THE DAY A STAFF SERGEANT POINTED HIS RIFLE AT ME

By: Pat Akem-Vingir

My office in Freetown was close to the ocean when some Lebanese-looking men walked in with a complaint. They were tired of being harassed for money at one of our checkpoints.

Freetown was tense. The rebels were threatening to enter the city almost every night, so we had checkpoints at strategic locations. One was on a road climbing into the hilly part of the city where some of the more affluent residents lived. That checkpoint was commanded by a Staff Sergeant who, according to the men, had turned it into a toll gate. They had had enough.

I took a few soldiers, got into my Hilux and drove there. We arrived and I stepped down. Then everything changed.

The Staff Sergeant saw me, cocked his rifle and pointed it straight at me. “Oga, if you take another step, I will shoot! Oyibo went to report and you came. I WILL SHOOT YOU!”

I stopped. Immediately.

A Nigerian Army Major had just taken an order from a Staff Sergeant. And I obeyed.

This was no longer about rank. This was about the few metres between his rifle and bullets in my body. We had already experienced blue-on-blue shootings before, some of it deliberate, calculated. War does strange things to people. Men become exhausted. Nerves fray. Fear settles into the body. People snap.

We had scarcely slept properly for weeks. Every night came with the threat that the rebels could enter Freetown. And now I was standing in front of an armed soldier who appeared ready to shoot his superior officer.

I was armed. My soldiers were armed. But starting a shootout would have been madness. He was too close. At that distance, he could hardly miss. You do not argue about military hierarchy with a man whose finger is near the trigger.

“Take it easy,” I said quietly. “Take it easy.”

Then I began moving backwards. Slowly. Very slowly. Towards the Hilux. I was praying. Not the kind of prayer you pray with your eyes closed. The kind you pray while watching the muzzle of a rifle.

One wrong movement could have ended everything. But God gave me one advantage: the man was talking instead of shooting. As long as he was talking, I still had time.

I kept backing away until I reached the Hilux. I got in. We drove away.

Only then could rank return to the conversation. I had survived. I was alive. That was very important.

I called his Commanding Officer and described the situation. I told him to “Arrest that Staff Sergeant.” He promised to do it immediately.

But war had other plans, the rebels entered Freetown and the city exploded into fighting. Everything became messy. Survival took priority. Nobody remembered my case.

About two months later, I was posted back to Nigeria. I never knew what eventually happened to that Staff Sergeant. Perhaps he survived. Perhaps he died in the fighting. Perhaps, in the chaos of war, he simply got away with pointing a loaded rifle at a Major.

But I never forgot that moment.

It taught me something about leadership that no classroom could have taught me: There are moments when your rank can save you. And there are moments when wisdom must save you from your rank.

That day, I was a Major. He was a Staff Sergeant. But when his rifle came up, the insignia on my shoulders became irrelevant.

Sometimes courage means advancing. Sometimes courage is knowing when to walk backwards.

Some folks read stuff like this and think it is a tale! I am sorry, I do not make up stuff. You will read these stories and more in the books I will be writing when by God’s grace I get a bit older.

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