Thread by @LekeAlder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 13 - Atmospheric pressure

1. The atmospheric pressure in Garinja is high. Everything is power-based. At any moment in time, someone somewhere is trying to exert power over someone somewhere. And that includes gatemen. The country is an interconnected weave of tyrannical tendencies. #GarinjaFiles

2. It’s how the society functions. Bosses are Oga. That terminology is hierarchical and deterministic. Because everything is power-based there is no service culture. There’s no civility in the language of service. Even advisory notices at the airport require compliance by order!

3. The civil service does you a favor by frustrating your life. Everyone flexes his or her muscle, sometimes going as far as claiming ridiculous franchises to portray self-importance. Take the altercation I witnessed in a molue bus. #GarinjaFiles

4. (Yes, this is Jacob, your narrator all along. I had sought to keep myself out of the picture but it’s proving increasingly difficult, so here I am). Two commuters were having a go at each other inside a molue bus. #GarinjaFiles

5. If you don’t know what a molue is, just note that the name is onomatopoeic. Think of disdainful metallic violence visited on an object. It’s a mass movement bus. The drivers of molue maliciously bash other vehicles off the road. #GarinjaFiles

6. They drive by threat. The patron saint of molue drivers is Perses the god of destruction. The fuselage of a molue is fabricated rough metal. It is joined to the cabin of the heavy-duty Mercedes 911 truck. #GarinjaFiles

7. What happens next on “Atmospheric pressure”? You can read the full chapter FREE on Facebook.

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PS. Missed Chapter 12 (The Worrier)? Click to catch up on the story [bit.ly/2VrPEfT] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 14 - The compartments

1. This is what the underground looks like. There are three compartments underground. Government however calls them districts. The districts are zones - District 1, District 2, District 3. #GarinjaFiles

2. The conditions underground are “generally challenging,” as government likes to say but District 3 is infernal. District 1 is the most tolerable of the districts. The schools are tolerable, the hospitals are tolerable, the roads are tolerable; there’s even police presence.

3. Crime is thus lower in District 1 than in any other district. There are many ladders out of District 1. It’s why District 1 is known as Ascension. You get out of the districts by exeat or by ladder. Exeats are for workers in the Hills. #GarinjaFiles

4. The most popular of the ladders is education. Many parents in District 1 sacrifice to send their kids to school. Since the gates out of the districts are generally barred ladders are very important. #GarinjaFiles

5. District 2 is Purgatory. There are fewer ladders out of District 2 than in District 1. Things can go either way for children born in District 2. They have a 50-50 chance of making it out. #GarinjaFiles

6. External support helps. It’s why it’s called Purgatory, after Catholic theology. I was born in District 2. I made it out because my parents kept me off the streets. I was sequestered. They sacrificed to give me sound education. Education became my ladder. #GarinjaFiles

7. What happens next on “The compartments”? You can read the full chapter FREE on Facebook.

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PS. Missed chapter 13 (Atmospheric pressure)? Click to catch up on the story [bit.ly/2NFxZ04] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 15 - Zoom

1. We hadn’t met in a long while. The virus prevented us. There were studies that claim the virus attack was not limited to lungs, that it attacked other organs as well – the brain, the heart and the skin. #GarinjaFiles

2. As Balaji Srinivasan tweeted, “Needless to say, thinking of something that may cause strokes, purple lesions, heart attacks as a “bad flu” is a category error.” This is one virus from Satan’s lab. Normally we’d meet on Friday evening, after close of work. #GarinjaFiles

3. We have our corner in the café. We have our table. We’d sit there debating the issues, exchanging banter. The one thing on our mind was always the nation. Our friends are emigrating. Many have left for Canada, and they’re still leaving. #GarinjaFiles

4. They just don’t see any hope. They’re getting off the Garinja ship by the boatload. The ship can seem rudderless. Even the older generation is losing faith in what they call “the arrangement”... #GarinjaFiles

5. ...something about the unwritten agreement among the tribal groups on power-sharing. There have always been fears of hegemonic tendencies. And so when we gather at Gosh! we gather to ventilate. We gulp in complaints and exhale frustration. Myself, Ada, Tunde, Seun, Emeka.

