Excerpt From The Book Containing a Little Material from the First Professor Otagburuagu Appearance on Hive (Grab a Copy for 4 HBD)

As some of you know, my new book Professor Otagburuagu which is written by myself and illustrated by Scandinavian artist @katharsisdrill began here on hive/what it was in 2017. I first created the character Professor Otagburuagu when I won the chance to write the middle part of a story contest hosted by @vcelier for @adsactly. It was the love @katharsisdrill and the readers had for the character that made us go ahead to make this book a reality.

Before the full book was done I had posted 3 episodes here on hive. Those episodes, though, are the short versions of the first 3 episodes that made the book. Here on hive they are 1,000 to 1,500 words but in the book they are 2,000 - 2,500 words.

Here are the ones posted on hive: 1, 2 and 3.

In the shorter versions posted here, there was no mention of any of the events in the first story of Otagburuagu in that story contest but for today's post, I'm revealing that some of the events mentioned in the first story were also mentioned in the full book. And what's more? I'm posting an excerpt of that here! Enjoy!

Hardly any police officer ever heard of him or could even dream of cracking him out. But the rich and honest Inspector Raymond of the Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had great love for his job and took it seriously. This, coupled with his good investigative skills, allowed for quite a lot more about the Professor to be revealed to him than any other detective. A couple of sensitive cases he had worked on in the past had involved the Professor in some way unbeknownst to any outsider. Raymond only got scrapes of light and pointers that enabled him to make out this Otagburuagu character. Scrapes of light and pointers that were completely lost on his teammates and other police detectives.

The first experience was just one year into his job as an Inspector. Gunshots were reported in the early hours of a morning. He and the men of his unit were called in. The scene was the house of one Senator Henry. The house had been attacked by unknown gunmen and all six of his bodyguards were killed. Sen. Henry himself was found hiding in the bushes, with a gunshot wound to his left arm. He was rushed to the hospital. Raymond's investigation took it from there, but after two months nothing was uncovered. The gunmen and everything about them remained unknown. Raymond had only some mere suspicions and unbacked hypotheticals to grasp at. He grasped at them really tightly though, for some quite good reasons.

Firstly, that same night Sen. Henry was attacked, a Chief Benson was also attacked in the same way, but Chief Benson did not survive like Sen. Henry did. The two men were opponents, vying for the office of State Governor, and now rumours aided by the media had gained ground that these attacks were orchestrated by the incumbent State Governor; everyone seemed to be saying that the State Governor did it to eliminate these two opponents. The surviving Sen. Henry most especially jumped on this trail and pointed fingers at the incumbent. The incumbent became painted as evil, with the masses saying they wouldn't vote him back in for a second tenure, and all favourable eyes now diverted to Sen. Henry, the media even painting him as a martyr.

Raymond looked at how much Sen. Henry was gaining from the entire saga and couldn't find any reason why the whole thing couldn't have been planned by Sen. Henry himself. “When a crime is committed, to find the culprit, follow the man who would gain the most from the act”, this was one of the oldest detective rules in the book; it was also quite cliché, but Raymond couldn't help suspecting. The media following this rule must have led them to the incumbent State Governor but if they had only followed it a little further down the road, they would have found Sen. Henry sitting at the end, smiling with his bandaged left arm, Raymond thought.

Sen. Henry must have killed Chief Benson, plotted a fake attack on himself in which he made it look like he miraculously escaped, and knew naturally the media would blame the opponent which was the incumbent governor. He may have even instigated the rumours himself in the background. It all made sense because in return he would lose Chief Benson as an opponent, discredit the incumbent for the next election, garner sympathy and support from the people and easily win the seat of State Governor.

All these were mere suspicions, but Raymond ran with them. With time he couldn't find anything weighty enough to pin on Sen. Henry, but he was able to confirm his suspicions at last. In his spying of Sen. Henry he got to listen to a conversation where he heard Sen. Henry praise one Professor Otagburuagu for his help. He didn't say what the help was, but the men in his company remarked hear, hear for Professor Otagburuagu with one of the men joking that Otagburuagu was the man with the master plan, whose plan has not only worked to uplift Sen. Henry's political career, but by incapacitating one of his arms also saved Nkoyo, Sen. Henry's petite mistress from a fully functional insatiable and ravenous Sen. Henry. All the men had burst into wild laughter at this.

Raymond knew what this meant, that a professor had come up with this plan executed by Sen. Henry, just as he had suspected. But try as he might, he never found anything he could build this case with. The elections came and Sen. Henry's ultimate goal was achieved: he was now the State Governor. The case remained unsolved.

At this point too, Raymond never thought Professor Otagburuagu was a recurring player in the crime game. He thought his honourable mention was just a one time thing. But less than 6 months later, he had his second experience...

Don't forget to grab a copy from me here, if you haven't gotten it already, for just 4 HBD! I'm counting on your support, thank you!!