VICTIMS OF A FAILED SOCIETY -Revised Edition
This story, gives an insight into what happens in some communities in Nigeria and Africa in general.
Inspired by the immense love displayed by a Danish Humanitarian aid worker, Anja Ringgren Loven, who in 2016 rescued a starving and dying toddler accused of being a witch and left in the streets to die. This happened in one of the communities in South-East, Nigeria.
It is often said that nothing is more resilient than a persons will to live.
My name is Elliot, despite still being traumatized and persistently haunted by my past and horrific encounters, I still didn’t lose the will to live as I courageously strived through each day at a time, not minding the inherent challenges or the perceived obstacles as I honestly did my best to live upright.
Before this day and the event that left me in this state, the desire to be free at whatever cost from all my struggles and sufferings first occupied my thoughts a few months back but my conscience fought it.
If my memory serves me right, that day I had been under the sun for so long and was dehydrated. My tongue and throat craved dearly for water and sticking out my tongue I could see the dryness with my tired eyes. It was as if my salivary glands were dysfunctional or had been surgically removed, as my tongue was as dry as the hot asphalt on which my bare feet stood.
Ironically, on the day in question, bottled water was what I sold, but I couldn’t quench my craving desire with it because it was an immense luxury for a person of my existence.
That notwithstanding, I was also famished and exhausted from the inhuman way in which I was eking out a living, which required that I ran after moving vehicles.
In fact, anyone would have mistaken me for a training athlete competing with fast moving vehicles in preparation for the Olympics, but I was no athlete. I was just a fourteen years old boy, broken in every sense of life and despite life’s misgivings, I was still determined to live right, so I took to the trade of selling consumables to travellers in moving vehicle (Highway hawking). A very dangerous trade for anybody not to mention a boy my age.
Suddenly and semi-unconsciously, against my will, I sat down and rested for about five minutes which seemed like half an hour from my imaginary time piece and because I couldn’t bear to watch the vehicles ply off without attempting a sale, I quickly jumped to my feet and got busy again, knowing that night was fast falling and I needed to finish the sale, else I wouldn’t be able to settle the man who sureties me before the goods are released to me and despite my hard knock life, he never cared, his entitlement must be paid whether or not I finish my sales.
I was exploited in every aspect of life and that day, in spite of my efforts and struggles, sales were damn too poor. That was the day my mind was made up about crime and patiently I waited for an opportunity.
Well, that was my daily routine, and that was my life then because nothing was going to take me back to that Hell which I once knew and escaped from or back to the world where my biological parents first labeled me a wizard and rejected me, and then the church and eventually my community, before I was finally ostracized and abandoned at the shrine of a spiritual healer (a witch doctor) with my legs shacked around the ankles, just like the other to prevent me from escaping.
The witch doctor’s camp was crowded by both the healthy and some mentally challenged people, little children of all ages included, as well as new born babies brought in by single mothers (young girls and prostitutes) who couldn’t afford illegal abortions or stand the shame of keeping their babies born out of wedlock. These innocent babies were also labeled witches and were either sold or abandoned at the home of the spiritualist.
For the little ones and the babies, it was a pitiable scene, totally inhuman and unspeakable, especially when they cried, as a concoction was occasionally forced down their throats, which keeps them quiet. This leaves them in almost a permanent sleep state and prevents them from drawing unwanted attention to the already isolated camp.
My community was a place where innocent children were labeled witches and then blamed for the misfortunes of their families, such as poverty, sicknesses and even deaths before being ostracized into the home of death of the blook thirsty spiritualist.
In the dead of the night, the healing shrine becomes a human market, as vehicles, exotic and rickety ones, conveying cannibals, ritualists and power seeking individuals (clergy men and politicians) flocked to the shrine for human parts, whole bodies or other spiritual solutions.
Our numbers grew during the day and shrunk at night. Our only crime being that we were labeled witches by those who should love, fend and protect us. The very people who brought us into the world condemned us to death for no justifiable reason.
