Pay Up by Osagie Onolunose
Synopsis
Seven years ago, a Mobile Police (MOPOL) officer laid down his life in the line of duty, taking a bullet meant for Kayode Ishola, then a rising politician, now a powerful Senator. Today, the officer’s orphaned sons, Anu and Dare, are living in the wreckage of that sacrifice. While Senator Ishola sits in the lap of luxury, the brothers have been left behind to rot in the slums of Lagos, forgotten by the very man their father died to protect.
Fuelled by bitterness and a desperate need for justice, the brothers refuse to stay invisible.
They turn to Sunday Olumiti, a veteran Police Superintendent and their late father’s closest friend. Sunday knows the system is rigged, and he knows exactly how to hurt the Senator where it hurts most: his war chest. Together, the trio orchestrate a reckless, high-stakes plot to hijack an armoured van carrying millions in illicit campaign cash belonging to Ishola.
But in the chaotic underbelly of Lagos state politics, there is no such thing as an easy score. As the ambush goes live, Anu and Dare find themselves caught in a deadly crossfire between corrupt police squads, ruthless political enforcers, and a Senator who will do whatever it takes to keep his dirty secrets buried.
1
The humid, diesel-soaked air of Oshodi at 8:10 AM was already thick enough to chew.
Anu wiped a mixture of sweat and exhaust soot from his forehead with the back of his faded green National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) apron. At twenty-six, this wasn’t the life he had envisioned when his father was alive, but the streets of Lagos didn’t care about old dreams. The streets only cared about money.
“Oya! Hold your change o! Mile 2! Mile 2, wole pelu chenji e!” the conductor shouted, hanging precariously out of a battered, yellow danfo bus that was already rolling away from the curb.
The driver was trying to pull a fast one, revving the engine to merge into the chaotic stream of Lagos traffic before paying the morning tax.
“Hey! Drop that money! Gbe owo mi wa!” Anu roared, his eyes locking onto the conductor.
Anu bolted. His worn sneakers smacked against the broken asphalt, weaving through a maze of fruit vendors, aggressive hawkers, and dodging a keke marwa that honked furiously at him. His lungs burned, but desperation fuelled his legs. If he missed his daily target, his ruthless line manager, Agbero Chief, would deduct it from his already pathetic commission. Anu needed every single Naira for rent and Ife’s school fees.
He drew parallel to the moving danfo. The driver saw him in the side mirror and actually accelerated, laughing.
“Oga, go find another bus! This one na government property!” the conductor jeered, slapping the rusty side of the bus.
With a final, explosive burst of speed, Anu lunged forward. His fingers caught the cold, jagged metal of the danfo’s doorframe. He swung his weight up, his feet dangling inches above the tarmac as the bus hurtled forward.
“Are you mad?!” the conductor screamed, his eyes widening in shock as Anu hauled himself onto the narrow step, blocking the exit.
“Give me the ticket money, or we will both crash this morning!” Anu yelled back, his voice raw. He gripped the conductor’s dirty polo shirt, pinning him against the interior metal partition.
The passengers inside gasped, shrinking back. “Ah-ah! Oga agbero, please o! Don’t kill us!” an elderly woman in a massive gele shouted.
“Comrade, hand over the money!” Anu demanded, staring down the conductor.
Instead of reaching into his waist bag, the conductor punched Anu square in the jaw.
The world tilted. The metallic taste of blood burst in Anu’s mouth, and his grip slipped. For a terrifying second, he was falling backward into the path of a speeding delivery truck. But anger, hot, blinding anger at how cheap his life had become, surged through him. He lunged back inside, grabbing the conductor by the throat and slamming him against the rusted roof of the bus.
“You think I’m playing with you?!” Anu barked, his eyes fierce with a dangerous intensity that made the conductor freeze. “My life is already hard! Don’t make it worse!”
The driver, realizing the scuffle inside could cause an accident, slammed on the brakes. The danfo screeched to a halt, sending both Anu and the conductor tumbling onto the floorboards over a mountain of passenger market bags.
Panting, his jaw throbbing, Anu didn’t waste a second. He pinned the conductor’s arm down and violently snatched a crumpled wad of Naira notes straight out of the man’s front pocket.
Anu untangled himself and stepped off the bus onto the dusty road, spitting a glob of blood onto the dirt. He smoothed down his wrinkled NURTW apron, counting the sticky notes. It was exactly what was owed. No more, no less.
