Prelude: Academics and consultants in all fields, self-proclaimed messiahs and prophets, fortune-tellers, magicians, illusionists, and shamans are present in Lagos. Lagos, the Metropolis with a population of about 24 million, remains the financial hub of Nigeria despite losing the title as the capital city to Abuja. It attracts investors and diverse professionals ready to offer their services. If an alien arrives in Lagos with an unknown task, Nigerian creative minds will invent a new profession to execute it. Disappointingly for many, despite earning billions of dollars from petroleum revenues over six decades after independence, Nigeria still struggles with socio-economic catastrophe. Unemployment is very high.

Those lucky enough to have paying jobs find it difficult to make ends meet because of the high cost of living. The daily suffering begins for many with the transportation ordeal. People scramble in buses called Molue and Danfo or sit behind the driver of a motorcycle called Okada to travel to their destinations. Electricity power outages are rampant. Businesses produce below capacity, and inhabitants endure discomfort — the scorching heat is merciless if the air-conditioning falls out.

During the rainy season, young and old hop over potholes from one elevated patch on the road to another as if playing the game – hopscotch. Some do the long or triple jump to avoid slipping into a hole. Drivers do slalom driving to prevent their vehicles from getting stuck in muddy ditches. In the past, event organizers, partygoers, and gate gate-crashers created the “suffering and smiling culture” by which Lagosians tried to blend out the problems and enjoy themselves with the hope that life would soon be better.

The wish of Nigerians for God’s help remains unfulfilled. Intensive prayers, sacrifices, and offerings by Christians, Muslims, and numerous other religious groups have not helped resolve Nigeria’s predicament either. The economic problems, coupled with corruption at all levels and perpetual insecurity caused by criminals, have dealt a devasting blow to the fate of the young generation of Nigerians in the government. They have had enough and are leaving the country in exodus, which they coined Japa— a Yoruba word meaning to flee or to run away.
As usual, the new movement provides opportunities for the emergence of new business services – emigration, relocation, employment, work permits, and visa consultants. Nigerian educated professionals, particularly in the health sector, are now in the top ten on the list of foreigners granted work visas to the UK, USA, and Canada. Unfortunately, Nigeria is thereby losing the core skilled talents it needs for its crucial infrastructure development.

The optimists believe in a bright economic future powered by the return of knowledgeable Nigerians from the Diaspora. Many who have no hope of leaving the country live with the motto -If you cannot beat them, join them and integrate into the system. While the majority in Lagos live in poverty, some avenues provide the means for very few insiders to earn millions of US dollars and live in luxury, secluded away from the slums.
The adamant career criminals command the underground world and probably some corrupt officials.

The statistics are favorable for Nigeria – the most populous country in Africa with a population of 211,4 million in 2021, has the highest number of people, 60,4 million, employed in Africa in 2022, has the highest number of universities, 279, in Africa in 2021, is blessed with mineral resources including coal, iron ore, and gold, and one of the highest producers of petroleum and natural gas in the world. Nigerians are making impacts in the film and music industries. The number of Nigerian downloads and views could catapult a Nigerian film or music into the subscriber record zone.

If the Nigerian economy were strong, the high consumer potential could make any enterprise profitable in Nigeria. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Nigeria could reset and incorporate AI in its social, economic, and infrastructure strategies. Hopefully, the novel technology will help Nigeria create a blossoming democratic economy, mitigate poverty, promote sustainability, and institutionalize impartial wealth distribution. Nigeria will eventually prove its title as the Giant of Africa by setting the path and pace for advancement in all sectors. It is a competitive world. Other African countries do not want to lag. They embrace the latest technologies to achieve their development goals. Nigeria, be prepared for the challenge!

The following crime story and all characters are fictitious. Any namesake is coincidental.

The Gold Mask

The street was crowded, but not with traders, hawkers, and pedestrians as usual. The crowd was a sea of colorful rhythmic waves set into motion by Afro-Caribbean beats. The carnival of Lagos was in full swing, celebrating the Black Heritage, an annual festival in Lagos. Her smartphone vibrated. She ignored it. It was the second time. She did not want to answer the call. She was at the festival parade with her fiancée and promised to spend the day with him. There was a pause. Then, the vibration with a sizzling tone started again.

She saw her fiancée’s gaze and reluctantly picked up the call. “Hello,” she said. The person on the other end asked, “Am I speaking with Detective Peju Talab?” “Yes, you are,” she answered. “I am Wole Owode, the security officer at The Nigerian National Museum in Lagos island. I am calling on behalf of the Museum director. Thieves robbed the museum of an invaluable art object, The Gold Mask. The museum needs your expertise,” he stated. “When did it happen?” Peju asked. “An hour ago, according to the museum’s guard. I came to the museum on my daily routine control. The guard was not at the gate. He did not answer when I called out his name several times. I was worried and started searching for him. I found him in the toilet with his hands and feet tied, his head covered with a green hood, and his mouth duct-taped,” Wole replied. “Do not touch anything and close the museum for visitors. I will inform the forensic and criminal police offices. We will all be with you shortly,” the Detective asserted.

