How I Broke Into the 
NBC Studios 
WOLE SOYINKA 
beleaguered Premier hardly ever slept 
there, preferring both the company and 
safety of amistress that he kept in Bodija. 
Maren had gone to his official lodge, for 
the first time in several months, in a 
state of mind that he could not fully 
explain. Perhaps he had indeed gone 
there in the hope that he would find 
Premier Akintola at home, so that they 
could talk in the peace of the night. He 
slowed down as he approached the gates, 
ready to drive straight through if there 
were cars or signs of the presence of 
party stalwarts and sycophants 
Astaunc 
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Controller of the Western arm of the 
Nigeria Broadcasting Service. He had 
received an urgent summons to report at 
the Premier's Lodge with a recording 
team. The Premier, Akintola, would 
make a broadcast that evening and he 
wanted it recorded. There was a 
possibility that he might even make the 
broadcast live, but he wanted to tape his 
speech in advance, just in case. Femi 
Johnson, ever insatiable for the inside 
scoops of politics and intrigues, pressed 
and pressed for a hint of what Akintola 
had recorded, but the stolid Controller 
of the media would reveal nothing, only 
that the Premier would broadcast, and 
that it would be at the usual hour in the 
evening. 
The compound was deserted: that had 
become the pattern in recent times. He 
entered the house, hallooed but received 
no response. A steward came out, 
recognised him and reported that only The previous night, Maren had found 
hesitated, then told him not to bother. 
In the immediate passageway before 
the private lounge, towards which he 
headed, there were two mammoth 
refrigerators-he was familiar with both. 
One stored beer and soft drinks, the 
other wines and champagnes. He opened 
the first, intending to take out a beer, sit 
in the lounge and drink while he waited 
in the hope that the man would return 
home before dawn. 
And then, probably from habit, he also 
looked in the other refrigerator. He had 
never seen it so full; clearly a party was 
in the offing. From top to bottom, 
crammed into every cranny and the door 
shelves as well were dozens of bottles 
of champagne; pink, white, brut, sec, 
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demi-sec, doux. Slowly, he opened the 
other cooler, returned the beer, then 
gathered armfuls of champagne bottles 
and carried them to his car, quite openly, 
indifferent to the possibility that 
someone might appear to challenge him. 
Then he went back to the first cooler, 
retrieved his beer, sat in the lounge and 
drank. He was there for over an hour, 
but there were no movements in the 
house. He left, drove to the University 
campus and, selecting randomly, 
distributed all the champagne, down to 
the last bottle, to the astonished staff. 
He gave no explanations, simply 
dropped a bottle in each hand or left it at 
the door. If he paused that evening to 
ask the reason for his actions, he could 
not recall; only that it was something 
that he did on the spur of the moment, 
and that he went home afterwards, not 
even stopping at Risikatu which lay, 
conveniently, on his way home. He 
recalled, however, that he slept soundly, 
his deepest sleep perhaps in many weeks. 
Femi continued to pester Michael for 
any titbits, any scrap at all from what the 
Premier intended to inflict on his people, 
but Maren found himself indifferent. 
What could it be beyond more threats, 
more arrogance of power, a desperate 
man's rhetoric to sanctify infamy by 
defiling the airwaves yet again with 
claims of victory? Every Intelligence 
report that came through to them 
confirmed the party's resolve to cling to 
power. And so, even the fraction of 
himself that he had brought to the feast 
took off abruptly, without warning; but 
he rescued it quickly, snatched it down 
to earth and anchored it deep into the 
bowl of pounded yam and apon stew, 
studded with cow's 'internal affairs', 
giant snails, venison and dried fish. No 
one noticed that he had been away. Still 
the light- headedness persisted and he 
knew why. 
It was due to an unexpected sense of 
relief, and he wished that it were possible 
to invite Kaye Whiteman to the feast, a 
gesture of gratitude that would only 
have mystified the journalist. But for 
find then it had to 
happen, the worst 
imaginable affliction that 
couldattack^a body 
tuning up for a mission 
that required precision, 
and was (united By time - 
a running stomach. 
their chance encounter near Trenchard 
Hall, and the distraction of the 
transmitter that had resulted from his 
disclosure, the Daily Sketch building 
would by now have gone up in flames. 
Maren was by no means averse to the 
idea, only uncomfortable at the 
unpredictable effect of an entire tank of 
petrol engulfing the building, and the 
likelihood of its spreading to other 
buildings. However, the group had 
decided that it was a risk worth taking, 
and the Daily Sketch was nearly as 
physically isolated from its surroundings 
as it was alienated from the people. 
However, Michael Olumide had now 
unknowingly provided an alternative, 
one that, he was certain, would be 
welcomed by the others as eagerly as 
the ram substitute was by Abraham for 
his trussed-up son. In any case, this was 
one decision that he had taken instantly; 
what was more, the other Maren had 
silently excused himself from the 
company and commenced a fussless 
planning. 
