Chapter 08|Power reinsertion

Chapter 08|Power reinsertion

Jasmine rolled her eyes, fed up with the nonchalant chatter at the back by two of the men while she tried to explain what their weekly routine was going to be like and who was in charge of what.

   "Obinigwe!" She shouted, calling out the name of the man who was the loudest between the two and the most audacious.

   He squared his chest as he left his seat, walking towards her and straightening his posture to his six feet something inches, he looked down at her.

  "Nwanya, when I was serving in the Navy, you were still an infant suckling on her mother's bosom," He started disrespectfully, scorn in his tone, "So don't shout my name that loud, ever."

   Jasmine knew he had been wanting to tell her this for a long time and that was why he had tried to attract her attention with his chatter.

   "Obinigwe, do you know who you are talking to like that?" Chidi asked, seething in anger.

   He turned towards Chidi, his lips curled in disdain.

   "I don't know if I am more ashamed of the thought that you are an Igbo man like myself or the fact that you have already accepted a woman, not even a woman but a child to govern us." He said eying Chidi, who made to stand up angrily but Kehinde who was beside him held him.

   One minute Obinigwe was standing tall and proud, the next Jasmine had tackled him to the ground effortlessly, her foot on top of him, keeping him down and a pistol next to his bald skull, while he shivered his head beaded with sweat.

   She clenched her teeth, her eyes flashed with the murderous intent of making an example out of him. Making sure his earth was soaked with his disrespectful blood.

   Everyone was quiet, no one could say a word. She was their leader, the shadow of God amongst them. No leader had ever shed the blood of the people they were meant to protect, but no one has ever been so openly disrespectful to the crown.

   "I know you are capable of being a feared leader but I want you to be more than that to the members of the Native."

   She dropped the gun on the floor, removing her foot from his body.

   He laid still in that position, not moving. Still in shock that Jasmine had gotten him in such a vulnerable position and he was not a dead man. They all knew how turbulent, Jasmine's temper could be.

   "I know that the ring was adjusted to fit my fingers and the men who wore it before me, wore theirs in their middle finger or even their pinkies but I wear mine in my thumb because of how big it is__" she stopped stomping on Obinigwe allowing him to stand up, satisfied with how ashamed he was. He couldn't meet her eyes as he walked back to his seat.

"I'm just 22 and most of you are double that age, with some numbers, topped. But my uncle believed I was fit enough to be his successor. I might be the one with the ring, but without your respect, your acceptance it is just an old piece of metal. Nothing more." She said, her tiny voice booming in the courtyard, as she made an effort to be heard.

   "I've never been a leader before not to talk of being the crown of a group of strong fearless men like y'all. But I have been given this responsibility, this herculean task of making sure you all are safe, of making sure everything goes smooth." She took a step closer to them.

   "Before I am a woman, I want to believe I was first a daughter. My grandfather's blood runs through my vein, Sir Young's, and my Dad's too. I am not a weakling, but I am not strong enough to be a leader and a team." She sighed, her eyes closed momentarily. "This is not a choice Natives, you are either with this woman who should be making pottage and popping out infants or we are all fucked up." 

   "If you don't have respect for me, for this ring then how can anyone else have respect for the Native? Let us be in this for real, together. Let's survive at least even if we don't want to keep the legacies of our past crown alive. I say something, you listen. I can only lead if you all allow yourself to be led."

   Nobody said a word. Kehinde and Chidi smiled. That was Young's girl, Jasmine. The leader Young had believed she will make, a great one, they both thought.

   "Jasmine__," Chucks said bursting into the courtyard, unaware that a meeting was taking place.

   "Um, Sir I mean." He corrected, scratching his hair awkwardly while she chuckled.

   "What is it Chucks?" She asked, turning to face him.

   "There just might be good news. Our Excellency is hiring." 

***

"So after you left, I checked his domestic worker's database. He didn't have any maid or stuffs like that. He had this cleaning agency that comes to clean the Lagos State House, which is his official residency twice a week. Now, He hardly stays at the one at Marina in Lagos island, but only holds meeting there but the one at Ikeja on the mainland, that is where he resides in which is strange because his predecessors before him all preferred the island__"

   "So?" she asked impatiently, not liking when Chucks was beating around the bush before diving into the good stuff.

   Chucks rolled his eyes remembering that although Jasmine had a lot of good virtues, she wasn't even aware she possessed. Patience was not one of them.

   They both were in Chuck's bedroom which Jasmine found abnormally neat. His bed was made, with no drawer hanging out, and no dirty underwear on the floor. No candy wrapper too. 

   That was not the first time she was entering his room but still, everything looked so intimidating, so arranged coupled with the white plain walls and squeaky clean floor, she was realizing how abnormal it was.

   She hated the fact that he was not acting his age at all. Just like her.

   She should be drinking, having her first or second break-up, having bad sex or wild sex and complaining the next day to her girls, or gloating too, not being thrust power to rule a gang.

   She was beginning to abhor the similarities between the both of them. She wanted more for him. She wanted him to live a normal life, and have a normal childhood. Have a sick crush at SS1, sneak out for parties and break up with a girl because of a new classmate who is hotter at SS3.

   She didn't like that he was homeschooled and never had conversations with people who were not thrice his age. She was the youngest person in the Native!

   He didn't know the trending comics and didn't have a teacher he disliked, well they both hated the Native's Tutor but he was well, their only teacher so that didn't count. 

   She flirted with the idea of adding a rule that makes him brush his teeth twice. His bad breath in collaboration with his garlic breath and veggies nestled in between his teeth was not funny at all and since he had only a student, he had a habit of wanting to have a mouth to mouth with them when teaching.

   You get the idea, now?