I think of myself somewhere far away from home. The only comfort I have is in the midst of the few friends and colleagues around me. I’m filled with fear with each passing day in this forest where we are watched day and night by men with guns and grenades and leather whips. Some of my colleagues have been taken away. They won’t be coming back and the rest of us know this.
We are made to bathe and clean up in their presence. The shame, the humbling is as down to earth as can be. I see their lecherous stares on our ladies and the ominous sounds of their grins injure my ears. I can only guess the worse when I see the tears in their eyes whenever they are returned back to our enclosure some evenings. It sickens me, what I think they might have done to them.
When some of these mean guys go out of the forest on their bikes, I wish them death, that kind with bullets involved and by the hands of the ones who have sworn to protect us. I pray for this. Every time, I do. Somewhere in my heart, I am convinced my parent…our parents are doing the best they can to get us out of here. I do not know what is going on with my government but I have seen it in one or two foreign movies before, where they come and rescue the captured. I fill my head with this dream, this hope that I know may never materialize, but what is there to take my mind off the possibility of death in this place by the hands of these ones. My parents may never find me when I’m gone. Being in the same grave with friends and maybe strangers who had before, suffered this kind of dread I presently feel before their lives were cut short, terrifies the dead me while I’m still breathing.
Some days, I hear nothing but yells and the crack of whips. Other days I hear screams and sounds of sporadic gun shooting by these walking zombies. My God! These men are evil, sons of Beelzebub a.k.a the devil. We cannot even look at their faces – nobody wants to die. We are always seated on the clay with slouched shoulders, with our heads bowed. One ration of over boiled rice and two cups of water per day; this is how we are fed. Sometimes we are made to beg for our rations, and sometimes, with guns to our heads, we are made to wet ourselves with our excrements, so we don’t become the next to die.
They smile because of our pain and laugh themselves to tatters, amusing themselves with the look on our terrified faces. And till their high handed demands are met, we may not be leaving this place.
I cannot properly describe your horror. I wasn’t there. My fiction is a minute picture of your reality. I only saw you on television. I saw the tears of joy in the eyes of your parents and the emotional ones in your eyes. I could feel to an extent your relief but cannot say I felt same about your pain. I am sorry about what you were made to go through by my government’s lack of initiative. I am sorry Nigeria is herself in need of healing. I’m sorry. I am sorry for all you had to witness on the soil of the country you call home. I am sorry for the friends you lost and the fact that you’ll have to deal with this trauma for very long. I hope you find comfort in God and in family and friends in this trying time of yours.
To the recently released students of Greenfield University, Kaduna.
Stories & Other Awesome Reads 