He ate as casually as he could, anxious 
to be off, then took his leave, conceding 
early defeat in the competitive feasting. 
Nothing had been planned for that 
Saturday - it was, by agreement, their 
day off, once the Eastern team had left. 
The problem of rounding up any 
members of the Credo group was near 
insurmountable - most of them had also 
gone on their own version of Saturday 
unwinding. In the end, there were only 
three available. Now he wished that he 
had kept at least one of the tapes that 
Ukonu had taken back to Enugu, 
especially the one that called for an 
uprising throughout the West. 
No longer surprised at the phenomenon, 
he watched his companion self move 
like a programmed automaton, homing 
in on resources that were recalled from 
dormant hideouts of the mind, recalling 
the shape and layout of the Broadcasting 
House, the reception room, the stairs, 
corridor, the side entrance that opened 
into the road across which stood 
Obisesan Cinema Hall, the Cooperative 
Building, while on the same side was 
the Insurance Building with its attractive 
mural that had been executed by the Gman. 
Once more, he went over the 
transmission studios as he last saw them, 
several weeks before, when he had been 
looking for Femi, and was told that he 
was across the road, in Michael's 
office...stopping to say hallo to the 
pioneer writer, Amos Tutuola, who 
worked in a poky little office on the 
ground floor - but no longer as a 
storekeeper - up the stairs again and 
through the corridors once 
more...mentally recalled where the splitlevel 
began and the corridor sheered 
sharply away from the rear wall, made 
of decorative blocks that exposed the 
corridor to any curious eyes from 
outside, from the Kingsway Stores; then 
fell to wondering who might be on duty 
on that fateful evening, only hours away. 
It was already late afternoon, and there 
could only be feverish improvisation. 
He had already marked down a young 
American research student who owned 
a tape recorder, a professional brand, 
that used j ust the kind of spool that was 
48
Premier Akintola during a public broadcast in Ibadan 
needed. Tracked down, he was given no 
option but to make his equipment 
available. Since he was accustomed to 
his own tools and a good technical 
quality was essential, he also had to 
supervise the recording of the new 
message, quickly scripted by Maren. 
The apartment of the medical 
photographer, Frank Speed, was 
commandeered - he was away from the 
country at the time. By five o'clock that 
afternoon, the message was on a spool, 
and they had made a spare copy that 
would be sent to Enugu, just in case. All 
that was left was to pick up the trio, 
drive casually through the vicinity of 
the Broadcasting House and select 
positions for the woefully inadequate 
band, school them on what would be 
required of them if things went wrong, 
or right. 
And then it had to happen, the worst 
imaginable affliction that could attack a 
body tuning up for a mission that 
required precision, and was limited by 
time - a running stomach. The 
combination of the peppery stews and 
the beer at Femi Johnson's maybe, 
exacerbated by the to-ing and fro-ing on 
the pot-holed roads and the rutted tracks 
between the lumberyard shacks at Oke 
Foko, looking for Kodak, appeared to 
be working havoc in his stomach. Or 
perhaps it was the possibility that he 
might actually end up shooting the 
Premier, if he did show up, and there 
was no other way to stop him. Gaining 
entrance into the building early required 
hiding in the record library, which he 
alone knew well. He kept up his 
telephone calls to the very last possible 
moment, making casual enquiries about 
Akintola's intentions. By then the six 
tablets of Thalazole that he had 
swallowed all at once - instead-of two, 
three times a day - had stopped the 
subversive tap that was threatening his 
evening out. 
There were two scenarios, and both 
were straightforward. One was if the 
Premier decided to come in person, the 
other if he stuck to the recorded message. 
The first had to be played by ear, 
everything was left to the on-the-spot 
decision of the three men who would be 
deployed around the Cooperative 
Building, the Kingsway Stores, and the 
Insurance Building opposite the 
Broadcasting House. They could take 
on the motorcade, concentrating on his 
own vehicle, using the advantage of the 
night and of surprise. They tried to 
guess which route the motorcade might 
take, but it made no difference anyway. 
The first man along the route held the 
decision: if he chose to act, the other 
two must follow. If not, they would 
simply melt into the night. One barrage 
would accelerate into the next, and then 
into the third. At night, beyond a token 
response in the general direction of 
49
attack, the escorts would not stop to 
investigate further enquiries or go in 
pursuit of the attackers. That would be 
suicidal, since they would have no idea 
how many were involved in the ambush; 
also their first duty was to take their 
charge out of the danger zone. In any 
case, the loyalty of the guards was 
already a source of suspicion and 
complaint for the isolated Premier. The 
logical response of the party, whichever 
way one looked at it, would be to speed 
off as fast as they could gun their 
motorcars. Maren squelched all 
argument about who would actually 
enter the studios and insert the new tape. 
