THE BAR GOT BEHIND BARS

“Everybody, your hands over your head! Lie face down. Who be that person wey still sit down?”

Some big, burly men had come into our lecture hall to arrest someone.

I scrambled under the chairs and table, trying to find a suitable position, just as Ike and Fahad were doing. Kayin was too stunned to react, so I took her hand, which was lying limply on her lap, and pulled her down towards me, jolting her out of her momentary shock.

The activities of cultists were becoming too frequent that, most times, whenever an arrest happened, we had to wait for the news to know whether the people making the arrest were policemen or cultists who had been following their target.

The two sets were usually armed with guns hidden underneath their plain, regular clothes, blending into the swarm of students that was characteristic of the campus. They did this to avoid raising suspicions that might alert their intended victim to the arrest before they got to him.

What an irony—cultists arresting people. Oh, my country.

Or wait!

I had been in a dream.

Maybe I wasn't, because I felt a sharp, stinging pain that sent a shiver down my bone marrow. Someone had kicked my right leg with strong, hobnailed shoes and nearly incapacitated it. Obviously, deliberately.

The pain had me sprawling, and I opened my eyes and realised that although the lecture hall was a dream, the terror wasn't.

Ike and Fahad were already lying face down with their hands over their heads. In a quick glance, I turned to the other side to grab Kayin as I had done in my dream, but I met a guy I had never seen before.

All these happened in milliseconds.

“You no wan lie down abi?

Na you be their leader abi?”

I felt the warmth of the pistol's barrel pressing against my low-cut head. The gun had probably been fired moments earlier.

“Abeg, no shoot me.

I no be anybody's leader. Na PUL 204 course rep I be.

I go lie down.

Abeg, I take God beg you.

Na only me my mama get!”

I pleaded with whoever had the gun pressed to my head while tightly shutting my eyes and raising my hands above my head.

Immediately I felt the gun leave my head, I lay down.

A large wet patch formed beneath me, and it made me wonder why someone hadn't cleaned the water after it was spilled. It dawned on me after a minute that I had actually peed on myself, drawing a muffled laugh from me.

Opening my eyes slowly to identify the exact position of the gun bearers, I noticed them searching the apartment and concluded that they were robbers. One had already yanked my phone from its charging cable and was inspecting it, maybe to find out what brand it was.

I felt sadness swell up in me.

I had just replaced that phone four months ago after the last one stopped serving me well. Apart from that, I had many files of edited photos I had intended to take to the man making a photo album for the newly wedded couple whose event I had covered two weeks ago. Losing those files was as good as being doomed because I didn't have a copy of them elsewhere, unless I went to my laptop's trash can to restore all the deleted, unedited versions.

Speaking of my laptop, it was in the same room too!

Instinctively, I opened my eyes again and looked in its direction. A shirt was sprawled over it, making it impossible for anyone to know that anything was there unless they checked.

So I closed my eyes and launched into a prayer:

“God, please close their eyes from my laptop.”

But something wasn't looking right here.

The tiles on that floor weren't the same as the ones in our room. It definitely wasn't the one in Kayin's room either. Besides, who was that other guy with a nice fade and Levi's T-shirt lying on the other side?

I tried to remember what had happened an hour ago, but my brain was still clouded with fatigue and sleep. I could only recall removing my tie while leaving the lecture hall with Kayin and my guys after the last lecture for the day, complaining about fatigue, hunger and low battery.

“So, you children, your mama and papa send una to school, una talk say na cana una want to dey sell abi? So na cana and Igbo una come learn for school abi?”

“No, sirs! This is not our room. We only came here to charge our phones because their generator was on.”

Fahad tried to defend us. I was surprised that he did. I had expected Ike to.

That was when the sleep left me completely.

We weren't in our room, nor were we in our neighbour's room. We weren't even in Kayin's room.

It happened that immediately we got home after our lectures, we decided to go charge our devices at the charging station. We had planned to buy noodles on our way back. However, the guy who ran the charging station was not around, and we needed to charge our devices so we could study through the night.

Ike came up with a crazy suggestion: we should walk past every room. We only had to listen for the sound of a generator, and he would walk in and beg whoever was inside to allow us to charge our devices.

We kept walking until we found this particular room with its generator running. Ike met the guy inside, and he let us charge our phones.

The owners of the room looked rich—I noticed it immediately I got in. They even had a lounging couch.

Due to exhaustion, I slept off on the couch.

“Let me go and call the owner of the room.”

The unknown guy on the other side, with a nice fade and a Levi's T-shirt, volunteered.

I was confused. Wasn't he the owner of the room?

I looked at Ike inquisitively. Coincidentally, he looked at me and shook his head, mouthing that he didn't know if the guy was the owner of the room either.

After about ten minutes, it dawned on us—and the men—that the guy who had left earlier was either the owner of the room or knew the owner and had deliberately took flight.

“So una no know say na that guy get this room and una allow am run?”

“Sir, we didn't know. We're sorr—”

“Sharap there!”

Ike, in his characteristic way, had started defending us when he was shut down by one of the men, who kicked him hard on the thigh, making him writhe in pain.

I could relate.

“No wam, una go follow us go station,” one of the men, probably the leader, said.

The other one gathered the hard drugs they had found while searching the room, while another gathered our devices.

