12th April,
1952. I died
twenty-years
ago on 26th
December,
1993. I was
killed by
armed-robbers
on the way
from Murtala
Mohammed
International
Airport, Lagos.
My wife was coming back from a trip to the United
States and I went to the airport with six-year-old
Femi-Kevin to meet her. She had two major pieces
of luggage. I put one in the boot and the other in
the back-seat of our car. It was around seven-thirty
in the evening, and we set out for home.
Soon, a car overtook us with some people who were
shouting at us for some inexplicable reason. I paid
little attention to them. It is commonplace in Lagos
for some driver to be upset with you for some
reason or the other. But no sooner had they
overtaken us than they swerved and blocked the
road with their car. Immediately, some men
jumped out menacingly.
Dicing with death
From that moment, everything became surreal.
Indeed, everything switched to slow-motion. I
slammed on the brakes and the car stopped. I
switched to reverse-gear and the car moved back.
Our assailants were banking on the element of
surprise, but my prompt reactions upstaged them.
Having reversed the car, I again brought it to a
stop. In front of us on the road were four armed
men.
*The suspects on parade
I had always foolishly believed in myself. I
regarded myself as a problem-solver. True, this
was a rather bigger problem than I had had to deal
with before. This particular one was a question of
life and death. But it was a problem nevertheless.
Therefore, I decided to try and address it like any
other problem. First; I needed to make a quick
decision. I had to decide whether to continue to
reverse the car; or go forward or just surrender.
I seemed to have all the time in the world to make
this split-second decision. Finally, I decided on a
foolhardy course of "no retreat: no surrender." I
made up my mind to go forward at top speed and
try to avoid their car, which was biased to the left
side of the road. I also resolved that if the man to
my extreme right did not get out of the way, I
would run him over with my car.
I put the car back into the first gear and went
ahead to execute my plan; slamming hard on the
accelerator. The man to my extreme right literally
had to jump out of the road because I aimed the
car directly at him. I managed to avoid their car
and made a dash for it. But before I could
congratulate myself on turning the tables against
our abductors, my plans went disastrously wrong.
A lamppost appeared suddenly out of nowhere, and
I slammed headlong into it.
Mystery voice
I have been back on that road so many times since
then and have wondered why I did not see that
lamppost. But I did not. Once I hit the lamppost, I
was trapped like a caged animal. Once I hit the
lamppost, all my brilliantly-executed escape plans
turned out to be reckless. Once I hit the lamppost,
I knew that I was a dead man. I looked out the
window to see the man I nearly ran down now
marching towards me. I knew there could only be
one thing on his mind: revenge.
But before I could panic, something dramatic
happened. I heard a voice. It was not a booming
voice. It was a "still small voice." It was
authoritative and calm. It spoke with quiet
reassurance. "Femi," it said, "nothing is going to
happen to you here."
Before I could even think about what that meant,
the offended armed-robber drew near. Again, I saw
everything in slow motion. Grimacing, he pointed
his gun at me and pulled the trigger. I saw a flash
of light and the glass at my side of the door came
crashing down. The bullet pierced the body of the
car, came out on the inside and killed me. It is
necessary to put it graphically. The bullet hit me
and I bled to death right there on the roadside.
Conversations in the morgue
Thereafter, I was no longer afraid of our assailants.
As a matter of fact, I became indifferent to them. I
seemed to be abstracted from the entire incident,
and to be like someone watching an unfolding
drama from the sidelines. And yet I knew that
however the matter was resolved, my life would
never be the same again.
Don't ask me why, but I opened the door and
decided to come out of the car. Only then did I
realise that there was something wrong with my
left leg. The bullet came out of the inside of the car
and lodged itself in my leg, but I never actually felt
it enter my body. As I came out of the car, the
aggrieved armed-robber who had shot at me
slapped me. "Why were you driving like that?" he
demanded. "Please don't be offended," I pleaded.
"I was only trying to get away from you as best as I
could."
While all this was going on, the young man was
rifling through my pockets. He was removing my
watch from my wrist. Another man was removing
the suitcase from the backseat of the car and
loading it into the boot of their car. And then I
heard that implausible voice once again, defiantly
oblivious to the situation. "Femi," it repeated,
"nothing is going to happen to you here."
I was not really paying much attention. My whole
life suddenly flashed through my mind. So this is
how it all ends, I thought. I looked through the
window of the car and saw my wife clutching little
Femi-Kevin to her breast. It was like seeing the
past in the present. So at such an early age this
woman became a widow, I thought.
I noticed she was praying. I could see her lips
moving silently. I did not believe in prayer and I
never prayed. As far as I was concerned, the fact
that she was praying meant she was highly
distressed. So I leaned through the window to
reassure her. But the only reassurance I could give
was the ludicrous one I had been given. So I said to
her: "Karen, nothing is going to happen to us here."
Dead and buried
But something seemed to be happening. One of
the armed-robbers could not open the boot.
Neither could I give him the key because it was
jammed in the ignition as a result of my hitting the
lamppost with the car. One simple fact completely
escaped me. Our abductors also seemed oblivious
to it. You could open the boot by pressing a latch
on the floor of the driver's side of the car.
I could tell that, with the frustration of being unable
to dislodge the key from the ignition, the
temperature of the entire incident was rising. But
then, one of them opened the glove compartment
and saw some money I had miraculously forgotten
there. It so happened that it was a sizeable
amount. That discovery brought down the
heightened temperature. The man who discovered
it was excited. "Look what I found," he shouted
gleefully to his partners-in-crime. Somehow, this
discovery was enough to atone for their inability to
retrieve the luggage from the boot.
It was time to go. The man who had shot at me re-
cocked his gun. It was one of those revolvers that
you snap at the top in order to re-load. He pointed
it at me and barked: "Lie down with your face to
the ground." I don't know where I got the courage
from, but I refused. I told him calmly: "You can
take whatever you want and go, but I am not going
to lie down." The man stared at me. His look
spoke eloquently. It said: "Don't you know that I
have the power to shoot you dead right now?"
I was already dead, so I was not moved. For a
moment, we stood staring at one another defiantly,
with him pointing the gun directly at my face. I
knew he would shoot again and could not care
less. But then suddenly, he changed his mind and
walked away. Then they all jumped into their car
and drove off.
My resurrection
There is nothing like death to make a man to yearn
for salvation. I was a man falling down a cliff,
looking for something to hold on to. Then suddenly
a mystery man arrived. But instead of throwing me
a rope, he threw me a thread. "Catch this," he
said, "and I will pull you up." I knew certainly that
a thread could not hold my weight. But it was
really no time to argue. If I had other options,
maybe I might have ignored the thread. But as it
was, the thread was the only solution available,
even if it was absolutely nonsensical. So I grabbed
the thread and unbelievably, the thread; a thread,
held my weight.
Once I held on to this slim thread of hope, I was
filled with an incredible feeling of peace in the
middle of an armed-robbery attack, even with a
bullet lodged in my left leg. But once the robbers
left, I came back to my senses. The peace lifted
and I was filled with fear. Clearly, I needed
immediate medical attention. My wife jumped out
of the car and ran down the road shouting for help.
I looked down and realised that my trouser-leg, my
sock and shoe were completely soaked with blood.
So I said to myself: "Well, you escaped that one.
But now you are going to bleed to death right here
in the middle of this road."
But immediately that thought came into my head,
the voice I had heard earlier came back to counter
it. It was just as calm and commanding as before.
It was no-nonsense and conclusive: "Femi," it said
categorically, "there is nothing wrong with your
leg."
SOURCE: Vanguard Nigeria
Sent From David Aniemeka
No comments:
Post a Comment