Eka’s story - Season 1 - Episode 30

Episode 5 years ago

Eka’s story - Season 1 - Episode 30

☆☆

At the police station, Christy, Ema and the two lawyers met NK behind bars. The police had moved very quickly and had her ducked. NK did not expect what hit her. Her expectation was that the job had been done just like Michael assured her. She was utterly shocked by the litter of allegations against her at the police station. However before she was put behind bars, she managed to send a message to her lawmaker friend and asked for his help to get out of the police cell. The lawmaker who had already parted with some of his millions and was waiting for Eka to be delivered to him was mad and made a few calls to know the officer who was in charge at the police station where NK was being. Meanwhile Christy and Ema were happy to make fun of NK and were glad to let her know what was coming her way. It was clear to NK that she had goofed by failing to make plans to counter what Christy and Ema would do the moment she made a move on Eka. One quality NK had which most times saw her wriggle out of many troubles was her ability to re-strategize effortlessly. Though she sat on the floor of the police cell and cut the look of someone who was sorry for what she did, she was actually hatching new plans. Before Christy, Ema, the two lawyers and the NAPTIP officials would leave the police station; the IPO in charge of the case hurriedly called them aside and informed them that there had been a call from above demanding that NK be released that night. Some big shot politician had pulled the strings in her favour.
The IPO assured them that he had nothing to do with the call and suggested to the lawyers what steps to take so that by the next day the politician would be on the run with his tail in-between his legs. The IPO did not like for a bit the idea of politicians using their clout to meddle in their cases. Though he assured his superiors that NK would be released that night after the usual procedures were followed, he took the biggest risk of his career and had the case transferred to a higher police station and made sure his friends there were in charge of the case. While the IPO worked against the orders from his superiors, the two lawyers representing Eka and Dr. Gerry swung into action, working their fingers sore to produce a signed confession from NK which would be on some national dailies by morning that the lawmaker, Silas Abasi paid her four million Naira to abduct a certain underage girl by the name EKaette Efiong. The picture of the abducted girl in the story was switched with that of a thirteen year old girl. The reports were sent out by night to national dailies. While the lawyer Silas Abasi sent to see NK was released that night was at the Southeastern police station waiting to speak with his client. NK was making a forced confession before a video camera at the central police station about what her plans with the lawmaker, Silas Abasi were. She acknowledged how much she was given and how much she gave Eka’s parents and the police officers at the two police stations she went to that day.
The police officers at the central police station would not have their colleagues indicted that they received bribe from NK, so they expunged that part from her confession. By late night, Silas Abasi was shocked when his friends in the police force came looking for him with a video of NK confessing to how much he gave her to kidnap a girl for him to marry. By the time Silas Abasi got in touch with the police officer heading operations at the central police station where NK was being held, much damage had been done. The video had gone online and had been sent to some television stations. The police officer in charge of central police station would not release NK no matter how much Silas Abasi offered him. He cited as reasons for refusing to release NK that his bosses had been made aware of the case and that two media houses had called that night in respect to the case. Though the IPO, the lawyers representing Eka and Dr. Gerry had done much, they reserved their sU-Cker punch for the morning. At the wake of television and newspaper reports of the case, Eka’s parents would make an emotional appeal to Silas Abasi to leave their daughter alone. The idea behind the public appeal was to whip up public opinion against Silas Abasi. Already senior officers at NAPTIP had been caught off guard by a hand full of requests to give their position on the case before they would go to the press with it or on air with it by morning. When the embarrassed, senior officers of NAPTIP, who did not know about the case, requested the case file, they were shocked to see that the culprit in the case, NK was a serial girl child kidnapper whose case had for long been swept under carpet as a result of the influence and power of those she supplied the girls to.


Willing not to be seen as not doing their jobs, the senior officers of NAPTIP typed their position on the case and waited for morning. Having no time to investigate the case, the senior officers took what their junior officers who were working for Ema and Christy gave them. NK had poached a few girls in the past and the case got to NAPTIP, but she was nothing close to a serial kidnapper. The worst thing about what Ema and Christy did to NK was that they used the information she handed to Christy in one of her many visits to Christy’s shop to deal with her. About the time she told Christy of her case with NAPTIP officials, she was accused of moving a fifteen year old girl from Iseleuku, Delta state to Kumasi, Ghana. She had confessed to Christy that her Liberian customer had paid her seven thousand Dollars to get the girl for him. The night was way too fast for Eka to pause and get a grasp of the direction things were going. After she and Dr. Gerry got the old doctor to furnish them with a birthday certificate which gave the impression that Eka was nineteen years and was given birth to in the doctor’s hospital, they went to see her parents at Uncle James’ house. She was in a foul mood, shredding her parents with words when Ema called Dr. Gerry and informed him that the case had taken a new twist – that Silas Abasi had made a move to get NK out of police net. They were asked to return to Dr. Gerry’s apartment with Eka’s parents.

From that moment till dawn events moved at stunning speed. The two lawyers Christy had hired were wizards. Their information management skill was top notch. They made sure that they chiseled damaging information out of what they knew about NK and the ignoble Silas Abasi and fed it to the public, leaving Abasi running for cover and NK looking like a villain in the eyes of the public. By full dawn the news of Abasi paying a serial kidnapper to get him a thirteen year old girl to marry, sold well to angry Nigerians who were already calling for the heads of their incurably corrupt politicians. As though that was not enough, the video of Eka’s mother and father crying and appealing to ‘big’ and ‘powerful’ politicians (the very words Nigerian voters hated) to leave their daughter alone, whipped the people into frenzy. The media had to give the breaking news some attention. The wave of rage and insult directed at Silas Abasi, left him claiming before the media that he did not know any NK Ezieshi and had not met her for once in his life. He described the whole allegation against him as ‘the work of my political enemies’. Just before Silas Abasi’s public statement could die down, NAPTIP officials came with their own public statement and in it described NK as ‘a wanted criminal who had perfected the art of trafficking children around and out of the country’; their claim did not help NK’s situation at all.

When NK heard she had been left to sort herself out by Silas Abasi, she pressed her parents to get her a lawyer. Her intention was to tell the truth, ridding on the claims by Christy and her team that Eka was nineteen years. She knew their statements were with the police, she planned to destroy their claim that she poached on an underage girl. She was going to claim of course that her recorded video confession was given under duress and was not entirely true. She wanted to get away from police custody before Silas Abasi would have her poisoned to close the case. The lawmaker was having a torrid time trying to prove he did not know NK. The two parties had told much lies to get the case to where it was, if an investigation was to be conducted on the case, so much dirt would be found. The party with the guts to come out clean might have less to worry about, and NK wanted to be the one to tell the truth first..