Clive stood with his face less than one inch from Mosco's face. They each stood with legs wide apart in a confrontational stance, staring into each other's face, both heavily set, with a combined weight of more than two hundred and fifty kilograms. Clive was more heavily built that Mosco, but what Mosco lacked in mass, he more than made up for in height. Apart from Clive and Mosco, there were four other heavily built men staring down another set of four muscular men in a straight line that extended to Clive's left-hand side. The crowd of politicians, their supporters and voters loitered about, with only a few of them paying any attention to the spectacle and possible stand-off between one set of bodyguards and the other set.There was no police or law enforcement agents in sight.
"Clive Patani?" he said as he stood in front of Clive.
"In flesh and blood, and who is making me popular?" Clive replied, removing his gloves and stretching out his right hand. The man took in a firm grip as they shook hands.
"My name is Anaeto Ndu. I work with Demil Securities Limited. Our mutual friend, Anna said I might find you here," he said, smiling. Clive knew Anna. She was a waitress in Clive's favourite bar, just a few blocks from his home.
"Nice to meet you. So how can I be of service?"
"Funny you should ask that," Anaeto replied. It turned out that Anaeto was recruiting personal security for their client at Demil Securities and they needed someone with Clive's skillset. Clive knew the risks involved in these jobs, but he had bills to pay, and with his wife almost due to have their first baby, he needed the money, so he decided to give it a shot.
As he stood in front of Mosco, he was not afraid of what might happen, but he also knew that it was stupid to get hurt on that assignment. He wanted nothing more than to be there, holding her hand when his wife would be delivering their baby girl. No corrupt politician was going to truncate his happiness with senseless violence. He looked at the other four guards at a standoff. They were staring into each other's eyes just like Mosco and him. In his waistband, he carried his weapon from his military days. He prayed that he would not have to use it. As he stared in Mosco's eyes, he sensed that Mosco might be taking the exercise more serious than he was.
"Bro, it is one body oh. One body. Use your head. Do not allow these politicians that use us and waste our lives," he whispered to Mosco under his breath. Surprisingly, Mosco whispered the same words back to him in the same manner.
The other guards seemed to have heard their conversation, and they started repeating the same advice to each other. However, their stance and body language said a different thing, and the look in their eyes suggested they would soon be at each other's throat. They still appeared to be in a standoff mode to the onlookers and the politicians. However, Mark Onos, the aspiring governor from the ruling party had other plans.
While the guards were pretending to be at loggerheads, a small bus drove into the polling centre and began to turn in the middle of the dusty ground within the school premises that was used as a polling centre. The dust they raised as they drove round and round put fears in the voters that were still lining up to vote. All but the politicians and their security ran away from the vicinity in fear for their lives. Clive abandoned his post and ran towards the entrance to the building. By this time, the personal bodyguard and driver of Agafe Mbanaso had swiftly moved him into his car and sped away. Clive had almost reached the entrance to the polling booth when he saw the young lady working as an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officer. Clive imagined she could not be more than twenty-two years old. She carried the ballot box as she ran.
Clive turned around just fast enough to see one of the armed men from the bus that threw the place into chaos. The man's short gun was aimed at the poor girl. He suspected that the girl did not know that those men had come for nothing else but the ballot box. Because she ran with it, they would do whatever they deemed necessary to stop her. Their job was to take the ballot boxes to unknown locations and rig the election. Clive wanted to shout, "Watch out," to the girl, but he knew that she would be dead before she could realise what the words meant.
He did not have time to think, his gun had appeared in his right hand and before the gunman could squeeze the trigger on his short rifle, he felt a sharp pain in the left side of his chest. It felt like a punch, only that it was much more potent because it slowed him down and made his hands weak. He ran a few more steps and slumped on his knees. He felt something warm soaking his shirt. He looked down and saw that it was his own blood. He looked up and saw the man who shot him as he skipped the fence and was out of sight within a moment. The man closest to the shot man dropped his gun and knelt beside the bleeding man.
