*I don’t know the kind of country I found myself in. I just can’t deny my citizenship anymore. I am already born here and that’s something I have to battle with🙈.

Even if I were to claim my citizenship elsewhere I believe that my race would still have it glaring that I am from a part of the world called Africa and a country called Nigeria.

I won't call it bad-mouthing but the truth be told this country is becoming a mess as we count ourselves to be developing. Corruption, embezzlement, selfishness, and bad governance have eaten up to the core of this country. To fight against this, there is a need for some sacrifice to be made.

I believe we all have our rights as citizens and we have the freedom to some level as citizens of the country. But many times we get accused of our rights and get trampled upon which most times leads to disagreements and conflicts amongst ourselves.*

Image sourced from canva and edited on canva app

This would take me to the hive learners prompt of week 45 edition 3 and the topic to be discussed is ABSENCE OF RIGHTS.

We have different types of rights as humans and as citizens of a country. Some of these are the rights to life, rights to freedom, right to equal treatment before the law, right to privacy, the right to religion, and the right to marry and have a family.

All of these mentioned above are our rights as citizens of a country and these rights shouldn’t be trampled upon by anyone, be it the federal government, state governments, lawmakers, or individuals.

I would be majoring in how I got trampled upon one of my rights as a citizen.

RIGHT TO PRIVACY.

I believe we all have our privacy and we should be able to respect other people’s privacy too. Privacy is something you cannot enforce people to unveil. It’s a choice that they have to make on their own.

Nigeria has been a country tagged with a lot of bad vices like fraud, robbery, kidnapping, and many more. So many times it is so hard to differentiate between innocent people and the victims of these acts. Since it’s not written on our forehead that this man is a kidnapper, or this man is a fraudster.

Some may even appear as decent as possible, and out of their decency is just a trick to get their bad act done on a low key.

How I got trampled upon my right by a policeman

There was a day we were traveling to Lagos. We already journeyed a long distance and also got closer to our destination. But all of a sudden we got arrested by a police officer. He signaled to the other policemen and asked dad to park his car.

What could be the problem here? I asked myself.

Dad alighted the car and tried speaking with the officer. He was adamant about his words and kept pointing at us in the car. I was shocked to have seen him point at us 😂. The next thing that happened was dad signaling us to come out of the car. We got out of the car and moved closer to the policeman.

He asked for our devices. I felt reluctant to give it to him at first. Why would he have to ask for our phones here? What right does he have to check on my phone?

My brother handed his phone over to him. He held the phone, looked at it, and told my brother to unlock it for him. 😂. At this point, I knew something was going wrong. My brother unlocked it for him and he was about to start operating it. The funniest part was that he wasn’t able to even open the menu because he couldn’t navigate my brother’s phone settings. After several trials, he gave his phone back to him. 😂

He stretched his hand for mine. I am using an iOS device. He was positive about catching me for fraud. He opened some apps, and scrolled up and down but could find anything suspicious. He checked my device gallery and scrolled through all my pictures. I don’t know what he is trying to find but still couldn’t find anything suspicious. He nodded his head and looked at the directions where my dad was standing. He couldn’t find him there again. 😂

My dad already got in the car and waved to us to get in, we got in the car and zoomed off. That was so annoying after my dad already told him and tried to convince him that we are not the kind of people he thought we are.

I am sure many others must have one or two experiences about being trampled upon by the forces or government agencies or even people in the higher-ups. I hope someday we will be free from being trampled upon our rights.

Thanks so much for reading…