Nigerian novelist and poet
The houses were old and craggy and lichened. The place had theunfinished, abandoned appearance of an under waterscape.Crouching under the bigger or in their own clusters were hastilybuilt wood and zinc structures that housed an incredibly largenumber of families: the fathers were mostly out-of-work drivers,laborers, fugitives convalescing between prison terms
There had been an accident. Bola’s family-father, mother, and twosisters had been in a car crash. It was late in the evening...theywere on their way to Ibadan for a visit...The father driving hadfailed to see the truck laying on its side in the middle of the road.It was a military truck carrying the furniture of an officer ontransfer from Lagos to Ibadan. The father and mother, who were in front, had died instantly; Peju, the elder sister, died on the way to the hospital; the other sister, Lola, sustained minor injuries
A mob wielding cudgels and cutlasses is hot on the heels of a youthwho desperately crosses to the other side of the road, narrowlymissing the fender of a truck. The mob follows growing bigger asit goes. The youth, looking over his shoulder as he runs, crashesinto a light pole and falls senseless to the ground. Before he canregain a second wind the mob is on him. I watch the cudgels riseand fall; I hear his wailing ululating screams finally turn into awhimper. They poured petrol on him and set him ablaze