During my NYSC last year in Adamawa State, our CDS group visited a prison.
Till today, I genuinely don’t think I’ve recovered from what I saw there.
We went there with good intentions. We carried detergents, food items and other little things we thought would help them. The plan was simple talk to the inmates, encourage them, advise them and remind them that life could still change for the better.
The moment we entered the prison compound, the atmosphere changed completely.
One of the officers told us to drop all our phones inside a small office before going further. At first I didn’t think much of it, but the moment that door closed behind us, I started feeling uncomfortable. The silence inside that place was not normal.
As we approached, the officers ordered them to come out and sit on the floor for us. Around 70 of them slowly walked out and sat quietly without making noise.
Most of them were very young. Maybe around 21 to 28 years old. Boys that looked like they should still be in school or hustling outside trying to survive life.
But what shocked me first was their appearance.
Almost all of them looked extremely skinny. Their hair was completely barbed low to the point where you could clearly see the shape of their skulls. Not normal skinny… the kind that makes you uncomfortable when you look too long.
Then I noticed an old man sitting among them.
@flowzki You can never fully know a person by interacting with them virtually.
You have to engage them physically to see beyond the facade they put on before interacting with you online.
Anyone doing LDR is probably just wasting his her time.
I went to secondary school in Barkin Ladi 20 years ago. This is what SS1 - 3 boys were doing, night shifts in the blistering cold. I did it too. My mates in Oyo were sleeping or studying. I’ve watched this shit deteriorate in real time.
Barkin Ladi now looks nothing like it did when I graduated 14 years ago. I went to the same junction we used to buy stuff during outings last year & I was shaking. They don’t speak the same language. Crisis after crisis. Slowly, the people who used to till those lands are now doing menial jobs in the south. The names of the villages have changed. The senator representing that region was killed few days after I graduated when he attended a mass funeral of people who were massacred by the Fulanis who now occupy their homes. 14 years ago guys.
Trying to raise awareness about this state-backed conquest feels like screaming under water.
Few months ago, my aunt in mangu came to ask for money to trade cause she can’t farm anymore. Their farms were attacked 3 years ago. They wouldn’t dare go back.
For more than 10 years, we’ve had internally displaced persons from Borno living in our house, after my mother took them in. They only go back to their so-called homes for funerals. 3 brilliant kids; Elizabeth, Margaret and Grace (named after my now late mother for her benevolence). The dad does security work, the mom cleans. Who knows what they could’ve made of themselves back home? I do, they’d have been compost for aliens.
It always starts small then it spirals out of control. We’ve seen all kinds of terror. I wish they just came and shot people but that’s not fun enough. Bullets are for runners. They’ll slice pregnant women open to kill their fetuses. They’ll feed women their kid’s fingers. They burn people alive, hack them with machetes. When people try to defend themselves, that’s when soldiers come in. They call it farmer-herder clashes. They say cattle was rustled. Cattle was rustled? That’s why you renamed my village and put 200 people in a mass grave ?
I remember @YarKafanchan saying that she wept after the 2015 elections cause she knew her people would die like flies & then what happened in southern kaduna? When people talk, they say where’s the evidence? But what about the bodies? Dying is a morbid thing to be skilled at but boy, we have experience.
We’ve seen “strategists” platform them and defend all manner of wrongdoing on the alter of political correctness.
Omoh, let me just stop here.
It is very important to understand that grace only shields you from eternal consequences, to wit hell fire.
However this doesn’t erase the consequences of what you committed on earth
David repented but his child still died.
The thief at the right hand repented but still died.
We live in an interesting time. Ordinarily, we are supposed to be celebrating grace because there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repent, than over 99 righteous people who have no need for repentance.
But the fact we see the church as a place where hoes come to retire and find husbands, and where men go to find easy sex, shows how far the church has fallen.
Knowing fully well that salvation offers redemption from sin and eternal life, but does not erase the past and its ripple effect, people are now intentional about avoiding Okafor and the trail of long held trauma. This tend to affect women more because for men, people would argue that rakes make the best husband. Chastity is preferred in women.
As Christians, where does on stand and how do you navigate this? People are saying they won't judge.....UNTIL you try becoming a member of their family. Legitimate position, but is that Christianly. Oh well🤷♂️
Perhaps, actions and consequences do override grace. One school of thought argues that if you do not punish bad behaviours, you amplify it and others will jump on it for lack of consequences. Another school supports this by saying that "at the time you were committing to this 'past' you knew exactly what you were doing, and knew it was wrong. Thus, you cannot then try to repaint it as inconsequential past, knowing fully well the effect stays with you."
It's a lot, but I'm just here to read responses and reactions.
There is no difference between giving excuses for this government and participating in the blood spilling of innocent Nigerians with these bandits. You are a bandit yourself.
Anyone supporting this government is capable of murdering you or giving your info out to bandits.
if you won $2.75 million from your first ever bet would you bid again?
this dude made $5.1 million bidding Newcastle win 2 days ago
becoming the 36th most profitable trader on PolyMarket
today he bid his entire ~5 million United States dollars on Man city win
if he’s right ~$13.3 million in 3 days
if he wrong, he’s back to ~$0
do you think he’ll win??
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks building Looters: a public archive of Nigerian political corruption since the 1990s.
Governors, ministers, shell companies, Swiss accounts, the Jersey trusts, — one searchable graph.
You too can connect the dots: https://t.co/faIfzWfAIp
You cannot rehabilitate a person that beheads a person.
You cannot rehabilitate someone that offs people for sport.
You cannot rehabilitate someone that kidnaps and rapes children.