The afternoon scorching sun was set to a blazing heat, crashing against our heads and sending an extremely uncomfortable tingling sensation through our bodies - hot and sweaty, with salty liquids dripping down our heads and legs aching from having to stand the whole night out on the dark steets. Our yells and chants of protest echoing through the night, we were adamant, determined to get what we wanted and then when morning came and whizzed past in a blur that contained our yells and pains. We still remained there, our legs and eyes sore from keeping up late at night, barely getting any sleep. Our bones throbbing hard and painfully underneath our flesh, wet and sticky liquids continued to drip down our faces, our dirty body continued to rub against each other as we pushed and stumbled further down the roads, as we blocked off vehicles and obstructed the people from proceeding toward their daily jobs.
They had attacked the previous night, we were furious.
We were all civilians, we had gone through a lot together, we'd gone hungry together and also suffered from the cruel illtreatment the leaders in power and authority had bestowed upon us. All we wanted was to be listened to and given attention, all we wanted was our rights to be rightly bestowed onto us. Our stomachs had rumbled greatly in hunger, our heart filled with sorrow and grief, our eyes had watched their own kids enjoy in the riches, wealth and bitter sweats of we Nigerians.
We wanted to be treated fairly, we wanted revenge for our loved ones killed wrongly and wickedly.
Their bloods cried - I could hear it. Their troubled souls roamed around the streets with us - we didn't see them but I could feel it. Just the previous night we were all together and happy. Their cries seeped straight into my ears and swelled my already throbbing heart with pain and sorrow. They want us to be treated good after their untimely deaths, they want to see their families happy after they'd left. They also want the tears of their mothers and families be wiped away. Old women had weeped when their joys got snatched from them, poor fathers had shed blood after all their suffering had gone down the drain, killed in unjust ways. In just a night
We weren't going to let their blood go in vain, we never wanted war, we just wanted their attention and our rights. We wanted to be listened to.
That afternoon, as we continued to trudge angrily down the roads, our hands raised higher than our heads aching and throbbing painfully - my ears had caught the words of hatred and rage of a man as he conversed with a fellow protestor. He was one of those men, the men who protested with us. Even old enough to be my father. He had bloodshot eyes that rolled around with huge angry balls. He was dark and tall, slender, too. Clad in a black polo shirt over short khaki trouser that was looking tattered and old, showcasing his bony legs that gave off the fact that he indeed was an hungry man.
Poverty was written all over him, and the way he twisted his face in a grimace, jaw tightened in anger, wrinkles decorating the whole of his jet black face, with his shiny, glowing head giving a bright reflection of the bright sun rays; I could tell, anybody could tell he was a poor hungry man, derived of the pleasure of living a happy life due to poverty. Sanity had probably forsaked him years passed. He was looking like a man ready to kill if a war was meant to break out. He looked fearless, and the moment he had yelled out in anger:
"KILL ANYONE KILLABLE! AND DESTROY ANY LIFE DESTROYABLE! LET US ALL DIE! LET US ALL GO!"
My blood had run cold and my heart had banged hard with fear, his yell had confirmed just the fact that he saw no reason to live in life anymore. The poverty had probably destroyed each and every good image of him becoming a better person in a better place in future and that was wrong.
We wanted a better future. We didn't want to ruin the dreams of other. We needed a brighter Nigeria and not a dead one.
I was scared, was dumbfounded.
Adrenaline had pumped fast and wild through my veins as I hurridely grabbed Mayowa on his arm, my hold against his bony wrist tightening as I let my legs lead me far away from the mentally deranged man. Speedily, I had walked away, ignoring the cries and agony of hunger my stomach made.
Food was cost. Mother couldn't afford it - not even gari. Gari was almost five hundred and rice a thousand naira.
Food was cost, we protested and yet they kill us.
A thousand naira could do nothing for a hungry family anymore. I remember that time, when I was a child and my mother would give me a really long list and that thousand naira note to get a lot of foodstuff from the kiosk opposite our house.
I remember that time we could eat two square meals from just that thousand naira note. I remember that time mother used to toss in my small hand a ten naira note each time I was heading to school, and eagerly I would scurry down the path that led to my school not forgetting to stop by a shop to get myself a couple of snacks. I could get a lot with a ten naira note then, I can almost nothing with it now.
Mayowa, my seventeen years old brother had followed after without hesitation. His loud yells of the protest lines rang and echoed in my right ear as I led him further and deeper into the drowning crowd.
I could swear, swear I felt the anger and rage radiating from each and everyone of the protesters each time I and Mayowa bumped into one of them, and suddenly as I let go of Mayowa's wrist and we continued the loud chants of our protests. The loud sound of the sirens going off had pierced into my ears and scraped hard at my numb, hot brain. And for some unknown reason - fear washeover me, my feet and fingers coming numb as my heart began to pound at an extremely fast pace like to fly out my mouth. But I continued to stomp forward, along with the raging crowds that seemed unfazed by the sirens and arrival of the law enforcers. Everyone trudged forward like a crowd lost of sanity, even Mayowa, my younger brother, looked insane too.
