Adaobi Nwaubani - I Do Not Come to You by Chance

All three of us apologised.

‘It’s not everybody that I can make this sort of sacrifice for,’ the minister said. ‘You know Mr Akpiri-Ogologo here used to work under me in the ministry long ago, before I became Minister of Aviation. He’s very close to me.’

Mr Winterbottom looked at Protocol Officer, his eyes shining with a new kind of respect.

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Protocol Officer said humbly.

Cash Daddy proceeded to order almost everything on the menu, and shocked me with the genteelness of his feeding process. He took slow, small bites like a well-bred little girl and chewed without enlarging his mouth.

Over breakfast, we chatted about the wind and the waves and about life and times. Throughout, the minister was jolly as a shoe brush. He told anecdotes and cracked jokes and laughed with all his might. The white man consumed several cups of coffee without touching his food. He kept hopping about on his seat and giggling long before the minister’s punch lines. Clearly, he had other things on his mind. At the end of the meal, the mugu offered to pay the bill. Nobody tendered a word of argument.

‘So let’s get on with business, shall we?’ Alhaji Mahmud began.

Protocol Officer got on.

‘Alhaji, like I was telling you, Mr Winterbottom is very interested in the development of Africa. His company has invested in several projects in South Africa and Uganda.’

He went on to elaborate on Mr Winterbottom’s sound qualities, speaking humbly and sparingly like a man who knew that he had limited time to make his case. He had started mentioning the bid for the Akanu Ibiam International Airport project, when Cash Daddy truncated his speech.

‘Where did you say you’re from again?’ Alhaji Mahmud asked. ‘ Czechoslovakia, was it?’

‘I’m Argentinian,’ Mr Winterbottom replied. ‘My parents were originally English and then they lived in Uganda where I was born. But I moved to Argentina in the seventies.’

‘Unbelievable!’ exclaimed Alhaji Mahmud. Three diners and four waiters shot glances at our table. ‘I’m very excited to hear this! A real international citizen! And you’re also one of our African brothers. Unique. We don’t only have black Americans, we also have White Africans.’

Mr Winterbottom giggled. We smiled.

‘With our young democracy,’ the minister continued, ‘ Nigeria is ripe for huge foreign investors like you right now. And we’re trying as much as possible to diversify. Most of the big contracts my department has awarded recently have all been taken by the Germans. I don’t want them to start thinking that Nigeria belongs to them. If it took so long to chase out the British, who knows how long it will take with the Germans?’

It sounded like a joke. I and Protocol Officer laughed. Mr Winterbottom did as well, after looking round to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping.

‘It’s time to open up our country to others,’ the Minister continued. ‘What better place to start than with a white man who is even our own African brother?’

Cash Daddy slapped Mr Winterbottom on the back. The giggling and smiling resumed. Abruptly, the minister sobered up.

‘Mr Winterbotom, let me tell you something. This Akanu Ibiam Airport project is very close to my heart. The Igbos have been advocating for their own international airport for a long time, and I’m delighted that in my tenure as Minister of Aviation of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, their dream is being fulfilled.’ He turned to me and Protocol Officer. ‘You’re Igbo, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Alhaji,’ we said.

‘Ah.’ He shook his head with pity. He kept on shaking his head. ‘Mr Winterbottom, do you know what a nigger is?’

The white man recoiled, as if a viper had briefly flicked its tongue out of Cash Daddy’s mouth. He shifted his eyes to me and shifted them to Mr Akpiri-Ogologo, then back to the minister again. He seemed unsure as to whether this was a trick question, whether he was supposed to admit knowing what the dirty word meant.

‘Do you?’ Cash Daddy insisted.

‘Oh, it’s a term that never finds its way into my vocabulary,’ Mr Winterbottom replied.

‘But you know what it means?’

‘Errrrrrrrrrrrr… Yes.’

‘The Igbos are the niggers of Nigeria,’ Cash Daddy declared, pointing at us. ‘They’ve been maltreated and marginalised.’

He stopped and drew a valiant breath.

‘Ignored,’ Protocol Officer quietly added.

Cash Daddy glanced quickly at me.

‘Forgotten,’ I mumbled quietly, too.

‘Do you understand that they live in the only geopolitical zone in Nigeria without an international airport?’ Alhaji Mahmud continued, still pointing. ‘This one is going to be their first.’

‘Thank you very much, Alhaji,’ we said.

‘I’m not Igbo,’ Alhaji Mahmud lowered his voice modestly, ‘but I feel so honoured to be part of this historical event.’

The white man opened his mouth and swallowed the noble proclamation like a seasoned ignoramus. How could anybody look at Cash Daddy and imagine that his name could ever be anything like Alhaji Mahmud – a name that was more likely to belong to a Hausa person from the northern part of Nigeria? Cash Daddy had the unmistakable thick head and chunky features of the Igbos. Plus, a concrete Igbo accent. It did not matter whether it was a three-letter word or a five-letter word, each came out with its original number of syllables quadrupled, and with so much emphasis on the consonants that it sounded as if he were banging on them with a sledgehammer. The Hausas had more delicate and slender facial features, and the phonetic structure of their mother tongue gave them an accent that sounded almost Western.

Cash Daddy was right! The white people did not know such things.

‘I might be a Hausa man,’ the minister continued, ‘but I have always believed in One Nigeria. That’s why I’m so glad that Biafra didn’t succeed.’

He went on to narrate details of the Nigerian civil war with tears filling his eyes. How, as a child growing up in Kano, Northern Nigeria, he had watched a Hausa man slit open the belly of a pregnant Igbo woman with a dagger. The woman had lain there in a pool of blood while the baby wriggled about and gasped for air.

‘Why?’ he asked with tears in his voice. ‘After all, we are all one. One flesh, one blood.’ He sniffed. ‘Why?’

‘Oh dear,’ said the mugu.

‘They are our brothers and sisters. Why must we treat our own people that way?’

I could hardly restrain my admiration for Cash Daddy. His tongue must have been made of silver. If this was a rehearsal for his live performance as politician and future governor, my uncle was sure to win rave reviews. And there was something about his voice. It had a certain irresistible attraction like the smell of fried chicken. He could probably even talk a spider into weaving silk socks for him. The same magic was in his face. Under his gaze, you felt like the most important figure in his life. From Mr Winterbottom’s face, I could see that his soul was being thoroughly converted to mugu.

‘The time for unity has come,’ Cash Daddy proclaimed. ‘Allah has given the call. Unity amongst Igbo and Hausa, amongst Hausa and Yoruba, amongst Yoruba and Igbo. One Nigeria! My dear friend, it’s at times like this that I understand why America had to fight the Cold War. You understand what I mean?’

I did not. The white man, on the other hand, was several scales ahead of me in the evolutionary process. He understood perfectly.

‘I’m with you,’ he replied.

Cash Daddy speechified some more. By the time he stood up, ready to leave, even I was convinced that we had been breakfasting with the minister of aviation of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.