Ground Work
833 Words
The Oboro Construction office was on Aba Road.
Chisom had been there twice in her life — once at sixteen, when her father brought her to show her what cement and stubbornness could build, and once at twenty-six, when she came to drop documents he'd forgotten at home. Both times she had been a visitor. A daughter. Someone passing through.
She parked outside at half past ten and sat in the car for a moment.
The building had three floors, a glass front, and the Oboro Construction logo mounted in steel above the entrance. Two security men at the gate. A row of company vehicles in the yard — white Hiluxes, dusty from site work. The place had the particular energy of somewhere that had been running on its own momentum for years, comfortable in its routine, unbothered by anything as abstract as change.
She got out of the car.
The security men saw her coming and exchanged a glance she was not supposed to notice. She noticed.
"Good morning," she said. "I'm Chisom Oboro. I need to see the operations manager."
A beat. The taller one reached for his phone. "Let me call up, ma."
"You can call up," she said pleasantly. "But open the gate first."
His name was Godwin Amasike. Fifty-three, thick through the shoulders, the kind of man who had built his authority slowly over many years and wore it like a physical thing. He met her in the second floor conference room with two other men she didn't recognize yet — she would learn their names, she had already decided — and a handshake that was professionally warm and personally assessing.
"Miss Chisom." He smiled. "We were expecting you, maybe next week."
"I'm here this week," she said.
She sat. They sat. Someone brought water she didn't ask for.
"I want the full project portfolio on my desk by tomorrow morning," she said. "Every active contract, every pending tender, every site currently under operation. Status reports, timelines, contractor names."
Godwin nodded slowly. "Of course. We can have that prepared—"
"Tomorrow morning," she repeated. Not unkindly. Just clearly.
He looked at her the way men like him looked at women like her — measuring, recalibrating, deciding. She had seen that look enough times to stop finding it surprising. She waited it out.
"Tomorrow morning," he agreed.
"Good." She looked around the room. "I also want a site visit this week. Whichever project is furthest behind schedule."
One of the other men shifted in his seat. She filed that away.
"We have the Rumuola housing project," Godwin said carefully. "It has had some... delays."
"Then that's where we start." She stood. "Thank you, Mr. Amasike. I'll be back tomorrow."
She left before he could decide whether the meeting was over.
She ate lunch alone at a small restaurant on Peter Odili Road that she had been going to since university — pepper soup and cold water, a corner table, her notebook open in front of her.
She wrote three names. The two men in the room whose names she still didn't know. And Godwin.
Not because they were enemies. She didn't know that yet.
But because the first thing her father had taught her about any organization was this: find out who has been there the longest, and find out why.
Loyalty and tenure were not the same thing. Some men stayed because they believed. Some stayed because they were comfortable. And some stayed because they knew where things were buried and had made themselves indispensable through that knowledge alone.
She needed to know which kind Godwin was before she needed to trust him.
She closed the notebook.
Her phone buzzed. A number she didn't have saved. She answered.
"Chisom." The voice was male, older. "This is Chief Dokubo. I worked with your father for many years. I heard the news. I want to offer my condolences — and my congratulations."
She kept her face still even though there was no one to see it. Condolences and congratulations in the same breath. Her father had warned her about men who packaged things that way.
"Thank you, Chief," she said.
"I think we should meet," he said. "There are things about the construction portfolio that you should know before you go too deep. Things your father and I discussed."
"I appreciate that," she said. "I'll have my assistant reach out to schedule something."
A pause. He had expected yes immediately. "Of course. I look forward to it."
She hung up.
She sat with the phone in her hand for a moment, looking at the number on her screen.
Things you should know before you go too deep.
She thought about Adaeze's face in the sitting room this morning. That thing that had crossed it and left too fast.
She thought about her father's voice. Sometimes they just need to understand that replacement is the kindest option available.
She picked up her pen and wrote a fourth name.
Chief Dokubo.
- Writer
