Osama Bin Laden In Lagos

Not letting feelings show (especially anger) is a trait I am highly bestowed with. It comes from my extreme introverted nature and my high struggle of being a ‘prim & proper’ young Lady.
I retain so much anger and sometimes sadness in me for a very long time and when I let it out! Finalllyyyy…..BOOM!

Any situation/property/feelings/ not properly taken care of will one day make another turn and explode!

Reminds me of the Jan 27, 2002 disaster in Lagos.

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Jan 27th 2002……..I was at home. Somewhere around Cement Ikeja. Just a normal sunny sunday, eating rice and chilling.

Time Check : 4:30pm, time to take our school shoes (Bata continer) to the shoe maker for polishing.
I never missed that. My sis and I always won the neatest students in Gold Class. Polishing our shoes was a must!

‘See fire! See fire! Fire!’ I called out, at buring wires above some houses across the road.

‘Its nothing serious, the wire is just sparking’. The Shoe maker assured.

He was shinning the shoes now, almost done. When we heard people running and screaming from the bus-stop.

‘Heyyyy! Osama Bin Laden don come Nigeria o! Jesus! Jesus! Fire! Fire! Jesus!

You should have seen the way my Sis grabbed my hand and we raced home. Even Usian Bolt wouldn’t match that race, Bruh.

We left our shoes, adjusted our skirts, even removed our slippers. Two minutes later, we were home.

To our surprise, everybody was calm at home. My Uncle and Brother were watching a Chelsea match.

‘Where are your shoes? Where is your slippers?

Errmmm….Weee….It isss….Ermmm….those people.

BOOOM!!!

And that was it. All the explanation we needed was here.
The loud noise continued. ‘BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

‘What is that? My Mum cried out.
‘Maybe God wants to come now’ My Brother replied.

My Uncle called us together for a short prayer (should incase, this really is rapture).

Prayer? I wanted to laugh. I mean, my Uncle hadn’t been to Church in 7yrs.
I wanted to laugh so hard but it wasn’t the time at all. God was coming and we needed to pray our last prayers.

‘Dear Jesus, he started
I know there is nothing you cannot do…
Jesus, I know. Lord, Lord, I know.

We were Muslims but who cared? We all chorused ‘AMEN’ to our Uncle’s prayers. (Atleast, thats what he called it).

‘BOOOM!
Where will we run to now? Ehn? Ah! God, save us. My Mum panicked, she adjusted her wrapper 5times in one mintue. She even jumped up and down.

We finally concluded we will run to Ijebu-Ode.
As we walked to the Bus-stop, everybody was in confusion. Some tied towels, some had soap in their eyes, some carried boxes, people were crying. Little children searching for their parents.

The busstop was filled with people, everybody was stranded. Cars couldn’t move on the road due to the flock surrounded everywhere. Notwithstanding, people ran, walked, jumped. Anything to run away from the danger.

We just waited behind one billboard at our busstop, because there were no buses. We just held hands and prayed. If the danger was coming, we were ready.

The ‘BOOMS’ stopped, people started going back home, we did too.

Light came later at night, then we heard the news. The explosion was an accidental detonation of a large stock of mililtary high explosives at a storage facility in Ikeja military cantonment.Lagos.

It killed many of the base staff and their families. Destroyed many nearby streets, flying debris starting numerous fire further afield.
Tremors from the explosion also collapsed many buildings in the area.

The stampede had hundreds of people falling into the Isolo-Oshodi Canal, people running into racing cars, falling off buildings.

The explosion is said to have left 1,100 people dead, 5,000 injured, 12,000 homeless.

Caused majorly because the base which was a storage for high calibre bombs was not properly taken care of.

Improper care of my feelings wouldn’t leave this many people dead but it could hurt a few. With me the main victim.

Take care of you, yourself & yours always.