Violence Over Innocence

Allan Leonard photo

By

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka

At around 1:30pm on Sunday 11th March, on Ayepe Street, one of the ruling streets of indescribable boys in Osun State’s Gbongan town, there was a sudden shout of :”ole! Ole!! Ole!!!” meaning “Thief”. People rushed to the scene and, as fortune would have it, the accused was caught while on the run by the accuser with the help of the street boys.

He was beaten black and blue, and considering his agility, was able to stand the beating to the point of his tiredness, when he started pleading for mercy. “Have mercy people, I am not a thief, I have come with my friend all the way from Ibadan to see a lady whom I love, not knowing to me that she is married to the man who has accused me of stealing, holding me firm here.” The accused bled from the head, nose and mouth, which attracted people’s pity prompting people to ask for the evidence of theft against him. As the accuser couldn’t provide any, he gently released the accused from his grip.

The accused furthered his story… “I was in her house when a heavily built man came in and became unfriendly to my friend and I. His manner of approach made my friend and I restless, so we decided to leave the house as we perceived he might be the husband of the lady they’d come to see, but as we were leaving, he raised a loud cry of ‘thieves’ on us, so we had to bolt away, hastening our step and, while on the move, were caught and messed up like this.”

At this point, the people turned against the accuser for having being impatient, hot tempered and having caused much pain on the man and his friend regarding the alleged theft. People said he should have spoken with his wife before he took any action against the supposed visitors who came for ‘love’. Some said that his wife’s promiscuity should have been shunned by him, after all he knows the kind of wife he has.

As people were putting the blame on him, another group of street boys came and were told the story which led to the ugly scene. On seeing the profusely bleeding head, nose and mouth of the accused, they beat up the accuser while an unknown Samaritan on a bike came and took the accused and his friend to an unknown location for treatment.

At the point of the beating the accuser fled. People blamed the accused and his friend for not being bold enough to state the reason for their visit, as there was nothing wrong in going to see a woman a man loves for marriage.

It was said that a catastrophe that led to the suffering of the accused is the result of supposed promiscuity on the lady’s part, as well as impatience on the part of the accuser, foolishness and a lack of boldness on the part of the victim, not to mention the incompetence of the town to dispatch security to remote areas in its town.

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka is a poet writing from Osun,Nigeria, an indigene of Ebonyi,Nigeria. He’s a student and a budding lawyer who believes in changing the world positively through creative writings.