sirens wail and the headlights reflected on their walls as a convoy sped past. The stranger looked out at the flashing lights and brought out his phone.

‘The Senator Ibile you’re looking for is probably inside that car,’ the stranger said, holding up his phone. He showed him the latest tweet from Senator Ibile’s account, complete with pictures of the Senator and the President at Eko Hotels.

Senator Ibile cried as he lay back on the bed. The stranger looked at him in confusion and rushed out to get the doctor. Senator Ibile wailed on. This could not be it. He had to go back to his body and fix all he’d seen today. He had to do all the things he’d once dreamt of doing. Tomorrow, he would return to Baba Ife and plead for the gods to give him another chance. Tomorrow, he’d make things right.

Senator Ibile stared at the clock as his cries subsided. When it struck midnight, he closed his eyes and hoped for another chance.