Opinion: How to Steal a Used Coffin: By Prof. Pita Agbese

Richard Otokpa returned to his village only three days ago but he was already bored stiff. He knew that coming back to the village was not a wise decision but it was his last resort. His mission to Lagos to survive by hustling had been a complete failure. He had done every odd job possible and none paid enough for him to rent a room. He had squatted with five different friends and former schoolmates. The last one, John, advised him to join his gang of armed robbers. He was very reluctant to do so. His father’s admonition to him as he was leaving the village for Lagos kept ringing in his ears: “Do everything you can to earn a living but do not engage in any criminal behavior. I am not rich but I have a good name and I want to keep it that way. God shall be with you.” John assured Richard that this was going to be a simple operation. They would ambush smugglers bringing in contrabands across the border from the Republic of Benin. The smugglers would be bringing in laptops and cellular phones and the shipment could be worth as much as five million Naira. Richard opened his eyes wide in disbelief. Five million Naira to be shared by just five of them? He, Richard, who had not “touched” fifty thousand Naira at any one time would have a “cool million” Naira to his name? He momentarily forgot about his father’s admonition and began to fantasize about this money. “So, are you in or not?” John asked him. He did not hear the question. In his imagination, his one million Naira, in crisp one thousand Naira notes, were dancing for him. The Naira, in his imagination, were transformed into so many nubile young ladies, each of them dressed very skimpily, and all of them calling him, “Daddy.” Richard grinned widely in delight as the Naira-girls were dancing just for his personal pleasure. John repeated the question, “Richard, are you going to join us in the operation?” Still, Richard did not answer. Now, his Naira-girls had magically turned into five Toyota Sienna vans and he was in the first van as he moved in a convoy of Siennas from Lagos heading to his village. John looked at him and saw the wide grin on his face. John said to himself, “No wonder he did not answer my question. He has become crazy.” He tapped Richard on the shoulder. Richard was startled and shouted, “Yes, father. They are all mine. I bought them legitimately.” John asked him what he was talking about. It was only then that Richard remembered where he was and what they were discussing. He asked John how safe the operation was going to be and John assured him that even though the smugglers were usually armed, they hardly used their guns.

The operation was neither simple nor safe as John had assured Richard. First, they spent two days in the bush near the Seme border with very little food to eat. Richard, possibly out of fear and anxiety, kept drinking water and urinating frequently. His heart was palpitating very rapidly. He was sweaty and he felt a tightening of his chest. The whole thing reminded him of the day they killed the Egbo man. Several Egbo men had ambushed Agila women who were returning from the farm. The women raised an alarm and all young men in the village took up guns and machetes to go after them. The Egbo men managed to escape except one who was ttrapped by the Agila young men. They pursued him the way hunters pursued antelopes. He ran straight at Richard and everyone shouted on Richard to shoot him with his dane gun but Rixchard could not pull his trigger. The pleading eyes of the Egbo man froze his finger. He was rooted to the ground even after someone else had shot the Egbo man. Richard felt that he had betrayed a man who was pleading for his life with his eyes. That day, he was sweaty too and even urinated on himself. The glorious dreams of Naira notes dancing for him and calling him, Daddy, were dashed against the harsh realities of waiting to steal from smugglers. Second, the smugglers who were supposed to be bringing in cellular phones and laptops never showed up. John and his gang did accost some smugglers and after a shoot-out, they seized their goods but John was shot in the leg and what the smugglers were bringing in were Okrika or used clothing. John and his gang sold the clothes to a female Okrika trader for
eighty thousand Naira. After deducting their expenses, they were left with just 5,000 Naira. The rental of the two old AK-47 cost them twenty thousand Naira. They paid fifty thousand Naira to the informant Customs officer who had given them the “intelligence” that the smugglers would be coming. Richard’s share of the haul was only 800. This was a far cry from his dreams of a cool 1 million Naira.

His meager take from his armed robbery exploit coupled with his fear that there was much danger in armed robbery made it easier for him to want to return to his village. He would take his mother up on her offer. As he was leaving for Lagos, his mother called him into her room and said,”Son, your father and I wished we had prepared you better for you to be on your own. We spent all our money on your university education and could not afford to give you money to set up your own business. If Lagos becomes impossible for you, you will always have a roof over your head here. I will always be your mother and I will have meals ready for you to eat here. Do not be embarrassed to return home if things don’t work out. One should never be ashamed of one’s home. Take this fifteen thousand Naira. I have been saving it for a rainy day and today is the rainy day.” Mother and son had a good laugh. This was the height of the dry season and the first rainfall was not expected for another three months, making it funny to be making reference to that day as a rainy day. Richard was overcome with his mother’s sacrifice. He vowed silently that he would make his mother proud of him.

