My name is Yeni and I am no better than a terrorist, you see, I harbour a deep sated hatred for those people. Terrorists. Cowards. Men who hide behind religion to commit violence. Men who hide behind religion to take lives. Their crimes are of different grades. Some force themselves between the legs of females, dangling a useless weapon, some take lives, they kill children, they kill mothers and worse they kill women with another life in them. The worst kind of terrorists are the chaff of humanity, those who strap explosives to their bodies, who rig their cars with explosives, who die in cowardice and take brave men with them. I call them brave because the people that die from suicide bomb blasts are the average people most times. The ones who brave the world to fend for their loved ones and themselves. The masses.
The father of four lovely children on his way from work who happened to be behind the coward, the mother of two in a ‘danfo’ bus who happened to be suckling one and ‘lapping’ the other.
The pregnant woman selling ‘boli’ by the road side.
The only breadwinner for his extended family who happened to be controlling traffic, my brother who happened to be on his way from work.
They are brave people, though they died. Yes, they died. It was a coward that killed them. He ran into the middle of a busy road in Lagos and ‘offed’ himself. ‘Allahu akbar’ were the words that tumbled out of his mouth.
The newly widowed mother of four did not know what to tell her children, especially her daughter who had been promised a new doll by her ‘daddy’.
‘Mummy when will daddy come with my doll?’
The young bereaved man who had lost his family with the simple action of cowardice.
The traffic warden who became ‘pink mist.’
His casket was empty at burial, there was nothing left. Not his black leather shoe which his son polished every morning, and which shone in the sunlight, reflecting its golden rays.
Not his well starched uniforms whose ‘gators’ stood proud against the wind.
And not even his cap, with the proud insignia of the Nigerian Police Force in its centre. Nothing remained, nothing was left. He was there and then he wasn’t, his shadow never had any warning.
He never blew his traffic whistle again.
But all these are not my concern, my brother is. My parents were long dead and my memory of them fizzled to a few hazy scenes. My brother brought me up. He was much older than me, and he was a father and mother to me. I remember so much and I miss him much more. From my days as a gangly toddler to my current period of late teenage years.
He was taken away from me, his fiance wept, but I couldn’t weep. Hatred consumed me, when his burial came, I did not shake, anger motivated me.
When his bier was lowered, I finally broke, as his contorted twisted face receded from my view.
Yes his face was contorted, and yes he did not smile in death. What was there to smile for, when he died a slow miserable death, cleaved into half by his own car, lying on the hot, heated and angry tarred road, his lifeblood being drunk lustily by the earth, groaning, trying to crawl to safety, but wedged by his own car. His car killed him, just like his fellow country man killed him.
Someone who sang the same national anthem with him, who saluted the same flag, who recited the same pledge. Who had the same passport, that man killed him. For a cause that had no cause. A reason that had no reason. He killed him.
These days, I think I am crazy, I imagine my brother’s last moment, the mortican had tried to relax his face, to shape his lips into a smile, but he had failed, ‘rigor mortis’ won. Even my brother’s body had denied him a peaceful look at death.
And then came the anger, the revenge, the killings, the deaths.
My country was thrown into chaos, no one obeyed the call, no one served their fatherland, we destroyed the labor of our heroes past. We made it in vain. We served with hearts and mind our vengeful, murderous intent. Our nation was not bound in freedom, peace and unity were killed and maimed.
After the Boko Haram attack on the South, Nigeria bled, our streets were red, and the liquid that kept humans alive was spilled from the Northerners, in short;
The man died.
I partook in it. When they came to my area, to my street, I partook in it. I did not hold a matchete, but I pointed out where my neighbours: Zainab and her family were hiding, I did not kill them but I watched the matchete descend. I watched Zainab’s head fall, I watched Mr Ahmed’s hands stop shaking, I watched as Mrs Ahmed’s chest stopped moving. I watched the entire family fall.
Their faces were contorted, I picked up Zainab’s head after, I tried to relax her face into a smile, but it was stiff.
Rigor mortis, Mr Bala had told us in Biology class, he was dead too, I wondered if he thought of Rigor Mortis as he breathed his last. I wondered how death must have felt, in a ‘danfo’ bus, lynched by his ‘compatriots’.
And the human in me died. That day, as the men fled from Zainab’s house and as I walked back to mine.
Lagos was under ‘Emergency rule’, everywhere there was a community of Northerners, blood was spilled, some of them fought back, but they were simple men, farmers, headers, grocerers, they were annihilated.
And Nigeria was diffracted.
As I write this, I have filled the bath tub, and I have put on my brother Tunde’s favorite song, Asa’s voice croons in her smoky voice ‘Fire On The Mountain’ from a modern gramophone. I will drop the pen now and shed my clothing, I will climb in and put my head down.
And I will die. I will silence Zainab’s accusing eyes, empty, devoid of light.
I will forget the tremor in Mr. Ahmed’s hands, and then I will die.
I will not hear my phone ringing, will not see the caller ID, I will be dead and gone.
And I will not find out how Nigeria will end up, but for its sake, I hope all the monsters die. Like I will die. And then just like our anthem says, peace and justice will reign.
#StoriesFromMyNotes