The Soccer War

THE BURNING ROADBLOCKS

January 1966. In Nigeria a civil war was going on. I was a correspondent covering the war. On a cloudy day I left Lagos. On the outskirts police were stopping all cars. They were searching the trunks, looking for weapons. They ripped open sacks of corn: could there be ammunition in that corn?

Authority ended at the city line.

The road leads through a green countryside of low hills covered with a close, thick bush. This is a laterite road, rust-coloured, with a treacherous uneven surface.

These hills, this road and the villages along it are the country of the Yorubas, who inhabit south-western Nigeria. They constitute a quarter of Nigeria’s population. The heaven of the Yorubas is full of gods and their earth full of kings. The greatest god is called Oduduwa and he lives at a height higher than the stars, higher even than the sun. The kings, on the other hand, live close to the people. In every city and every village there is a king.

In 1962 the Yorubas split into two camps. The overwhelming majority belongs to the UPGA (United Progressive Grand Alliance); an insignificant minority belongs to the NNDP (Nigerian National Democratic Party). Owing to the trickery of the Nigerian central government, the minority party rules the Yorubas’ province. The central government prefers a minority government in the province as a way of controlling the Yorubas and curbing their separatist ambitions: thus has the party of the overwhelming majority, the UPGA, found itself in opposition. In the autumn of 1965 there were elections in the Yorubas’ province. It was obvious that the majority party, UPGA, had won. Nevertheless, the central government, ignoring the results and the sentiments of the Yorubas, declared the victory of the puppet NNDP, which went on to form a government. In protest, the majority party created its own government. For a time there were two governments. In the end, the members of the majority government were imprisoned, and the UPGA declared open war against the minority government.

And so we have misfortune, we have a war. It is an unjust, dirty, hooliganish war in which all methods are allowed — whatever it takes to knock out the opponent and gain control. This war uses a lot of fire: houses are burning, plantations are burning, and charred bodies lie in the streets.

The whole land of the Yorubas is in flames.

I was driving along a road where they say no white man can come back alive. I was driving to see if a white man could, because I had to experience everything for myself. I know that a man shudders in the forest when he passes close to a lion. I got close to a lion so that I would know how it feels. I had to do it myself because I knew no one could describe it to me. And I cannot describe it myself. Nor can I describe a night in the Sahara. The stars over the Sahara are enormous. They sway above the sand like great chandeliers. The light of those stars is green. Night in the Sahara is as green as a Mazowsze meadow.

I might see the Sahara again and I might see the road that carried me through Yoruba country again. I drove up a hill and when I got to the crest I could see the first flaming roadblock down below.

It was too late to turn back.

Burning logs blocked the road. There was a big bonfire in the middle. I slowed down and then stopped; it would have been impossible to have carried on. I could see a dozen or so young people. Some had shotguns, some were holding knives and the rest were armed with machetes. They were dressed alike in blue shirts with white sleeves, the colours of the opposition, of the UPGA. They wore black and white caps with the letters UPGA. They had pictures of Chief Awolowo pinned to their shirts. Chief Awolowo was the leader of the opposition, the idol of the party.

I was in the hands of UPGA activists. They must have been smoking hashish because their eyes were mad and they did not look fully conscious. They were soaked in sweat, seemed possessed, frenzied.

They descended on me and pulled me out of the car. I could hear them shouting ‘UPGA! UPGA!’ On this road, UPGA ruled. UPGA held me in its sway. I could feel three knife-points against my back and I saw several machetes (these are the Africans’ scythes) aimed at my head. Two activists stood a few steps away, pointing their guns at me in case I tried to get away. I was surrounded. Around me I could see sweaty faces with jumpy glances; I could see knives and gun barrels.

My African experience had taught me that the worst thing to do in such situations is to betray your despair; the worst thing is to make a gesture of self-defence, because that emboldens them, because that unleashes a new wave of aggression in them.

In the Congo when they poked machine-guns in our bellies, we could not flinch. The most important thing was keeping still. Keeping still takes practice and willpower, because everything inside screams that you should run for it or jump the other guy. But they are always in groups and that means certain death. This was a moment when he, the black, was testing me, looking for a weak spot. He would have been afraid of attacking my strong point — he had too much fear of the white in him — so he looked for my weakness. I had to cover all my weaknesses, hide them somewhere very deep within myself. This was Africa, I was in Africa. They did not know that I was not their enemy. They knew that I was white, and the only white they had known was the colonizer, who abased them, and now they wanted to make him pay for it.

The irony of the situation was that I would die out of responsibility for colonialism; I would die in expiation of the slave merchants; I would die to atone for the white planter’s whip; I would die because Lady Lugard had ordered them to carry her in a litter.

The ones standing in the road wanted cash. They wanted me to join the party, to become a member of UPGA and to pay for it. I gave them five shillings. That was too little, because somebody hit me on the back of the head. I felt pain in my skull. In a moment there was another blow. After the third blow I felt an enormous tiredness. I was fatigued and sleepy; I asked how much they wanted.

They wanted five pounds.

Everything in Africa was getting more expensive. In the Congo soldiers were accepting people into the party for one pack of cigarettes and one blow with a rifle butt. But here I had already got it a couple of times and I was still supposed to pay five pounds. I must have hesitated because the boss shouted to the activists, ‘Burn the car!’ and that car, the Peugeot that had been carrying me around Africa, was not mine. It belonged to the Polish state. One of them splashed gasoline on to the Peugeot.

I understood that the discussion had ended and I had no way out. I gave them the five pounds. They started fighting over it.

