A section of
us were picked and distributed to supervise
different voting centres.
We got there, everything was going on well
until a set of young men
tried to cause a riot. On like what other
military personnels will do,
myself and lanre calmed them down in a short
while without any
violence. The people there were surprised and
all they could do was
just to greet us, some even gave us money
saying they loved the way we
handled the case and they left. Voting for that
day was over and in no
time we got back to the camp. Lanre and I
were in our tent when we
were summoned by the Major. “Oh God! What
is it this time?” I asked
myself. On getting there we knew already that
he was angry, “give me
100 push-ups in one minute” he commanded
with all anger. “Who taught
you to behave like bloody civilians. Are you
foolish? Who asked you to
say any word to anybody? If anybody is trying
to prove stubborn, why
can you shoot?” He asked all these angrily.
“Shoot to kill sir?” Lanre
asked. “Yes, shoot to kill I said” the Major
replied. He ordered us
out of his tent when he was through ranting
on us. The hatred of man
began to grow in my heart. I was beginning to
suspect something about
him. what I was suspecting, I don’t really
know but I knew something
must be wrong about the man. But will a
soldier do than to obey
orders. I didn’t know what to do.
Training continued, vote supervision continued
also for about one
week. Until another when we were all alerted
that this time, the
terrorists were coming with war thugs (military
vehicles). This time
there was no fear. Apart from handling
ammunitions, we were also
trained to be military intelligence. That day
was great, col. Yaro
shot just one bazuka (missile launcher) and
all of their vehicles were
destroyed, all other surviving terrorists were
shot dead in no time.
That particular operation took us about one
hour. As the normal
tradition, we celebrated in the evening of that
day as usual but this
time the Major was not present. “Go and call
the Major to join us in
this celebration, he should be in his tent” col.
Yaro ordered. As I
was approaching his tent, I was hearing a
different language. I peeped
to check who it was, it was definitely the
Major. That language is
never a Hausa language, it sounds like a
foreign language. While I was
thinking about all this, I suddenly heard “who
is that?” That was the
Major. “I was asked to call…….” He didn’t
allow me to finish my
statement. “Shut up! I’m coming! Now go
away.” Now I’m really
convinced that there is something wrong
about him. We continued our
celebration and ended when we were all tired.
In my tent, I couldn’t sleep and I don’t know
why. So I was just
surfing the internet, checking facebook,
instagram and other social
media to while away time and to know what is
happening in the outside
world, after being in the camp for more than
three months. After doing
all these I couldn’t sleep still, my mind went
straight to search
about Major Musa Yusuf. Google brought out
some interesting thing
about him but there was a part of my screen
that redirected me to
another page. Surprisingly, I saw a change of
name, origin and
nationality attached to his profile. That was a
convincing proof to me
that he is not among us. But who is he really?
I woke up the following morning, something
strange happened. There
was no one in the tent with me. At first I was
terrified until I heard
the sound of marching men, then I knew those
were my colleagues. “I
did not join the drill this morning, I’m in
trouble” I was thinking
about this on my mat when I notice someone
was standing in the tent
with me. I got up quickly and to my surprise it
was the Major.
“Morning sir” I greeted him. “Go back to your
mat and continue your
rest, I purposely told them not to disturb you
because I know you were
the mastermind of yesterday’s attack against
the terrorists. I know
you will be very tired. But my boy, don’t go
beyond your capability.
You are just a young soldier”. He said all
these without allowing me
say a word. He left. I didn’t understand what
he was talking about. I
was thinking that day was a bonus day for me
but that day was the
start of trouble. I was about going back to my
sleep when I notice my
phone has been operated by someone else.
And that was the time I
understood what he was talking about. He
saw all I did about him on my
phone. What will a spoon do when a hungry
man is ready to eat than to
obey to direction of the mouth. What can a
young soldier like me do to
a Major? I knew already that I was in a mess.
How can I clean it up?
Our superb work in that area became a
worldwide story,
congratulatory and encouraging words were
coming from everywhere. I
personally receive more than one hundred
messages daily.