I believe everyone must have been a victim of false accusations at one point in their life or another. It can be something as small as just a prank or joke among friends or it can be very serious that it takes the intervention of the police to settle it. Some people have even lost their lives because of being falsely accused, like the 4 students that were killed back in 2012 in Rivers State, Nigeria.
The case was very heartbreaking because these students were falsely accused of robbery and despite their pleas that they were innocent of what they were being accused of, an angry mob kept torturing them and eventually burnt them to death. News of the incident graced the front page of newspapers and was shown on news outlets all over the world, there's even a Wikipedia page about the whole incident and it's called the Aluu four lynching. Feel free to click on the link and read more about it
Similar cases like that have happened over time and even when the innocent person isn't tortured and killed, some of them end up in prison and are made to pay for a crime they didn't commit. I read cases of people in the US gaining their freedom from prison several years later after a judge ruled that they didn't commit the crime. One of them is of a man that was proven innocent after spending 38 years in prison! Crazy, right?
I have been falsely accused on so many occasions and while many of them were simply just pranks by my friends, some were quite serious and there's one thing common to all of these accusations; it causes serious emotional trauma. I remember a serious one that happened when I was still in secondary school. My mom came to where me and my siblings were hanging out and said her money is missing.
Her eyes and mine instantly met and I knew what she will say next before she even said it. She outrightly asked me to provide the money and for some seconds I was dumbfounded and couldn't say anything. The reason she asked me first is because I have been caught in the same act a couple of times in the past but I stopped doing that when I started earning some money while working for a guy that runs a web forum.
I tried to explain myself and my mom immediately told me to shut up, she added that there's no other thief in the house except me. My heart skipped some beats after hearing those words and I almost cried but I decided to pull myself together and maintained my position; "I didn't take any money". She finally decided to search through my belongings and after she was done, I told her she must search everyone.
She was still saying that I am the one that took the money and should provide it before she does something drastic, but she went ahead to search my other siblings' belongings. At last, the money popped up inside a mathematics textbook lying amongst a pile of books in a box. Everyone turned and looked at the owner of the box; my younger brother.
I felt some relief after realizing what happened and the fact that I have been vindicated but at the same time I felt bad for my brother because he is going to be in a lot of pain after my mom is done with him. My mom never apologized for that incident (African parents never apologize), but I didn't mind because I know she must have felt guilty after realizing I wasn't the one that took the money.
One thing I have learned from my experience and also the experiences of others is that we should always give people the benefit of the doubt and try to find out the truth before accusing someone of doing something wrong. Humans usually find it hard to fully control their emotions and sometimes we just say or do things in the heat of the moment without even thinking twice, just like how those 4 innocent students in Rivers state were killed by people who didn't bother to find the truth.
Connect with me on:
Twitter: @kushyzeena
Readcash: @kushyzee
