THE SOLDIER: Changing the Narratives – EPISODE 11

By Dr Bassey Emmanuel

Two Vows and the Safehouse.

My friend! Who are you to batch into my office like that what is chasing you? Pascal shouted.

I am sorry sir I was terrified by the visuals coming in from Maiduguri.

Our soldiers were attacked and the Commanding Officer of the Unit, his Orderly and driver were captured alive, while members of his escort team were killed, the Lance Corporal said amid heavy breathing.

What! Pascal exclaimed.

Call me Lieutenant Kemi, we are relocating to Maiduguri immediately.

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA — 2026. 0300 HOURS

The movement to Maiduguri was not an easy one. Pascal recalled how they come under heavy attack by the Boko Haram boys but they were overpowered by Pascal’s higher fire power especially being Corporal Sule’s area of specialization to fire mortar and RPG 7. The rebels were chased far into the bush and a search conducted in a collapsed classroom revealed Ibrahim in his hiding position. Sule brought him out.

The boy recruit ( Eighteen) sits on an upturned ammo crate. His name is Ibrahim, but nobody has used it since the raid. His hands haven’t stopped shaking since yesterday, when Sule pulled him out of that collapsed classroom in Gwange. His eyes still hold the fire.

The kerosene lamp spits once, twice, then settles into a dirty yellow pulse. Three men in a room that smells of gun oil, dust and unwashed fear came out.

One asked, “Why una dey do this?” The words came out in a whisper, in Hausa, then he corrects himself to broken English like he thinks soldiers only speak command language. “Army no be for poetry. Army na for shooting.”

Pascal Vincent didn’t answer. He’s leaning against the far wall, arms folded, Major’s rank slide catching the lamplight. He has watched this scene before. In Gao, In Geneva and in his own head every night since France. He knows this part isn’t his.

He nods to Sule. “Your boy, your tribe, your turn.”

Corporal Musa Sule sets his AK-47 down. Metal on wood. The sound is final. He’s been cleaning it for an hour, ritual, not necessity. The smell of Hoppe’s No. 9 hangs between them.

For ten seconds, nobody breathes.

“You think I was born with this uniform?” Sule’s voice is low. The Hausa is deep, Zaria-market deep, but the English he switches to is precise. School-teacher English. His mother’s English. “You think Major here was?”

Ibrahim shrugs. The gesture is too big for his frame. Bravado borrowed from men he saw die. “You people get salary. I get hunger. Salary better than hunger one of the three men said.

Sule smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Those eyes are 34 years old but have seen 60 years of Borno. “Salary? Yes! I have salary, but why cant you come and collect the salary too? He pulls the oil rag through the bolt one last time, sets it aside and stood up to give the man a dirty slap. Pascal sees something he’s never seen in 12 years of fighting beside the man: Musa Sule, 17 years old and immediately hushed Sule to stop.

ZARIA, 2010 — FLASHBACK

Sule house on Gaskiya Road smells of chalk dust and old Naira note. Not poverty but history.

Sule’s father, Alhaji Ibrahim Sule, 30 years at Union Bank, Ikeja Branch, retired Senior Banking Officer, sits at the dining table every evening. The same table where he did homework in 1967. He counts his pension stubs with fingers stained faintly blue from carbon paper. It’s not about the money. It’s about the ritual. “Every kobo, must be counted by the Bank man who prefers dying counting than for government to count for you, because they always count short.”

Hajiya Maryam Sule, his mother, 32 years teaching English Language at Government Girls’ College, Lagos, occupies the other end of the table. Red pen in hand, always red. WAEC scripts fanned like playing cards. Her voice could cut glass: “Musa! ‘Recieve’ is not a word. It’s ‘receive’. “I” before “E” except after “C”. You will disgrace me at ABU if you write nonsense.”

Musa Sule – 18 years old. Admission letter to Ahmadu Bello University — Political Science, folded carefully inside his Quran. He keeps it there for luck. He wants to be a lawyer. He wants to argue cases in clean courtrooms in Abuja. He wants to use words, not weapons. He wants peace because he has never known anything else. His hometown Zaria is peaceful. Zaria only knows the call to prayer at 5 AM and the sound of his mother’s students reciting “The beautiful landscape of Nigeria…” in unison through the windows.

He believes, absolutely, that the war on the television is a thing that happens to other people’s children.

ZARIA, 2014 — FOUR YEARS LATER

Musa at 22 has finished his Degree with Second Class Upper and NYSC done. During his NYSC, he taught Government at a secondary school in Kebbi, wore the khaki with pride and returned home accomplished. Now, with the influence of his father he works at Union Bank the same Bank his father retired from. Contract staff. sewn trousers, packet shirt and tie tight and befitting with a well-polished shoes to match. He hates the tie. But father is proud. Mother is prouder. “My son, the banker. My son, now a graduate.”

The peace has a sound: his mother’s pen scratching, skritch-skritch against paper. His father’s calculator, click-click-click. The 8 PM news on AIT, volume low.

Then, on a Tuesday in April, the phone rings.

Maiduguri. Uncle’s voice. It cracks on the second word. “Anzo.” – They have come.

Boko Haram.

His two younger sisters, Aisha, 16, all books and hijab and dreams of being a doctor, and Zainab, 14, who “stole” his phone to watch Indian films were visiting cousins for Eid. The house was attacked and burned. The girls’ school was burned and his both parents were killed. Sule managed to escape unhurt but slept in the bush for 3 days and 3 nights. For the bodies of his family members… the Army said, there were not enough pieces left for separate “janaizas”. They buried what they found in one white shroud. The funeral took place on a Wednesday. The sky over Zaria was blue and obscene with weeping and sobbing all over the city.