I remember the night I escaped, the spiritualist himself gazed at me with the bush lamp thinking I was tired, weak and fast asleep and as soon as he removed the locks on my ankles, I smashed the bush lamp at him, setting him ablaze in the process, and as he screamed for help from his evil accomplices and workers, I dived into the bush and got lost in the forest and immediately a hunt party was sent after me but I took cover where no living human with a sane mind would think of.
I took cover in the same shallow pit I probably would have ended up. A pit where the remains of other butchered victims were dumped. The stench was choking and the sight was terrifying but I needed to survive so I had to endure. From the pit, I could hear their frustrating voices and one assured the others that I wouldn’t survive in the wood and that I was young, inexperienced, starving and weak and in a matter of 48 hours, I would be dead. Well, other hunters agreed with him because shortly afterwards the hunt was over.
Afraid, shaking and vomiting, I crawled out about 40 minutes later and was lucky to have located a nearby pond where I washed off and continued my journey to no-where.
For three long days I wandered in the forest, feeding on fresh leaves and fruits, until I finally found a path which led me to civilization, a tarred road; and as I walked down hoping to find absolute life, normalcy and some sanity, I walked into some heavy duty vehicle drivers who all had their vehicles parked by the road side, while patiently waiting for a suspected robbery activity happening upfront to cease. “What a life, what a country,” I said to myself. I couldn’t even tell them my ordeal as I didn’t know who to trust.
Eventually the drivers were ready to move. I quickly stowed away in one of the vehicles and after many long hours of travelling, we arrived in Delta State, Warri, with my resilience and will to survive unwavering and a strong desire to start a new life.
I had nowhere to call my home so I lived on the streets during the day and took shelter at night in the empty markets. That was the biggest and safest shelter we all had as I wasn’t alone. There were others, many younger than I am, and we were all homeless. Days came and went by and so did nights but the nights were always sinister. Drugs, sex, guns, robberies, rape and often times murder.
On my second night, I made a friend by name Joshua. He was popularly called Google Map and oftentimes cautions, hey hey hey sleep deep and wake in hell. About 11 years of age, Google Map was said to be the oldest vagrant in the ghetto, knowing every nook and cranny in the town like the back of his hands which earned him the name Google Map.
Rumours had it that he fled an orphanage at the age of four. Some others claim that he fled from the home of his foster parents who were maltreating him.
Joshua was making a living by protecting traders’ stores at night and you may want to ask: What’s wrong with humanity? Who saddles a kid with that kind of responsibility, exposes him to the nights’ dangers and heads off to proper shelter without having a pricked conscience? Well, welcome to the other side of the world. Here, Joshua and his kinds were the little guardians of the night. Burglars dare not trespass stores under Joshua’s watch. Or they would be hunted down by both Joshua’s gang and the police.
Months rolled by and so did our never ending tough times.
A day came and we eventually got tired of living like rats and so we planned a heist. Having known the market and its routines, we knew that Saturday sales were not moved to the bank until Monday, so hoping that Sunday would give us ample time to disappear, we broke into the market’s cash centre around midnight on Saturday and just a few minutes into the robbery we were besieged by the police, with sirens blaring, heavy gun shots going off and bullets hitting at us from all directions. At that point in time, it became apparent, that one of our own must have betrayed us, because this was a system we knew so well. We even rolled with the police.
I took a bullet in the back which affected my spine, but my dear friend Google Map lost his life on that fateful day as he took one in the head.
Unfortunately and against my will I survived and here I am, still living, paralyzed, pained and yet abandoned in another inhuman institution devoid of love and care, only this time, it is owned by the government who has constantly failed to protect the most vulnerable people in the society. Yet they are keeping me in my broken state so I can be tried for my crimes when I become of age.
I am just one victim of a failed society, there are many more like me and our numbers are increasing by the day.
Twice I have escaped the jaws of death yet the life afterwards remains miserable conquering my will to live and now I can say with certainty that it was ill luck for me to have survived twice. This is my story, this is where it ends and this is where I end.
Elliot, now suicidal, slides off the balcony of the facility, falling to his death.
The Original Edition was authored by me on steemit 5 months ago.
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