Rufus Okeke – Roof, for short – was a very popular man in his village. Although the villagers did not explain it in so many words, Roof’s popularity was a measure of their gratitude to an energetic young man who unlike most of his fellows nowadays, had not abandoned the village in order to seek work, any work, in the towns. Roof was not a village tout either. Everyone knew how he had spent two years as a bicycle repairer’s apprentice in Port-Harcourt and had given up of his own free will a bright future to return to his people and guide them in these political times. Not that Umuofia needed a lot of guidance. The village already belonged en masse to the People’s Alliance Party, and its most illustrious son, Chief the Honorable Marcus Ibe, was Minister of Culture in the outgoing government (which was pretty certain to be the incoming one as well). Nobody doubted that the Honorable Minister would be elected in his constituency. Opposition to him was like the proverbial fly trying to move a dung hill. It would have been ridiculous enough without coming, as it did now, from a complete nonentity.
As was to be expected, Roof was in the service of the Honourable Minister for the coming elections. He had become a real expert in election campaigning at all levels – villages, local government or national. He could tell the mood and temper of the electorate at any given time. For instance, he had warned the Minister months ago about the radical change that had come into the thinking of Umuofia since the last national election

  A wolf, seeing a lamb drinking from a river, wanted to find a pretext, for devouring him. He stood higher up the stream and accused the lamb of muddying the water so that he could not drink. The lamb said that he drank only with the tip of his tongue, and that in any case he was standing lower down the river, and could not possibly disturb the water higher up, ‘when this excuse failed him, the wolf said: ‘Well, last year you insulted my father .’I wasn’t even born then, ‘replied the lamb.

  You are good at finding answers, ‘said the wolf, ‘but what do you mean by taking up so much of the path where I am walking? The lamb, frightened at the wolf’s angry tone and terrible aspect, told him, with all due submission, that he could not conceive how his walking on such a wide path could occasion him any inconvenience. ‘What! Exclaimed the wolf, seemingly in great anger and indignation. ‘You are as impudent as your father who seized me by the throat last year, and caused me to be kept in a cage for three months.

  If you will believe me, ‘said the lamb, my parents are poor simple creatures who live entirely by green stuff; we are none of us hunters of your species. ‘Ah! I see it’s no use talking to you, ‘said the wolf, drawing up close to him. ‘it runs in the blood of your family to hate us wolves, and therefore, as we have come so conveniently together, I’ll just pay off a few of your forefathers scores before we part. ‘so saying he leapt at the lamb from behind and garrotted him.

  It was a Sunday afternoon that I saw the lorry standing in front of the post office. I had seen it long before my brother saw it, but it was he who said to me “Don’t you think it odd that the post office should be open this afternoon? What do you think is happening? ‘Come round the corner, out of sight, and let’s watch’, I answered. My brother Michael was younger than me, so I kept him behind me, and peering round the corner told him what I saw. ‘There are four men coming out, carrying a very heavy box’ ‘Oh! I exclaimed. ‘It’s a safe, ‘I think they’re burglars, said my brother who was full of suspicion. ‘One of them has fallen over ‘I said; ‘the safe is too heavy for them’. You go and fetch the police said my brother, ‘and I’ll stay here and watch,’ ‘No you go and get them’, I replied, because I wanted to see what was going to happen. My brother ran off and then, suddenly, a man came running out of the post office, shouting, ‘Hurry! Hurry! Get it on the lorry!’ He joined the first four and they managed to get the safe up on to the back of the lorry. When they had done this, the man who had shouted got into the driver’s seat, but the lorry would not start. Just then my brother came back with three policemen. To cut a long story short, the men were all arrested and my brother and I had to go and give evidence before a magistrate. The men went to prison, of course, in the end, but you should have seen the face of the leader - it was contorted with rage – when he learned that the safe they had managed to steal was empty, and all the money was in the bank.