Thursday morning, 0800 hours, Musa Sule, 22 years, 3 months, 11 days old, stands at the gate of Basawa Barracks, Zaria. Luckily it was the same time they were having the VIP List screening into the Army. He is wearing the same bank tie. He hasn’t slept. The recruiting officer, a man with three stars and tired eyes, looks at his ABU certificate. At his Union Bank ID. At his face.

“Yaro, you are educated. You are a graduate. Go to NDA. Become a commissioned officer. Nigeria needs officers with brain.”

Sule’s voice is flat. “Officers give orders from tents, they use maps. My parents and sisters didn’t die on a map. I need to be where their killers were. On the ground.”

“Are you sure? Once you sign the attestation form, na 12 years minimum oo. There is no going back oo. No be bank work. You no fit resign easily even if you are tired oo.”

Sule nods in agreement.

Okay go and change into white short, white t-shirt and canvas then come back. Sule went back and changed his dressing and returned for the screening exercise.

After the screening, at the last stage of the recruitment ritual, Sule took a pen from the recruitment officer. It was a Bic. Blue. The same type his mother uses to grade papers the only difference is his mother’s used to be red. “I have already been counting 22 years of peace, Sir. I am done counting.” I hereby sign the attestation form to be recruited into the Army without coercion.

He signs. Musa Sule. The ‘S’ loops like his mother taught him.

MAIDUGURI, 2026 – PRESENT

Sule looks at Ibrahim. Then at Pascal. The lamp makes all of them look older.

“I joined at 22. Not 18. Not because I was brave. Because I was too late.” His hand goes to his chest, not in salute, but like he’s checking for a wound. “I had a life. I had peace. I had a mother who said, ‘put I before E except after C’. Boko Haram took her. All of them. So, I came for it.”

He taps the single chevron on his arm.

Corporal, “12 years. Still Corporal. They offered me Sergeant three times. First after Konduga, 2018. Then after Damboa, 2021 and last year, after Baga”.

“Why you no take am?” Ibrahim’s voice is barely a breath. This is the first question he has asked that is not a challenge.

Sule’s answer is simple. Practiced. A truth worn smooth. “Because sergeants send boys to die, Ibrahim. They point at a map. They say, ‘take that hill’. Corporals…” He picks up his rifle again, holds it across his knees. “Corporals take the hill with them. My vow is not like his.” He jerks his chin at Pascal, but there’s no disrespect in it. Only difference.

“Major vowed to the world. To Geneva. To big words like ‘humanity’. I vowed to one grave in Maiduguri. Two names. Aisha. Zainab. My vow is smaller. But it’s heavier.”

The silence that follows is not empty. It’s full of Gaskiya Road, of red ink and of a bank tie.

Pascal finally moves. He pushes off the wall. Sixteen years of service in his legs. He walks to the center of the room. He doesn’t look like a Major. He looks like a man who has carried too many dead bodies.

“I joined at 18,” Pascal said. His French accent is gone. This is Borno English. Soldier English. “Boy looking for war. Thought war was a place. He…” He points to Sule. “He joined at 22. Man looking for his sisters. Thought war was a person he could kill.”

Pascal reaches up to his shoulder. The movement is slow, deliberate. He unclips his rank slide – the single crown bird of a Major and holds it in his palm. The metal is warm from his body.

“I have 16 years. He has 12. But today…” He holds the rank out to Sule, not as an order, but as an offering. “Today we have the same years. Zero. This Unit starts now. No ranks. No Army. Two vows. Two brothers.”

Sule looks at the crown. For a second, Ibrahim thinks he’ll take it. That’s the Army way. You take the promotion. You climb.

Sule doesn’t take the rank. He takes Pascal’s hand. His grip is calloused, banker’s son turned fighter. “We keep the ranks, sir. The boys need to see them. But in this room…” He glances at Ibrahim. “In this room, we’re just Musa and Pascal.”.

The boy recruit watches. For the first time since the raid, his hands are still. He sees two men, not two uniforms. One foreign bound, one Hausa. One with 16 years, one with 12. Both, 34 years old. Ibrahim noticed that he and Sule are both fatherless, motherless, brotherless in their own way.

Sule turns to him. The lamplight catches the grey starting at his temples. “Your name again?”

“Ibrahim.” The word is a test.

Sule’s face does something it rarely does. It softens. “Ibrahim. My father’s name.” He reaches into his chest rig. Not for a magazine. For a notebook. Not Army issue. A 40-naira exercise book from a primary school in Zaria. The cover is faded. Golden Crown Exercise Book. 2A.

He flips it open. The first pages are full. Names. Dates. Places. Konduga 2018, Private Adamu. Damboa 2021, Lance Corporal Bello. Dead boys.

“We don’t write orders here,” Sule says. “Orders get men killed. We write names. The ones we lost. The ones we’ll save. So, we remember why.”

He hands Ibrahim a pen. The same type of Bic he used to enlist. Blue.

“Welcome to Narrative Warfare Unit, Private Ibrahim. You are not a soldier yet. You are a witness.” Sule points to a blank page. “Your first mission: Write why you stayed alive when the others didn’t. Write it for them. Write it for you”.

Ibrahim takes the pen. His hands shaking at first. Then it doesn’t. He bends over the book. The lamp throws his huge shadow against the wall.

Outside, the first call to Fajr prayer begins, threading through the broken city. Allahu Akbar…

Inside, three men stop seeing ranks. Stop being tribes. Stop being the before and become the after.

They become the vow.

– Digital Embassy…