Making his mother proud of him would have to wait. Now, the urgent task was to return home. Move back to his parents’ home and stay without exhausting his welcome. At his parents’ home, he would not have to wait outside each time his host with whom he was squatting brought a girlfriend to spend the night. He would not have to play the role of a housewife, cooking, washing clothes and ceaning the one room apartment as the second man he squatted with expected him to do. As he said when he angrily packed out, “I am not your wife. I am not a man-wife.” John tried to persuade him to stay but Richard had had enough of the Lagos life. The glitzy glamour of life in Lagos was not meant for his kind. His kind was only expected to be human scavengers, eating and wearing what other people had discarded. This was not a life. It was merely an existence of uncertain future. Richard would retrace his footsteps. Yes, he would return home, perhaps a failure but tomorrow could already be pregnant with hope and fortune. That hope and fortune could be obtained through fortitude and forbearance and the forbearance, for now, could only take place in his village.

Richard’s first night back home was peaceful and better than he had expected. His parents were surprised to see him. He had called them a week earlier and had lied that he was doing well. Now, here he was at home without any evidence of how well he was doing in Lagos. His parents accepted him with both the father and the mother very thankful that Richard had heeded to their admonitions. He had not solied their names and he had returned home when he could not crack the riches that was Lagos. Richard slept well. Possibly, the best sleep he had had in almost a year. In the morning, Onyetsi, his old flame, came by. He had not seen her in almost three years, just before she married Okibe. The marriage was rocky and Okibe died two years later in an automobile accident. Onyetsi was returning to Jos but stopped by to say hello to Richard when she heard that Richard returned to the village the previous day. He asked her if she could put him in her bag and take him with her to Jos. Onyetsi laughed said that she needed a house-boy but that the man she was living with would not approve of her ex-boyfriend as a house-boy. They both laughed at this.

Day two of Richard’s return to the village was fun and exciting. First, he joined a hunting expedition to go hunting at Hills Village. They killed one antelope and five squirrels. The meat was shared almost equally among the hunters with the killers who actually killed the animals being given slightly larger shares. Then, after the hunting expedition, Richard “followed” an Akatakpa masquerade. He was
surprised that he could still “follow” Akatakpa. He had not done that in over five years. “Following” Akatakpa was still fun but the heat and the sweating made it uncomfortable. He did not have this much fun in Lagos. The village was not bad after all.

Day Three was a different story. Everyone left for the farms earlier in the morning. By mid-day, the village was a desolate place. Children were at school and their parents were on their farms. The only people left in the village at mid-day and late afternoon were unemployed young men and retired soldiers. Even Ene’Omakpo, who sold groundnuts and roasted maize was no longer there. She had died three months earlier. It was the most boring day of Richard’s life. All he had to eat was the leftover Akpu with okro soup that he and his parents had for supper the previous evening. Richard decided that he would be better-off returning to the vagaries of life in Lagos rather than die of boredom in the village. At least in Lagos, he was sure of eating two sumptuous meals a month at the monthly gatherings of the people of his clan and of his lineage living in Lagos.

Richard’s decision to return to Lagos was preempted by the funeral of the daughter of the Emperor of Money. The Emperor of Money was a young man who suddenly became wealthy. Many people believed that he was supposed to have served as a front man for the state governor but that he appropriated the billions of Naira the governor had stolen and put under his care as his own. He was fabulously wealthy. He built mansions in the village, at Abuja, in Jos, Lagos, and Port Harcourt. His latest mansion was built in Cape Town, South Africa. He wanted to build one at Dubai but he changed his mind. Too many Negroes, he said, were flocking to Dubai. He wanted to call himself, Father of Money, but he was told that that title was already taken. Then, he settled on Ambassador Too Much Money. That title was not available either. Someone suggested that he should name himself, the Maker of Money, but where he came from, it was women, not men, who were called, Oyije, Maker of Money. Then, he decided on the name, the Emperor of money.

