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Chapter 4 - The Final Blow

Contributed by Major Isaac Adaka Boro for The Adaka Boro Centre - http://www.adakaboro.org

The Final Blow

I arrived in the Cameroons after an hours flight from Port Harcourt. You may like to know I was taken on loan as

one of the temporary instructors and the only African to the bargain. During our Cadet training in the Police Officers

School, we were sent in 1959 for a Leadership and Citizenship course in the Man O War Bay, Victoria.

I shall mention just the relevant incidents. In this course, among many other activities, a cave expedition in the

continental shelf of the midAtlantic happened to be one. When the course started, the first week was devoted to

leadership training after which permanent leaders for the duration of the course were elected.

I was elected leader of Dan Fodio House. All members of the course set out on this cave expedition under the

leader of their respective houses, with the Director of the centre, Mr. R. E. Snowell, supervising.

To an adventurous youth, it is an interesting enterprise. I was particularly advantaged. because I was from the

Niger Delta. On many occasions I had taken a plank and followed lofty waves into the sea to Akassa and returned

by an on-shore wave at will. One day, as we went into the sea and finally into a dark cave, we were greeted by a

large number of bats. The current in the cave was as violent as a rapid. With life jackets on, we clung to rocks and

successfully pushed our way through. Before and after any expedition, be it mountaineering, swimming, or a sea

expedition of this type, A each leader counts his men to ascertain that he arrives with the same number as he

started. This procedure had been necessitated ever since two Government College, Ughelli, students got missing

during a mountaineering expedition from the Bay to the 16,000 feet high Cameroon mountain.

Meanwhile, we arrived at the other end of the cave and clambered through rocks to the shore. Every group

counted its men except one and owing to the cold and the awry expedition, everybody hurried to the Centre,

changed and went for supper.

In the evening, there was the usual assembly where all I leaders reported their roles to the Director. During the

check at 7.30 p.m., it was observed that three' members of Schwitzer House were missing. I need not mention the

panic which struck the Centre. The notorious hazards of this course were once again on the lips of feeble minded

gossips. They started narrating the queer feelings they had when we

advanced into the cave. The awful welcome of the bats was in itself sinister and that some deity was with the

utmost certainty placed in that cave, they divined.

After scanning through the Centre and making sure they were not just lurking around or had not gone to town for

wenching, the Director appealed for calm and with two other expatriate instructors prepared to return to the cave, I

was excited over the new adventure which had presented itself and to which I felt I was best suited. I approached

the Director and told him of my desire to accompany the party.

"Why do you want to take this risk, Isaac?" he asked.

What risk?" I asked rather annoyed.

"You know this is no triffling business, Isaac."

"I know. I am a star swimmer, you know. And besides, we Rivers people have peculiar ways _of searching for

persons missing at sea, believe me," I replied.

"Well then, come on," he agreed after looking at me astonishingly.

We set out in swimming suits a few minutes to eight. The water was cold and the tide was high. All`the rocks which

helped us to find our way to the shore during the expedition i were under water. As we swam out to sea, I found

that there was an incoming current, but the sea was quite calm. Therefore, if these chaps were drowned, then the

incoming current would take them to the small stream which led to the cave. If their drowning had not been morethan say thirty minutes to one hour, then trusting in Lady Luck, a brisk artificial respiration would suffice. I searched

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the stream and found that it was empty. I concluded that they must be crouching on some rock which had not been

overtaken by the tide. I thus started giving the usual echo signals of at search party. After some repetition there

came a yell from within the cave. With the Director watching me with happy bewilderment, we swam faster to the

mouth of the cave where, we found them on a rock whose surface could have been submerged in less thanhalf an

hour. I made a chain of them with the weakest of them, a member from Sierra Leone, placed in the centre and

waded from the edge of the rocks to the shore.

Life came back to the Centre once more and with great joy, we sang to the praise of God and prayed that no such

incident repeated itself in the future life of the Centre. This led to my being trusted as a natural leader. At the end

of the course, with other activities to reckon, I was able to make the exceptional mark in a confidential report

"Leader above average, interested in every aspect of the course." That summarises why I was recalled to the

instructorship in the subsequent course.

All the instructors arrived a week before the actual course started, some of them coming all the way from Britain

with similar experience on field adventures. In order to keep the week occupied, we embarked on building a well

for a village just on the Cameroon-Angolan border. The greatest asset to this border town was the ready availability

of smuggled drinks such as Whisky, Brandy, Betola and Anice.

The weather during the period of April to September was extremely cold and we had to make do with a lot ofdrinks. We returned two days later to complete planning for the course. I was lodged in the Rest House where

there was a sharp contrast between its comfort and the rough activities of the Bay. There was a soft double bed

room furnished with r reading lights, a neat toilet and a softly furnished sitting room with a fridge. Allow me to ask

the question: "What else do I want?" However gruesome an adventure may be, I feel always flattered when there

are cool hot-drinks. You wrong me if you conclude at this juncture that I am always in the bottle. I do not drink

unnecessarily, but when I do, I always have alcoholic neutralizers, especially at a serious bacchus party.