6. Sometimes we’re joined by John, and a guy we fondly call Boli. That’s because he likes roasted plantain. The thing about Boli though is that he can be long-winded in his argument, even annoying to some. But he’s harmless, even amiable. #GarinjaFiles

7. What happens next on “Zoom”? You can read the full chapter FREE on Facebook.

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PS. Missed Chapter 14 (The compartments)? Click here to catch up on the story [bit.ly/3ifth7f] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 16 - The residences

1. The most common type of accommodation underground is the face-me-I-face-you configuration. They have long corridors, the length of a racetrack. The corridors stretch from the entrance to the back of the house. There are rooms on either side of the corridor. #GarinjaFiles

2. They face each other. It’s how the name came about. The rooms can number fifty, sometimes seventy. Think of the seventy-room version as stretch limousine. In the night the rooms swallow the occupants. #GarinjaFiles

3. In the morning the rooms regurgitate the occupants into the corridor. Each room is a family unit. The occupants of a single house can number up to two hundred. The number grows year in year out depending on the fecundity of the occupants. #GarinjaFiles

4. This puts a strain on common amenities, like the bathroom. The growing demand outpaces installed capacity like the electricity grid of an African nation. Each room is open plan. Occupants carve out sitting rooms with a curtain divider. #GarinjaFiles

5. Each inhales a portion of oxygen and recycled carbon dioxide. The houses are unlike the sky residences. The sky residences are located in the Hills. They’re the abode of the elite. (Politburo members stay in the Summit, three kilometers away from everything). #GarinjaFiles

6. The air smells different in the Hills. Everything is different in the Hills. They can afford light at night. There are even streetlights. The houses are called sky residences because they have a dome. The atriums open up to the sky. #GarinjaFiles

7. What happens next on “The residences”? You can read the full chapter FREE on Facebook.

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PS. Missed Chapter 15 (Zoom)? Click here to catch up on the story [bit.ly/2Zp2LQj] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 17 - The hopeless have nothing to lose

1. It was an ordinary day of the week, nothing special was scheduled by history. Chief Oreoluwadurotitilailaikosisimi was in his car, chauffeur-driven. An ebullient man, the chief is copious in gait and generosity. #GarinjaFiles

2. He was on his way to the birthday celebration of Garinja’s leading industrialist. He became lost in his thought as his driver navigated the busy side road linking the expressway. The roads of Galos can be torturous. Kilometers of road are informal. #GarinjaFiles

3. When the roads are clogged drivers resort to available space driving, which means they drive on pedestrian paths. The chief heard gunshots. And then another round of gunshots – sporadic. He didn’t need Ifa to divine what was happening. #GarinjaFiles

4. Daylight robbery was taking place. The violent fiesta of war does not catch the cripple off-guard when the drums of war are sounded in advance. The chief promptly instructed his driver to park, right there in the middle of the expressway. #GarinjaFiles

5. He gathered his wits about him, with his voluminous agbada. He held on to his cap and ran for dear life. He was going in no particular direction. The only thing certain was that he was going in the opposite direction to the gunshots. #GarinjaFiles

6. He saw a Category 4 Workers Bus in the distance. He made a dash for it. It had just stopped at a bus stop. Category 4 buses are labelled C4 and painted green. They’re the public transportation for Hill workers who live underground. #GarinjaFiles

7. What happens next on “The hopeless have nothing to lose”? You can read the full chapter FREE on Facebook.

Click here to read [bit.ly/2YSvtdg]

PS. Missed Chapter 16 (The residences)? Click to catch up on story [bit.ly/2AseHby] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder

The Garinja Files. A dystopian novella by Leke Alder

Chapter 18 - The surge

1. The riot police set up a perimeter fence at Freeman Square. Armored vehicles were used as blockade. Nothing so far has worked, nothing could stem the tide - not tear gas, not water jets, not rubber bullets, not even live ammunition. #GarinjaFiles

2. You can’t scare the dead with death. To the chagrin of the Minister of Facts the story became huge in international news media. #GarinjaRevolution began to trend on Twitter. The streets were deserted. #GarinjaFiles

3. Hill residents were told to stay indoors with assurances government had things under control. To show there was no threat, GBS began broadcasting old current affairs programs. But the caravan continued to advance. The people were so many now. #GarinjaFiles

4. There was something curious, however. There was a rubbery hum in their heads, like radio signals. A signal was being beamed into their heads. They were receiving transmission. Something beckoned. #GarinjaFiles

5. The Ministry of Artificial Intelligence is the nerve center of government operations. It has a humongous data farm. It stretches several kilometers in every direction. Everybody’s secret is warehoused in the ministry. Every call made, every text sent is garaged. #GarinjaFiles

6. The nerve center of the ministry is the systems network. #GarinjaFiles

7. The network controls vehicle guidance systems, healthcare management systems, traffic management systems, banking and finance, all electronic protocols, the weapons systems, and what the ministry euphemistically refers to as “domestic operations.” #GarinjaFiles

8. What happens next on “The surge”?

Click here to read the full chapter [bit.ly/3dZZmMO]

PS. Missed Chapter 17 (The hopeless have nothing to lose)?

Click here to catch up on the story [bit.ly/2AseHby] #GarinjaFiles

©Leke Alder