TARABA MASSACRE; OFFENDERS MIGHT HAVE MURDERED SLEEP - Adebimpe Abdul Azeez Asunni

       

In the village, the sun just wakes from its heavenly waterbed. The overwhelming luminous grace it expressed the day past seems diminished steadily over the night as she slipped off the horizon yesterday and lapsed into her routine daily slumber, far away from human gaze. Science argues it doesn't set- it only orbits in a perpetual merrygoround around our world they claim is spherical in outlook. Whatever happens to it and wherever it goes at nightfall, it doesn't usually return at next dawn as strong and energetic as it is each time it last bids us that perpetual temporary adiu. That explains why it appears this weak today in the morn. This rising sun is casually clad in a yellow attire; the same Pyjamas in which it went to bed as seen sinking behind the village mountain yesterday at sunset.



Now, it is another day and the sleepy sun can only muster some energy barely enough to lick the nightly dews off the surfaces of leaves. It slowly crawls ups to the sky as if being fettered by the slimy layers of clouds amidst which it partially hides its shy face. Insects of earth crawl and fly about in their normal ways seeking their daily bread. Butterflies of diverse tinges and shapes ply their ecological space hovering around colourful petals of roses. Grasshoppers hop about as their wings click rat-at-at amidst the sweet songs of  countless birds of air perching atop tree branches. It appears these Bard-birds are praising God for seeing them through the dangers-filled night that has just broken into a brand new Saturday.

I fantasise this poetic setting for one unforgettable morning one of our patients back in my medical school days would initiate the beginning of his own tragic story.

He's a villager from a remote rural village in the North. He lives in an agrarian community where different ethnic groups co-habit and headed by a village head. Apart from the Fulanis that are cattle owners,  other people peopling this small village are farmers surviving basically on subsistent farming. A mutual accord seems sealed that ensures farmers' farm are not unjustly grazed by the cows as it usually occurs when farmers and rearers live close to each other. While preventing a cow from grazing over a farm, it's obvious these community never envisaged man could also conceive the idea of grazing over another man's pasture, unless our patient willingly decided to break such accord.

He's woken up very early that morning, if at all He slept over night with some amorous thought rippling round his mind. Fulanis wives go to fetch water from the village's stream every morning when the water still retains its early morning chills. If fetched at dawn in that cold temperature and swiftly stored in the earthen pots partly buried under the shade of trees, it remains cold for the rest of the day- a simple science experience has taught the villagers over their decades of existence. So upon return from their daily cattle rearing around the mountains and the valleys in the afternoon, Fulanis wifes treat their husbands to the savour of chilled Fura da nunu prepared with the early morning stream water stored in the earthen pots. That must have been the plan of this teenage beautiful Fulani housewife as she sets out for the stream early this morning only in company of her gourd. She has beaten the rest of her colleagues to the game of earliest stream-comer today as her barefeet beat morning dews off the giant grasses pointing their swinging blades towards the narrow footpath. Little did she know a sorrowful fate had woken earlier laying ambush for her coming upon the road.

This young farmer, by his look, in his third decade, is well built in bodily frame, in protracted years of land tilling has he reaped additional benefit of muscles blocks round his craggy torso. It needs no telling He's isn't a lazy farmer. Alligator skins enclosing his palms and soles and the stony rigid body He moves en bloc are competent defenders of his strength and hard working in the Plough. You may take that for a compliment on his behalf because apart from that body build, He's a very scary being to behold, to say he's as dark as the night is to understate the fact. He has a guttural voice echoing off his grimaced face that could scare any man to death. But this morning, He has a mission. He is intoxicated in amorous fantasies. He's been thinking for a while about how a coital encounter with a Fulani lady tastes. He's not Fulani and never married to one but He is set to have a taste of a fulani lady this morning. So the path to the village stream is a vantage place especially now that the road is still Virgin of feet.

Thinking wet, He lays hidden beneath wet grasses in anticipation of his would-be prey in the cunt hunting. Not long from when He hid himself with hidden mission of that coital attack, a lonely lamb strays into his den. A young teenage fulani housewife, slim, fair and tall. She emerges from the village end of the road, wriggling her waist swiftly down the stream side. Her pointed nose could only perceive the early morning scent of yet undefiled stream, not the pungent odour of the devil lurking behind these breeze-swung shrubs along the road from where she is about to be pounced upon and defiled. Sadly it is too late. He got her end away in the most brutal and humiliating manner ever imaginable, looting her treasure of womanhood and robbing her of her pride of fidelity and her claim to chastity. Her distress scream could only reach the shrubs, trees and grasses who are visual accomplices in the crime, witnessing the scene in cold Complacency!  They obviously interpret her screams and cries for the moan of pleasure.

The young rape victim risks all the social stigma and repercussions of possible divorce. She bell the cat and was instantly taken to the village head to report. But guess What! Her coital offender has fled the village. Leaving behind his hecares of cultivated land, sheep's, goats, fowls and family. Days rolled into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. Three good years have now elapsed when He did the deed. The fulani man has been appeased all through that duration of time. All elders of the village have worked out the reconciliation to a point where all were confident the bye-gone is bye-gone. The fulani man finally forgave and promised to also forget. The man returned to the village after three years and the brokered peace was again cemented. Life continued for the next two years and both of them now talk and relate well, purchase things from each other and even give each other water to drink.

Exactly five years after the event, Fulani man woke up one day in the middle of the night, He took along four of his friends and his dog. They waited patiently outside the house of his wife rapist. Around midnight,  He came out to urinate and they kidnapped him. He was taken deep into the bush. He was never beaten nor killed. He was ordered to remove his trouser. The fulani man then brought out a sharp knife and cut off his Manhood. He cut completely from the root.  No stump was left behind. It was a clean 'shave' of the organ. He then fed the amputated penis to his dog right there immediately. They ensured the dog finished the exotic meal before taking the man back to his house wriggling in pain and bleeding.

At the community meeting.  'But you told the entire village you forgave this man' 'why did you do this after five years of the matter?'

He gave a response that bewildered everyone. 'I have forgiven him since and I swear to God on that. What I did today is just a social service to this community. I only made sure I prevent him from doing the evil to other women in the future. It's a preventive measure to protect the rest of our women. I have forgiven that of my wife, but if He still has his manhood in place, He may be tempted to do it again to any of your wives too'

It is a true story I reconstructed in vivid details. He was brought to our hospital while I was a medical student. He could only be treated but his manhood was forever gone via the dog's gut. I remember our consultant, a Fulani man, saying after the story ' You should know that we Fulanis don't forget or forgive'.

MORALS

1.Don't begin offensive on the Fulanis because the outcome may be too unbearable for you.

2.Fulanis don't forgive or forget.

3.A fulani man will take his revenge no matter how long it takes.

4. When He revenges, it will be disproportionate to the initial assault.


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