A Short True Story on the state of security in Nigeria The night was cold and I was running in a dark alley somewhere in Surulere, my Man United Tee shirt was drenched in sweat; I looked behind me and the masked man with the Hatchet was close on my heels, closing the gap with every step. I remembered my brothers telling me how good a sprinter I was, though this was twenty years ago, then they always encouraged me to represent Nigeria in the Olympics as they so much believed I could beat Carl Lewis in a 100 metre race; I bet they will be biting their tongues if they could see me now. I looked ahead and saw the faint outline of a police officer with an assault rifle in hand running towards me from the far end of the alley, my heart skipped a beat, as the situation seems dire, it was like being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea; before I could decide on my next move, the policeman corked his G3. I dodge, docked and turned; then from a distance I heard the sound of a gunshot, within moments I felt a piercing pain on the side of my head. I woke up in a cold sweat to the shrilling sound of my alarm clock; thank God it was only a dream; this was one of many nightmares I have been having in the past days. I hit the snooze button on the Oregon scientific radio controlled clock that had served me well for the past ten years but now always seem to be five minutes late since I relocated back to Lagos from the UK two years ago. The room was quiet, only for the low humming sound coming from the electric motor of the Air conditioner unit hung high just below the ceiling in my bedroom. I rolled to the other side of the bed, the memory mattress felt soft and comfortable; I cursed, thinking why the Federal government cannot declare today a Bank holiday, my head was thudding and I had muscle pains all over, it felt like I completed the whole programme of ‘insanity’ the night before. The next shrilling sound from my bedside clock now got me wide awake; I stopped the damn thing and reluctantly climbed off the bed. My feet felt the cold vinyl floor I recently had installed in the bedroom some weeks before, I felt dazed and had this throbbing headache; my cheeks felt heavy like it had a giant meatball stuck into it with superglue. I sluggishly and drunkenly walked to the bathroom where I ran cold water in a bucket, I felt really rough; I looked in the mirror and what I saw scared the living daylight out of me, for a moment I wanted to grab the intercom and call the estate security; the face I saw is far from the handsome face I am so used to seeing every morning, the stranger staring back at me had Blood-red shot eyes, with a swollen jaw and cheeks which reminded me of a photograph I saw in the Punch of Spinks after the fight with Mike Tyson in 1988. I heard someone banging at the gate and I looked at the clock on my bathroom wall, it showed 6.23am, I limped back to the bedroom and looked through the window to see who could be disturbing my peace at this time of the morning. Just at that moment, the memory of what happened the night before came flooding back... To be continued
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 10:04:12 +0000
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