Odimnobi(my pet name
for him, literally meaning ‘he who is in my heart’) is dead. Olufemi(his real
name), my shield. He was part yoruba and part fulani, small frame, light brown
in complexion, beautiful and 38 years old. I am 27. He died last month in the
course of a heart surgery. He was unmarried and without a child, but he made me
his everything. He became lover, father,
and protector to me. He always won all the arguments because he spoke better
English, and I could barely keep up with the depth of his knowledge. We met and
worshipped in the same church.
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He was subtle and calm.
At first sight, no one would believe he was a medical doctor and part of the
Nigerian Navy, a lion. There was this one time, he roared for me: It was Benin,
Nigeria, 2014. I could not make out the several images in my head. I had not
resolved the Valentine incident. It had been three years already. Still I could
not help the volts that ran through me when a whiff of tobacco smoke
twirled across my nostrils. Or the knife that thrust through my mouth each time a
man’s palm met my nape. But I saw Dafe, a police man, stare me through and thin
from across the restaurant.
I was there with
Olufemi to celebrate his promotion to the rank of a Naval Lieutenant, just both
of us . Dafe, whose age I have never known, had come with another police
officer to have dinner. A few minutes earlier,
we had run into each other in the gents accidentally. He hugged me. I had not
prepared for this meeting and I froze once more in his arms. He laughed when he
let me go. ‘Timi, Timi. Useless boy.’ He called me, smacking and squeezing my
butt as I walked away.
He was still powerful. Three
years had done a lousy job at healing this scar.
The evening turned
sour. All I could think of was this beast running lose. He hurt me again and
again with his eyes, his laughter. He hurt me all over in my mind. Sweat
trickled down my back, the memory of that Valentine night lashing at me
all over again. Olufemi had ordered the cake, we would have to stay.
‘Timi,’ as I was saying
Olufemi continued, ‘It was a mad evening. Every one was…’then he trailed
off into French, while I trailed off into
February 14, 2011.
Onitsha had always been
a busy and enterprising place. The Main Market had been the hub of everything
under the sun from tooth picks to second hand clothing to office equipment. I
had moved from Port Harcourt to serve as an apprentice under my Aunt Maria’s
husband, Uncle Amadi. He sold auto-mobile spare-parts for Honda and Toyota
vehicles. Uncle Amadi’s sister Aunt Sandra lived with us. She was on the
National Youth Service Corp programme, and was serving in a bank in Asaba. They were very nice and calm people. Everywhere
except our home felt like Onitsha. It was calm and I never got to know the name
of the street because Uncle Amadi would always chaperon me to and from the
shop.
Aunt Sandra had a
boyfriend, Dafe. He was light skinned and slim. He had red lips and silky side
buns. Everyone at home liked him. He was a police man. He would visit whenever
Aunt Sandra was home. And when she was not, he would still visit to spend some
time with the family. Aunt Sandra spoke so highly of him. She called him ‘Odimnobi’
because, she said ‘he lives in my heart.’ He did not understand a word in igbo except
‘Nkem’ meaning ‘mine’ which Aunt Sandra had taught him to call her.
Olufemi snapped his
fingers in my face, ‘Timi!’
‘Eh.’
‘I have been calling
you for almost three minutes now’ Olufemi said.
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’he said, ‘And you
are crying.’
‘Am I?’
He passed me a
serviette. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’
‘You’re not. This isn’t
you.’
‘I’m okay’ I insisted,
forcing a smile as the blurry tears fell and my clearer vision caught Dafe
winking at me.
A few minutes later,
Olufemi had to use the rest room. As soon as he left, Dafe came through to our
table.
‘I see you haven’t
changed, you faggot.’ He said.
I was silent.
‘I still have those
pictures you know.’ He said.
‘Please go away.’
‘Useless boy’ he called
me again,‘I’m still using my old number. Make sure you call me tomorrow. We
just arrested some homo-boys and they gave us this long list. Who knows whether
your name is there. Eh. You know with this new Anti-gay law we are hunting for
you guys.’ He looked up, ‘ Your magah is coming.’ he said ‘You better call me, I
no dey joke.’
‘Hi’ Olufemi said.
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‘Good evening’ Dafe
responded, stretching out his hand for a handshake.
‘Is there a problem
here?’ Olufemi asked glancing down at Dafe’s hand before slipping both of his
into his pockets.
‘No. Timi is an old
friend.’ Dafe said.
‘I see.’ Olufemi said before
returning to his seat.
‘My name is Dafe.’ he
said.
‘Good.’ Olufemi said, ‘now
get lost.’
While Olufemi’s
response dazed Dafe and I, I danced Azonto in my head.
‘Do you know who you are
talking to?’ Dafe fumed.
‘Dafe please go away,’
I pleaded.
‘No, no, I dey try dey
polite to this idiot. Him dey follow me form.’ He pulled out his handcuffs.
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Those
handcuffs he used to arrest me on St.
