chapter SEVEN

The news of the rampage on the Kano- bound train had hit town by the following morning. Although it was first reported on the radio in the 10 p.m news bulletin on Saturday night, it was the Sunday papers of the next day that really brought the veracity of the disturbances to various places across the country.

As weekend papers, the stories were presented hot and fresh with banner headlines and photographs, which made enough stories on their own.

Taye saw the papers in Kaduna. He found the coverage of the incident by the Sunday future Nigerian Newspaper more authoritative because the paper had photographs of the burnt railway station and damaged coaches on its front, back and centre pages. After browsing through the paper he settled down to the front-page. "Railway Rioting: Police open fire". It was one of those stories newspapers carry without bylines.

    According to the account of this paper, at least two people were feared dead during the fracas while several others were injured. The cause of death was not immediately known but it was said that the police opened fire to disperse the protesters. Taye read the story further and unconsciously began to read it aloud. This attracted the whole household.

      "Baba Ibeji, yesterday when this boy mentioned this thing, I did not take it seriously at all", Taye's mother said, addressing her husband. Chief Oluwole home was one of many around the nation where the news of the train rampage had real meaning. The news had an immediate and profound impact on Taye's parents and consequently on all members of the family.

     Kehinde , Taye's twin sister and a student of Government Girls' College, Funtua, was the first to come home as usual because Chief had never failed to pick her up from school during holidays, not because of her gender but because Funtua where she's schooling is within the state they resided. Kehinde came home with book prizes in four subjects, having come first in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and English Language. She took an unbelievable sixth position in Biology. Her drawings were usually horrible. She knew this. Taye, on the order hand, added the Biology prize to his haul to make his five. The children's academic achievement gladdened their parent's heart so much that they began to think of surprise packages for the twins. All through the night, husband and wife debated what to do for the twins to encourage them to greater heights.

      But in the morrow, the most unexpected news the Sunday papers brought, compelled Chief Oluwole to do something immediately. At their church later that morning, the whole congregation joined the Oluwole family in a thanksgiving offering. The notice was short but the Pastor had no option because of Chief's position in the church and the community.

      And as a nightcap to the special day, the family of six had a private dinner at the five-star Kaduna Durbar Hotel.

     Taye was allowed only a short sleep that Sunday night. Kehinde was already seated in the Boy's Room soon after their parents retired to their own room. Idowu and Alaba, the twins, too showed keen interest and one could see that they were still very active and talkative. Taye chose to begin with the narrative of his experience at the point he and his friends ran away from the scene of the rampage.

According to Taye, they came face to face with a giant bridge over which the railway tracks ran. Crossing the bridge was a Herculean task because Bose was hydrophobic. She had to be guided past the bridge as if she were a blind person.

The bridge was constructed entirely of iron bars and plates so that one could see the swift flowing water below in between the many gaps. Crossing the Bridge took some forty-five minutes -  a bridge only about 50 metres long. As soon as the trio were safely at the other end, they happily ran along, hoping that the level crossing, where the derailment was said to have occurred, was within reach.

       Taye narrated further that after they became tired and decided to take some rest and they sat down on the railway track while Bose kept entertaining them with poetry. One of the many which she claimed they were made to learn by heart at school. The poem was so apt to their predicament that both Santana and Taye took down all the four verses of the rather lengthy poem entitled. 'Don't quit'.

Then Taye told his siblings how suddenly Santana sprang up and started to run, hopping across three slippers of crossbars of the rail line at a time. Startled, his friends stood up, half expecting him to turn back soon. He neither stopped nor slackened in pace until he disappeared into the distance. For some agonising ten minutes, they watched the last spot where Santana had disappeared and when he finally reappeared, Santana was shouting.

"I have hit the road, get our things, let's go, there are vehicles at the junction, Taye, Bose, let's go". Santana cut the figure of the legendary Olympian runner.

Taye paused to observe his unusually silent audience and he was pained to find that they were all asleep. He wondered for how long he had been narrating his ordeal only to himself. It was past midnight. He crossed over to where his twin sister was now snoring on an armchair, woke her up and asked her to go to her room.

Early next day, Taye slipped out of the house, soon after their father left for work after confiding in kehinde that he was traveling to Kano.

"Bose will be waiting for me at the Kano Railway station at noon, so, I better hurry", he whispered to Kehinde.

Kehinde began to protest but Taye was adamant.

"Bye, Kenny, please,keep up my cover, good sister". 

Kehinde did not reply Taye's wave because she was against his playing pranks. 

Taye was never like this, she thought and reasoned that he must have been involved in some bad company at school.