The morning of the general election arrived with an eerie, ghost-town silence across the Lagos mainland. The shops were locked, the roads were completely empty of commercial yellow buses, and the only vehicles moving were heavily armed military patrol trucks.Inside the Ebute-Metta sawmill, the atmosphere was vibrating with dark energy.Adekunle stood in front of Sledge and twenty-five heavily armed street boys. They were all wearing black t-shirts and holding hidden locally-made pistols, iron rods, and canisters of crude oil. The three black SUVs were revving their engines in the background, ready for destruction."Boys, today na the day," Sledge barked, pacing back and forth while chewing on a bitter kola. "The opposition party think say dem fit use us play format, but Chief pikin don show us the light. Today, we are shutting down the entire mainland voting centers. Anybody wey look you one kind, change am for am!""Oshey! Sledge! Chief pikin!" the boys roared, slamming their weapons against the wooden walls.Adekunle nodded, acting like a proud street general. "Remember the plan. Once we disrupt the three major polling units in Surulere, we gather at the primary school. My papa's convoy will arrive to 'arrest' the situation, but his boys will actually give us safe passage out of the sector. Move out!"Within thirty minutes, the operation turned into a war zone.The SUVs smashed into the first voting center in Surulere. People scattered in pure terror as Sledge's boys began to snatch ballot boxes, scatter the voting sheets into the muddy gutters, and fire warning shots into the air. The local police officers at the scene took one look at the heavy SUVs and the weapons, turned their uniforms inside out, and ran into the nearby bushes.Adekunle was in the middle of it all, coordinating the chaos with military precision. But as he ran back toward the lead SUV, his phone—a burner phone Corporal Titus had secretly smuggled to him—vibrated in his pocket.He jumped into the front seat and answered it quickly. "Papa? The three centers don scatter. We are moving to the final meeting point now.""Excellent," Chief Solomon's voice came through, cold, distant, and completely devoid of fatherly love. "The media houses are already broadcasting the chaos. The President just signed the emergency military intervention decree. I am now officially in charge of the state's security clearance."Adekunle felt a chill run down his spine. "So, your boys are coming to clear the road for us at the primary school?"Chief Solomon let out a low, chilling chuckle over the line. "Adekunle, you are indeed a brilliant actor. You actually believed I would let twenty-five dirty street thugs walk away with fifty million Naira and three of my luxury SUVs?"Adekunle's blood turned to ice. His breath hitched. "Papa... wetin you mean?""The military trucks moving toward that primary school right now are not coming to rescue you, Boy," Chief Solomon hissed. "They are coming with live ammunition. Sledge and his boys will be shot on sight as armed terrorists trying to hijack the election. And you... you better start running right now, because if my Captain catches you in that compound, he has strict orders to make sure you do not survive the crossfire. A dead hero son looks better in the newspapers than a corrupt one."TUT... TUT... TUT...The line went dead.Adekunle stared at the phone, his face completely pale as Sledge slammed the car door shut next to him, breathing heavily."Chief pikin! The market don mature!" Sledge laughed brutally, driving the SUV toward the primary school gate. "Look! Your papa military trucks don dey arrive for front! We are safe, my guy!"Adekunle looked out the windshield. Three massive, green military trucks were blocking the school exit, their mounted machine guns pointed directly at their incoming SUVs. The soldiers were already loading their weapons.His father hadn't just double-crossed the street boys—he had double-crossed his own son.