I stood up immediately and started to reach for a pair of trousers that had been thrown carelessly around during the course of the search so I could change out of my wet ones, but I was stopped by one of the supposed policemen.

“Wetin you wan do? You wan run when I dey here?”

Paa!

I fell face down on the tiles. Apparently, one of them had kicked my leg hard enough to make me fall.

“Jesus!” Ike and Fahad shouted.

My spirit was leaving and returning. My head spun, and I swooned. But the cold feeling of handcuffs around my wrists jerked me back.

“Officers, I'm not resisting arrest. I just want to change these trousers.”

“Ooh, you wee-wee for ya trouser? You nefa see chomtin you don dey wee-wee?”

The bleary-eyed officer, whom I could now see was named Officer Sapa from his name tag, spoke, making me forget the metallic taste of blood in my mouth and laugh. His voice sounded like it stopped developing with his height just before puberty.

I could even see Ike and Fahad muffling their laughter while stretching out their hands to be handcuffed.

Officer Sapa slapped my head, bringing the tension back into the room.

“I'm sorry, sir, but we are Federal University 400-level law students. We're all roommates in Room 56; this is Room 178. We know enough of the law and its consequences to know that we're not supposed to get involved in pushing drugs. We aren't accomplices, nor do we know the guy. We only came here to charge our phones. You can search our phones and—”

“Sharap, no dey speak English for me. You think say na only you go school? You be law student but you no know the law pass me. Sharap and move!”

Officer Sapa shunned me in his sing-song voice, eliciting another stifled laugh from us, but this time my head didn't receive any punishment for what my mouth did.

By now, we were all handcuffed, and we were led out and conducted into the back of the black Maria while everyone watched from their rooms.

No one even came out to find out what had happened or where they were taking us, so at least they could make reports that we had been taken. I don't blame them much, shaa. Cultists also come in the guise of policemen. I wondered what they would be gossiping about the three of us right now. I just hoped the gossip would filter into Kayin's ears. She was the only one who could hasten our release now. 🥲

Apparently, Kayin heard it. I don't know how, but she came to the station. However, she was not allowed to see us. That's when this 400-level law student decided to start her law practice. She insisted that we be taken to a court, since there was one about twenty minutes away from the station. 😂😂

The cunning policemen asked for an outrageous amount for fuel money, which she obviously couldn't afford. She then asked to bail us, insisting that police bail should not require the money they were demanding. But the policemen refused, on the basis that she was a female.

She took the pain to go home and return with a copy of the ACJA, 2015, and pointed them to Section 167(3), which provides that a person shall not be restricted from entering into a recognisance on the ground only that the person is a woman. But the policemen wouldn't bulge nor did they allow themselves to be convinced by her argument.

When she saw that the policemen weren't ready to listen to logic or follow due process, she dropped her strong, principled-woman title and leveraged her female privilege. She started crying and begging them to allow her to see us.

She told us this after we were released, shaa, as we were at the back of a small, dark and dank cell.

That's how she was brought to the cell, crying more than we who were behind the bars.

“Oche, your girl don come oo!” Ike and Fahad echoed from where they sat close to the bars. They launched into friendly laughter at the sight of her crying. Anyone who knows Kayin very closely would definitely find the fact that she was crying funny. Her lips still maintained a smiling shape even though she was crying.

I bolted from the corner where I was already dozing to see her crying profusely.

I wanted to join the others in laughing, but I remembered that I might be oozing from the odour of my own urine, even though my trousers were dry now. Na so I just control myself before dem go remember my matter. I even put reasonable distance between us, even though she was obviously trying to force herself through the spaces between the bars. But I no fit loose guard.

After that day, as revenge for how Ike and Fahad made fun of how she cried that day, calling her “Cry-Cry Baby,” she started calling us “The Bar.” Anyone who didn't know what transpired that day would think it was a reputable name in respect of the law we were studying.

Joke's on them. 😂

Fahad borrowed Kayin's phone while I was still trying to calm her down.

He called his uncle, who lived five hours away. He was the only one who had a relative living that close by. It was already 6 p.m., which meant he wouldn't be able to come that day, but the next day.

Just before the policeman came to lead her away, Ike gave her the keys to our room so she could bring a change of clothes for me without explaining why I needed it.

I owe him a can of Nutrichoco drink—or some dollars. That's what his wink signified.

Ike likes money, but not more than me shaa. 😂

That night was the worst night I've ever had to live through. I think it's worse than the pain I felt the night I suffered stage-two typhoid. The army of mosquitoes seemed to be at war with us and themselves, swarming around us with that annoying sound.

Hunger would have been a part of it if not for Kayin, who returned with a hot plate of plantain porridge and my clothes around 9 p.m. that same day.

I don put am for mind say I go marry that girl. 😂

We nearly forgot where we were while digging into the delicious plate of food. Survival of the fittest.

The next day, Fahad's uncle came in and bailed all of us. For an amount I wouldn't want to mention, but e dey my mind.

I made sure to memorise the names of the two other officers with Officer Sapa. I'll be getting my LLM in two years; we'll be back for them.

Even if Fahad, who's always the peacemaker, doesn't want to do the case, I'm sure Ike and Kayin dey for me. ✌🏽

We'll start our law careers by suing all of them for assault, unlawful detention, whatever cause of action my textbooks can cough up.

Police are your friends, but Nigerian police are not your friends.

Have you ever had an experience with the Nigerian police?

Ire oo.