Yes, your father is right Kareem, getting to Sanda Land in a western native state of Nigeria, I confirmed that what Mr. Aleem said is intact in a discussion we had in Lagos before embarking on this journey to invest in farming agriculture, after going walking through various farmlands such as Cocoa, Cassava, Corn and maize and others and still looking hundreds of acres of land meant for farmer to let from the federal government for agriculture purposes only, I saw that my travel to the state is productive telling a friend Kareem whose father is Mr. Aleem the farmer who invited me over to Sanda.
Kareem, who had traveled there six months before I visited, walked me through the settlement. How do businesses run from the locality? I asked, and he said that after this settlement, there were two markets named Camp and Boundary; these are where all farmers take their farm products to sell. Kareem answered.
Good one from there, I replied, looking at how the people living in the settlement of Sanda would cope looking at how business transactions would go then we went to the neighboring village where most of the farmers there are non tribal people, they don't speak in native local languages though, they are accommodating and friendly then Qodri, Kareem's junior brother that traveled with from Lagos down there asked; big brother Karee, where is the village you told me about called Olomi Tutu village ( owner of cold water village) and Kareem answered, I haven't been there too, the village is just ahead here, I confirm that the village has mountains surrounding it and a string which is always cold. It is the spring they drink from and wash from, and it is at the entrance of the village, and it is where the village name is derived from, Kareem concluded.
Can we visit them, I asked wanting to take pictures of the spring, the mountain, and the so-called beautiful Olomi Tutu village, and Kareem said why not, it will be an opportunity for me too to visit the village Kareem answered, and weembarkedk on the journey which was few miles away and as we were going on the route, we keep asking passersby of where we are heading and after like thirty minutes, we got there.
The Olomi Tutu spring flows across the road, and we took pictures over there and then we decided to pay a visit to a mountain we are looking at from afar and then go back to where we are coming from. Getting to the mountain, we claim it up and took several pictures there too, we noticed there were hundreds of acres of land farther after the mountain which was also used for agriculture farming and I told Kareem that all the settlements around here were based strictly on agriculture and nothing else then we headed back to where we are coming from then all of a sudden, four bikes with three men on each blocked us and they came down holding, cutlasses, machetes and two of them had a local gun with them.
I was scared to the heart at first as they were armed to the teeth; I thought they were armed robbers, but as they came closer and greeted us, I was eased a little bit but still afraid looking at what they all held. The elderly one asked us, “Who are you, and what are you doing on our land? Why are you recording and snapping our property? Who sent you? Hearing these questions, my heart raised back up as we were just three against twelve people who were heavily armed then Kareem intercepted saying My name is Kareem and we came from Sanda, we heard about your village's beauty and that is why we took pictures nothing else but one man from the back gave Kareem a slap from behind saying, liers, he is lying, they came from the other village that we are waging war against, let's us cut them into pieces.
I looked at Qodri this time and he was already crying, Kareem was speechless because he thought if he said anything, they might attack us then I took up the challenge and said, sir let me call Mr. Aleem, the farmer who invited us to Sanda for farming to clarify this then one young fellow amongst them chorused that “ I looked like a traitor that they should not answer, all I see is that all of them were angry because they lost their loved ones to the territorial fight they have with the unknown clan and I wondered how come a person I have not seen before in my life just consider looking at me and saying I was a traitor “ as how is what I said not knowing when It uttered out of my mouth unknowingly. However, they were all uncivilized, uneducated, and behaved barbarically, so I was like, this People may be careless, and we should not argue with them.
Later, other ten people joined them and they decided that we should go back to their village, call who we wanted to call to come before we could be released, and then we walk together going back to their village and some of the young men among them noticed we are harmless and wanted to explain why they are aggressive but few elders keep asking them not to talk to us or they will be attacked and this shocked me too.
Luckily enough, getting to the village, we met some civilized fellows there who collected our phones, went through our pictures and video recordings, and saw that we were just exploring, but that was not enough. We had to call Mr Aleem, who later came to our rescue, and we left there. Getting back to Sanda, Mr Aleem said, why don't you tell me that you are going there? Where you went is a lion's den, but thank God you are all safe he concluded.
I said to myself, curiosity almost killed my cat and that incident made me lose interest in farming in such an environment. I traveled back to Lagos the second day and told my people, who laughed and laughed at a life-threatening incident.
Thanks for reading through and remain blessed