She sighed, glanced at her boyfriend pleadingly, and told him she had to go to the museum. He nodded, kissed her, and she left to charter a taxi to take her to the museum. The carnival parade obstructed the taxi ride to the museum. The driver had to take redirections that accounted for an additional thirty-minute drive. The security officer, a forensic expert, and a policeman welcomed her on her arrival at the heist scene. “Where was the art object?” she asked. The security officer led her to an armored showcase in one of the display rooms. He told her that the thief opened the showcase without force. “The thief must be knowledgeable about disabling complex security alarm systems, hacking security codes and protective keys. “A master heist,” She said. She looked around the room intensely for a few minutes and asked the security officer to show her where he found the guard.

The security man took her to the restroom, followed by the forensic professional and the criminal police officer. She examined the room and gasped. “What is it?” the security officer and others asked. Peju pointed to the two concentric circles in white paint on the left wall bearing the capital letters “S” in the center and “B” in the annulus.

There was silence as everyone stared at the wall. They knew who used the symbol, and who was behind the heist. It was the elusive criminal genius, Shina “The Phantasm” Bashi. Peju, a seasoned detective with a reputation for her instincts, had seen her fair share of crimes. But nothing could prepare her for the conundrum before her. The museum was cloaked in an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional whisper of the wind. Peju left the restroom to interrogate the guard, and the others followed her. She asked the guard calmly to recount what had happened. The guard, trembling with fear, narrated the events to Peju. “Two masked men stormed in,” the guard stuttered. “They professionally disabled the security system, overpowered me, tied me up, and covered my head. I could not see their faces but could hear their steps as they went into a display room, and later vanishing into thin air,” he recalled. Peju returned to the display room and studied it meticulously, searching for any clues left behind. She found no indicative clues, but an empty display case mocked her, and the forensics found no fingerprints, which confirms the trait of a mastermind.

Within a couple of hours, the audacity of the heist sent shockwaves through Lagos island, and now it was up to Peju to solve the case. As she delved deeper into the investigation, she discovered a trail of subtle clues leading her to the underground criminal world. Peju followed whispers and rumors, piecing together the fragments of information she gathered from informants and shady contacts. All the information she gathered pointed to Shina “The Phantasm” Bashi. Meticulous planning and flawless execution were profound skills of the notorious criminal mastermind.

Rumor had it that The Phantasm had recently returned to the city after years of hiding in the underworld of neighboring countries. Determined to uncover the truth, Peju sought out her old informant, Bola “Taciturn” Ajaye, a reformed criminal who had once worked closely with The Phantasm. Bola owed Peju a favor, and she intended to cash it in. She contacted Bola through a middleman in the underground community. He arranged a rendezvous on the mainland and promised to inform Peju of the exact location an hour before the meeting.

Peju was restless, anxious, and nervous as she walked from one end of her apartment to the other in anticipation of Bola’s phone call. Time passed, but the smartphone in her hand did not vibrate. Her doubts were building up. She thought the middleman had hoodwinked her and angrily kicked the rug on the floor near her apartment door. A piece of paper with a hand-written message caught her attention. Surprised because she did not hear anyone knocking on the door, she picked it up, dressed up, and set out to meet Bola.

It was evening, and the road jams had decreased. As she drove near the location, street lights were missing. There were parked cars on both sides of the road. She continued driving according to the message until she saw “The Joint” in neon on an isolated two-story building in a secluded corner. Peju stopped, parked her car, and entered a dimly lit bar. Her eyes scanned the luxuriously furnished space to find Bola while she felt mildly uncomfortable. Luckily, she saw him sitting at the inconspicuous end of the bar. The scents of brewing Gin, Whiskey, and beer mingled with the anticipation in the air.

Bola’s weary eyes met Peju’s, and he hesitantly began to share what he knew. “The Phantasm,” Bola began, his voice barely above a whisper, “is a master manipulator. He leaves no trace, no evidence behind. He takes pride in his ability to control everything from the underworld. But there is one thing he loves–a challenge.” Bola revealed that The Phantasm had a weakness for riddles and puzzles. He often taunted the authorities by leaving cryptic clues, testing their wits. Peju’s mind raced, connecting the dots between the heist and the criminal’s modus operandi. She thanked Bola and left the bar for her car. Peju opened the driver’s door and paused because she heard a whistling sound from a distance and looked in the direction of the sound’s source. She froze at what she saw. In seconds, she contemplated entering her car or returning to the bar to ask for Bola’s help. She ran into the bar to search for Bola but could not find him. Confused, she came out of the bar, and what she saw had disappeared. “Am I hallucinating?” she asked herself. She could not believe what she saw a few meters away on the sparsely lit road — the silhouette of a man wearing a face mask, a golden mask. Angrily, she entered her car and drove home.