We continued to chant loud and that was, until a loud bang filled the air. It was so loud that my hands flew up to cover my ears, it was bone chilling, tears were quick to find their way to my eyes, pricking hard against my vision. A feeling of dejavu had raced through me. It was the exact way they started the previous night.
I didn't know what had happened, if people were getting killed again or not, but the deafening sound could be similar to that of a gun shot. The protesters only became wild and crazy, everyone began to run foward at a full speed, people were falling - other were stomping over them. It was a stampede and I knew the crowd was ready to charge at the law enforcers.
In the midst of all the chaos and stampede, I could make out the louder yells that erupted from the people, and even though I had my hands clasped tight over my ears - their rage filled voices still seeped in through my palms, accompanied by the continious loud bangs of guns. My heart clutched harder with fear.
"Na the soldiers be that?!"
"Na them o, e be like say dem dey spray again!"
"We go all die here today!"
On hearing that, I whipped my head left and right in search of the scrawny form of my dark brother but he was not in sight anymore. I assumed he had left me behind and gone further with the angry mob. My heart picked a faster pace, adrenaline racing through me as I unclasped my hands from my ears and began to run foward, my wobbly legs suddenly getting the strength and power to go further, to make sure my brother was safe.
"Kill everyone killable! Kill everyone killable! Destroy them! Shed their blood! Fight till your last breath! Sacrifice yourself for a good cause! For the right of our mother land and the children in it! Kill! Our fellow youths didn't deserve to die!"
The screams, terror, bang and yells tore right into my head, but I ignored them. I continued to run as fast as my tired legs could carry me. Sweat dripped down my body faster, my breathing became heavy and ragged, my joints and every single bone in my body throbbing hard and painfully, and at a point I felt like flinging myself on the road to be stepped on till death.
I forced my head to remain straight up as I tried so hard not to let my eyes dropped to those writhing in pain on the ground, the blood that now soaked into the road, Nigeria swallowing in the blood of her own people.
This shouldn't be, this should not be!
I chanted in my head continiously, feeling the tears sprint down my blurred eyes and onto my face. Lives were being destroyed, the innocent were being killed. I let the tears out freely, and the moment I caught the sight of a familiar figure in the drowning crowd, running at such a fast speed - I let my voice break into the deafening noise as I began to yell.
"Mayowa! Mayowa! Mayowa!"
He continued to run foward, and I continued to scream his name out in anger. I am the elder brother, supposed to protect the younger one, I told myself as I continued to run after him, gliding through the crowd and shoving some people off my way. I needed to save him.
As I caught up with him and firmly wrapped my tight against his bony wrist, anger devoured me whole, almost blinding me as I tried to calm my already tense body.
"Se o ti ya were ni?!" I yelled in our native language, my eyes fixed on the panting boy before me - his eyes rolling wide and angrily. I ignored the sudden feeling of relief that washed over me, then I began to drag him back toward the direction I had come from, back into the crowd and away from the soldiers and I was only able to drag him some feets away when he snatched himself out of my grip and started to run back toward the death zone.
"Mayowa!"
Terror washed over me and without hesitating, I began to run after him with full speed, calling out to him at the top of my lungs.
Mayowa was barely able to make it to the front of the crowd when the soldiers began to spray again. The loud boom and bangs of the gun was deafening and for a moment or two I felt my ears grow numb, my eyes wide in terror as I watched my little brother, my baby, the one I once watched sleep and grow launch his body forward and toward the soldiers with other crowds that angrily tried to fight their way to getting to those killers.
And I watched. The noise was deafening, the sound were ear numbing. My heart thumped faster with fear, and right before my very own eyes, I watched him, Mayowa Akingbade, the last born of my widowed mother, my maàmi's joy. I watched him, my baby brother slumped back with the crowd that had been sprayed. Blood continued to splash nonstop on my face.
I awaited with blurred eyes and aching heart, I awaited his body to finally touch the ground, I wished the soldiers would stop aiming their guns at him, them. I wished the bullet would stop coming but they never did. And then slowly, like in the slow pace of a slow motion in a movie - Mayowa's limp body finally hit the ground and he remained still, his body looking lifeless, his back pressed against the road with face looking up. His eyes were open, his face void of any emotions.
"Maami! Maàmi! Maàmi!"
The yell was pained, coming right from the button of my aching heart. The pain was unbearable, the tears were uncontrollable. My heart was throbbing, my heart was aching, my heart was bleeding. He was gone, Mayowa was gone. He was lifeless, with the crowd stomping over his body as they reached out for the soldiers, each and every one of them slumping back with an empty body, no soul.
