END OF THE ROAD.

Kunle ignored the smiling hostess as he turned and struggled with the overhead compartment. This was the first time in twenty six flights to and from either Gatwick or Heathrow when he didn’t attempt to buy a diastema, ample bosom or slender leg with his smooth talk and dirty money. He was furious as he tried to hammer his bulgy suitcase into the narrow hand luggage cabin.

“Excuse me, let me help you”. Kunle felt silly accepting help from the smiling lady after ignoring her. She brought down the case, gave it a delicate massage and slipped it back in easily. He mumbled his thanks and made to sit as he inspected his boarding pass.

“What!” Kunle’s temper shot up again.

“I specified window seat, I specified a window seat”, he repeated while making inverted comma signs with his fingers at the hostess. Before she could utter the automatic apology, he pushed the ticket into her hand, eased himself inside and plopped into the window seat. “Sort that out yourself. I’ve never sat in the aisle before and I’m not starting today”. The hostess finally lost her smile, rendered a hiss and stomped up toward the cockpit. Kunle took out his Blackberry Passport powered it and looked up to survey the plane as he waited for the operating system to load. As he updated his status and navigated to BBM, he heard, “The flight will not be full so you can have the window… please sir you have to switch off your mobile devices.” The attendant he’d ignored had returned and
she handed back the boarding pass to him. “That is standard policy sir and you know that, please switch it off now”. Then she waited to watch him comply. Kunle glanced up the walkway and caught a glimpse of Oboma giggling and shaking hands with Mosun Abadu as the curtain separating economy from Business class parted to admit a male attendant who wheeled in a trolley of snacks. “Damn! Why today”, he cursed.

“Excuse me”, asked the hostess.'

“Never mind.” He bent his head and powered down the phone

wondering why Oboma had to take the same flight with him on the one day he was flying economy. The hostess walked away after confirming that he was putting the phone off. Kunle watched the phone’s power down graphic fade off, then he followed happenings in Business Class from behind the inflight  magazine whenever the curtain parted and he could safely peek through. Takeoff announced, the attendants secured the curtain and went down to the tail. Kunle finally sat up and arched his back. He slapped down the magazine and pondered his recent pitiable situation.

Per Capita Income in Nigeria was at an all-time low so  travelling to accept a second Master’s Degree at Imperial, getting 

an offer from NNPC just the other week and logging your twenty seventh UK flight wasn’t the worst situation. But how the high had 

fallen! “How did I even end up in Economy? How did this even happen?” He sighed and turned to scan the rest of the plane. There were two chattering Igbo women at the back, a caftanned man with a wild beard davening just across the aisle from him and businessmen type with their face in books - the usual motley mix of London bound commuters were spread through the plane.  

Kunle used to be the final borlor but now just a year after President Pombori got sworn in, he had sadly downgraded to an ordinary ajebutter. On his twenty-six earlier trips, he’d flown economy only on the first two. That was before his dad, Mr. Sampson Ajayi was appointed the Director General of the Nigeria Electricity Distribution Company, NERC by the former president, Godspower Kingsley. After that, it had been Business Class all through interspersed with First Class whenever he travelled with dad. It wasn’t just the flight class, the upgrade cut through all parts of his advantaged life. He drove a Mercedes in Abuja, a Range Rover in Lagos and could choose between the Avensis or Camry whenever they travelled to their hometown of Ado-Ekiti for Christmas. He had the money to buy the bar anytime he patronized the clubs and never had to work a single day in England throughout the time he’d spent there earning his two degrees.

Now here he was in Economy hiding from his crush, Oboma Douglas the pretty daughter of the Port Harcourt oil billionaire, Nelson Douglas. He’d been on her case for two years straight and she was only starting to warm to his advances so he could not be caught dead flying Economy for any reason – not at this point when he believed he could finally score at the post-graduation party. He sighed, picked up the in-flight magazine again and absently turned the pages.

This drought had started after Pompori ousted Godspower in the general elections and launched his anti-corruption war. The campaign had claimed the careers, dignity and freedom of a large chunk of principal officials of the Godspower Kingsley government. The previously hibernating Financial Crimes Commission had risen from its slumber and started investigating everyone. Most of the ministers, parastatal chairs and governors who served in the previous regime were now serving their different sentences somewhere quiet.

It was a widespread clean-up that only a handful escaped from. Sampson Ajayi was one of those lucky few. The other survivors were the heads of those departments which Pompori needed to work so he could establish that his administration was turning things around. They kept their hide because of this, but their freedom came at a huge cost. Pompori had called the ‘few saved’ to a meeting where he explained to them the conditions for maintaining their offices and freedom. They had to return ninety percent of the funds embezzled in their ministries as the investigations had discovered, then sign undertakings to raise the outputs of their strategic MDAs. Electricity supply had to markedly improve nationwide, refineries had to start actually producing fuel and Boko Haram had to be pushed back so that the pro-Pompori Twitter warriors could harp on those as early evidence of Pompori’s messianic status. 

Mr. Ajayi called his own meeting when he got back home that night. His wife, bratty daughters and Kunle cast worried glances at each other as oga looked down and fidgeted. He’d informed them of the development and told them that the family would be employing austerity measures to survive the impending famine. That speech indirectly translated, amongst other things, to Kunle’s demeaning and uncomfortable Economy class trip. They were now airborne so Kunle unbuckled his seatbelt and gazed out the window at the feathery tufts of cloud. He tried to clear the anger from his mind.

“Excuse me sir, food will be served in an hour. In the meantime, will you have juice or a cocktail?”

The hostess was back - along with her smile. Kunle managed to smile back this time.

“What liquor do you have?”

“There’s vodka, Bacardi, Black Label, Hennessey and – “.

“Give me the Hennessy and please no ice, I’ll have it straight”, he interjected. She penciled down his order, flashed another smile and turned to the next seat. ‘Hmmm… I might just line you up’ Kunle thought, then promptly dropped the idea. He would be balling on a budget on this trip although he had one hundred thousand pounds in his hand luggage. Popsy had given it to him. An Igbo officer had passed him at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. He did not know much more except that a certain Claude Davis would receive the package from him once he cleared customs. He soon got drowsy and the hostess was the last thought on his mind as he dozed off.

* * * * * * * * *

Passengers in economy had to wait for almost thirty minutes to disembark after touching down at London. Kunle was thankful for this because at least Oboma would be through immigrations by the time he got into the terminal. He approached the immigrations desk and got cleared without much hassle but as he made to leave, two unsmiling men walked up beside him.

“Are you Mr. Ajayi?” the short one asked.

“Yes. Any problem?" He returned, wiping his brow even though he wasn’t sweating.

The taller man said, “I’m Inspector Coleman and this is Detective Gatlin, my colleague from Scotland yard. If you’ll just come with us please”.

“On what charge? I couldn’t have committed any crime. I just came into the country with legal papers.”

The policemen exchanged  glances and Detective Gatlin pointed toward a closed door. “We have reliable information that you are laundering Nigerian funds into the UK on this trip. Please cooperate and come with us." Kunle’s head immediately felt light as he remembered the cash in his luggage. He knew he would neither be attending the graduation events nor seeing Oboma again for a long time.