The conductor scrambled to the doorway, rubbing his bruised neck, shouting curses as the driver sped away. “Goat! Oloriburuku! You will use that money to buy medicine!”
Anu didn’t even look back. He stuffed the money deep into his pocket, his knuckles aching and his heart hammering against his ribs. He had won this round, but as he looked around at the relentless, unforgiving sprawl of Lagos, the crushing weight of reality settled back in.
By 7:00 PM, the relentless heat of the Lagos sun had swapped places with a sticky, suffocating twilight. The neon glare of headlights and the smoky haze of roadside suya spots began to take over the streets.
Anu stood under the dim buzz of a yellow bulb at a wooden kiosk, counting his take-home pay for the day. After Agbero Chief had taken his massive cut and deducted tax for the bruised jaw Anu had received that morning, he was left with exactly 960 Naira.
960 Naira for twelve hours of dodging tires and taking punches.
His bones felt like poured concrete, and his jaw had swollen into a dull, throbbing ache. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Mami, give me two sachets of garri, three sachets of sugar, and two bags of pure water,” he said, his voice flat with exhaustion.
The woman inside the kiosk, her face illuminated by a single kerosene lamp, didn’t say a word. She just dropped the items into a black nylon bag. Anu handed over a chunk of his remaining cash, watching his meagre net worth shrink even further. This wasn’t dinner; it was survival fuel. A luxury meal would have to wait.
He walked the rest of the way to Mushin, his feet dragging through the muddy potholes of his street. The neighbourhood was a cacophony of sound, the roar of a hundred small generators, children playing in the dark, and women shouting across balconies.
He turned into the compound of his house, a classic, dilapidated face-me-I-face-you apartment complex. The long, narrow hallway smelled heavily of damp walls, stale palm oil, and bleach.
As he stepped into the courtyard, his heart sank. The building was pitch black. A collective groan from the neighbours down the hall confirmed his fears. NEPA had taken the light. Again.
Anu let out a long, frustrated breath. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his battered smartphone. The battery icon flashed a mocking 3%. He had been praying for electricity, hoping he could just crawl into his room, plug his phone into the wall, and shut out the world.
Now, he’d have to go across the street.
Across the road, the steady, aggressive chug-chug-chug of a I-pass-my-neighbour generator signalled that Mama Hafusa’s shop was open for business. She ran a small storefront selling ice blocks, which meant her generator was always running.
Anu loved Hafusa, she was a calm, bright spot in his chaotic world, but he absolutely dreaded her mother. Mama Hafusa looked at Anu the way a landlord looks at a tenant whose rent is six months overdue. To her, Anu was just another broke agbero boy from the compound across the street, a boy with no future who was trying to wing his way into her daughter’s life.
Anu stared at his dying phone screen. If he didn’t charge it, his father’s old friend wouldn’t be able to reach him tomorrow about the plan.
Clutching the black nylon bag of garri, Anu turned back toward the street, bracing himself to face both the love of his life and the sharp tongue of her mother.
The heavy thud of Mama Hafusa’s generator vibrated through the soles of Anu’s sneakers as he stepped into the small, brightly lit shop. The room smelled of wet cardboard, rusted iron, and the sharp chill of deep freezers working overtime. Blue plastic coolers lined the walls, packed tight with blocks of ice wrapped in clear nylon.
Hafusa was bending over one of the freezers, her braided hair tied back in a neat bun, wiping condensation from the lid. When she heard the door beep, she looked up. The tired line of her shoulders instantly softened into a warm, genuine smile.
“Anu,” she said softly, stepping around the counter. Her eyes immediately drifted to his jaw, which had now turned an ugly, bluish-purple. “Ah-ah. What happened to your face?”
Before Anu could answer, a loud, judgmental tsk echoed from the back corner of the shop.
Mama Hafusa stepped out from behind a curtain, a ledger book tucked under her arm. Seven years ago, when the Ojo family’s world shattered, this woman had been a saint. When Anu’s father, a proud Mobile Police officer, was killed in the line of duty, she was the family friend who brought large pots of jollof rice to their apartment and held Ife while she cried. Back then, she had high hopes for Anu. He had just secured admission to LASU to study Mass Communication. She used to call him “Our Journalist.”
