They say the world only burns when the fire reaches your doorstep. Otherwise, it is just another spectacle, a far-off smoke, a sound you can sleep through. It is all right, they say, all right to watch violence swallow others, so long as it is not us. So long as the ash does not settle on our roofs and the blood is not the colour of our kin. Some even say it is acceptable if it is our own doing the burning. Then, the silence is justified. The gain is holy.
But what happens when the flame forgets its lane?
It will. It always does.
My name is Uren. I am from Hurti, a small village in Daffo, Bokkos LGA of Plateau State. I am in SS 3 at GSS Manguna.
In Bokkos LGA, we farm potatoes, maize and whatever the land agrees to yield, because that is what we know best. That is how we survive. Occasionally, we trade. But it is the land that feeds us.
At the weekend, my people, the Ron and Kulere, held our yearly festival. People came from all over. Not because everything was all right, but because the festival gave us strength. It reminded us that we are still here. We are still alive. And even though we keep losing people, we cannot stop living. Besides, we know everyone will die someday.
On Wednesday morning, before the sun rose, my mother reminded me that we needed to head to the farm early, before the heat turned cruel and our energy, too drained to respond. There is always work to be done on the farm; come rain, come sun, dry or green. Life in our village follows that rhythm.
For some reason, that morning, I woke with the weight of Oswald’s Nightfall in Soweto pressing heavily on my chest. Mr. Mallo, our literature teacher, had painted it vividly when he taught the poem. “Feel it. Poetry is meant to be felt,” he had said.
I felt it, all right. The fear. The dusk falling like judgment. I felt it because it was no longer just poetry. It was no longer Soweto. It was Plateau. It was Bokkos. It was home. It was real.
My classmate, Ukambong, told me that in their village, Josho and even in Ganda and Manguna, they no longer slept at night. Their fathers and brothers had taken to spending the night on the trees, like hunted animals. They went up there not to fight. Who brings a bow and arrow to face fire-spitting metals? They went there to act as sirens. Human alarms.
When the raiders came, they were the voices screaming, Run!
And the raiders? They always came.
In our history class, Mrs. Mafwil told us that once upon a time, invaders galloped in on horses, with spears, bows and arrows slicing through the air with ancient rage. Today, they arrive on iron horses humming death and machines that spit fire and thunder.
They come knowing they will not be stopped.
They come knowing their mission has been carved into the silence of complicity.
They come. They slaughter.They leave. And they come again, at will. Their faces are not hidden. Their names are whispered. Their language betrays who they are. Yet, they remain unknown. Somehow, always unknown.
That Wednesday, they walked into our morning as we worked on the farm—my mother, father, five siblings and I, clearing the land so we could plant soon. We were engrossed in tearing up weeds with calloused hands, brushing the earth off our feet, when we heard the buzzing of motorbikes, many of them, and the cracking of gunfire all around.
It was loud and close. A rhythm now too familiar. First at night, now in broad daylight. A group of attackers was moving in on our village and the nearby ones too.
We froze, not knowing what to do. Smoke began rising, big, black clouds. Houses were burning. We saw people running, screaming. It was not near yet, but the land is flat; we could see everything. We were certain the attackers had seen us. One cannot hide easily out there. My mother’s face twisted. “Home,” she whispered and broke into a run. But my father ran after her and held her back. She began to shiver. “My children, my children,” she said, as tears welled up in her eyes.
My two younger sisters were at home, one sick, the other left to look after her. The ground where my mother stood turned wet. She had urinated on herself out of fear. The sky was no longer blue. It had become a sheet of thick black smoke. In the distance, homes coughed fire and people ran like ants from an overturned nest. Screams scattered in the wind. The attackers chased those who ran toward our farm. They were coming. We had been seen. The land offers no cover here. It is flat and wide. It betrays you.
My father’s mind raced faster than the bikes. He pointed to a narrow hole. It looked like one of those where something was mined from. The opening was wide enough for us to squeeze through and we did. We did not ask what was inside. We did not think where it led to. We just entered.
The smell around was of damp and death. We squeezed in, my siblings and I, while my parents and one of my brothers covered the hole with dry leaves and grass. They stayed outside. There was no room for all of us. From that tiny breath-hole, I watched.
The men on bikes came. Five of them. Guns slung carelessly like tools of a craft they had effortlessly mastered. But they chose to use knives instead. Long, rusted, personal. They circled my parents and brother like wolves around a tired prey. They chanted a God is great prayer to a God they no longer feared. And then, they cut wherever their razors could reach. Blood.
My father begged, his voice cracking like old wood. My mother shrieked as they cut, and then they cut and struck my brother down with the butt of a gun.
They spoke in Hausa with a Fulani accent: “Shegu jamu kakashe dukan ku!”
Then more chants of “God is great,” and more bikes revving into the distance. Their glee carried by gunshots and war cries: Eeehhuuhuuuuu! rent the air as they made their way to join the others. And then, there was silence, except for my mother’s wail. It was sharp and soul-piercing. She crawled to my brother’s lifeless body and pulled it close as though she could tuck him back into her womb.
My father just sat there, blood pooling around him. His eyes were vacant. He was staring, like he could see a world we could not. When I could not take it in anymore. I blacked out. My young mind gave up.
By the time I finally came around, I learnt that my father did not make it to the next day. My two sisters who were left at home were slaughtered. With knives. My mother is still in shock. My other brothers and I are just hanging in there.
We saw the assailants, what they looked like, the language they spoke how they prayed to the god they prayed to. We also know that their kind occupy many of the villages around that were razed before now.
It is said that when people are pushed to the wall, they will push back, not out of bravery, but out of necessity. I fear what will happen now that we are at the edge of that point. Survival is not cowardice. It is instinct. But how long do you stay law-abiding while the law does not see your blood as worth avenging?
How long do you bow to a system that rewards those who live outside it?
First it was Jos, now christened “Jos crisis”, then Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Bassa, Mangu, Wase, Kanam. Everywhere on the Plateau is getting a taste of the 21st-century jihad. I hear that there are people who gain from the fire. People who watch it from high windows and sip their tea. People who call for peace but fund the bullets. And then, there are people like me, Uren, who only ever wanted to farm, to live and to love my land.
Toh!
The invaders have awakened something dangerous, not just pain, but memory.
And memory, when soaked in blood, never forgets.
~ JAP is up and Grateful.
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