Pete Okpara “The Fence Walker”

Pete Okpara spent years as an ordinary citizen with an unusual habit: he could not sleep until he had walked the whole perimeter and looked at it himself. Neighbours found this funny. The night the monitor lizard came through the drainage channel, Okpara was the one already awake, already outside, already shouting.

He was too late for Bantu. He has never once said otherwise, and he refuses the word 'blameless' when it is offered to him. When the President appointed him Minister of Security four days later, his acceptance speech was two sentences long: 'I know what the job is. Ask me again in a year.'

Since then the ministry has changed shape around him. The nightly headcount is now read aloud, by name, at the door of every coop, his idea, and unpopular for about three days until the flock realised what it felt like to hear your own name confirmed safe. The drainage channel is barred. The fence line is patrolled in two shifts. Sergeant Danladi runs the second one.

He keeps Bantu's whistle-feather in his office. He does not discuss it. Everyone knows it is there.