Road To Hegemony

BOOK 1: AWAKENING, CH13: MOVING OUT

“Recruits” Colonel Balogun said after the six veterans introduced themselves.

The recruits introduced themselves from left to right

“Glory Oyakire” Said the only female amongst the recruits. She was also the only person that didn’t glance at Korede Balogun when Colonel Kola Balogun asked for an analysis of the recording.

“Boluwatito Oguntoyinbo” said the male to left of Glory

“Temitope Lawal”

“Korede Balogun”

When Korede introduced in himself, there were subtle reactions amongst the people present. Special Agent Danjuma threw a glance at Colonel Balogun while the veterans glanced between Korede and their team leader. Temitope chuckled inwardly at their reactions as Glory tightened her fist. Korede, on the otherhand, ignored them all as he was used to such reactions.

“Abdul-Lateef Abdul-Salam.”

“Champion Onuoha ” said the recruit who had been shocked by Corporal Mary Izamoje’s presence.

Special Agent Danjuma raised an eyebrow when he heard this name. He mumbled to himself, “There are alot of surprises amongst this recruits. I reckon the Balogun Family has their hands in this. I should report this to the Director.”

Even if the people present heard what he said, perhaps only Colonel Balogun would understand. Unbeknownst to them, the Balogun Family was making a move in the background to cement their influence in the military before the current Chief of Defence Staff, Major-General Bolaji Balogun retired and they were at the center of it. Well, Korede had figured it out later but that is a story for another time.

“Alright with that out of the way, I can continue. For this mission, there will be two teams, Alpha and Bravo teams. Teams 5 will make up most of Alpha team while recruits will make up most of Bravo team. Second Lieutenant Kunle Balogun-Keshinro will lead Alpha team. Since it seems you’ve chosen him as you representative, Korede Balogun will lead Bravo team” Colonel Balogun said, with nobody being particularly surprised at the arrangement.

He continued, “While this is an important mission, it is still an assessment mission for the recruits. Corporal Mary Izamoje and Corporal Fatima Mohammed will join Bravo team to assess their performance.” Both Mary and Fathima nodded in acknowledgement.

“In exchange, two recruits are to join the Alpha team. Any volunteers?”

Almost immediately the question was asked, Glory Oyakire raised her hand. She didn’t want to be in the same team as Korede. She looked at Boluwatito Oguntoyinbo who hesitated a little before raising his hands. Their reaction caused Temitope to chuckle inwardly while give Korede an elbow, to which, the latter merely replied with a stink eye.

There existed a little bad blood between Korede and Glory since the training camp. While Korede comes off as a lazy genius, Glory is your typical hardworker. When the two first met, Glory had little expectations of Korede because, while everyone was busy assessing their new environment when they arrived at the training camp, Korede went and found a tree to lie under without a care in the world.(1) With this view of him being a lazy person in mind, Korede’s successive bad performances in subsequent training activities caused Glory to consider him a waste. This was her impression until one day, in the dead of the night, she saw Korede training. His regimen was far tougher than anything the trainees had done in the day. It was then Glory realised that Korede wasn’t lazy, on the contrary, he was quite hardworking. He just didn’t take the day training seriously. She also started to secretly train at night in order not to be defeated by Korede in the upcoming ranking tests.

Night after night, even after the gruelling training from the day, Korede and Glory continued to train on their own. By then, Korede had noticed someone else training at night like him. However, as per his nature, he didn’t care. The ranking test finally came and Glory was first place in most of the test except for a few that were taken by trainee who could be considered specialist in those fields. For example, Temitope Lawal in Interrogation and intel gathering, Abdul-Lateef Abdul-Salam in marksmanship and Champion Onuoha in computer programming(2). This along with her beauty caused Glory to have a lot of admirers, among which was Boluwatito Oguntoyinbo.

Though Korede continued to perform below his skill level in most test, he showed a glimpses of his ability in some, most especially in those tests where he went up against the ‘specialists’. This caused Glory’s impression of him to improve. This was, however, destroyed during a room sweeping(3) test where both of them were paired together. They came second because of a mistake by Korede. A mistake which Glory deemed intentional on his part because she couldn’t see him making such an error with his skill level.

