Ever since I did the mistake of covering up a friend on a crime scene, my attitude toward helping a friend got completely changed.
In the evening, around 8:00 p.m., I and my friend went out to visit someone. When we got to the spot where we were to wait for the person to meet us, we decided to have a seat and wait for her to come and meet us. So, we looked around and saw a bench in the corridor of a store (which had been closed because it was night, the bench was just there in the front of the locked door). We walked in and sat down.
At the front of us(a short distance), there were people standing and having a discussion, so we presumed that they were the ones sitting there before we occupied the bench. Maybe they stepped out a little bit to say 'Hi' to a passing by friend.
"Kingsley, are you seeing what I'm seeing? This is a purse and a phone," my friend tapped me to show me what he just found on top of the bench.
"Oh! It seems they're for these people standing in front of us, it's like they were occupying this seat. Just leave it for them," I replied, and I kept calling the number of the person we were waiting to inform her that we've been waiting.
"Why can't you reason smartly? Let's collect these items and leave." My friend suggested and I killed the idea instantly.
He insisted that he must pick the items. He picked up the items and begged me to follow him back home, but I refused because I hadn't seen whom we were waiting for. He left with items while I was still there waiting for the person I was expecting to come and meet me.
Then suddenly, the people who were standing some distance in front of us returned to their seats to pick up their items, but the items were no longer there.
"Hello, did you see my purse and phone here because I left them here?" The lady asked me after she got frustrated looking around.
"No, I didn't see anything," I replied.
"Wait, you guys were two that entered here, it's possible that the other guy had picked the purse & phone and left. Where's the other guy?" The guy among them questioned me.
In a bid to cover my friend, I had to lie to them and say that I didn't know the person who sat down with me.
"It's a big lie, we heard you guys chatting, which shows that you guys know each other," the lady added.
They took it seriously and raised the alarm that I must provide my friend, and after a while, I decided to call my friend just to bail out myself, but it was already too late. People had gathered, and they were not taking it likely.
To make matters worse, the armies in a nearby bank came and took the case personally and started wiping me with slaps cooked from hell.
When my friend came to the scene with the items, they brushed us off and started hitting us.
"Please! please! please! I wasn't the one that took it," I began to beg.
"When we asked you whether you saw the items, what did you say? When we asked about your friend, what did you say?" The guy, who is the boyfriend of the lady, got busy hitting my face while he replied to my plea.
We got handcuffed, and they drove us to the police station. We got there and received another round of beating...this time with the flat part of the cutlass wiping us at the back.
We were pushed inside the cell to meet prisoners, and the prisoners introduced us to the prison lifestyle with another round of beating.
We got bailed out the next day by our parents after they paid a good sum of money even though bail was free.
*"Next time, don't cover crimes for the sake of anybody." The police officer in charge of the case said as he handed me my clothes in the presence of my dad.
They knew I wasn't the one that took the items, but the fact that I tried to cover up my friend in such a situation made it worse for me.
Although I no longer regret what happened because I learned my lesson, but I wish such a mistake didn't happen that night.
