NNEMEKA'S DIARY, HE NOW HAS A NEW JOB.

Nnemeka wrote a gain in his diary,  "I will soon realized the meanness of a city like Abuja."   Besides chasing him from his king size  mattress,  the Cockroaches have agreed on one hot evening that  he will be starved.  Nnemeka had just returned from work that day and his mind was meditating constantly on the plate of Jollof rice  and chicken  which he had stocked on the table.  He turned on the lash of his door  and dusted his his feet on the  footmat of his door to stop the little pieces of fine Abuja dust who have sworn to follow Nnemeka to his apartment at Maitama.  At least he could afford to rent  one now.  After trekking round the city of Abuja,  entering office by office and mounting on elevators which at some mistaken times, took him to some other floors which he never intended to go.  Being a new babe in the use of elevators, he had struggled with going to unintended floors until he had started to get it right and met  with the God of fate and his misery changed.  Even the the hill of his shoes,  by  slanting position which it had compulsorily made  him to stand in an unbalanced manner,  bare great evidentiary fact that he has trekked round Abuja.  The usual song "we are not employing here" seemed to have lost its relevance as though they were tunes sang in the mouths of great musicians of the 60's. Oh, how  present comfort seems to wipe away the tears of sorrows as if they never occurred! Nnemeka thought with tranquility overshadowing his will.  The days came by rolling like folded bundles of seas pushed about by ocean waves.

Nnemeka remembered with accuracy like the day light sun how one day he  entered into the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation of Nigeria  at the Central Business District Abuja and after filling all the beureucactic logs of hard cover note book painted with green white, green,  he stood before the secretary  who looked at his eyes with contemptuous eyesball.  Nnemeka's wash and  wear shirt which has long been discarded into the standing wastebin arrayed on the streets of Maitama  could hardly bear  the chemical pressure of daily soup leather and omo.  The shirt had started to express its displeasure facially through its fading colour.  Still,  he had to manage the resources which the society even after bagging a degree in accountantcy could afford to be generous enough to give him.  This social injustice has revealed itself on Nnemeka's outfit itself. The bank of social stratification and justice had  ran dry.  And all cheques signed couldn't be cashed and  have been returned as being stalled.  The secretary still looking at him after Nnemeka had graced the steel chair,  ordered him into the office of the Auditor-General after  he had broken down every fabric of her resilience and insistence that  he state the purpose of his visit. When he stepped into his office,  cool air of air conditioners and air freshner impatiently flew into his nostrils.  Nnemeka sat down in the office of  his host praying silently within the realms of  his heart.   He began by telling the Auditor-General the   entire tale of his  story how Abuja had dried his finances.  Nnemeka did that inorder to  draw favour from the  man in his  position as the Auditor-General of the Federation.  But he listened intently,  causing the line of people waiting to see him nurture in patience for a little time.  When he  rounded up his story,  the Auditor-General  said there is absolutely nothing he could do.  The federal Government had not began fetching new work force into the federal   parastatals.  And his job will  flame on the burner  of dismissal if he takes any action without the permission of the powers that be.  When Nnemeka's gaze met his host again, they were parting. He made for the Elevator  and thanked the secretary who even after determining the purpose of his visit,  still felt satisfied to paste on him one more look of contempt.

The Elevator sprang up before going down in the customary manner which he had become accustomed to.  As Nnemeka stepped  on the first large sandy earth washed and sieved  by the early August rains,  the  secretary's voice rushed into his ears.  "Oga is calling you."  "Me?"  Nnemeka asked with the hunger of reassurance.   They climbed unto the elevator as the secretary piling the atmosphere with silence  faced her front not saying a word.  When the elevator stopped,  she told Nnemeka,  "You may go inside. Oga  is waiting for you."  Inside, he dropped his Curriculum Vitae on the desk of the Auditor-General and after feasting on the bunge of words typed in  Times New Romans,  he assured him,  "with this you will get a job soon." The following months came with inventiveness and proper shelf of stories on how the  Auditor-General will call him.  Nnemeka thought in his  heart how he will seat in one of the offices for a test or an interview. He created questions and answered them.  "May i know you? Where do you see yourselves five years from now? And to the final question how much do we pay you? Each time he set his thoughts  on these pre-interview  questions, a veil of comfort sat on his face.  Soon these desires and happiness washed away like a mist is dealt the heavy  blow of  early  morning sunrise.

