Dreams Ablaze

DREAMS ABLAZE

I just came back from reading in the common room on a Sunday morning when I heard my roommates discuss something with passion. My roommates always had topics and ideas to discuss and they always do with passion but this was different; I could see tears roll down Anne’s face as she talked and Tomi shake her head and talk fervently in her Sunday’s best. I didn’t know what to make of the situation. I had been happy coming from the common room, glad I had taken some time to study before church service in the afternoon.

‘What’s going with on with you guys?’ I asked, and I was ignored.

Silently leaving them to the conversation and expecting them to calm down soon, I went over to my wardrobe and picked out a dress to wear to church. As I was about ironing the dress, I got details of the conversation.

‘How can they treat humans like that?’ Anne asked, in a breaking voice.

‘What really happened?’ I asked again, and this time I got a response.

‘Four of Port Harcourt university students were murdered.’ Tomi replied.

‘What! What did they do?’ I asked in conversation, as I started ironing my dress.

‘Just watch the video.’ Anne said, as she handed me her blackberry phone.

Playing the video and watching as I ironed, I saw as four young men were being paraded naked by villagers, hitting them with logs of wood, stones flying in… I took a deep breath as I paused the video for a moment. This wasn’t a fictional movie; even in movies they have the courtesy of not showing this much violence with stark nudity. The dramatic theme of violence and nudity didn’t bother me much as the fact that this was reality; the boys being paraded and beaten to their death were someone else brothers and sons.

My phone rang, it was my Dad. I answered it and I tried to talk to him in as much normal tone as I could mutter. I knew he hadn’t heard the news of my fellow university students, albeit students from different schools that were murdered, and I didn’t want him to be worried. He called just to check on me and was thinking if he should come to see me during the week. I abhorred the notion, which he did not counter; he later wished me the best as I dropped the call, with a nauseating feeling. Where did this feeling come from? The video or the conversation I just had?

I took another deep breath and I ventured further. I played the video once again, pausing my ironing. As I watched, I saw a man raise a log of wood to hit the four young men that sprawled naked on the ground. ‘Can’t they fight back?’ you might want to ask, but the four boys lay helplessly on the ground not even trying to cover their manhood. Boys who didn’t care again that they were naked. They had reached that point, where all they cared for now was that their lives should be spared. What possibly could the boys have done that made men like themselves rip them off the gift of life…?

I paused to stop the video for a brief moment again, trying so hard to contain myself. I was determined to see the video to an end even though it was a sight that I never wished to see again. There was no pleasure in seeing men behave like animals and ripping a fellow human of the right to life in such a degrading manner but I just could not bring myself to live in suspense of whether the boys got mercy or not.

I continued with my ironing and joined in the conversation, attempting to get the images of those boys screaming in pain out of my head, but all was in vain.

‘Where is this place exactly? This can’t be the university campus,’ I asked, pointing in the direction of the phone.

‘It’s the Aluu village near the university campus’ Anne replied, now calmer. ‘I heard they

stole some laptops and phones’

‘And they took laws into their hands?’ I asked with my hand tightened around the iron, pressing the dress hard.

‘You don’t know people of that area, they are very wicked people, animals! That’s what they are’ Anne said, shaking her head.

I’ve always hated tribalism talks anywhere it was been discussed. When an area or people are being judged by the behaviors of a few members I get irritated and I might have defended this people if Anne hadn’t been from the area too. I pride myself to be a Nigerian and human only, tribes didn’t matter neither did religion; as long as you are with people, you treat them with the love and respect they deserve- my mother drummed that into me and that’s what I’ve become: a person with no sentiments against anyone excluding the government.

‘How much could those laptops have cost that would make them to be treated and killed like that? I can’t wish that on my worst enemy.’ Tomi said, gesticulating with her hands on her bed.

‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

‘Just this past Friday’ Tomi replied.

‘Have you seen the video?’ I asked her

‘No! I only saw a picture on Facebook. Ha! You want me to lose my mind? I already have nightmares from the picture I saw. How could people be so cruel to burn people alive? You don’t even burn animals alive!’

‘They burnt them alive?!’

‘I take it you’ve not finished seeing the video’

‘About to…’

And there again, I played the video with shaking hands - the video showing the four boys still lying helplessly and the legs of people around. How could people stay there and watch something like that happen? I asked myself. A gruesome murder of four university students and yet, they stood there watching- men, women, not even thinking that one of those boys could easily have been a relative. I saw as blood gushed out the face of one; ‘Ugonna’ Anne had said that was his name. A man in jeans trousers without the video catching his face brought some tires and placed them around their necks, and in turn poured petrol on them.

I watched as one pleaded, before the man with the log hit him on his head and bam! He was gone; his lifeless body lying on the ground and a tire around his neck for a pillow to the heavens. The video also showed as the one who was said to be Ugonna mutter something, a last prayer perhaps or even a prayer of hope that he gets out of that situation or a prayer of a merciful death rather than the barbaric one he was being subjected to.

I wondered what could be going on in their minds. Did they even care about the dinner they were supposed to have that evening or even the GPA for the semester? Or the dreams they nurtured in their hearts that had driven them to pursue a university education; the dream of a better life, a better Nigeria or perhaps the dream of being fathers to children one day.

Just as I wondered about their dreams, I watched them being set ablaze with their dreams. I heard the shouts of horror that still haunt me till now. I saw one of them try to escape with the fire on his body and the video stopped. Did the boy escape? Or did the wicked soul that helped shoot the video joined in chasing down the boy? I thought within myself.

A lot of scenarios rolled up in my head as tears rolled down my face. What possibly could those boys have done to deserve something as horrific as that meted out to them? And who on earth are these people? When did humanity degenerate to this level? I kept thinking, as I silently mourn the boys whose bodies were now burnt beyond recognition, boys whose hopes and faiths could not save them; the same boys who must have questioned humanity with their last thought.

As I dressed up for church, a lot of debates were still going on about the issue in my room and everyone there were against it; the one time my roommates would unanimously agree over something even though I wished it was on something better.

A lot of stories started springing up; Stories about some other people that had been victims of angry and inhuman mobs. One told of a story of two friends walking on a Lagos street one day, and one of them jokingly called the other a thief and in a twinkle of an eye, alarm had been raised by a fellow pedestrian that the young man was a thief. Before the friend could protest the misinformation, an angry mob had captured him, beaten and set him ablaze; not even his friend’s tearful plea delivered him of the injustice.

As I listened, I ached. I mused on how I had jokingly called my friends thieves in the boarding house because they had played Oliver Twist. I also thought about the friends and families of the boys who had been unjustly given an inhumane death. Those could have been my brothers, I thought, they could have been anyone’s.

I pondered on the incident and the very video I saw as I sat on one of the pews in church and my prayers were intense and at the same time confused. Should I have prayed for the repose of the souls of the young 19 years old boys murdered in their prime? Should my prayers be directed towards hope for a better governmental system who takes the security of its citizens more serious; just like the four boys must have one time prayed for? Or should I have prayed for the regeneration of humanity as a whole? I was confused and I still am.