And children and their teachers were in captivity!

As they say in Nigerian parlance, how can? I sat benumbed when news filtered out that a teacher had been decapitated in captivity. How can? For hours, I was frozen in shock. Beheaded? It was difficult to believe. In a forest. In Nigeria!!! In Oyo State. Totally unbelievable!!!. I have no intention of bringing sad and unsavoury memories to the family of the late Mathematics teacher, Mr Michael Oyedokun, whose only crime was to be a teacher. My heart goes out to them, and I was with the family one hundred percent when they appealed that the video of the gruesome act should no longer be circulated. To what end are those circulating it doing so? What do they hope to achieve? A family man, brutally killed in such a barbaric manner. I fear for our nation. I fear for the souls of the perpetrators. I still cannot bring myself to kill a chicken. A whole person, created by God. Oh my! Whatever they took or ingested to give them the liver has to be very strong. To take the life of a man who committed no crime, who did not offend you, who did not kill your child, who did not do anything to anyone (let’s even assume he did and he did not; no one has permission in the sight of God and man to take another person’s life) – to take the life of a man of Mr Oyedokun’s status or anyone for that matter is mind-boggling, and in such a gruesome way, it is still a matter of disbelief to all of us. May Mr Oyedokun’s soul rest in peace, Amen. And my prayers go today to his children, his wife and his family. May you find peace… Amen.

I honestly could not find the words to do a column when the foregoing had happened. As a writer, I was without words, without thoughts, hurting, blank as a slate.

When the female headmaster appealed to all, including Mr President, in a video, my heart began to flutter, and words began to form. But all my thoughts went to the children. Small people. Living in the wild. Children whose only interest is ‘A’ is for ‘apple’ and ‘one plus one is two ‘. Children below 7, over 7, and innocent children who do not know their left from their right. Children whose parents were near death were in fear, in sadness, and in maximum anxiety. Children who have never slept in the open, living like prisoners. Children whose only familiarity is their teachers are being terrorised and frightened out of their wits.

Totally out of my depth, I could no longer bring myself to write. I thought of my children when they were the age of the victims – they would run a mile when they saw a cockroach, even an ant or a grasshopper. But here are children living with reptiles, drenched by rain, dried by the sun and further drenched by the rain. Eyes wide to things that children should not see. Unfriendly voices shouting at their teachers whom they adore. Things they have seen which would remain in their psyche forever if they did not get psychiatric help.

As a carer, I know it would take some doing and lots of psychotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy to get the images out of their heads. This is no less so for the adults among them.

Their release gave me some relief to pick up my pen again and breathe life into a matter that I had shut down in my brain.