I began to hiccup in tears, I continued to scream out my pains. Tears and liquid were racing down every hole in my body. But they weren't enough to comprehend the pain I felt eat me up on the inside. I had no idea how I was going to face maàmi again without her joy following after me.
It was my fault, my fault!
Slowly, I took small steps toward his limp body, my chest heaving in and out as I got pushed and shoved about by the crazy crowd that managed to shove me onto my knees. My body went numb as the people trashed on me in order to reach the law enforcers and then, with determination in my heart I picked myself up and limped toward the body of my brother who layed there light as a feather, stiff as a board. Reaching out to hold his bloody body into mine, I cuddled his body into me and then I let the tears pour freely. Mayowa truly was gone.
"O boy!" a rough hand reached out to roughly tilt my face up, and when I looked up to stare at the familiar blood shot man I had once tagged as mentally deranged. The man was leaning into me with a scowl on his face, his gaze burning with rage as he spoke on. "Dey don kill this fine bobo? This boy still buy bread for me last night, he nice o." His eyes were fixed on the limp body of my brother and I almost saw them glint with tears as he raised them up to meet my eyes, he said - his words striking my heart. "Brother, he don go be that o. Tears no go help anything. You better get up and fight now. You better get up and fight for this your fine bobo!"
His words at first had no meaning to me, but when he patted my back twice and then proceeded toward the soldiers fearlessly - I realized I needed to do something. I needed to.
Taking one last glance at the face of my brother, his opened eyes still up at the sun. I ran my bloody palm over his face, gently closing his eyes and then I launched myself up, suddenly feeling different and filled with rage and anger that had been fueled by the numbing pain.
Burning rage hissed through my body like deathly poison, screeching a demanded release in the form of unwanted violence. It was like a volcano erupting; fury sweeping off me like ferocious waves. The wrath consumed like, engulfing my moralities and destroying the boundaries of loyalty - I launched myself foward with the rest of the wild crazy crowd. Heels to heels with the man who had changed my mind. I was crazy too, crazy like the crowd, and I enjoyed the craziness.
Taking a quick glance at the scorching sun - I felt the tears once again cascade down my face. My brother was gone and I could do nothing to bring him back.
"You go kill us finish?! You dey kill your citizens?! Nigeria soldiers!"
I followed after the crowd, the tears gushing down my face as I continued to propel forward against the flood of drowning people. The ones before me, in the lead, flying back as dead youths - I heard, behind me, the voices of women crying and wailing, energetically recharging me.
I charged forward, along with the other men and almost immediately a sharp sting spreads across my torso as the bullets forcefully drilled holes into me, the pain weighing me down and causing my body into becoming too heavy for my legs, the pain tending to overpower me as I stood rooted in a spot.
I could instantly feel the tears pricking hard against my eyes and I allowed my senses to slowly fail me - my vision became blurred and blank, my heart began to thump faster against my rib cage. The scream, yells and cries slowly began to get tuned out. I could still hear them, but they sounded far away. I felt my feets and hands suddenly get cold and numb, the tingling sensation delivering to my brain a odd feeling and just as I slumped back and into the hard ground - I saw the blood seeping out of my body, saw the souls of the unjustly killed weeping loudly, saw Mayowa once again in the midst of the crowd, charging forward at the soldiers but unable to do a thing, and then I felt someone leaning into me - a dark figure, roughly shaking my body. My lips were moving, but even I myself couldn't hear my hoarse, sobbing voice.
"Oga, you dey talk something? Oga. . ."
The voice was sad, broken, laced with sobs and anger, and when I looked around us, on the bloodied road - I saw them, those unjustly killed, already making their way down another path. I tilted my neck to the left and right, tears painfully pouring down my face as I sighted the blood on the road.
Nigeria soaked up her people's blood. Nigeria killed her own future.
Arise o' compatriots
We did just that.
Nigeria calls obey
To serve our father's land, with love and strength and faith. . .
We get massacred just for trying to do just that.
To build a nation where peace, and justice shall rain. . .
Where is the justice?
We tried to bring peace, but we get killed.
Bullet rained, blood splashed, parents weeped, youths died, the future dies, we get killed. Where is our justice? We want our justice? God bring justice upon us. Where is the reward for the youths wasted? Where is our justice?
It was supposed to be peaceful, we were happy, for once we were one all standing together as a happy nation. We wanted good governance, we wanted joy for our mothers, we wanted a brighter future for our youths. But why kill off the future of Nigeria? Why destroy the happiness and love of our nation.
"Where is our justice. . .?"
Dedicated to all those youths who lost their lives unjustly on the 20/10/2020. . . RIP.
Please share this, spread the word and pray for Nigeria.
STOP KILLING OUR YOUTHS!