Across The Borders

The bleating of a sheep woke Ade up from the long sleep. He had been kidnapped on his way back from school. Like every other day after school, the boys of Hallmark College had always queued up at the bus stop waiting for a cab, usually Danfo that would convey a full load of students who are going the same way. 

After school, Ade and his friend Bolu had left the school. While Bolu had opted to see his mother at her workplace so that they could return home together, Ade had to go home alone today. 

A bus conductor from a distance to the bus stop was shouting in the usual Lagos bus conductor way and students with their impatience started jumping into the bus just to get a space. Ade did join them. 

The driver looks neater than what is expected of a Lagos public bus driver with his face half covered with his black face mask. Likewise, the conductor was wearing a mask but it was drop under his cheek as he was calling Race course! Obalende!! CMS!!

One of the students was heard saying that the faces of the driver and the conductor are strange to those drivers  who ply this way. 

As the students rushed to be on board and had settled in, the Danfo driver sped off and within a short moment, all the students slept off. 

Ade heard the bleating of the sheep from his sleep on the fourth day. When he woke up completely, he saw that he had been lying on the bare floor with his legs tied together. 

He tried to shout but his voice was gone. He couldn't even hear himself as he forced the words from his trachea. He was all alone in the empty room with school uniforms of some of his schoolmates on the floor but none of them could be seen. 

It dawned on Ade that he was in great danger. The first thing he tried to do was to jump on his feet with, as he tried to do that, he fell to the floor again. 

On the other side of the room is a window blind with metal burglary proof so he crawls towards it. As he made to hold the window basement, the door flung open. 

Stop there boy!

The thick voice of the man who entered the door spoke, almost breaking his eardrum. 

You are the last man standing, all others have been sold off. 

Ade looked in bewilderment, wondering what the haggard-looking man was saying. 

Later in the evening of the same day, Ade had been served a sachet of water and a plate of beans with yam. He feared death and refused to eat. But the haggard looking man came close, took a spoon full and swallowed it, telling Ade to eat that he would be embarking on a long journey, that the food would do him a lot of good. 

After he had finished eating the food and was relaxing back on the wall, he heard some argument from across the window. Some men were busy negotiating prices for him. They concluded the price to sell off Ade for $1,500. 

The visitors gave the sum to the kidnappers and Ade was given to them. He was going to be transported through the borders to somewhere into the western African nation where he would become a slave boy. 

Ade became hardened in mind that whatever comes his way, he is ready to persevere. Then men came with a truck like traders who had come to buy grains of beans and cassava flakes from Nigeria, in one segment of the truck, they dumped Ade there. 

They travelled throughout the night and came to several police checkpoints but the officers could not search the truck after being induced with some tokens of naira notes. 

At the border town of Port Novo, a joint roll block of customs officers, police and the army waved down the truck and gave it a thorough search. There they found Ade and confiscated the goods in it, then arrested the men. 

It became a national issue. The boys have been missing for fourteen day with  Ade as the only survivor. After he had narrated the story all other boys were traced to some neighbouring African nations and reconnected with their families. 

The men that was created led the security agents to the hideout and every member of the syndicated was arrested. 

Lead image