But things changed. The promised compensation from the government never came. The politician his father died protecting closed his gates to them. Two years into his degree, with Dare’s secondary school fees due and Ife’s health failing, money ran out completely. Anu made the agonizing choice to drop out. He took the only job that paid cash daily, the only job available to a desperate young man with no connections: chasing buses for the union.
And just like that, Mama Hafusa’s warmth evaporated. The nice neighbour became a harsh critic. Strangely, as her mother’s disdain grew, Hafusa’s affection for him only deepened. She saw the sacrifice; her mother only saw the disgrace.
“Good evening, Ma,” Anu said, keeping his head low, the black nylon bag of garri and sugar heavy in his hand. He felt smaller just standing in her presence.
“Evening,” Mama Hafusa replied, her tone as cold as the ice she sold. Her eyes flicked from his bruised face to the cheap nylon bag, then down to his dusty NURTW apron. “So, this is how you came home today? Fighting on the road like a madman. Is this what your late father would have wanted for his first son?”
The words stung like salt in a fresh wound. Anu swallowed hard, his knuckles whitening around his phone. “It was just a small misunderstanding at work, Ma.”
“Work?” Mama Hafusa scoffed, sitting heavily on a plastic stool. “You call shouting at danfo drivers work? When I begged you back then to stay in school, to manage, what did you say? You said you had to take care of your family. Now look at you. Look at your face. If my daughter marries a man like you, what will she tell her friends? That her husband is the king of the bus stop?”
“Mami, reach!” Hafusa snapped, her voice sharp with rare anger. She stepped between them, gently taking the dying smartphone from Anu’s hand. “Why must you always do this? Did he come here to beg you for money?”
“He is begging for my electricity!” her mother fired back, pointing an accusatory finger at the phone. “Every day, charge phone, charge phone. Is my generator a public utility?”
Anu felt a hot wave of embarrassment wash over him. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. At twenty-six, he should be buying her ice blocks, not begging to use her socket. He reached out to take the phone back. “Hafusa, don’t worry. Let me just go. I’ll find another place…”
“No,” Hafusa said firmly. She caught his hand, her thumb wiping a smear of street dust from his knuckles, a quiet gesture of solidarity that anchored him. “Stay here.”
She walked behind the counter, plugging his phone into an extension cord near the freezer. The screen lit up with a faint green charging icon.
Mama Hafusa muttered something under her breath about “good-for-nothing boys” and went back to her ledger, ignoring him entirely.
Hafusa walked back over to Anu, standing close enough that her shoulder brushed his. “Don’t mind her,” she whispered, her eyes full of a fierce, protective affection. “Have you eaten?”
Anu looked down at the bag of 960-Naira garri. He tried to smile, but his bruised jaw wouldn’t allow it. “I’m fine. Dare is waiting for me at home. Let me just leave the phone here for an hour, I’ll come back for it.”
“I’ll watch it for you,” she promised softly.
Anu nodded, muttered a final, polite “Thank you, Ma” to the back of Mama Hafusa’s head, which went completely ignored, and stepped back out into the humid Mushin night.
The darkness inside their single room was thick and suffocating, smelling of old linoleum and the faint scent of Ife’s lavender body lotion.
Anu pushed the wooden door open, the rusty hinges giving off a low groan. By the weak glow of a small battery-powered torch resting on a plastic table, he saw Dare. His twenty-four-year-old brother was sitting on the edge of the low mattress, slowly peeling off his black police combat boots.
Dare looked up, his face gaunt from a long day at the academy. He had just finished his recruit training, a fresh rank-and-file officer in the Nigeria Police Force. It was supposed to be a proud milestone, following in their father’s footsteps, but the reality was a slap in the face. His monthly allowance barely covered his daily danfo transport to the barracks and bread and beans for lunch. He was wearing the uniform of the state, but his pockets were as empty as a desert.
“You just came back?” Anu asked, his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Ife, who was fast asleep under a mosquito net in the corner of the room, her small chest rising and falling rhythmically.
“Yes,” Dare muttered, tossing his boots aside. He looked up, his eyes catching the light from the torch. He froze, staring at Anu’s face. “Your jaw. Again?”
Anu didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both knew the tax of the streets. Instead, Anu walked over to the table and dropped the black nylon bag. From his pocket, he pulled out a small, sweating plastic bag filled with crushed ice, a quiet parting gift Hafusa had slipped into his hand before he left her shop.
