Now We Know Better

Simi was killed in 2002, she was trying to run with one child in her hand and another strapped to her back. She lived in zololo because that was the only place a single mother disowned by her family, could find a cheap house. She had all her strength and was ready to save her children up to the ends of the earth, until she watched the Christ Apostolic Church’s pastors head hang on a stick with Hausa men waving it around like a flag. She knew that was her end. She gave her children to Mama Salisu who was her regular Akara customer, “Ina Zuwa mama” she assured her. The next time she was seen, she was lying on her back with her face kissing the sand.

Her twins, once known as Nandom and Nanle now converted to Mustapha and Muhammed, are now seen at the terminus clinging to people’s clothes, singing stomach upsetting songs with unholy plates seeking assistance. Their legs which never wore shoes stepped on me once and I sustained bruises. They only got new clothes on big sallah which they wore for another year. Now, in their pre teen age, they terrorized the town. A few weeks after the 2012 uproar, a reporter helped them escape a gunfire at Dilimi. She pampered them for a whole month, treating their wounds, feeding them, changing their clothes, and she assumed she had earned enough trust to get them to talk.

“We know better now, better than to be vulnerable, we now have a weaponry in our mud kitchen. We know now that Nigeria is made in China so everything is fake, very liable to break when it hits a little bump. We know now that if we lie in wait for the day our turns come, our heads will lie on the ground like old rocks. We know now that to pray for peace is vain, so we pray for strength to kill”, they echoed in unison and cut off her head. The camera was found a few weeks later by her sister, and her body was nothing anyone could recognize.

LARDO