Safara gets in a suitcase full of trouble in Lagos

I felt the eyes of passengers following me as I walked in between the two airport police officers – and tried to see myself as they saw us. A smartly dressed gentleman in a red coat, white cotton shirt, light grey khaki pants and brown loafers walking behind a tall policeman with a box haircut straight out of 1989/90, and followed closely behind by a short stout cop with a jutting forehead and bushy eyebrows, with piggy eyes set in narrow sockets, ready to shoot me dead.

We got to a room just written ‘23,’ nothing else, and the moment I saw the blue and red suitcases that Tasha had sent to me, my heart first raced out of my chest, before falling to my shoes.

They were both open, the Abuja fabrics on one side, both with false bottoms that revealed packets of unga – except you and I both know the white stuff wasn’t flour.

‘What hustle have you gotten me into, Natasha?’ I screamed in my head.

 “Are these your suitcases, sir?” the policeman behind the desk where the suitcases were open was straight out of Nollywood casting – big jawed, large sunglasses (although the room was shadowy) with his police cap jammed halfway down his head, and epaulettes on his shoulder.

“They belong to Natasha Sande,” I said. “We came with her to Nigeria a few days ago...”

He tapped into a small laptop beside the suitcases, then shook his head. “Nobody like that, sir!”

And now her false passport made sense. Natasha Sande was a ghost in the Nigerian system!

“Check Tamara Tande instead,” I said. “That her other name. We came...”

But the Capped Cop had lost interest. “Your drug game is up, Michael Safara. Sit down!”

I gratefully did – my legs were about to collapse under me, and grown men don’t faint.

“Handcuff him!”

The short stout cop swiftly did, cuffing me tightly to the chair’s arm rests. He smelled of stale sweat, and I found myself breaking out in perspiration that reeked of fresh and deep fright.

My mouth tasted bitter with fear as I said. “Sir, you have to believe me. I have been tricked.”

“Did you know dot de minimum sentence we give for trofficking in narcotics here is 15 years?” the tall policeman with the box haircut said brightly, his sly eyes smiling at the thought. “Ond we have cut you red-ended, my friend...”

For a second, the room went black, as I pictured myself in some terrible jail in Lagos until 2040 AD, being released when I had entered retirement age, and too old to hustle, ready to die.

As if reading my thoughts, the shorter cop said scornfully, “This one will not survive even three years in Kirikiri Mox-i-mom. He will get sick, and with no one to palm grease for him, die of da diseases.” There and then, it hit me that Natasha Sande, in her diabolical plan to make me an unwitting drug mule, had sent me on a hustle that was to be my death sentence in Nigeria.

Hysterical with fear, I started shouting: “FIND TAMARA TANDE, the owner of the suitcases,” over and over and over again, until the Capped Cop clapped me so hard on the mouth he busted my lip. To my surprise, he then actually asked me for her number.

For a long and terrible few seconds, it completely disappeared from my head. I closed my eyes, tasted the blood in my mouth, went mentally back to the many times I’d tried reaching Tasha – then slowly recited it, as Tall Cop typed it into his mobile phone. Of course she wouldn’t pick...

Except that she actually did!

Tall Cop handed his mobile phone to the Capped Cop, clearly their boss, who waved at them to leave the room, which they did. Short Cop shot me a dirty look as Tall Cop smirked at me.

“I have your friend here in custody, Miss Tamara, and a couple of interesting suitcases.”

His face was expressionless, a marble slab behind his sunglasses, as he listened for a while to Natasha on the other end. I could hear her familiar voice, but couldn’t make out the words.

“Hmm,” “Ahhh,” and “ooo” was all that the Capped Cop said into the mobile phone.
Then he hung up.

Turning to me, he said: “It’s your locky day, Safara. You are free to go, oh!” I could hardly believe my ears. “What?”

He came from behind the desk and un-handcuffed my right hand, pushing the cuff-key into it.

“I will now leave the room, Michael. You will count to 300, slowly, then leave too. Straight to the boarding gate! If you leave before, we’ll shoot you as an escapee.” Then he left.

Stopping at the door of ‘23’ he said dryly: “I know you Kinyons lov ugali, but don’t carry my flour, ok?” Then he was gone.

Hardly believing my ears and eyes, I counted to 300, rather a bit quickly, terrified he would return with the other two cops any second now, say with a laugh, “Early April Fools’ Day,” and lead me off to a legal journey that ends with me in Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos.

Then I took off from that room ‘23’ to the boarding gates like a man with his behind on fire, checking in, then running to the boarding gates just as the woman there began to announce my name: ‘Last boarding call for Michael Safara!’

A call came through as I sat, still shaking, on the aircraft.

I answered it in automaton. It was Natasha Sande on the other end.

My emotions welled up in a vortex of rage, but before I could say a word, she said: “I just saved you 25 years in prison, Mike, by trading in that unga to that corrupt Immigration Police boss for your freedom. Otherwise it would have had to go to court as an exhibit. Now they can sell it off on the streets, or back to my sources, for millions of naira. Goodbye Mike. I really did love you.”

 [email protected]