Against All Odds I

BOOK ONE:

SURVIVAL QUEST

In the midst of an economic recession, in a world with an organised street hierarchy and crime bosses—a world with abandoned projects abandoned to its vices—Akin, a ten-year-old runaway who took to the streets after the death of his mother, must employ all his wits and cunning if he is to survive the day and strive against all odds of survival.

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PROLOGUE I:

THE VISIONARY

The truck driver felt his legs couldn't carry him further away from the fight, no massacre, fast enough. The cacophony of angry yells and cries of pain, the grunts, groans and whimpers for mercy, urged him on, even as his breathing got rough and uneven. The blasted thugs had grown more violent and ruthless ever since one of them had been shot by one of the fools in the security team their employer posted at the estate. Now, the trucks delivering materials to the estate had become the targets of their retribution. Before now, they only raided the place once in a while without killing anybody. All they ever wanted was to be paid protection fees if the redevelopment project had to continue, but the project head, their employer, was too stubborn, and claimed his 'visionary idea' would end up benefiting the slum dwellers the most, why must he pay them to make their lives better? The truck driver couldn't help but curse at the mumu man as he stumbled through the bush path. Does he think these people cared about an empty promise, or some grandiose ideas? They have the politicians feeding them that yearly! To them, he was just another capitalist who came into town to exploit their land and whatever resources he could milk from it. They are not inclined to stop him, but at the same time, he must grease their palm!

Jumping down a steep incline, away from the dirt road, the driver hid among the tangled roots of a tree as the sounds of the conflict he barely got away from died down. Soon the triumphant singing of the gangsters ranged out as they drove past him with their bounty, the truckload of materials he and his coworkers were supposed to deliver to the construction site deep within the estate grounds. Moments passed before the middle-aged driver released the breath, he wasn't aware he was holding. As he made his way back to the site of the conflict he had only just escaped from, with a heavy heart that dreaded what he would find, the driver found himself wondering if the so-called educated elites lose their common sense, after the leave the country, for whatever reason, for the western world. Was the reason for his rigid stance in dealing with the area boys and local gang perhaps some misplaced faith in the jurisdiction of the district police office? Did his employer with all his wisdom and business acumen think for a second, that the district police officer's promise to apprehend the thugs disrupting his business actually hold any water? Surely, it couldn't have escaped his employer's sharp senses that these same thugs and street gangs run the criminal underworld of the city on behalf of the politicians and the elitist party that controls the government and determines who holds political power at any given moment. These same gangs are used for all the deals and under the table settlements of interests that must never see the light of the day. The street savvy driver who had friends in some of the more prominent gangs and had an idea of the way they do things, find it difficult to wrap his head around the fact that his employer, who was way smarter than he could ever be, could have missed the obvious fact that the local security force and the local gangs are actually in cahoots, giving that none of the gangs has had any of their members apprehended since they had been terrorising his project for settlement fees, despite the prohibitive number of checkpoints around town. The most that would likely happen would be a warning to the gang leaders to reign in their gang members' bloodlust in other to avoid attracting the media, and the civil activists' attention. The more troublesome members might get thrown into the police detention centres for a couple of days so they could cool off before they are released on account of, lack of evidence of their involvement in causing civil unrest. This is only a matter of course, as the laundering services, trafficking, and assassination of troublesome parties provided to their elitist patrons and their respective elite circle of movers and shakers of power, is enough to grant the local gangsters immunity from the law to some extent. The two-tier system of justice extends to the gangsters in varying levels based on their capabilities and importance. Even if the driver, subject to the lower tier of the justice system with maximum penalties and harsh punishments imposed upon him in cases of misdemeanor, was nothing but a common man, a member of the masses and therefore unaware of the complexities of the justice system, though he understands its manifestations as a member of the society, then surely his knowledgeable employer must be aware and should have been able to make plans accordingly. Sadly, Mr Jefferson, the visionary and the head of the redevelopment project, belonged to the breed of Africans in diaspora who only had a vague idea of the situation of things back home and presumed themselves ambassadors of change once they returned with the proverbial golden fleece. Despite his well-meaning intentions for the development of his homeland, his sophisticated arrogance in believing that the law is supreme in a land he presumed was protected by the rule of law and governed by a legitimate government that observed all the stipulated forms of separation of powers, was the first stumbling block in the way of his ambition. His failure to realise that they are some powers he must pander to, if he lacked the capability to wage a war with too sure odds against them, was his second.

The gruesome sight of the macabre massacre the truck driver barely escaped from, was enough to jolt him badly out of his reverie with the realisation that he alone had survived a coordinated attack and hijack with serious casualties, unharmed. The implications of this, was not lost on the poor driver. He found that he is in a perfect scenario that could be explained away by the authorities, and potentially doom him forever, as an accomplice who sold out his co-workers to armed bandits in exchanged for renumeration. The driver was in no way deluded that he would be treated as a victim of a traumatising incident if he tendered a police report on the incident immediately. No! Truck driver Saka was well aware he would become a scapegoat, the diligent and dutiful police force apprehended, who would supposedly lead them in cracking down on the crime, before he afterwards rots in a prison cell, forgotten by the world once the media and the people, with their terribly short attention span, got captivated by another event and story of phenomenal proportions. Moreso than his, even as he becomes an accolade for some self-deserving, self-absorbed officer who would also have forgotten that he had turned himself in to report the incident. Hence, as was the case for whosoever must survive the complex streets of the suburban world of crime and corruption, the driver reconciled himself with his circumstance without affording himself the foolish luxury of grieving for his comrades or being traumatised by the event and made for the closest garage with transports going out of town. He had long deserved both a vacation and a change of environment, his personal effects shall be retrieved at a later date, or not at all, depending on how soon he can settle down into his new environment and become financially capable of looking out for himself.

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COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019

Samuel A. Onasanya

No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, transmitted, transcribed, or plagiarized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the permission of the author.

Email: samuelonasanya13@gmail.com

DISCLAIMER

All characters in this book are imaginary and of the author's creation; any resemblance to real-life events and names is purely coincidental and unintentional.