45
Momodu was born the second son of Pa Roke Forna's fourth wife Marie. He was the old man's sixth son. Mohamed, my father, was the second male child born to the fated Ya Ndora, Pa Roke's sixth wife. But the untimely death of two brothers in between them placed Mohamed directly behind Momodu in the family ranking. This is the way it was, and would have remained, except for a slip of fate that sent Mohamed away to school and eventually to Britain to become a doctor. When the letter arrived to say he was on his way home with a British wife and three children Pa Roke prepared to welcome home his son. Momodu alone stood apart from the family's celebrations. ‘I hope that Mohamed does not think that by marrying a white woman his children will be treated as superior to ours,’ he was heard to comment.
Their relationship was characterised by fraternal love and sibling rivalry. Momodu was a frequent guest in his brother's house in Freetown, where he went on business, and he grew close to his fun-loving Scottish sister-in-law. In the beginning Mohamed often sought the counsel of his brother and never made a decision on a serious matter without first calling together all his elder brothers. In his years as minister of finance he shared with Momodu his frustrations, his growing distrust of Siaka Stevens and his fears for the country. Momodu opposed Mohamed's decision to resign from the government, believing his brother stood a better chance of challenging the government's excesses from the inside. During the brief glory days of the UDP, as the stakes grew higher, Mohamed confided in his brother less. As the UDP began the tour of the provinces, Momodu confronted his younger brother in Magburaka, and demanded he accompany him to consult with the brothers who were waiting for him at home. Mohamed declined. That very evening Mohamed was arrested in Makeni and placed in detention at Pademba Road Prison. Momodu too, who had never been part of the UDP, was imprisoned at Mafanta and released after three years, just one month before his brother.
When his sons were freed from detention Pa Roke warned Mohamed: ‘Your enemies will only miss you once.’ Intrigue and manipulation had become the currency of Sierra Leone under Stevens. Within six months rumours were rife that Mohamed's life was in danger from his enemies within the APC. Momodu took a warning to his brother and soon after Mohamed left for Europe. Momodu thought he might stay away, but in Mohamed's absence a whispering campaign began that he was plotting against the government. Mohamed cut short his trip and flew back in an attempt to put pay to the rumours.
Though they were engaged in the rice business together, in all that time Momodu saw his brother on fewer than a handful of occasions. When Mohamed was arrested on 30 July Momodu was in Magburaka. The news took several days to reach him. As soon as he heard it he made his way directly to Freetown. On his way to Samuel's Lane he was intercepted by a soldier by the name of Steven. Momodu did not recognise this man, but listened when he told him of the whereabouts of a wounded soldier who had been treated by Dr Forna and subsequently taken to a hospital in Magburaka. The soldier mentioned Abu Kanu's name: it was he who had driven the man up-country and delivered him to a certain Dr Osayo at Magburaka.
Momodu hastened back to Magburaka. Late one night, together with his brother Ismail and with the connivance of a male nurse on the ward, Momodu crept into the hospital. They took Kendekah Sesay from his bed, dressed him in the long, blue gown of an Alpha, the trailing sleeves of which concealed his injured hand, and drove him with haste to the family village of Rogbonko. There he was hidden in a little used hut, under the care of one of their sisters, who was sworn to secrecy.
The Russian pathologist at Magburaka Hospital said that by the time Kendekah Sesay was admitted to his care he was already a dead man. The extensive injuries to his hand had turned septic, the poison had entered his bloodstream, his skin was clammy, a rash covered his body. He was past the critical stage for treatment and his internal organs, already invaded by the bacteria, were beginning to fail one by one. The doctors recommended the hand be amputated. Kendekah Sesay refused. They did not seek to persuade him: in truth he would die either way. A second doctor I interviewed, one who had jointly conducted the post-mortem on his body after it had been fished out of the river behind the houses in Rogbonko, said there was no evidence of foul play. Kendekah Sesay had not drowned – his lungs were clear of water. Nor was there evidence of any toxic chemicals in his blood. Although the pathologists came under great pressure from the government to produce findings to the effect that the man had been murdered by someone, a doctor possibly, their investigations showed nothing. Kendekah Sesay had almost certainly died of his wounds.