Dare looked at the bags of garri, the sugar packets, and the ice. A heavy, understanding silence settled between the brothers. There was no need for grand explanations or complaints. Lagos had beaten them both down today, and right now, survival took priority over conversation.
Without a word, Dare stood up. He walked to the corner where they kept their few kitchen utensils and brought out two plastic bowls and two metal spoons.
Anu tore open the sachets, pouring the coarse white grains into the bowls. He added the sugar, split the pure water bags with his teeth to pour the liquid in, and dropped the chunks of ice Hafusa had given him into the mix. The ice clinked against the plastic, a luxury sound in a room that felt like an oven.
The two brothers sat across from each other on the floor, the torchlight casting long, distorted shadows on the peeling walls. They began to drink the soaked garri in silence, the soothing chill of the ice offering a brief, blessed relief against the humid night air.
Every swallow was a reminder of what they had lost. Seven years ago, their dinner table had meat, plantain, and laughter. Their father would sit at the head, telling stories of his deployments. Now, they were hiding in the dark, eating poor man’s cereal, while the man their father died for probably had a chef preparing a five-course meal.
Dare chewed on a hard piece of ice, his eyes fixed on the floor. “The Commandant threatened to penalize my set today,” he said quietly, breaking the silence. “They said our uniforms looked dusty. They expect us to buy starch and iron with money we don’t have.”
Anu stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth. He looked at his younger brother, so young, yet already bearing the same exhausted, defeated look their father used to get on bad days.
The rusty hinges of the door groaned again, breaking the low murmur of the brothers’ conversation.
Anu and Dare both snapped their heads toward the entrance as Ife stepped into the dim, torch-lit room. She was twenty-one, beautiful, and carried herself with a sharp, defensive confidence that modern Lagos demanded from young women. In her hands, she held two heavy, brightly coloured supermarket bags, the kind from the expensive malls in Lekki, packed so full the plastic handles were cutting into her fingers.
The unmistakable aroma of fresh chicken, rich tomatoes, and imported spices instantly filled the cramped, stuffy room, completely overwhelming the humble scent of their soaked garri.
“Look at them,” Ife said, a bright, slightly forced smile spreading across her face as she looked down at her brothers sitting on the floor. “The dynamic duo. You people are eating garri with ice and you didn’t even wait for me?”
Anu and Dare exchanged a quick, loaded look. They didn’t need to ask where the food came from. Ife had dropped out of the university track long ago, refusing to waste her youth chasing an admission list that required bribes she couldn’t afford. Instead, she had linked up with Gbenga, a high-earning Yahoo-Yahoo boy who drove a Mercedes benz and lived in a heavily guarded apartment in Ajah.
A heavy wave of mixed emotions washed over the brothers. There was a sudden, primal relief at the sight of actual food, real meat, real nourishment, but it was suffocatingly tangled with a deep, aching disappointment. Their father had been a man of strict, unyielding law. Now, one son was an agbero, the other was earning pennies in a broken police force, and their only sister was being funded by internet fraud.
But hunger and brotherly love won. Anu forced a warm smile to his face, burying his pride deep down. “Ah, Ife! You want to take over the kitchen today?”
“Abeg move, let me pass,” she laughed, stepping over Dare’s outstretched legs and dropping the heavy bags onto the small kitchen counter in the corner. “If I leave you two alone, you will turn into garri yourselves.”
Dare smiled, the tension leaving his shoulders for a brief moment. “We are grateful, Chief Priestess. Make the food fast, hunger is finishing us.”
As Ife immediately got to work, unpacking the fresh chicken, slicing onions, and humming a popular Afrobeats tune, Anu watched her closely in the dim light. She had a small overnight bag slung over her shoulder, which she quietly tucked into the corner of the wardrobe.
She lived a lavish life out in Ajah with Gbenga, but she kept her roots here. She usually came back to Mushin only when the glamorous life fractured, specifically, when Gbenga’s quick temper turned physical.
Anu’s eyes drifted to the long sleeves of her sweater, pulled tight over her wrists despite the suffocating heat of the room. He looked at Dare, and he could see the same dark realization dawning in his younger brother’s eyes. The timing was too exact. The sudden appearance, the expensive peace-offering groceries, the frantic need to cook and domesticate herself in their cramped room, Gbenga had laid hands on her again.
