Willem Ngouane - From his shadow to his darkness. Story of a downfall

Gracefully, the wait finally ended and mister Agbwalla impedes my uncertainties and my frustrations subsequently when he asked me to excuse his previous attitude, blaming it on a family emergency. I was so enchanted by the way he presented his excuses I forgot to ask whether the problem he mentioned had finally been solved; he just wowed me by displaying so much humility. What a great man!

Five minutes later, we were moving out of the hotel on our way to the parking lot, when we met with a group of street children; four little boys in a dirty outer shell, they all looked hungry and weary. Their appearance was a clear example of the consequences of poverty in our country. The grimness of their frizzy hair made them look like neglected dogs in the street. Immediately they saw us, they started begging for money. Insistently. Their dirtiness was in perfect dissimilarity with the luxurious environment around them and made their presence turn into a serious proof of the incompetence of the security guards of this hotel. After the minister’s bodyguard noticed that they were a little too close to us, they decided to rudely make them go away. As they were dealing with them, the minister intervened:

“It’s ok, it’s ok, leave them…” he shouted to the bodyguards.

Even though we all knew how generous he was, his reaction was a little too exaggerated, knowing that the guards were only doing their job.

Subsequently, he took the oldest boy of the group apart and started questioning him.

“Tell me, young man, what are you people doing here? He asked gently.

“Our parents are dead sir, I’m with my brothers, we are looking for something to eat, anything to calm our hunger. We used to sell groundnuts and clean people’s shoes when some guys stole our equipment three days ago.”

“Hmmm…” Mister minister reacted before calling one of his bodyguards to give him some instructions.

We could hear the kids shouting out their happiness and expressing their gratitude towards the unexpected benefactor mister Agbwala was. Even though I couldn’t know what mister minister gave them to provoke this spectacular mood change, I was deeply impressed again by his bigheartedness. He was such a charitable man. I would have surely not acted the same. I usually hesitated before giving money to these abandoned children, and this behavior was because of my opinion on the topic. There was an amplification of the number of children in the streets, but all of them were not homeless. Many left their villages to look for a better living in the city. Others were used as a means of income of poor families already living in the city for years but sadly suffering from misery and unemployment. My compassion for those children who lived in the streets with all its dangers and uncertainties was as high as my anger against all the adults who sent them there. And any single person who had the means to change this situation but still didn’t. But the reaction of mister Agbwala came as a huge lesson for me: give first! My mind was now focused on the rest of my day, I needed to develop this kind of generosity and stop calculating all the time.

Later on, when the night arrived, I couldn’t hold myself for not relating to Caroline what happened at the Atlantique and especially on Mister Minister generous and humble actions. But as usual, whenever Mister Agbwala’s name was mentioned, my wife only noted the negative elements of the story. She first started complaining about the danger we faced on our way to Waloua when we encountered a group of thugs. Then also followed the many rumors on Mister Minister’s mysterious spiritual activities when we were discussing on the Atlantique. She even insisted that I should avoid or refuse whenever my boss proposes to go to such places Like many people in the country, she too believed that that hotel was nothing but a dark and dangerous institution. Hopefully, we didn’t argue on this subject much as we usually did when it comes to mister minister and my job.

For many years, it had become a strong habit to converse on him in our family life. In fact, my job was like a second family and a dangerous concubine for Caroline. That’s why most of the time, she acted like a possessive and mad rival, always trying to know her enemy for a better demolition. So it was just normal that her belief on Mister Minister and my workplace was permanently negative. Mister Agbwala, who was a praiseworthy man, a role model for the society, had a very different image in my wife’s eyes. For her, he was a bad influence to me; he had a double personality and hidden face that will be pulled out one day with destructive consequences for people close to him like me. Even if I had never agreed with most of her opinions towards my boss and my workplace, her hatred was understandable for me. It was just a manifestation of her frustration, regarding the number of nights she slept alone and the number of times I left her because of a phone call from the office. She was deplorable.

The harshest part for her was the passion I had for my job and the power of constant motivation, adding to the fact that she had never succeeded to influence my view on my Godfather even after her perseverance. Apart from my invariable admiration, I started feeling a deep commiseration for him after all the attack he endured these last months. I was sad that despite his good actions, people still hated him. But most of the time, he was able to deal with it that even when the revelation of the Herald came out; he didn’t look much concerned about it. He surely thought it was “fake news” like the multiple ones he had been facing before. But this one seemed to be true. That was surely why for three weeks, he was particularly absorbed, sad and nervous, he wasn’t the same joyful and cheerful man I knew. Sometimes, I will find him sunk into deep thinking, so absorbed that he will not even notice my presence for long minutes. The worst was that he had a pile of newspapers treating this subject permanently on his table. I couldn’t be in his shoes but for me, reading all these rumor mongers wasn’t a good thing. He better stay focused on his work and has confidence in his lawyer and justice. I used to ask myself if he was feeling guilty of something, or if he had some key information, we did not take into account. We, his supporters, continuously showed him love and support.

The day after, despite my unusual punctuality and the tranquility, I was hoping at the beginning of the day, huge was my surprise to see a long queue of people waiting for my arrival, expecting an appointment for most of them. With no hesitation, my instructions to Jasmine, my secretary, were clear; no appointment until further notice. I had much work to do, and I focused my entire planning on that, even though the desperation I saw on many faces pained me. But I had no choice. But three hours later, a bigger duty sanctioned my dedication to work and reminded me that there was no higher obligation during my working hours: a phone call from Mister Minister completely changed my scheduling and made me postpone the termination of my work. He asked me to meet him at his office as soon as possible. Like every single time he requested my presence, it sank me into prayers and fears; the short distance between our offices turned like the way to the execution room.

When I entered his office, a pleasant silhouette of an unknown lady who was facing him welcomed me. As I hadn’t seen her face yet, I was speculating on her beauty, thinking of how gorgeous she could be. Then she turned her body to my direction, and I finally discovered her charming visage and her pretty lips. She looked shy and bent down her head while greeting me. The minister introduced me to her before instructing me to look for her an office where she could work. He stated that she will start as an intern, “then we will see,” he said before they exchanged a candid smile. Their unique and remarkable complicity made me conclude that they were probably from the same family even though some little doubting though forced me to focus on this subject for some long minutes. Since all these rumors about the cheating habits of mister Agbwala, it had become very difficult not to suspect him of bad intentions every time an unknown lady was around.