My part of the plan was, as usual, tedious. I was to take a map and compass and track a Ross course for a

distance of fifteen miles through the dreary jungles of the Cameroons, where apparently no path had been in use. I

was to fend for myself. Points were marked on the map where I was to insert special signs on my track which were

to be traced by the students during one of their Ross expeditions. I carried out the assignments with pleasure.

One outstanding credit to the Cameroonians is their public discipline. It is believed that when the Germans ruled

the territory, stealing of any degree was treated with ruthlessness. In fact, anybody convicted of stealing was put

into a spiked cask and rolled down from a hill top. Today, in the Cameroons, any precious property negligently left

outside over night is preserved. Strangers are treated with respect provided they, too, behave well.

The course, lasted two busy weeks. We put the students in good shape. All instructors did their best to train them

on the real implications of the words "Outward Bound t0 New Nigeria."

I was housemaster of Dan Fodio. On April 16, 1961, at about 5 p.m., I was in my apartment at the Bay arranging

my mountaineering gear to lead the students up the Cameroon Mountain, the following day. I was also sipping

some cool sweaty French beer when the Director of the Centre came into my bunk and handed over a telegram

marked "Top Priority." I glanced through it and it was precisely summoning me back to Port Harcourt. I thanked himwith no signs of premonitions and said I was prepared to leave the following day. Since there was no apology made

in the telegram, I apologised to the Director for the impromptu withdrawal and eased him with all sincerity that it

would be for good. He left.

Now, my mind ran through a row of possibilities. Before I left Port Harcourt, the Inspector-General, Mr. C. S. K.

Bovell, paid a visit to the Provincial detachment. During an interview with him, he had promised to promote me on

my return from my secondment to the Man O War Bay. So, my mind optimistically ran fast to the conclusion that

some officer may have been transferred and I was being recalled to act as an Assistant Superintendent. Also, I had

been booked for the second batch of the United Nations Peace-Keeping force in the Congo and I naturally felt that

such a paramount international enterprise would take precedence over internal matters. On the other hand, I felt

too that I was probably going to be terminated because of that miscarried orderly room charge. Whatever was to

happen, I was not too perturbed; I had a robust temperament and a constitution to bear misfortunes with fortitude.

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I boarded the same Fokker Friendship plane with my return ticket to Port Harcourt. On the morning of the 18th, I

reported at the Headquarters and was informed that I had not been terminated: I had been dismissed.

When an officer of the Inspectorate Cadre was dismissed, he had a right to appeal to the Governor-General

through the Inspector-General. But in my case, I had not been allowed to use my last privilege. It was totally

denied. I surrendered my identity card on the spot.

Shocked and dejected, I consoled myself with the hope that Nature had a higher calling for me. I was no longer

surprised at my recall from the Man O War Bay, although the Director of the Centre had pleaded that my part at

that time was absolutely indispensable. I couldnt have been recalled without jeopardy to the course. Forces of evil

had worked their way through in my brief absence. So I prayed, "Father of all who protected me from birth till now,

if it be Thy will that injustice shall not prevail against Thy children, then lead me into the path of success and give

me, O give me more strength to fight injustice." I packed and left the barracks, a ruined victim of intrigue.

Here was a profession which I had joined with all commitment. Granted there were youthful omissions; I was not

corrupt. Did I deserve all this? I had handled over six thousand pounds paying the detachment monthly and not

even a penny got lost or misappropriated. All my service lost for nothing. Fair enough! I was on probation for three

years and I had put in two years and eight months. The final penalty for misconduct at the worst would have beentermination. In this case, I was dismissed, a calculated attempt at ruiningemy future. Moreover withdrawing me from

a national service regarded in overseas countries as a priority, an assignment given to only exemplary characters

was, I thought, too much. Three days later, I met a friend who had heard of the mishap. He glanced through my

school certificate result and whistled. He advised me to take the entrance examination into the university. I bluntly

told him I could not do it. How could I reorganise my senses to suit academics? I told him if he asked me what the

chemical formula for carbon dioxide or water or sugar was, I would not know. However, I later considered the

suggestion and felt that, if I had interest in any further studies, it would be in science.

But there was an obstacle. There were only two weeks to the examination. Rushing throughmy dirty notebooks, I

picked out the science notes. I read like one going in for a degree examination. My pride had been injured and if

what my success meant was to shame the tyrannical elements of life, I would be satisfied. It was a miracle that

despite all the obstacles in postal delays, all entry formalities were completed, and two weeks later I sat for theexamination. One of the questions that (appeared was: "What are the conditions under which plants could

thrive?" I answered with nine diagrams on the requisite culture solutions and a control. Other questions were

such as reactions of sugar in water and the like which even my grandmother can put down in lay terms.

A month later, the results were published and my name was the first on the science list. Glory be to God! That was

my first victory and from thence, all my correspondence was of academic nature.

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