When people were wondering when the Emperor of Money had a daughter who had died, they were told that this was his adopted daughter. A child, an orphan, whom he had adopted as a sign of his philanthropy. What was important to Richard now was the coffin in which this girl was going to be buried. It was a mahogany coffin laced with real gold trimmings. Everyone who saw the coffin wondered how such a beautiful coffin was going to be buried six feet under the ground. One old man said that the coffin was so beautiful it ought to be used over and over again. Everyone who heard him said this wondered if the old man had become senile. One could wear a used clothing. Or used shoes, or even hairs cut off dead Brazilian women, but use a coffin that had been used? How would one go about doing that?

Everyone thought that the old man was crazy. Except Richard. He was intrigued by the idea of re-using the Emperor of Money’s daughter’s coffin. Richard was sure that the coffin was worth a lot of money. He told himself that even if there was no market for a used coffin, there would be a market for this particular coffin. It was so exquisitely beautiful that nobody would mind that it had been used before. Richard was sure that its gleaming brown surface would be very easy to clean even after the coffin had been buried six feet in the ground. Then, he heard people whispering about how much the coffin cost. The rumor was that a gubernatorial candidate hoping to have his ambition bankrolled by the Emperor, had given him fifteen million Naira to buy a unique coffin for his daughter’s burial. According to the story, the Emperor did want to look cheap by spending only a fraction of the money on a coffin and keeping the balance. He therefore spent all the money on this coffin.

For Richard, this could be the answer to his problems. Steal the coffin and find someone to buy it. The problem would be how to steal it successfully and take it out of the village. How would people see you with a coffin and not ask you who had died? It would not be a problem disposing off the body of the Emperor’s daughter. They would just re-bury her without a coffin. Richard concluded that John would know what to do. This was certainly more lucrative and less risky that robbing smugglers.
He called John and told him about the coffin. John thought that Richard was crazy. “Do you know what would happen to you if you are caught robbing a grave? It is an abomination. Then, how do you advertize a used coffin? How do you get rid of the stench of the corpse that had been buried in it? Whatever you are drinking or smoking in the village that is giving you this crazy idea must be stopped. You can come back. We shall manage whatever we have.” He dropped the phone but Richard was undaunted. “I must find a way to steal and sell a used coffin,” he said out loud. He realized that he should not have said that. He looked and fortunately, there was no one to have heard him.

Three hours later, John called back. “How much did you say the coffin was worth?” Richard said, 15 million Naira. “Good. I think we should go for it. Find out the type of security at the burial site. I will rent a pick-up van from here in Lagos with which we shall carry the coffin out of the village. Kehinde and his gang did a successful operation at Diamond Bank three days ago. I will borrow some money from him. Expect me home tomorrow evening.” Richard was elated. He was not crazy ater all. He and John and other members of John’s armed robbery gand will steal a used coffin.

Richard was puzzled as was everyone else. The Emperor did not bury his daughter on his expansive compound. Her body, in the expensive coffin, was taken, instead, to his farm. It was strictly not a farm. He had not planted anything on the farm and he was not raising fish or livestock there, either. Some people believed that this was simply a land-grap operation. Others said that the Emperor was waiting for co-investors from South Africa who would bring the technical know-how on running a large modern farming operation. All Richard was thinking now was how burying the daughter on the farm would make it easier to steal the coffin. Since there was nothing on the farm, the place was not guarded. There were no security men at the farm.

John arrived early in the evening the following day as he had assured Richard. He was delighted to hear that the young lady was buried at the farm. “Richard, this is unbelievable. I thought we were going to have some difficulties stealing the coffin but we shall have no problem. If I had known, I would not have even bothered to rent the four AK-47 guns. After we sell the coffin, we must acquire our own guns. It is too costly to keep renting guns. We must do the operation tonight.” Richard told him that that was not feasible. The Emperor and the sympathesizers who had accompanied him to the village were still around but there were scheduled to leave the following day. “But we must do it as soon as they leave. 15 million Naira buried in the ground is bound to interest other grave robbers.”

The following day, Richard and John realized that they needed diggers, pick axes and shovels to exhume the coffin. Borrowing them in the village would arouse suspicions. They decided to drive the two-hour trip to Otukpo to buy some. As they were coming back with shovels, pick axes and diggers, they were stopped by men of the Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police. The diggers and shovels piqued the interest of the policemen on patrol. One of them joked by asking Richard and John if they were grave robbers. Everybody laughed, without the policeman realizing that he had asked the right question. John greased the palm of the inquisitive policeman with a 500 Naira note and the police waved them on.