Momodu disposed of the body. He placed the corpse in a rice sack with four nine-inch blocks and he carried it beyond the boundaries of the village, where he heaved it into the river Rosana. It was the rainy season and the water flowed swiftly through the narrow channel. The sack disappeared from view. Later, back in Freetown, Momodu confided all this to just one person: Ibrahim Ortole, a former member of the UDP from Port Loko, an erstwhile confidant and a business associate of his brother. Unknown to Momodu, Ibrahim was tainted. The information was passed to S. I. Koroma. Momodu fled to Kono. The CID arrested his wife and forced her to lead them to where her husband was hiding. They used her head wrap as a banner tied to the antennae of the Land-Rover as they entered Kono in triumph to bring Momodu back to Rogbonko. Police divers retrieved the sack containing the soldier's remains from the water. Momodu, chained and shackled, was forced to carry the dripping bundle back from the river and through the streets of the village.
In Freetown Momodu stood by the side of the mortuary table, on which lay Kendekah Sesay's body. The cool water had preserved the corpse remarkably well. On the opposite side of the table was Mohamed, along with the other men who had been arrested. In front of Mohamed Momodu was forced to formally identify the corpse and confess to his role in disposing of it. He could see the shock and disbelief on his younger brother's face. When it was over he watched as Mohamed was led away to make his first formal statement in front of Bambay Kamara.
This was the fate, as recounted by my uncle Momodu, of the man I had helped my father tend when I was ten years old. I had given my little bottle of Dettol and sewn bandages. My father had cleaned and dressed the wound, but Kendekah Sesay was already in shock, beyond the care of an ordinary physician. He needed to be taken straight to a hospital, my father had instructed. I remembered the colour of his face, the terrible ashen pallor, a ghostliness emerging from under his skin: the colour of death.
Uncle Momodu had finished his story. He was silent for a moment.
‘In the end this was one of the reasons for the verdict,’ he said, finally. I was quiet. It must have cost him a great deal to admit. He had thought he was helping his brother and he only ended up making matters worse. I knew that Momodu had long laboured under the responsibility for what he had done within our family. And yet, to a certain extent he was right, but not entirely. During the trial the prosecution had maintained that Kendekah Sesay was the soldier who had thrown the dynamite at Kamara Taylor's house, but beyond that he had been relegated to a curiously minor role in the whole affair. When he cross-examined my father Tom Johnson had barely asked about Kendekah Sesay. He had posed one or two questions about Momodu's involvement, which my father had not been able to answer. That was it.
Uncle Momodu spoke for a few minutes more. He was back in 1964.
‘Mohamed took the train to see us in Magburaka. He had met a friend on the train, but he wanted to talk to me alone, as his brother. He told me he wanted to join politics. I told him, “You are a small boy, yet. You are not ready.” In turn he told me there was too much need, not enough time. By thirty he wanted to be in a responsible position.’ Uncle Momodu paused, shifted his position. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, opening and closing his hands as he spoke. ‘He was brave. Not afraid at all. When he was a small boy he was just like any other. He was docile, polite. I warned him, in 1974, that there was a danger to his life. He did not seem to care.’
‘How could he not be concerned?’ I asked.
Momodu shrugged and gave his explanation: ‘It seems he did not believe me. I thought perhaps he had spent too much time in Britain. He did not know this country and its ways any more.’
I pondered the mystery of Kendekah Sesay for a long time. The soldier had been the one real tragedy in the prelude to the entire affair. Who was the mystery Steven who told Momodu that Abu Kanu had taken Kendekah Sesay to Magburaka? That simply could not have been the case. Abu Kanu was arrested early the next day – he could not have made it to Magburaka and been back in Freetown by then. It would be difficult enough to make the round trip in that time today, twenty-five years later, when the tarmac road stretched the entire distance – impossible back then. Kendekah Sesay's state when he arrived at Magburaka Hospital suggested he may have been hidden somewhere else first; by the time he was taken to a hospital he was dying from septicaemia.
Kendekah was the only link between my father and any of the events on that night. My father was followed wherever he went, his every activity filed and reported. Our house was watched around the clock from Nancy Steele's windows. It was simply inconceivable that the authorities did not know my father had treated the wounded soldier.
It seems so apparent now. Obvious, in fact, from the moment it dawned on me. I guess at the time I was deluged with information, trying to sort the material facts from the irrelevant, make sense of the conflicts and contradictions, desperate to work out whose account I could trust and who was a liar. It took me for ever to grasp what later seemed so glaringly self-evident. The prosecution's case against my father had rested almost entirely on the evidence of the four witnesses who each swore they had seen him at the Murraytown cemetery in the dead of night, issuing orders to men gathered there, sending them out to attack the homes of government ministers. To admit they knew my father had given treatment to the wounded Kendekah Sesay meant placing him somewhere else on that night. It was not a treasonable offence to attend an injured man. In order to obtain the verdict and the sentence they wanted, they needed to place him at the centre, at the very heart of the alleged crime.