Our world of conditional Freedom

Let me tell you a short life changing experience that affected my appreciation of freedom and why everybody deserves it but...

I was 19years and in my second year in the university when I truly appreciated the value of freedom, what started as a joke quickly deteriorated to my spending a harrowing night in a congested police cell with serial offenders and harden criminals, although I ultimately walked out of prison, I have carried with me, the feeling that stronger and more powerful people will always determine what freedom means and how much of it you are entitled to and that remains true till today.

My Generous Parents

My parents have always been a model for others, middleclass but willing to sacrifice it all for humanity, kids and family, and so in my second year in the University my parents gave me their old car, it was a Peugeot 504GL, if you know how the model of that car then you must be at least 4decades old, anyway I had great parents and still enjoy the love of my mother whose lifelong partner rests in the Lord.  At this time a child having a car was really a rare thing and so you can imagine how much I was the envy of my class and school mates because of my parent’s generosity.

The Car -504

504s were known to have a door problem at the time, so you find yourself having to slam the doors hard or lift them up by hand to reach the hinges, in addition mine was a very old and poorly maintained car largely from insufficiently skilled mechanics, so if you take a curve way too fast chances are that your door will swing open- living dangerously you say, we said young and wild.

The Accident

On this faithful day, I was riding in my 504 with my cousins, one of whom was driving the car and the other now of blessed memories; 3 young men on a jolly ride (may be a little careless but never bad kids or wrongful intentions), we took a sharp curve and trust our 504 to live up to its reputation, its door swung open and hit another car, this was not a major damage but the man was very angry with us, understandably so, we were asked to fix the car and we had to go home to my aunt’s to get some more money to fix the car, we eventually fixed the car and went home still very apologetic all through the event; we did note the owner of the damaged car a middle age man at the time saying why should we have a car to drive even though we were all of legal driving age and had drivers licenses but when you put it in the cultural context of an Anglophone African developing country where many people remained below the poverty line and when cars were an extreme expression of prestige you could understand the man’s statement and so we did not make much of it. Our mistake.

The Arrest

In the early hours of the next day, must have been about 4am, we noticed people jumping over our low fence all around the compound we were scared because they were in black, eventually we heard banging on the front door, naturally we refused to open until we were threatened that they were the police and if we did anything we would be shot, and so we opened the door, the police must have numbered somewhere between 10-12 officers because they came in 2trucks.

They got in and started searching everywhere, they made us seat on the floor in our underwear, initially they thought we were alone in the house and started to falsely accuse us of robbery unfortunately as this was going on my aunt’s much older women came into the seating area and in unison started chanting “Blood of Jesus, Blood of Jesus”, my aunts started to query what exactly they were looking for, the police had no explanation, she asked for their search warrant and she got called a prostitute for it, after ransacking the house and found nothing they concluded that we were armed robbers because we had very nice shoes and a car, all attempt to explain that this was a very old hand me down 504 fell on deaf ears, they cuffed and chained us and dragged us onto the back of their truck.

I was distraught.

The Police Station

On getting to the police station and indeed all along we were threatened to confess or we would be severely dealt with, on getting to the station we were processed and as this was going on several officers seem to wonder what evidence there was that warranted the arrest, since this was not a crime scene, why are these young men criminals, and then it came to light that the owner of the car we ran into the day before was affiliated to the police or a police officer and had tipped our home as a criminals hideout. Clearly the police officers who made the raid were disappointed when my aunt accosted them, and explained how every child was her kid (in African culture a mother is not only a mother to the kids she borne, she is mother to all kids born around her) but they won’t let go still, they simply could not accept they were wrong and so because someone was deeply offended that we had a car to drive and we had made the mistake of running into his car, four young men deserved to be traumatized and incarcerated(another cousin who wasn’t on the ride was also arrested).

Have you ever been in cuffs, distraught is an understatement, I could barely speak or walk, dried throat, fear ridden and palpitating heart, all in chains.