They drove straight to Africa Bar at Apa to have some drinks and wait for darkness. John realized that they had not planned how to sell the used coffin. He excused himself from the group to make a few phone calls. Three of the five robbery fences that he had called flatly turned him down. The fourth one said he was willing to pay two hundred and fifty thousand Naira if the used coffin was as beautiful as John had described it. The fifth man sounded excited and promised to pay good money provided the coffin was not stained.

Exhuming the coffin was much easier than they had thought. The grave was not up to six feet deep and the ground was soft. When they saw the coffin, they all shouted in excitement. They were awed by its beauty and its elegance. John was the first person to speak. “How could a beautiful thing like this be buried in the ground? Why are some people treated better in death than most of us are treated while alive? This is a crazy country. The amount of money spent on this single dead person would be enough to keep an entire village alive for at least two years. Anyway it is our luck. We have graduated from failed robbers of smugglers to grave robbers.” They all laughed at this joke. They quickly loaded the coffin onto the pick-up van and set out for Lagos.

Twenty miles down the road, they were stopped by the same policemen who had stopped them earlier. The policeman who had made the joke about grave robbers recognized them and shouted to his colleagues. “Let them go. It is our grave robbers of this afternoon.” Everyone laughed. This time, John pressed two one thousand Naira notes onto his palm and the policeman shouted, “Oga, your boys are loyal.” John and his gang drove off. Then John realized that they were not carrying tell-tale signs of a vehicle conveying a corpse: green leaves. He stopped the vehicle and plucked a bunch of fesh green leaves from near-by trees and adorned the front, the sides and the back of the pick-up van with them.

As John was doing this, he was struck about something that was odd about the coffin. It was not smelling. It was not that the smell was stifled by the smell of formaldehyde, the chemical used in preserving dead bodies. There was no smell at at all. He drew Richard’s attention to this. “Look, this girl had been dead for five days or more. How come she is not smelling?” That question prompted the realization that they forgot to re-bury the corpse in the grave from which they had stolen the coffin. Now, they were in trouble. What were five men doing carrying a dead body? Where were they taking the body to? Who was she and why were there no female mourners with them? They knew they would not be able to answer these questions if they were stopped by policemen and driving from Benue State, there was no way they wouldn’t be stopped at least twenty times. Time to ditch the corpse. John pulled off the vehicle at the nearest footpath so they could dump the body. There was a small gazebo used as a stall in the daytime for selling tomatoes. It was by the side of the footpath. As John pulled the pickup near the gazebo, two naked bodies jumped out and ran along the path. John and his men had stumbled on two lovers making illicit love. Just as the lovers were startled by the vehicle, the occupants of the vehicle were startled by their presence. John quickly reversed the vehicle and they got back on the road. A vehicle driving with high beams was now behind them. It was a vehicle of the Anti-Robbery Squad. John’s reckless maneuver aroused the suspicion of the policemen and they flashed their lights for John to stop his vehicle. The policemen were surprised that it was again, John and his men. “Aha, it is our grave robbers again. Any problem?” As the jovial policeman was saying this, his colleague pointed his torchlight to see what was inside the pick-up and he was shocked at what he saw. “Get out, get out, I say, get out and lay flat on the ground,” he ordered them. His colleague was surprised. “Sargeant,” he said. “It is the men who gave us 500 Naira earlier and 2000 Naira just a moment ago. Let them go. They are grave robbers.” “Yes,” the sergeant said. “They are grave robbers. They have stolen the Emperor’s daughter’s coffin. They are not just grave robbers but ritualists. They are under arrest.” “Jesus Christ!” the joker policeman exclaimed. The sergeant demanded to know what they were going to do with the corpse. “Open it and tell us what you intend to do with it.” John got off the ground and opened the coffin. There was no corpse in the coffin. The coffin was lined from top to bottom with crisp one hundred dollar bills.” “Jesus Christ,” shouted Mohammed, one of the policemen. Hie colleagues looked at him in disbelief. The joker policeman asked him, “Did you just say, Jesus Christ?” Mohammed replied, “With this kind of money, we are all followers of Jesus Christ tonight.” His colleagues laughed very loudly. In the meantime, the sight of this much money caused John to faint as the policemen, still laughing, loaded the coffin onto their own van and sped off. They left the stunned grave robbers lying down on the wet pavement of the Agila-Otukpo Highway. Grave robbers who had stolen a used coffin stuffed with dollars who were poorer than they were before their theft of a used coffin.