The INEC officer did not see the shot, but she heard it and dropped the ballot box. She saw Clive skip over the fence. She tried it and with some difficulty, succeeded. The gunmen took the ballot boxes and left the scene. Ten minutes later, the police arrived. There were no witnesses, but they did not need one. Someone had called about a gunshot, but the school premises were abandoned, almost desolate. Clive did not go home. He ran until he arrived at the place where he had parked his car. Clive got in and drove away. While in the car he called his wife and instructed her to pack a bag and go to her hometown where her mother lived for a few days.
He drove out of town to Amaeke, a small fishing village about twenty miles out of the city. There he found a motel and checked in under a false identity. He needed time to think about what he had just done. The room had a small TV, so he tuned into the local news channel and watched for news of the reports from the different polling centre. All the reports that came in were of free and fair elections. He hoped that there would be a mention of the shooting that happened that afternoon, but there was nothing. He became very apprehensive, but he had no one to call and find out exactly what happened after he ran. He watched until the final result of the election was counted, and Mark Onos was announced the winner of the governorship election.
Clive woke with a start to find the sun streaming in through the window of the motel room. He was reliving the events of the previous day in a dream just before he woke up. He picked up his phone and dialled his wife's number. She answered on the first ring and confirmed that she was safe in her hometown. He assured her that he was alright and he would come and drive her home and explain everything in a few days' time.
He waited to hear from his new employer, but there was no word from them. He finally decided to call Anaeto Ndu. The phone rang, but there was no answer. He was beginning to get frantic when his phone rang, and it was Anaeto.
"Hey, man. How are you?" Anaeto asked. "Sorry, I was in a meeting with a client when your call came in. What's up?"
"Did you hear what happened at the polling centre yesterday?"
"Yeah, man, that way crazy. These politicians want to hold on to power by all means. Anyway, all our men are safe according to the report I have. Nobody was hurt. Are you alright?" asked Anaeto.
"Yeah, I am fabulous," Clive lied.
Clive drove back to the city. He asked his friends in the police, and some reporters about the shooting and no one seemed to have heard anything about it. After three days Clive began to feel that perhaps, he missed the shot and the man survived. A week later, no one had asked him any question concerning the shooting and, he felt comfortable enough to go and bring back his wife. He continued working for Demil Securities Limited, cash movement for banks using armoured vehicles. Everything seemed to be working well, except that there were increased cases of armed robbery in the state and, the robbers were always heavily armed. According to the news, a gang of criminals led by someone called Formula was responsible for the robberies.
After the governor was sworn in, he vowed to crack down on armed robbery and work on the security challenges in the state. That night, he invited the man that helped him rig the elections and asked him to return the guns he had given them for the job. The leader of the gang laughed in his face.
"So, what do you want my boys and I to do for a living?" Formula asked.
"You can go back to whatever you were doing before the election," the governor told them.
"With all due respect, governor, that is not good enough," he responded and stood up to leave.
The governor felt he had been disrespected and threatened to have the man arrested at that moment. He expected the man to cower to the power of his office. Instead, Formula laughed at him and told him that it was no use since he is the only thing standing between the life and death of everyone he loved.
"My men are breathing the same air as each of your children as we speak. Believe me when I say that my standing up to leave is in your best interest," he said, smiling at the governor.
The governor immediately reached for his phone to call his daughter when Formula held up his phone, showing the girl in a party with a bunch of her friends.
"You really should learn to take my word for it, governor. You and I should be friends by now," he said as he walked away.
Two months later, Clive was in Anna's bar when he saw a picture of the man he had shot on the news. He asked Anna to raise the volume of the TV so he could hear what it said. According to the report, Formula, the leader of the gang that had terrorised the city was gunned down by a special task force set up by the governor to fight armed robberies. The man and two other members of the gang were shot in the chest during a shootout between the task force and the gang the night before.
"Wow," Clive said.
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