Feeling aggrieved, she confronted him. However, rather than apologize, Korede said, “What if I did on purpose? It doesn’t affect your overall rank. You are still top place. Besides, scores don’t mean a thing on the battlefield. You should consider this a learning experience. What if a teammate makes the same mistake? How should you handle it? Rather than being aggrieved over something inconsequential in the real world.” Then he walked away.

Temitope saw the encounter and walked up to Korede, “You could’ve handle that better. Not everyone can handle the truth so bluntly. Be ready for some annoyances in the nearest future.” Korede didn’t respond but shrugged his shoulders as the two walked away.

Glory was pissed. Even though she knew he was right, she was annoyed at the way Korede lectured her instead of apologizing like she expected. Since then, she has been antagonistic towards Korede. Boluwatito, who is interested in Glory, also became antagonistic towards him in order to earn her favour. (4)

Actually, if that event was the only incident between them, Glory might have gotten over it., however, it wasn’t. At the end of the training camp, Korede was elected as the best overall trainee by the camp instructors. Glory felt her world crash. All the effort she put in, seemed, to go to waste. To make matters worse, the person who got what she worked hard for, looked liked he was pissed about it. Imagine, what she strived for was considered an annoyance by the person who got it. She began to tell herself that Korede won because of his family name. During the camp, she had accidentally heard one of the instructors mention the Balogun Family’s renown. If she was just pissed at Korede before, she hated him now.(5)

Hence, there was no way she would willing be in a team with him as the team leader. Boluwatito also had no choice but to join her, even though he felt being in the veteran team would be harder as the veterans would mostly do everything and they would hardly be able to earn any merit. She is his girl after all, he had to support her.

Korede could care less. His thought was on something else. He had noticed some things about this mission that didn’t feel right. His instinct told him his superiors probably also noticed the same problems but chose not to tell them.

Since there were two volunteers, Colonel Balogun continued, “Alright. Alpha team will take point while Bravo teams will sweep the perimeter. The Emissary, Sharawy and Duke are designated Charlie 1, 2 and 3 respectively, all other hostiles are Tangos. You can decide your designations yourself.” He went on to discuss the tactical plan for the mission.

Eventually the mission briefing was to come to an end when Second Lieutenant Kunle Balogun-Keshinro asked, “What are the rules of engagement(6)?”

Colonel Balogun looked at Special Agent Danjuma , who answered, “The nuke and the crash object are your primary objectives, the Charlies are secondary while tangos are expendable. So, Rules of Engagement (ROE) should be ‘weapons free’.(7)”

“There you have it. We are short on time. Gear up fast and be ready to move out quickly”

Due to time, the teams quickly moved to the armoury to gear up as they would be moving out immediately.

On a side note, the agreed designation for each member was as follows:

Alpha Team

Second Lieutenant Kunle Balogun-Keshinro - Alpha 1

Master Sergeant Idowu Adewuyi - Alpha 2

Staff Sergeant Afeez Bayero - Alpha 3

Sergeant Daniel Wike - Alpha 4

Glory Oyakire - Alpha 5

Boluwatito Oguntoyinbo - Alpha 6

Bravo Team

Korede Balogun - Bravo 1

Temitope Lawal - Bravo 2

Abdul-lateef Abdul-Salam - Bravo 3

Champion Onuoha - Bravo 4

Corporal Mary Izamoje - Bravo 5

Corporal Fatima Mohammed - Bravo 6.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

1 If you’re wondering how she noticed him, remember how it has been mentioned that he has a gravitating presence.

2 This basically hacking

3 ‘Sweeping’ refers to a tactical way of clearing hostiles in a particular area without missing any.

4 Since Korede is the Main Character, he has an MC Halo that will make most people think he was right in this scenario. Personally, I feel handling a situation like this in such a manner is wrong. Looking at it from someone in Glory’s perspective, even if they know you mean well, they will most likely disregard your words and instead resent you. Matters like this should be handled delicately, and not so bluntly, in order to get desired result.

5 Didn’t want to digress originally but figured doing so would add colour to their relationship. Might as well bring up the background of Korede’s relationship with other characters in future. Feels like I’m giving myself more work.

6 Not sure how clear it is but basically Rules of Engagement guides how much force operatives are allowed to use from non-lethal to lethal, selective targeting to killing everyone on sight.

7 ‘Weapons free’ is an example of ROE giving operative the discretion to shoot and kill anything that stands between them and completing their mission. Basically, giving them a green light to use full lethal means.