Valentine’s night when Aunt Maria and her husband had travelled, leaving me
with no electricity. ‘Uncle Dafe will check on you once in a while’ they had
said and I was comforted. The night he told me that he was the one I was
chatting with over ‘2go’(social network) and had sent my nude photos to. The
night he seized my phone and went through all my 2go chats, as he forced his
erect penis into my mouth while his hand gun’s nuzzle pinned to the crown of my
head, threatening to take me to the police cell and report me to my Aunt if I did not cooperate . And that if I mentioned 'our arrangement' to anyone he would kill me. The
whole time, I was on my knees with both hands tightly bound in handcuffs. Sweating,
frightened and surrounded by fate, darkness the smell of his sweat and the
smoke from the cigarette he had smoked half way and left to glow bright red.
His shoves piercing deeper, choking and hurting me. When he was done with my
phone he threw it on the wall. At some point, he pulled my nape to a
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chair,
knees sweeping across the cold floor that was now smeared with my tears and
saliva. When he sat, he slammed my head on his penis, it almost got to my
stomach. I thought I would throw up. He pulled back. The room was smeared dark and
stale with the night. I could see Dafe faintly. He then banged my head to meet
his jamming organ continuously, controlling the frequency of the thrusts with
firm fingers around my head and nape. He was dripping with sweat, and smelling
of everything wrong. The thrusts seemed to have gone on forever, the room increasingly
throbbing with temperature, when he squeezed my nape and head tightly, groaned deeply and slammed
his pelvis one last time on my face forcing sweat, semen, pubic hair and tears into my
mouth. Then I felt the tightness of the handcuffs around my wrist and tip of
his hand gun return to my crown. ‘Swallow’.
Those handcuffs were dangling
once more. The images smacking around in my head, the putrid taste of pubic hair and sweat,
my mouth suddenly filled with everything wrong. I could hear the beeps from my
phone. I could smell his sweat from my seat.
‘Stop. Dafe.’ I
screamed. ‘Leave us alone’ just before storming for the exit. The other police
man intercepted me.
‘Oga where you dey go?’
He pushed me back to my table.
Customers started
taking their last sips and darting out of the restaurant. I was pushed back
into my chair. Olufemi, who was just dropping his phone, looked at me.
‘Did he hit you?’ he
asked.
‘I was too shaken to
speak.’
‘In fact both of you’
Dafe finally said, ‘are under arrest.’
Olufemi stood to his
feet, smoothened his shirt with his hands and said to me in a hush tone ‘let’s
go’.
When I hesitated, he
tone got firmer, his eyes now squinted, he was no longer amused.
‘Mon sir!!!’ four uniformed Naval officers
walked into restaurant.
‘I want these idiots
arrested’ Olufemi ordered.
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I did not tell him of
my St. Valentine past. He did not want to discuss the idiots. He maintained
that it was people like them that smear the name of the Police Service with mud
and dishonour. My body insists that they have done more than that. But who can
we tell? Who can I tell that I was raped? ‘A man cannot be raped. He is a man.’
A mouth cannot be raped, it’s a mouth. Who wants to be exposed as homosexual in
Nigeria? What boy wants to be known to have been raped by man in Nigeria?
In a place where being homosexuality is
deemed contagious, and the police deemed always right and final. Who do we report
the Police to when they destroy us under the guise of doing their job? We have
the Police Service Commission to attend to police when they misbehave but where
is the Commission, when it is needed? Can I tell them that I am homosexual and
that a police man had violated my constitutional rights and committed a crime?
Who will they arrest first? My ‘gay foolishness and criminality’ or tell me that the law does not recognised oral
rape, or rape of a man. Will they ask me to go the Police station? May I then go
to the Police station to report Dafe for violating me and stealing my pride
when it’s his friends who are at the complaint desk?
Who will make Dafe stop now that Olufemi is no
more? Who will make Dafe pay? Who will bring the rapists and oppressors, the bad apples in
uniforms to justice? How can we say we have a voice when fear haunts our
reality and crumbles our democracy? The worst of it, we barely know better than
to succumb and pray for some magic. Magic!?
when the miracle of democracy lives in our home, dines with us every day. When
things can be done better and discipline amongst public officers enforced. But
what is the law without the will or implementation?
Olufemi roared for me
when the law should have. Especially in a Nigeria where sexual minorities
cannot, for their own safety, report any crime that begins with ‘ I am gay, and
…’
Olufemi’s demise has
filled me with fear. I’m still in Benin. Dafe has married Aunt Sandra, and they
both live in Lagos. But the fear of Dafe lives in my heart, as he has moved
into my home, my family. As I mourn Olufemi, I hear the Dafe’s handcuffs
dangling, I smell his sweat, my fate and everything wrong.
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Image 1: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/whatwedo/in-focus/africa-partner-speaks-out-against-male-rape/award-winning-article-changes-un-definition-of-rape.aspx
Image 2: http://www.medicaldaily.com/first-emergency-services-unit-male-rape-victims-brings-attention-taboo-sexual-339248
Image 3: http://www.foundmyself.com/Jacqueline+Cruz/art/mask-of-silence/45712
Image 4: http://www.copblock.org/116813/des-plaines-police-department-refuse-investigate-misconduct/
Image 5: https://burgesmccowan.com/blog/increasing-police-accountability/
Image 6: http://spiritualcleansing.org/in-the-end-we-will-remember-not-the-words-of-our-enemies/
