The Emir of Katangwa is a powerful monarch, physically and politically. Even though he is not the second-in-command to the Sultan of Sokoto, the supreme traditional ruler in northern Nigeria, no emir dares to cross swords with him. It is rumoured that even the Sultan navigates his way around the Emir of Katangwa with adroit wisdom and circumspection. He is a retired artillery general of the Nigerian Army. Built like one of his Panzer tanks he is equally ruthless without a tinge of emotion. While in service, he once levelled a whole community of about fifty houses because one of his soldiers was shot by armed robbers while passing through the community. That nefarious act alone was enough to get him booted out of the army. But nothing happened. He had been a participant in all the successful coups in Nigeria, and he used his vast network of powerful people in the corridors of power to escape unscathed. Instead, he shifted the blame to his deputy, a man he hated simple because he is from Southern Kaduna, the enclave of ethnic Christians in the heart of Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria. The innocent man, then a colonel, was dismissed for an offence he did not commit.

The general never planned to retire so soon, but when his father died suddenly and the throne became vacant, he had to bow out of his beloved army and take up the mantle as the Emir of Katangwa. By then he had acquired so much wealth through illegal means that his unborn grandchildren would not need to work throughout their life time. He uses his stupendous wealth and political connections to intimidate other royal fathers in the region. No one opposes him at all on any issue. Traditionally, the Emir of Katangwa should not be the chairman of the state’s Council of Royal Fathers. But at the first meeting of the council that he attended after his coronation, he simply went up to sit on the seat reserved for the chairman. No one dared ask him to get up. And when the chairman arrived and saw that his seat had been taken by the Emir of Katangwa, he quietly turned back and has not attended any council meeting since – a living dog is better than a dead lion! The state governor was later forced to announce him as the new chairman of the royal council.

His late father was not only respected by his people, he was much loved. In contrast, the subjects of the reigning Emir of Katangwa do not love him; instead, they fear him. In the days of his late father, ordinary people, Muslims or Christians, flocked to the palace just to listen to him. Today, only those who have no more appetite for tuwo loiter around the palace grounds. It has become a military zone, with gun-totting soldiers posted right round the grounds, warning people not to come close. So nobody goes to the palace now without an invitation. And when a man or woman is invited to the palace, he immediately writes his will or settles his earthly affairs. On one occasion, a man’s beautiful wife was invited by the emir and the husband decided to accompany her to find out what the emir wanted from his spouse. He is missing till date, although his wife is now a prominent member of the emir’s harem of beautiful women. Still, he has one redeeming feature; there is nothing he would not do, no amount he could not spend in the cause of Islam. For this and this alone, the royal fathers in the region are prepared to overlook all other faults in the emir. The worst weaknesses in the emir, which his people find disgusting apart from greed and megalomania is his insatiable appetite for sex. In this, he does not discriminate between men and women, boys and girls; the younger the better. It is rumoured that when he is not in council, he is in bed with somebody. Tonight, he is going to deflower a beautiful Lebanese boy somebody sent him from India. All day long, he has been in a very good mood in anticipation of tonight’s pleasurable tryst.

Early that morning, something peculiar happened that ought to have cautioned him a little. Every day, he goes through the dailies after breakfast. It is a habit he picked up in the army during lag time. He was going through the papers when one of the palace secretaries came in with an envelope.

“Menene?” barked the emir, demanding what he wanted.

“Ran Sarkin ya dede. Harafi,” replies the secretary falling on his knees and extending the envelope towards the emir without lifting his head up.

“From where?” asked the emir in English.

“State House, Sarkin.”

As soon as he heard the servant’s response, the emir became very wary. He suddenly remembered the letter bomb that killed Dele Giwa, founding editor of Newswatch magazine, in 1986. It purportedly came from the State House too. So he instructed one of his military guards to go open the envelope in the next room and bring it back to him. The soldier obeyed, trembling with fear. But nothing happened and he brought the opened envelope back to his general. When the emir looked inside, he found no letter. Instead, he found a strange call card. It has nothing written on it except the cloaked and hooded figure of Azrael, the Angel of Death. The emir was furious. He suspected that a practical joke was being played on him and did not like it. He questioned the palace secretary that brought the letter but the latter protested his innocence. Still, the emir commanded him to be given forty lashes of koboko, cowhide whip. Next time, he would remember who brought letters to the palace. None of this crosses the emir’s mind as he enters the room where the boy is waiting for him.

