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It was his first day at the protests and as he walked towards the crowd his heart was filled with pride. He couldn’t believe his generation had come together like this to effect change!!! He hadn’t come the previous day because he figured it would be just another bust, Twitter warriors who were unwilling to go out and do the actual work. But he was so glad he was wrong.
From one end of the tollgate to the other he could see Nigerians from all walks of life, different religions, different backgrounds, different ethnicities all United under one common cause. He was truly happy to be a Nigerian for the first time in his life.
He saw her placard before he saw her, it read “#endsars make I see husband marry o” he didn’t realize he was pointing and laughing until she asked him “Why are you laughing jor”
“Your sign is hilarious “ he responded still laughing.
“It’s a simple truth,” she said, “if they kill all the husband material now in the name of SARS what is to be my fate”?
“You could always marry from another country” he teased
“Noo!!! I like my Yoruba demons please thank you” she laughed.
As the activities for the day progressed he found himself by her side most of the day, when it got very late and he had to head home, he walked with her until he got a cab for her and then got her number before he left.
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Over the next few days they came to the protests together, he started driving just so that he would have an excuse to see where she lived, every morning he picked her up her mom would say “Take care of her o!!! She’s my only daughter o!!! If anything happens to her you will marry her like that”
“Yes mama” he would always respond with a shy smile on his face.
They made more friends at the protest grounds and all their friends teased them saying whilst other people came to end police brutality they had come to find love, it made them smile…it was true.
On the unfortunate day when it all came to an end, they had seen the governor’s declaration of a curfew, he and the rest of their friends were agitated!!! How dare the governor try to force them to leave with this silly curfew!!! She insisted on going home an hour before the curfew started “Ola let’s go home, live to fight another day, anything can happen and technically it’s illegal to be there once the curfew starts”
“Okay babe, I’ll drop you off and pick Tunde and the boys and head home,” he said kissing her cheek.
When he dropped her off she hugged him tighter than usual,” please be safe out there and text me when you get home” she said.
“Yes, mom” he teased.
She didn’t hear from him that night, she panicked after she heard the shooting. She tweeted and tweeted his pictures begging someone, anyone who had seen him tell her something!!!
All she could gather was that his friends had convinced him to stay and someone had seen him hurt just before the shooting stopped.
Her heart was broken, she mourned her country thrown into a state of tyranny so deep that it had devoured its children, she mourned the love she had found in her fight for a better nation and how she had lost that love. She mourned her Yoruba demon and all her friends…her people who she had lost on that unfortunate day.
She would never forget…20/10/20.