The Cell

And so I was thrown in a cell, as I walked towards the cell, my cousin held me back choosing to go in first before I followed, they had split us into pairs(I was the youngest and they were all at least 4years older), the cell was about 12ft * 12ft and was already congested with about 11 inmates, dark and smelly.

The President of Cell

I soon found out why my cousin held me back; as he walked in a man about his size approached him and gave a strong punch on his chest my cousin who had clearly been expecting it, responded by asking him were the president was, a few more persons got up and asked who he was to be asking for the president, this triggered more attack and all of a sudden I was been punched slapped all over, my cousin was braving it and throwing some massive punch but I was too distraught and taking a serious beating, through it I heard an officer shout he would soon spray the cell with teargas, at this statement one huge guy in a corner got up and ordered the attack to stop.

My cousin a relentless guy asked him are you the president he replied “Yes?” my cousin turned to the guy who initiated the attack when we came into the cell and gave him a massive punch, the already malnourished inmate who was not expecting the attack collapsed to the floor, my cousin quickly turned to the president and paid homage “Presido you dey here and you let this rat come they nack me. I hail you o” the president laughed and said “o boy you stubborn o, but I like you” he then invited my cousin to seat next to him- he was promoted, and my cousin shared his status with me by getting me to seat next to him away for the faeces in a corner of the cell.

A Cell Day

Remember the raid happened around 4am and so this was about 6am in the cell, and in the cell there is not much to do, no space to stretch-you remain cramped, no air, just empty and then your demons come for you, depressing you, sinking you deeper and deeper into a black hole in the center of your heart, destroying your hopes and only the addition of more inmates or extraction of some that is your reprieve from your dark reverie.

All day I was in the cell, my aunts came and tried to bail us but that proved more difficult than they thought, they brought us food but my throat will not cooperate I ate nothing all day but my cell mates were always too happy to help since no one was bringing them anything to eat. As the day got dark, darkness fell over my soul, a sink hole threatened to swallow my and hope faded, all through the night I felt sorry for my cousin he was more worried about my mental state than being in the cell and soon other cell mates became worried. I was despondent

By morning they were all calling officers to get me out of the cell to seat behind the counter, but all entreaties fell on deaf ears, somewhere about mid-morning they brought another man into the cell he was older say early thirties and he got a beating of his life, he started crying (I was way beyond tears, my soul was absolutely gutted) the new inmate held on to the bars as he cried, the other cell mates who had beaten him asked him to move away from the door and stop blocking the air, but he held on and wailed to be let out, a few cell mates started plucking the hair off his legs (he was a hairy guy) and they told him that they would skin him if he doesn’t stop blocking the air flow, I felt sorry, but I now knew in reality I had no powers to change the situation. I looked on.

The Bail

At about 4pm(next day) my aunt succeeded in getting us released to go home, as we were prepared to be released other inmates pleaded with us to help deliver messages to friends and family about their predicament and so we took some messages to be delivered as we walked out

Freedom was a long walk home

Although we had a ride home, I choose to walk it must have been about 4-5km home, my aunt pleaded, my mum who was now around pleaded and my defending cousin joined in to try to persuade me to take the ride home, but I wanted to walk and so I started walking, my cousin chose to walk with me, what I remember most about that walk was that it was a very silent walk and a lot of deep breaths and inhaling, as if I was trying to catch the breathe I missed while in cell, I knew the value of freedom, but I did not feel free because I also now know that in reality the more powerful or stronger define what freedom means no matter how nicely it is packaged and that definition will always determine the freedom of the less powerful and when they deserve to have it or not, and even today that remains true.

Humanity above Everything.

My life experience and realization shifted my attention to the value of freedom and so I did my best for humanity and continue strive for freedom, as a younger person I was more aggressive, but as I grew older I came to the realization that what I called freedom and what the victims called freedom may be different and so I often find that in reality it was a negotiated freedom or conditional freedom. Reality.