Months grew and soon two years had passed yet the raging silence  from the Auditor-General's office continued  unrestrained.  However,  Nnemeka met a friend of  his,  a class mate at the young but prestigious Benue State University and there,  after following some links of people, he was employed at NNPC. His course mate  who served as a bridge for this employment ; during the days of their learning was a person who in his list of things,  studies was the last.  He played with his books and the days of test and exams were shared with football matches,  for he was a chelsea fan.  But today,  he is employed.  Nigeria died in the 70's and 80's when merit was valued over connection. Nnemeka was still happy that the system has for once looked upon him with a hand of kindness. With benefits alone,  Nnemeka rented the nice apartment that was within the powers of  the gilded in Abuja to touch.   The sufferings he  experienced though fresh like green algae clinging to a semi-wet wall,  had been beaten and defeated by the new life of luxury and comfort that had besieged him.  Nnemeka was still standing at the door when the thought loosed its grip on him.  The door gave way to pressuring zig-zag edges of the  key and there it opened.  He  dusted his feet and threw his shuttle bag unto the waiting bed.  The bag bounced twice and humbled itself on the bed.  He never gave a little kindness to the HP nozzled in the bag.  Again,  his  Jollof rice,  the food in which many Nigerians will throw a punch to have it stayed served on the table.  Nnemeka walked with a hungry agility and lifted up the lid of his China plate wherein he had secured the Jollof rice on  a waiting  line.  Nnemeka's colleague,  a female, Margaret often sparing was charitable enough to wash hin with praise for the  first time.  That a good man who improves in his cooking Jollof rice like he did  will soon secure a job as the  head of chefs in Transcorp Hilton Hotel.   Nnemeka adopted her praise with a mixture of two things — a bitter  and sweet admiration.  After that interlude of  thought had passed,  he opened the China and two giant cockroaches raced in two different directions like the parting of the Red Sea in the Holy Scriptures. Anger held Nnemeka's feet glued to the floor of his Maitama apartment.  One of the cockroaches took cover under the banner of  his wreathe of flower vase.  The other,  a little more wiser preferred the cravics of the kitchen door. Nnemeka looked in different  directions drawing inspiration to what he would do to these little beasts.  A thought enveloped him as he  remembered how mama Titi  his neighbour used to kill cockroaches, she would smack them with a strange force until the white or milky colour of the poor cockroaches scattered on her palm as the insect became more flattened like a  Ballon whose tenure of airfulness ends in a sad tale.  She would rob her two hands together and  straight to the sink.  She would wash them off.  "This is how you handle cockroaches she would often  declare."


But for Nnemeka  on that weak day,  he lacked the ounce of energy to carry out such a grumsome  attack.  Before Nnemeka went to the broom laying densely upwards, he  folded his suit into a twig.  He thought against it and went to the broom,  took it and  charged at the one  behind his vase.   Liquid scattered in  a wreathed flare around  the cockroach. A strange smell of  liquid,  irritating as it was at the moment rushed to his neck and  hurriedly made the long journey down through the walls of his osophagus.  He closed his eyes. As he took the broom  charging on  the other wiser cockroach clinging firmly to the  hairy cravics of the wood  of the kitchen door,  the insect flew and found a vent of escape through the punctured route  of the new mosquitoe  net which the Carpenter could not finish fixing because the heavens vomited heavy rains the previous day in Abuja.  He  looked plaintively at the face of the sad Jollof rice  and he saw that one of the cockroaches had cemented a little part of its wing to announce attendance that they were really on the food.  He thought again on the effort he had invested in cooking his Jollof rice  whose niceties earned him a medallion of praise.  Nnemka cast a heavy glare on his bread that he had hardly touched and saw that the cockroaches left bandages of their feathers and  nibbles for a record of their  appearance too there.  He thought  of what he should do as the hunger narrowing on the walls of his  intestines continued digging a  massive  hole.  Of all things living or non living,  Nnemka could thank God  for the beast of the field but for the cockroaches  he often withhold his appreciation. He thought of going across the adjacent street to catch a taxi to Shoprite.  Nnemeka  saw how badly he needed  a car  that would have made his movement easy.  That day after returning with a sealed food from Shoprite he  decided that he would purchase a car.  As the darkness gathers thickness,  he wrote in his diary  the words highlighted this time in green.  I hate you with a good phobia, but I must find a  away of killing you.   He underlined the angry words.  When the inpatient  morning arrived,  he beautified his toilet  window with a gigantic atomic weapon— Mobil insects and Cockroach killer.