Photo Credit: Anthony Obayomi
In a few hours, I’ll go to bed. If my alarm does its job, I’ll be up before 8 am to clean out my room, feast on a breakfast that should be eaten by bricklayers, and hit the road. I hope I’m lucky enough to find a protest buddy or two among my friends.
Anita Akapson can’t make any plans tonight but wherever she is, I’d love to ask, ‘what’s on your mind?’
Today of all days, when I managed to keep my promise to stay away from Twitter, my own morbid imagination is on overdrive, and my mind is wandering through unfamiliar corridors to ask questions that will remain unanswered.
Emmanuel Egbo. Tiamiyu Kazeem. Tony Oruama.
In this beautiful mess that we call home, thousands of lit candles are up in the air accompanied by cracked voices that have protested all day and are now singing Michael Jackson’s ‘heal the world.’
Did Harry Ataria even like Micheal Jackson?
Is Ifeoma Abugu at peace that her name will not disappear in the cauldron of oblivion as her killers would have wished because we will not stop till we get justice for her?
Is the cold air of Abuja getting to Tina Ezekwe? Can she smell it? The courage, the fear, the frustration, the anger, and determination of 20 and 30-year-olds, some of whom the word ‘aluta’ was foreign to before last week?
Modebayo Awosika would have been 51 today so maybe he won’t have been out tonight but maybe Stephen Agbanyim would have led the march in Port Harcourt and Chijioke Iloanya in Awka. Would Daniel Adewuyi Tella have held the megaphone at Lekki, happy to replace the noise of impatient, honking cars at the toll gate with his voice and that of a thousand others fighting for something else?
One day and soon I hope, we’ll be off the streets because our demands have been met. But their names are forever linked with the #EndSARS protest.
One day, may Linda Igwetu’s name mean much more than a reminder of the inhumanity of members of a rogue police unit.
One day, when you hear Kolade Johnson, it would symbolise the birth of a new lease of life and a gentle yet powerful nudge of what it means to be human. To be a Nigerian!