But they allowed me to drive on. Two boys moved the burning logs aside. I looked around. On both sides of the road there was a village and the village crowd had been watching the action. The people were silent; somebody in the crowd was holding up a UPGA banner. They all had photographs of Chief Awolowo pinned on their shirts. I liked the girls best. They were naked to the waist and had the name of the party written across their breasts: UP on the right breast, and GA on the left one.

I started off.

I could not turn back; they allowed me only to go forward. So I kept driving through a country at war, a cloud of dust behind me. The landscape was beautiful here, all vivid colours, Africa the way I like it. Quiet, empty — every now and then a bird taking flight in the path of the car. The roaring of a factory was only in my head. But an empty road and a car gradually restore calm.

Now I knew the price: UPGA had demanded five pounds of me. I had less than five pounds left, and fifty kilometres to go. I passed a burning village and then an emptying village, people fleeing into the bush. Two goats grazed by the roadside and smoke hung above the road.

Beyond the village there was another burning roadblock.

Activists in UPGA uniforms, knives in their hands, were kicking a driver who did not want to pay his membership fee. Nearby stood a bloody, beaten man — he hadn’t been able to come up with the dues, either. Everything looked like the first roadblock. At this one, though, I hadn’t even managed to announce my desire to join UPGA before I received a pair of hooks to the midsection and had my shirt torn. They turned my pockets inside out and took all my money.

I was waiting for them to set me on fire, because UPGA was burning many people alive. I had seen the burnt corpses. The boss at this roadblock popped me one in the face and I felt a warm sweetness in my mouth. Then he poured benzene on me, because here they burn people in benzene: it guarantees complete incineration.

I felt an animal fear, a fear that struck me with paralysis; I stood rooted to the ground, as if I was buried up to the neck. I could feel the sweat flowing over me, but under my skin I was as cold as if standing naked in sub-zero frost.

I wanted to live, but life was abandoning me. I wanted to live, but I did not know how to defend my life. My life was going to end in inhuman torment. My life was going to go out in flames.

What did they want from me? They waved a knife before my eyes. They pointed it at my heart. The boss of the operation stuffed my money into his pocket and shouted at me, blasting me with his beery breath: ‘Power! UPGA must get power! We want power! UPGA is power!’ He was shaking, swept up in the passion of power; he was mad on power; the very word ‘power’ sent him into ecstasy, into the highest rapture. His face was flooding sweat, the veins on his forehead were bulging and his eyes were shot with blood and madness. He was happy and he began to laugh in joy. They all started laughing. That laughter saved me.

They ordered me to drive on.

The little crowd around the roadblock shouted ‘UPGA!’ and held up their hands with two fingers stretched out in the ‘V’ sign: Victory for UPGA on all fronts.

About four kilometres down the road the third roadblock was burning. The road was straight and I could see the smoke a long way off, and then I saw the fire and the activists. I could not turn back. There were two barriers behind me. I could only go forward. I was trapped, falling out of one ambush and into another. But now I was out of money for ransom, and I knew that if I didn’t pay up they would burn the car. Above all, I didn’t want another beating. I had been whipped, my shirt was in tatters and I reeked of benzene.

There was only one way out: to run the roadblock. It was risky, because I might wreck the car or it might catch fire. But I had no choice.

I floored it. The roadblock was a kilometre ahead. The speedometer needle jumped: 110, 120, 140. The car shimmied and I gripped the wheel more tightly. I leaned on the horn. When I was right on top of it I could see that the bonfire stretched all the way across the road. The activists were waving their knives for me to stop. I saw that two of them were winding up to throw bottles of gasoline at the car and for a second I thought, so, this is the end, this is the end, but there was no turning back. There was no turning …

I smashed into the fire, the car jumped, there was a hammering against the belly pan, sparks showered over the windshield. And suddenly — the roadblock, the fire and the shouting were behind me. The bottles had missed. Hounded by terror, I drove another kilometre and then I stopped to make sure the car wasn’t on fire. It wasn’t on fire. I was all wet. All my strength had left me; I was incapable of fighting; I was wide open, defenceless. I sat down on the sand and felt sick to my stomach. Everything around me was alien. An alien sky and alien trees. Alien hills and manioc fields. I couldn’t stay there, so I got back in and drove until I came to a town called Idiroko. On the way I passed a police station and I stopped there. The policemen were sitting on a bench. They let me wash and straighten myself out.

I wanted to return to Lagos, but I couldn’t go back alone. The commandant started to organize an escort. But the policemen were afraid to travel alone. They needed to borrow a car, so the commandant went into town. I sat on a bench reading the Nigerian Tribune, the UPGA paper. The paper was dedicated to party activities and the party’s fight for power. ‘Our furious battle,’ I read, ‘is continuing. For instance, our activists burned the eight-year-old pupil Janet Bosede Ojo of Ikerre alive. The girl’s father had voted for the NNDP.’ I read on: ‘In Ilesha the farmer Alek Aleke was burned alive. A group of activists used the “Spray-and-Lite” method [also known as ‘UPGA candles’] on him. The farmer was returning to his fields when the activists grabbed him and commanded him to strip naked. The farmer undressed, fell to his knees and begged for mercy. In this position he was sprayed with benzene and set afire.’ The paper was full of similar reports. UPGA was fighting for power, and the flames of that struggle were devouring people.

The commandant returned, but without a car. He designated three policemen to ride in mine. They were afraid to go. In the end they got in, pointed their rifles out the windows, and we drove off that way, as if in an armoured vehicle. At the first roadblock the fire was still burning but there was nobody in sight. The next two roadblocks were in full swing, but when they saw the police they let us through. The policemen weren’t going to allow the car to be stopped; they didn’t want to get into a fight with the activists. I understood — they, lived here and they wanted to survive. Today they had rifles, but usually they went unarmed. Many policemen had been killed in the region.

At dusk we were in Lagos.