THE FEAR OF DEATH IN THE SOUTHEAST By Anayo Nwosu

 

I had to cut short my family trip abroad to attend to very important functions in the East. My family didn’t like my decision, not even the family of Okey, my cousin would hear that he wanted to travel to the East in spite of the dreadful news of sporadic killings and kidnappings in the land of our birth. We have always traveled home during Christmas and New Year. It would have been “somehow” if we buckled because of fear or the news of people being killed by known but difficult to identify assailants in the East. But, not everyone is being killed, my cousin and I reasoned, then we set out.

I decided to drive myself. There was no way I would leave all the driving and road decision-making in the hands of my driver. I know that the timeliness and quality of driving decisions are directly proportional to the intelligence and the mental acuity of the person behind the wheels. I put on unassuming trainers that would allow me run freely if I needed to stop abruptly and dash into the bush. I shone my eyes and re-funneled my ears. My cousin in the front seat was like a co-pilot as we drove from Lagos to Nnewi.

“Ikenga, how dare you come home with this new SUV?” a well-wishing relative asked as if I wanted to commit suicide. That was how I parked the SUV in a hotel where I planned to hide and started moving around in a very old car, without air conditioner, provided by a friend. I would attend the functions that took me home, greeting as few people as possible and escaped before someone would tell someone that “he is here” and I would be caught like a Xmas chicken. Every relation was a suspect or a suspected informant. That is how bad it is now. That I killed had 2 cows for my kinsmen and gifted some bags of rice to a score of my relatives during Xmas was no cover or protection. It used to be but not anymore.

The most painful aspect is that I didn’t visit my house, a well built and well furnished duplex. My cousin didn’t also go warm his beautiful house. If any of us tried that, we feared that people would know that we were home and would squeal about our location. We didn’t want to take that kind of risk. So, we imprisoned ourselves in our hotel rooms until we were ready to return to Lagos.

Done with our key mission at home, we were set to leave for Lagos first thing the next morning. Driving out of our hotel, we saw this Toyota Sienna car coming in opposite direction. I was warned to fear tinted Sienna cars and this one was tinted or appeared so in my head. My cousin was the first to realize that Sienna was moving slowly towards us but I accelerated so fast and drove past the dangerous Sienna car. I was prepared for a head-on collision. We observed from the rear mirrors that the Sienna car stopped and was trying to reverse to follow us and we went hysterical. They must be kidnappers or assassins. Escape button in my head was activated. I drove into the nearest road by my right, zoomed out of the car and dashed into the nearby bush.

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The Sienna car was actually reversing in our heads. We waited for several minutes and didn’t see the assailants and my cousin and I came out from the bush and entered our car, cooled our temper and drove off to Lagos. It must have been a Sienna car heading for Nkwo Nnewi Park to load passengers going to Lagos. We were victims of our fears, our nightmares and accumulated reports of mindless killings of our brothers by our own brothers.

We arrived Lagos before 12 noon to the great relief of our loved ones.

My brethren, this how our dear Southeast has become. Ndi Igbo must think about this situation.

But, for how long shall one be so frightened to the level of hysteria in a place one is supposed to end a race of life? Our hometowns seem not to be homes again. We are in autocatalysis. I don’t think that I would want to keep experiencing this kind of fear in my hometown that is my last bus stop and my final resting place. It’s not nice for both the living and for our ancestors.

The wise and the patriots must take back the steering. We must recover the cup from the monkey. Until we find a solution to this, our land would soon become desolate.