The boy, eleven years of age, is eating some dates when the emir comes in. Seeing his rudy cherubic face, the emir could not contain himself.

“Strip!” he shouts.

“What?” replies the boy incredulously.

“Are you deaf? I said take off your bloody dress!”

The boy stares at the emir in confusion. A more sensitive man would have approached the business with more finesse, but not the emir. He is used to riding roughshod on his subjects. Moreover, he is quite sadistic; he derives intense sexual arousal when he inflicts some bodily pain on his sexual partners. His wives, male and female, are used to his crude and wicked ways, but this beautiful Lebanese cherub is completely innocent and ignorant. He continues to stare at the emir in confusion and this annoys the emir the more. He pounces on the boy and toss him on the bed like a rag doll. .

“Help! Help!” screams the boy in terror.

“Shut up, little whore!” shouts the emir as he clamps his hand on the boy’s mouth. Instinctively, the boy sinks his teeth into the emir’s fleshy palms, drawing blood immediately.

“Bastard!” screams the emir as he gives the boy a punch in the solar plexus. He must have misjudged the force of his blow because the boy simply flips over and passes out on the floor. The emir tries to rouse him, but he remains limp.

“Shit!”

“Bravo!” says a voice behind him, accompanied by a few claps. The emir whirls round in anger. He could not believe that any of his subjects would dare interrupt his sexual pleasure. But what he sees baffles him. Before him stands a masked stranger in the garb of one of his lowly palace guards, not the soldiers.

“Get out, bastard!” he screams in anger and frustration.

“I think you are the bastard, General Boko Haram,” replies the strange palace guard calmly. “And if any one deserves to be kicked out of the palace, it’s you, vermin.”

“What! How dare you!”

“Why not, General,” replies the strange guard with a polished accent. “If you can descend so low as to organise the kidnap of over two hundred school girls in Chibok, you don’t deserve anybody’s respect.”

“Who are you?” asks the general warily, taken aback by the revelation of the strange palace guard.

“Your nemesis, vermin!” replies the guard, spitting in the face of the emir. It is the supreme insult anyone could inflict on a royal father, especially an emir. The general looks at the slight figure in front of him in shocked disbelief. Then his anger boils over and he rushes at the guard screaming like a maddened bull. His intention is to grab the throat of the guard and squeeze the life out of him. To his utter amazement, the guard smartly side-steps away from his grasping arms and gives him a karate chop at the back of his neck. The general screams in pain as he crashes headlong into the opposite wall. Rising up with increased anger, the general rushes at the guard again, throwing punches anyhow, one of which is enough to knock the breath out of a soldier. But the strange guard simply grabs the general’s right hand and begins to twist it backwards with an incredible strength. The general screams in pain as he is forced to his knees.

“This is for the Chibok girls, vermin,” says the strange guard as he grabs the general’s neck and puts a great pressure on a vital artery. The general passes out at once and slumps to the floor in a heap. The strange guard rushes to the door and looks out to see if the general’s screams have alerted the soldiers and other palace guards. No cause for alarm. Everyone goes about their normal duties. They are used to the emir’s screams when he is at the peak of his sexual pleasures.

The strange guard closes the door and rushes to the side of the general. He brings out of his pocket a needle and syringe filled with a transparent liquid and injects the general through his right arm. As the liquid hits the general’s blood stream, he goes into a spasm and then goes limp again. The stranger then puts a call card on the general’s chest and walks boldly out of the room as if on errand for the emir. He goes out of the palace unchallenged. Two hours later, the continuous screams of the Lebanese boy brings palace guards and soldiers running into the room. They are shocked to see the emir on the floor, unconscious. Pandemonium breaks out in the palace, as men and women run helter-skelter. But thanks to the military men, order is soon restored and the emir is rushed to the hospital. When he comes to two days later, it is discovered that he is paralysed from neck downwards. Worse, he has also lost his faculty for speech. He simply lies on his hospital bed like a well-fed log of wood, seeing everything going on around him but unable to talk. And unable to move!