…The Police Came Ringing the Bell

“My mother was already up and she wanted to know the identity of the crowd dogging every one of my steps in the house. It was then I asked the police superintendent to assure my mother that I was not being searched for robbery, he kindly obliged.”

It was at the time of the morning when sleep was deep, a time that you would not like to be rudely woken. The ringing of the bell made a sharp note, like the healthy ringing of the telephone. In the depth of sleep, the hand automatically reached for the telephone, and the involuntary voice said, “Hello.” The ringing stopped for a moment, even as the telephone was giving out a dialing tone. Something must have seriously gone wrong, and you began to think that Nigerian telephone would never work well. You put back the receiver in the cradle, and you turned to continue your sleep. Then, the ringing again, and this time it was long, a little persistent, and loud enough to snap the sleep and bring you well up. You realized suddenly that someone was at your door trying to wake you and again an entrance. Conflicting emotions bedeviled you. Have the armed robbers come again, this time to wake you up, perhaps to clean out your house, perhaps to kill you, to make the point that you once had the guts to scream in your column about how they came to your house and took your car from you.

The ringing of the bell again told you that you couldn’t continue the reverie in the quietness of your bedroom. For one, you didn’t want the bell to wake your mother who was asleep in the next bedroom. For another, you had to move out of the room before the armed robbers, that’s what you thought, could enter, block you in your room and kill you in your pyjamas. As you pulled on your robe, you moved fast through the passage way to the entrance into your house.

“Who are you,” I asked, my mouth close to the wood of the door, hoping that machine guns would not shatter the divider between me and whoever was on the other side. I had checked my time, and I found that it was 5.40 a.m. My mind reflected on how it was the time that armed robbers liked to operate.

“The police,” answered a chorus of at two voices.

“Hold on,” I said, my brain working furiously. I turned around through my living room to the French windows and out into the corridor in front of the house, and called to my security guard.

“Mallam.”

“Sir.”

“Are those people police?”

“Yes.”

Two of them came around behind the dividing slaps of concrete protecting the French windows from outside. They showed their Nigerian Police cards. I still didn’t believe that they could be policemen. But, one of them had a haircut like officials always spotted. I turned around to open the door, fearing that the thing could be pushed open with a determined kick. As the door opened I saw more men behind the gate that my Malam had refused to open until I gave him the go-ahead. I asked for the leader of the team, and a gentleman by the name of Raphael Osanaiye who described himself as the Superintendent of Police in charge of the Special Investigation Branch said he was the leader. He explained that he was the head of a 13-man investigating team assigned to search my residence and office at Concord. I asked him if had warrants to execute the search. He said he did, and that six men were already detailed to the Concord office. He was there at my house, he said, with six men. I asked him and his men to come in, he pointed to the chained gate, and I directed my security guard to open the gate and let the men in.

They came into the house. I cautioned them to move slowly because I would not like my house to know that a large team of policemen had come to visit. He explained that they would like to drive me to Concord where they would like to search my office. We drove in a 504 station wagon to the office, with a couple of the officers in a blue Beetle car left behind to keep watch on the house. Before we left the house, I told my steward not to tell my mother what was happening. When we got to the premises, the six men posted to Concord materialized and they drove behind us in their unmarked 504saloon car to my office, accompanied by one of Concord’s security officers. When we reached my office, Mr. Osanaiye said that they would like to be orderly about the whole thing if I would be kind to give them the “Government White Paper” about which the Sunday Concord reported on the front and back pages of the paper. I led them down to the room where the copy was being processed, and handed the manuscript of the “White Paper” to the police superintendent. After taking the manuscript, the police officers then began a detailed search of my office, going through all the drawers and examining all the papers strewn all over my desk.

At the end of the search, the officers noted on the search warrant on my office that “a photocopy of the Federal Government views on the report of the Republic Building Fire Incident Tribunal of Inquiry and a copy of the Sunday Concord of October 24, 1982” were seized. We then drove back to my house, this time followed by the 504 saloon car and the other detectives who had been guarding the Concord premises. By the time we reached the house, my mother was already up and she wanted to know the identity of the crowd dogging every one of my steps in the house. I then explained to her what was happening, and when she didn’t believe me, I had to ask Mr. Osanaiye to assure my mother that I was not being searched for robbery. Mr. Osanaiye kindly obliged, and explained the situation to my troubled mother. After a thorough search of my study, bedroom and living room during which nothing was taken, criminal or uncriminal, I was driven  to the Lagos State Police Command where I was held in the Special Investigation Bureau office of Superintendent of Police Osanaiye.

Mr. Osanaiye invited me into his office, and said that he would like to know the source of the copy of the Government White Paper which I had given to him and which I announced on the previous Sunday that I would publish in this issue of the Sunday Concord. I told him that I was protected by the law against discussing my source of information, and that I would not answer any question on the matter. The whole conversation took a gentle manner. Mr. Osanaiye and all his men who came to my house were gentlemen. He left me in his outer office, while he went, presumably, to report the matter as it stood at that point to the Commissioner of Police for Lagos State. Meanwhile, the public relations officer for the police, ASP Alozie Ogugbuaja, heard of my arrest and came over to invite me to his office where I was given a breakfast of boiled eggs and coffee. By this time, the general manager of the Concord Press of Nigeria, Mr. Yaya Awosanya, and Alhaji Fola Ashiru, the executive assistant to Chief M.K.O. Abiola, had joined me at the police station in efforts to secure my release.

Later at 1.30p.m., nearly eight hours after my arrest, the police agreed to release me on a N4, 000 bail, demanding that I should report at the police station by 10 o’clock the next morning, and at anytime they wanted me until the matter was finally disposed off. I was to travel out of the country on vacation, but I couldn’t, until my fate was settled. My comments on all this? Let’s wait until the matter, as the police indicated, was disposed off.

©Sunday Concord, October 31, 1982
(Pp.185-188)