While she tried to concentrate on safe driving, Peju was nervously restless because of questions going through her head unanswered. She arrived at the parking lot in front of her home, parked her car, walked a few steps to the front door of the 3-story building, and took the staircase to her 2-room apartment on the first floor. She was about to open the door when she suddenly felt her heartbeat racing and almost collapsed. A loud and frightening noise had worsened her nervousness and made her hyperventilate. As she slowly recovered, she saw two sparkling eyes of different colors, yellow and green, staring at her from the ground floor. She recognized the neighbor’s cat with heterochromia. The cat must have sprung and caused the mechanical repair appliances piled up on a small table to crash to the ground. The cat meowed. Peju instinctively knew he needed something, but his owner was not in. She entered her apartment, mixed condensed milk with water, and poured it into a small hollow plate for the cat on the staircase.

The incident outside the bar bothered her. Was the man with a golden mask the Phantasm? If he was, how did he know she would be at the bar and leave at that time? If he was not the Phantasm, who was he? Why was Bola not in the bar when she returned to look for him? Peju repeatedly analyzed the sequence of events from when she contacted the middleman to when she left the bar. She could not find any tangible answers or explanations. She controlled her anger and concentrated on developing a strategy to apprehend the notorious criminal.

Drawing from the information she had gathered, she created a complex puzzle to lure The Phantasm out of hiding. She leaked information to the media, hinting that she had cracked one of The Phantasm’s previous riddles and challenging him to outsmart her by solving her coded puzzle. She knew it was a risky plan and a dangerous game, but she had no choice if she wanted to catch the elusive criminal. She must entice him to a duel that requires extraordinary imaginative power. Amid fear mixed with anticipation and anxiousness, all media channels ran stories, riddles, and speculations, fueling The Phantasm’s ego.

Peju waited patiently, hoping her bold move with her enigmatic game involving a knotty puzzle would finally entrap him. Several weeks passed, and there was no reaction from The Phantasm. Peju began to doubt the effectiveness of her strategy and assumed that the fugitive criminal was not interested in the battle. The tension grew in her. She knew she had to relax and not take irrational action that could jeopardize her strategy. It was time to go out, meet friends, chat, and amuse herself to relieve tension. She did till late in the night.
She returned home at midnight and found thick paper taped to her apartment door. She hastily snapped it and nervously clapped it open. There were ten precise folds like an accordion. Fully unfolded, it revealed words and numbers written in five concentric circles. The letters S and B were faintly visible in the center and outer annulus. She tried to control her trembling and focus on understanding the message, which she diligently studied. Peju discovered that the vertical columns and the concentric circles contained information. By dawn, she had got the pieces together and deciphered the code. It was an invitation from The Phantasm to an event at 7 p.m. the next day. They were to meet at a depot near the Lagos port in Apapa. Peju knew the area but not the address.

The community was infamous for nefarious youngsters and gangs. Holding the folded message to her chest, she tried to decide what to do. She provoked a challenge, which the culprit accepted. She could not withdraw. She had no other option than to follow the instructions in the message. The sunlight shone on her face through her window. She woke up startled to realize she had fallen asleep on her couch. How would she prepare for a risky adventure?

She must be careful and inform someone she trusts, not her parents or siblings. They would prevent her from going. She contacted the criminal police division despite the message stipulating she should come alone. They agreed to attach a GPS tracker to her car and install another on her smartphone. Peju set out early to the address in Apapa. She drove through the busy streets filled with strolling pedestrians, roaming youths, snacks, and merchandise sellers. She was in the area but could not find the street. She decided to ask somebody.

She stopped and parked on the roadside. As she left the car, she immediately felt the unwarranted attention she was receiving. Some young men started gazing and whistling at her, while others chanted, “Such a lovely lady! Nice body!” Peju ignored them and approached a woman to ask for the address. The woman did not know, but a man overheard her and inquired where she was looking. She answered, “Depot 525.” Surprised, the man frowned and questioned, “Are you sure you are looking for Depot 525?” Peju answered, “Yes! Sure.” The man said, “Take the next left corner. Depot 525 is the last construction on the right side of the street.” Peju thanked the man, returned to her car, and drove in the direction the man described.

At the end of the road, she peeped through her car window onto the right side. It was dark, but she could read Depot 525, written shabbily in white paint on the upper left corner of the slightly-opened wooden door of a dilapidated structure. She parked, went to the door, stopped, contemplated for a few seconds, summed up her courage, and opened the door. Peju gasped. The scene before her sent shivers down her spine. She could not move.

To be continued.

afritopic® 2023