MY EARLY CHILDHOOD

Growing up in a typical African, not just African but Nigerian home meant that I had to learn the precepts of how to; comport myself in the presence of elders, know when to talk and when to listen, know when to show gratitude, care and concern for a family member and equally learn how to complete some certain task on my own without assistance from an adult etc.

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Growing up in Lagos had both its good side and the not so good side, good in the sense that Lagos is a land of opportunities and these opportunities are open to those who are willing to work hard and be innovative enough to carve out a niche for themselves in the all areas of their lives.

The not so good side is that residing in Lagos somewhat paints a picture to people especially people living in the rural areas, it makes them feel that whoever lives in Lagos is “doing well”, is “comfortable” and “financially buoyant” and as such are always expectant to receive gifts and other goodies from you whenever you return to the village even if it’s just for a brief visit.

This however is not entirely the reality as Lagos is a place filled with various forms of competitions, competition to; survive, make money, acquire investments, live in a conducive environment, and finally to put food on the table etc.

Living in Lagos means that even though you reside in a well secured estate, you still have to provide your own personal form of security (in the form of dogs).

  This background knowledge thus brings me to a story of my childhood, this is more like the day I would never forget in a hurry.

I am the second child out of three children, I was born in a very quiet, mind-your-business kind of environment, our house then was a twin building with four block of flats on each building and two boys-quarters at the back, the ground floor of the two flats was used as a warehouse and depot, this is because the landlord was a major distributor of both soft and alcoholic drinks for Nigerian Breweries and as a result it meant that the compound was always busy with activities during the week except on weekends and that cash was always available in the office, this made the office prone to robbery attacks both from petty and armed thieves.

Thus my mother made good use of the environment we found ourselves in to teach us how to keep to ourselves, study and play (mostly indoor games) when necessary.

My father then was a fresh self-employed estate surveyor still trying to gain his grounds in the professional world, this meant that we could not afford any forms of extravagant spending we could afford things that were necessary for comfortable living, while my mother was/is a civil servant precisely a visual arts teacher in a federal government secondary school, to a very large extent she played the role of a strict disciplinarian at the same time conveniently providing us filial love and attention we needed as growing children.

My nursery and primary education were rather uneventful as nothing out of the ordinary happened during those years and unfortunately for me I have lost contacts with most of the persons I schooled with in those days.

However, an event happened on the 6th February 2009, which I would never forget in a hurry.

I was 12 years old and was still in junior secondary school class 2 (jss2) in Dominican College located at Mafoluku, Airport Road. That day was a regular Friday and like every other day, usually on Fridays due to the jumat service for the Muslim faithful, schools, banks, cooperate businesses usually worked half day closing 1:30pm and 3:00pm respectively, on that day I was returning home from school, (due to the distance from the school to my house I usually boarded public transport), the street leading to my house was as usual quiet and less busy, shortly as I stepped into the compound I told by one of my neighbours that my mother went to get some things to prepare dinner just two streets away and that I could wait for her in the sitting room till she returns which I did, after about ten minutes out of boredom I went to the balcony to be on the lookout, then all of a sudden I saw a neat black Toyota Hilander to be precise speed past our house followed closely by a police patrol van in hot pursuit.

I was curious to know what was going on because our street is a close which means that it is a dead end and it has no exit other than the entrance. The patrol van stopped at the centre of the street while the Toyota Hilander made a U Turn and came face to face with the patrol van, immediately they opened fire on the police patrol van.

The unfortunate turn of events is that the people in the Hilander were heavily armed to the teeth with pump action and ammunition of all kinds meanwhile the policemen facing them could not match the strength of the armed robbers, they all took to their heels in search of a place to hide, some of the policemen were lucky to narrowly escape the bullets of the robbers by the whiskers while some of them sustained serious injuries, during the period of their operation some stray bullets pierced and shattered the windows of our neighbours’ flat destroying their bed and some of their furniture.

The only painful thing that happened was that one elderly man who operated an electrical repairs shop opposite our house was caught up with the stray bullets he died screaming and clutching his guts which spilled from his stomach.

After scaring away the policemen the gang of robbers entered the police van with the money they had stolen from a bureau de change and fled.

I was lucky to have escaped death because as the ordeal started my neighbour dragged me into the house thus saving my life.

   Later that evening while recounting the events to my parents as it happened, my parents resolved to withdraw me from the day school and send me to a boarding school for security, this was one of the decisions they made that really had a positive impact in my life.

Thanks For Your time, I am @bellapatra

This is my entry to @averageoutsider's contest, check it out here