A face-off with death

Every time we step outside our house, we are risking our lives because a lot of crazy things are happening out there and some people have lost their lives for something as simple as standing in front of their house or walking down the road. Heck, some have even died while sitting comfortably in their house, as was the case that happened back in 2020 during the endsars protest in Nigeria where a stray bullet shot from a policeman's rifle killed someone that was just chilling in his sitting room.

Just this week, I have come across bizarre accidents and people losing their lives in the process. The one I saw yesterday was a drunk father accidentally crushing his 3 daughters to death with his truck and earlier today, I saw a video on TikTok of a container truck that fell on a car, instantly killing the man inside. I come across such sad incidents frequently and one thing that always comes to my mind is; "this could have been me" and that's just the truth. Many people will say I'm bringing the spirit of accidents to myself by thinking of such but those people that it already happened to, did they pray for such? No, it was an accident.

Luckily for me, I haven't had any near-death experiences while on the road but I have seen a lot of accident scenes while travelling (just like the one in the picture below). As usual, I always imagine myself in such incidents, "what if that was my bus?" Of course, nobody prays for such but it still happens for one reason or the other. I guess I should just give thanks to God for keeping me safe all these years. I haven't had issues with road accidents but that doesn't mean I haven't had any near-death experiences over the years, I have actually had a couple of them, thanks to the type of university I went to.

When I got admitted to the university back in 2018, there were lots of cult activities going on around the university and they were cult classes from time to time which always resulted in the deaths of one or more persons. Back then, I stayed in an off-campus community called Ekosodin which is very notorious in the city for being the headquarters of one of the biggest cult groups. I encountered some of these cultists once in a while (it's almost impossible to avoid them) and they always try to extort money from me but I have my way around words and always save myself without giving them any money.

Most of them usually come out at night, which is why I always avoid coming out of my house once it's 7 PM. On one faithful day, I was walking home from the university and I just entered the community when I saw people running towards me from the direction I was heading to. I stopped walking to observe what was going on and that was when I realized some group of boys were fighting, and they were holding dangerous weapons like battle axes and machetes. I was still processing the whole thing when I heard 2 gunshots, my heart nearly popped out of my chest as screams of terror broke out around me.

People were shutting their gates and traders were running away from their wares. To make matters worse, the fight was heading towards my direction and with trembling legs, I ran towards the nearest house and met a locked gate. That was when I heard another gunshot but this one came from another direction, which made me realize that the fight wasn't happening in just one location. I couldn't risk running around because I didn't know what I would meet at the front, so I just ran towards another house but the gate was still locked. I saw a nearby church which had no gates and that was where I ran into.

People were already hiding inside the church and some girls were even crying. I just found myself a good spot very close to the back door and stood there, ready to run out in case anything happened. We were still hearing occasional gunshots for over 20 minutes before everywhere went silent. Nobody dared to move out for another 10 minutes just to make sure that it was all over. We slowly made our way out of the church later on and I saw that people were beginning to move on the street again. I didn't waste any time around there as I immediately hurried home, while still paranoid that the fight would resume soon.

It was later in the evening that I heard that what happened earlier was a supremacy battle between 2 cult groups and the battle started in one location and spread all over the community. 4 people died that day, including an innocent student who was caught in the crossfire and a security guard stationed at the gate between the university and the campus. Many people sustained minor injuries which were probably from falling while trying to find a place to hide. This incident happened towards the end of 2019 and by January 2020, the state government sent a combined team of the police, army and local vigilantes to rid the community of cult activities.

This happened before the COVID-19 lockdown and by the time I got back to the university several months later after the lockdown was lifted and ASUU was done with their strike, I met a transformed community. Cult activities are pretty much non-existent in that community right now, and from 2021 to when I graduated (2023), I haven't experienced anything cult-related. But even at that, I can never forget that traumatizing experience that day. That was the first time that such a battle had happened, but that was the first time I was outside my house while such fight was happening.

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