VICTIMS OF A FAILED SOCIETY

This story, though a painful read, gives an insight into what happens in some communities in Nigeria and Africa in general.

Inspired by the immense unconditional love displayed by a Danish Humanitarian aid worker Anja Ringgren Loven who in 2016 rescued a starving and dying toddler accused of being a witch and left in the streets to die. This happened in one of the communities in South-East, Nigeria.

Source: Hope before he was rescued and one year after
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The Story - Brace Yourself

It is often said that nothing is more resilient than the human spirit.

Young Elliot, despite being traumatized and persistently hunted by his horrific experience, didn’t lose the will to live as he courageously strives through each day at a time, not minding the inherent challenges or the perceived obstacles.

He was tired, he had been under the sun for so long and now his tongue and throat thirst dearly for water, sticking out his tongue he could see the dryness with his tired eyes. It was as if his salivary glands were on strike or had been surgically removed, as his tongue was as dry as the hot asphalt on which his bare feet stood.

With his eyes red and bulging, and with sweats dripping from his entire upper body like water works, down into his lower body, before been absorbed by the tattered jean clothing he was wearing, his stomach was growling. He was famished and exhausted from the inhuman way he was eking out a living.

One would easily mistake him for a training athlete competing with fast moving vehicles in preparation for the Olympics; but he was no athlete. Elliot was just 14 years of age, but broken in every sense of life. That notwithstanding, and despite life’s misgivings, young Elliot was still determined and he took to the trade of selling consumables to travellers in moving vehicle. (Highway hawking). A dangerous trade for anybody not to mention a boy his age.

Ironically, on the day in question, bottled water was the trade, but he couldn’t quench his craving desire for water with what he sold, as it was an immense luxury for a person of his existence.

Unconsciously, and against his own will, he rested for about 5 minutes which seemed like half an hour from his imaginary time piece, as he could not bear to watch the vehicles ply off without attempting to make a sale.

Night was falling and he needed to finish the sale, else he wouldn’t be able to settle the man who sureties him before the goods are released to him. He was exploited in every aspect of life.

This was his daily routine, this was his life now. Nothing was going to take him back to that Hell which he once knew. Back to the world were his biological parents first labeled him a witch and then rejected him, and then the church and finally his community before he was eventually outcasted and abandoned at the shrine of a spiritual healer (a witch doctor) with his legs chained around the ankles, just like the other to prevent them from escaping.

Source
The witch doctor’s camp was filled with little children. Some even new born babies. Young girls and prostitutes who couldn’t afford illegal abortion or the shame of keeping their babies, also labeled them witches and brought them to the spiritualist. A concoction was constantly forced down the throats of babies and children who cried often. This left them in almost a permanent sleep state. It was a community where innocent children were labeled witches and then blamed for the misfortunes of their families such as poverty, sickness and even deaths.

In the dead of the night, the healing shrine becomes a human market, as vehicles, exotic and rickety, conveying cannibals and ritualists visit the spiritual healer for human parts or whole bodies.

Our numbers grew during the day and shrunk at night. Our only crime being that we have been labeled witches by those who should love, fend and protect us. The very people who brought us into this world.

I remember the night I escaped; he gazed at me with the bush lamp thinking I was tired, weak and fast asleep. As soon as he removed the locks on my ankles, I smashed the bush lamp an him which set him ablaze, and as he screamed for help from his accomplices, I dived into the bush and got lost in the forest. A hunt party was sent after me but I took cover where no living human with a sane mind would think of. I took cover in the same shallow pit where I probably would have ended up. A pit where the remains of their victims were dumped. The stench was choking and the sight was terrifying but I needed to survive so I had to endure. From the pit, I could hear their frustrating voices and one assured the others that I wouldn’t survive in the woods and shortly afterwards the hunt was ended.

Afraid, shaking and vomitting, I crawled out about 40 minutes later and located a nearby pond where I washed off and continued my journey to no-where.

For three long days I wandered in the forest, feeding on fresh leaves and fruits, until I finally found a path which led me to civilization; a tarred road, and as I walked down hoping to find absolute life, normalcy and some sanity, I walked into some heavy duty vehicle drivers who all parked their vehicles, waiting for the robbery activities upfront to end. What a life what a country I said to myself. I couldn’t even tell them my ordeal as I didn’t know who to trust.

Eventually the drivers were ready to move. I quickly stowed away in one of the vehicles and after many long hours of travelling, I arrived here, resilient and determined to survive and then to begin a new life.

I had no house to call my own so I lived on the streets during the day and took shelter at night in the empty markets. That was the biggest and safest shelter we all had as I wasn’t alone. There were others, many younger than I am, all homeless. Days came and went by and so did nights; but the nights were always sinister. Drugs, sex, guns, robberies, rape and often times murder.

My second night, I made a friend by name Joshua. He was popularly called GM and oftentime cautions …sleep deep and wake in hell. About 11 years of age, he is said to be the oldest vagrant in the ghetto knowing every nook and cranny in the town like the back of his hand; hence the name GM which means Google Map. Rumours have it that he fled an orphanage at the age of four. Some others claim that he fled from the home of his foster parents who were maltreating him.

GM was making a living by protecting traders’ stores at night. Yes, what’s wrong with humanity? Who saddles a kid with that kind of responsibility, exposes him to the nights’ dangers and heads off to proper shelter without having a pricked conscience? Well, welcome to the other side of the world. Here, GM and his kinds were the little Kings of the Night. Burglars dare not trespass stores under GM’s protection…I better not speak of what fate will befall them.

Months rolled by and so did the never ending tough times.

One day we got tired of living like rats and so we planned a heist. Having known the market and its routines, we knew that Saturday sales were not moved to the bank until Monday. So hoping that Sunday would buy us enough time to disappear, we broke into the market’s cash centre around midnight and just a few minutes into the robbery we were besieged and what followed was multiple gun shots with bullets flying in all directions. Apparently, one of our own must have betrayed us, because this was a system we knew so well. We even rolled with the police.

I took a bullet in the back which affected my spine, but my dear friend GM lost his life on that fateful day as he took one in the head; and here I am, still living, paralyzed, pained and yet abandoned in another inhuman institution devoid of love and care, only this time, it is owned by the government who has constantly failed to protect the most vulnerable people in the society.

We are victims of a failed society, we are everywhere and our numbers are increasing by the day.

This is my story, this is where it ends and this is where I end.

Elliot, now suicidal, slides off the balcony of the orphanage, falling to his death.

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DEDICATION

This literature (fiction) is dedicated to a to all the vitcims of a failed system, especially those with a similar account.