He knew the interior better than the 
others and that was that. Moreover, the 
inside person had the responsibility of 
creating a violent diversion that would 
disrupt all activity, if the Premier did 
come in person to do a live broadcast, 
successfully braved the ambush and 
entered the building. This was best done 
by starting a fire in the record library 
and he had planned exactly how it would 
be done. Whatever it took, the broadcast 
must be prevented. 
Normally, there should have been 
someone to drive the car, wait for the 
one who would enter and whisk him 
away at the end. However, there was no 
one to spare. Three one-man ambushes, 
even of the hit-and-run kind, against a 
three- to five-strong motorcade was bad 
enough; two would be too ludicrous for 
effectiveness. There was only one 
answer; recruit a willing outsider who 
would know enough to obey instructions 
but would not be exposed to risk. 
Maren's walking image did not need to 
think for long; within Orisun, there were 
three whom he knew he could always 
count upon for such limited chores; he 
chose Jimi Solanke. Jimi did not even 
have driver's licence but he could move 
a car, put it in reverse and take a corner 
with safety. In case, Maren would take 
the wheel as long as he was in the 
vehicle. To make driving easier for Jimi, 
in case he had to drive, he swapped his 
car for a friend's Volkswagen, 
explaining that he had a tryst to keep, 
and did not wish to be spotted by the 
girl's protective parents. 
It meant parking the car somewhat 
further away from the Broadcasting 
House than he had planned, placing it 
on the slope on Lebanon Street after the 
short link between Lebanon and 
Kingsway Streets. The police were 
stationed in the lobby and on the frontage 
of the building itself. If there was a hue 
and cry, it made sense to assume that 
they would all rush in, by which time he 
would be through the corridor on the top 
floor, waiting at the foot of the stairs to 
the side, until the police had quit the. 
front to investigate the commotion. Then 
he would walk briskly to the waiting 
car, while the others dispersed as they 
had arrived - individually. 
When he stepped out of the car, he told 
Jimi to take the driving seat; if he was 
not out in fifteen minutes, he should 
simply drive off and return the car to its 
owner. In the darkness, he could not see 
Jimi's face to see how he reacted, but he 
knew he would do as he was told. 
So he watched himself walk through the 
short link road, saw the third man in the 
presumed route move slightly in the 
shadows, watched himself raise his hand 
casually to acknowledge that he had 
noted his presence and that nothing had 
changed in the arrangements. This 
stranger ducked into the entrance to the 
side stairs, arrived at the corridor, walked 
past Michael Olumide's office, onto the 
split-level corridor and then into the 
studios. The tape was being readied for 
broadcast. And then there was this voice, 
which he had last heard in the guest 
lavatory of Obafemi Awolowo's house, 
and using the same alien language, all 
within one week. He watched them 
hesitate, saw on their faces the look of 
disbelief, the momentary wonder if it 
was all joke, and then, of course, almost 
at once they knew it was not. So there 
was no need at all for him to fulfil his 
threat and shoot an idle console to 
remove all doubt that the gun was real, 
and that he meant business. He had a 
distanced notion that he ought to be 
amused by the eager response of Oshin, 
the Shift Leader, as he stammered, 'No, 
sir, no need at all,' scrambling to offload 
the Premier's spool, but he was 
not. 
Instead, he reached for the discarded 
spool, saying briefly,'No, I'll take that.' 
He stuffed it beneath the loose agbada 
he had selected for entombing the gun 
and spare magazines. The Shift Leader's 
hands were trembling and the intruder 
became nervous that he might not 
succeed in threading the tape on time, 
since the Premier's voice must not be 
kept waiting but must resound to the 
people on the second after the 
Announcer's introduction, but Oshin 
got it right in the end. The recording had 
been carefully made with the main 
message at the beginning, since he had 
no intention of remaining in the studio 
once the tape was up and running. Still, 
he wanted it to run as long as possible, 
so he heard a cold voice issuing from his 
head, warning them not to touch the 
tape, that there were others with guns 
trained on them, right inside the building, 
and that not one of them would reach 
home alive if the tape was turned off. It 
appeared to have worked. It was some 
other duty officer who rushed into the 
studio after the seditious message began, 
tearing off the tape. But by then the 
'Premier's message' had gone out to his 
people: 'This is the voice of the people, 
the true people of this nation. And they 
are telling you, Akintola, get out! Get 
out, and take with you your renegades 
who have lost all sense of shame...' 
It had all taken twelve minutes from the 
moment that he stepped out of the car. 
Jimi was still in the driver's seat, the 
engine running. He slid over to the 
passenger seat and Maren entered the 
car, nodding to him. "I'm glad I made it 
in time. It would have been a long walk 
home.' 
'I had no intention of leaving, sir,' Jimi 
replied, 'however long it took you - 
whatever it was.' fGRl 
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