I made the news today

 

- I'm not just another statistic

"My biggest dream is to get out of this small town which I have known all my life. I spent all my childhood living here in my grandfather's huge compound and the only times I got to leave was when we went into the neighbouring town on market days.

You see, my family works on a large cassava farm. It's a plantation that belongs to a chief in our village, but for decades my family has taken pride in grooming the crops to finesse and ensuring the turnover is good. It was from this job that my grandfather made enough money which he used to start his own farm, and now it belongs to my father. Or rather, belonged.

-The other news 

We first heard it on the radio that they had invaded the neighbouring state and people fled with barely what was left of their lives, and it was absolutely terrifying.

The Fulani herders are ruthless. That was when I was just eight years old; I remember hearing the story of how they opened up a pregnant woman and threw her baby into a burning fire because her husband had tried to fight back. They said they laughed right as the baby turned into ash and the man wailed, watching his wife bleed to death.

That gruesome image haunted my dreams for so many weeks and like every other person living in my village, I came to fear the name of the invaders.

That was over 5 years ago, and this week, I finally had good news to bring home; I was going to school. I was selected because they said I was smart and a Honourable was sponsoring some children to school as a good deed because we were in the news for insecurity. I had no idea what that meant. The village head had included my name in the list of twenty that was sent.

Today was the happiest day of my life.

Then the ruckus started. We didn't hear it from the radio this time; they were more stealth. Yes, we heard they were on a rampage but it had been peaceful and the village head told my grandfather that they had been seen in a different part of the state, far away from us, we had presumed.

Yet now, everything was set on fire. It was burning and you know how fast things go when you're about to lose your life that you do not even realise you're about to die; this was it. One minute, our neighbour's wife was screaming with her wrapper flying and her hands thrown in the air. 

"They are coming. They are coming."

We heard it and my heart began to pound very fast. Our village had barely 50 buildings as it was on the outskirts and close to the farmlands which surrounded us, so we really had no where to run. We heard gunshots, but what we saw was different. 

We saw blood and intestines. And it was all so fast. My mother screamed at me to get behind her as she grabbed my little sister. My baby sister was yelling at the top of her voice as my father grabbed her and shoved her under the huge pot that had just been used to prepare our meal. Her scream was drowned in the pandemonium but the fear did not let her kick it open.

Then my mother, my sweet mother; she tried to run but was slashed across her neck. I have never seen blood splutter that way, not even when we killed the goats on the farm. We have the animals some form of dignity but my own mother was cut down and she was splayed like a chicken.

My father always took pride in me as his first son, and I knew it was in a moment like this that heroes were made. I should be a hero and fight back, but there I stood, rooted to the ground with my hands on my head as the shock went through me.

Then he saw me- my father. 

"Run! Run!"

I heard, and the adrenaline kicked in. I began to run, but not for long. I saw his face of the man who came for me; with a gash over his nose bridge and a crooked teeth as he raised his machete.

No, I didn't survive it.

And this is why I'm on the news; I'm one of the thirty nine people that the news speaks about.

It is a lie, you know, because we were at least a hundred dead when the rampage was over. My family perished in what you term a "community clash". My mother had her eyes wide open, with her head barely hanging on her neck and my baby sister was found, and murdered. They slashed open my father's skull and his brain seeped into the sand that was already wet with his blood.

They stabbed me sixteen times and slashed through my face and heart. They made sure the dead were dead. 

I made the news today, but it was just another story to you. 

I made the news today, and you would make the news soon also if you keep assuming it's never coming to you.

I made the news today and I saw my grave which is also the grave of every member of my village -a mass burial is what you call it- we perished today."

I made the news today, and it wasn't even breaking news."

'Siyah

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