By Osa Mbonu

Armed with my new TCM-40DV voice operated Sonny recorder, I went back to Mr. and Mrs. Onuoha. We still had scores to settle. As I was approaching the school gate I pressed the ‘record’ button of the mini recorder, concealing it in my hand.

The school gate was always locked. When the security guard man saw me, instead of opening the gate, he rushed to Mr. Onuha’s office and told him that I was at the gate. Onuoha rushed out of his office. He drove back the bolt that locks and opens the gate and charged towards me.

Before I knew what was happening he hooked my belt and started to scream in Yoruba language (he spoke Yoruba). He shouted to the security guard and other retinue of people who always hanged around him. Some of the teachers whose classrooms were near the gate also rushed out of their classrooms.

“You hooked me; you held me like this at Mile 2 and stole my money,” he screamed with his face creased and with livid anger. “And you have the guts to come here!” He shouted, trying to pull my trousers down. “Go, run, go and call Mustapha.

Call Abiodun. Call Badmus,” he barked out the orders to the security guard and other security men in the school. They rushed out of the small school gate that led into the Iba Estate. I knew the people he had sent for. They were the Omoniles and the area boys who sold to him the land where he built his school. They came to him regularly for.

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One of the omoniles called ‘Uncle K’ who worked in the school drew his attention to the mini tape recorder in my hand, saying, “there is something in his hand,” Mr. Onuoha left my belt and trousers and wrenched the tape recoder out of my hand. The red light indicator was flashing dimly.

At that time the omoniles appeared from the small gate and ran towards us. They had clubs and sticks and other weapons. I ran off towards Igbo-elerin Road. Mr. Onuoha spoke to them and pointed at me. They chased me along the road. As they got too close to me I ran into a mechanic and panel beaters work ground, begging them to help me, but they asked me to leave.

The marauding  omoniles met me there. Trapped, I began to address the mechanics, panel beaters and the omoniles who were after my life. I first spoke to the workmen: “Don’t you know me as a teacher in that school? You are pushing me out to these people to kill me. Ok, now kill me!” I screamed, going towards the omoniles. “Your master, Mr. Onuoha owes me six month’s salary and I came to ask for my money and he sent you to come and kill me. Now, I am here, kill me!” I screamed raising up my two hands into the air. A little crowd gathered. One of the omoniles raised his stick and hit my shoulder with it. But others lowered their weapons.

Mr. Onuoha and the others at the school gate still stood there watching us. Without wasting more time I turned round and walked away towards Igbo-elerin Road. From there I took a bus to the Ojo Police station and reported the matter. I told the police that Mr. Onuoha sent area boys to kill me. They gave me paper and I wrote a statement. I also showed them my swollen shoulder where one of the area boys had hit me with a stick.

When they invited Mr. Onuoha and his wife to the police station I realized he knew very well the DPO and other police officers there. He laughed with them and went into every office at the police station. Then he told the DPO and other policemen that I was a hungry teacher whom he helped and gave a job in his school. He also told them in my presence that he gave me money to attend journalism school; that I paid him back by robbing him at Mile 2 and collecting his bag of money.

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From the responses, attitudes, and behaviors of the policemen at Ojo, I realized that Mr. Onuoha had bribed them, and that there was no way I could get justice from them.

The next day when I got to our office at Ize Iyamu, Oregun, I sat down and composed a very powerful petition against Mr. Onuoha, describing my fears that I did not believe I would get justice from the Ojo police station. I used TNT and The National Guide Newspaper as my address, mentioning that I was a journalist and a Senior Writer with the media. Then I took the letter to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police office at GID Ikeja and submitted it.

Two days later when I came back to the office in the afternoon after covering an event at Ikeja, the editor called me into his office to ask me what was happening. He said some men from the Criminal Investigation Department came looking for me in connection with a petition I wrote against a school proprietor in Ojo. The men said they came to verify that I was actually a journalist working with TNT.

I opened up to the editor, telling him everything that happened. He was surprised when I told him how Mr. Onuoha seized my mini recorder and sent hoodlums after me. The editor told me that the men from CID left a message for me. That I should come to the Special Investigation Unit, Commissioner’s office, GRA Oduduwa, Ikeja as soon as possible.

When I got to Oduduwa, the men of the CID received me like a VIP. After interviewing me they told me that the Commissioner was interested in my matter and has given them order to liaise with Ojo police station to go and raid Kristobel Junior Academy with a truck load of armed policemen, arrest Mr. and Mrs. Onuoha and thoroughly search the school bookshop with the aim of recovering the journalist’s pirated books and my seized mini recorder.

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I sat in front of the truck load of the armed policemen the day we went to raid Kristobel Junior Academy. It was quite a spectacle. See you next week