PLACARDS, CHANTS, HASHTAGS……CHANGE?

Now I long for those times that just went by, those times in which I chided myself for not doing enough, not achieving enough, not doing as well as my mates, the times I had to shine and over-shine mundane things into LinkedIn worthy accomplishment, the times I just lived and almost enjoyed life, getting orgasms and attending parties. The times I dressed up for class, donned in white and black believing in my intellect, when everything was an intellectual argument, when student unionism was a means to an end – a shinier CV, the times I was untouched - by grief. Now, all I have are memories, little memories I want to shine and edit for him, to make even shinier than time already did. I remember the hashtags clearly even though it was years ago. I remember the date 20.10.20, I remember the colour of the sky that day, it was a bright shade of blue, innocent and unsuspecting of what it would soon be staring down at. I remember what I wore and not just because I have pictures from that day, I even remember the colour of lipstick I was wearing that day, it was chocolate, matte. ‘Daring’ that was what Amin had called it. I loved that he had said it, I loved how he had said it and was tempted to let him lick it off.

Ours is a love story with a beginning and an end. In the beginning, God created people like Amin and people like me. People who were bold and people who were not so bold. In the beginning, a girl was raped. In the beginning a girl was raped in the house of God. In the beginning, some people were angry on twitter. In the beginning, some people were stupid on twitter. In the beginning, I was one of the stupid ones. In the beginning, this gentle soul took the time to educate me, to help me unlearn things. In the beginning this charming handsome man invited me out to a protest he was organizing against gender based violence. In the beginning I saw no point in protests. Until I fell, in love at one and then became a regular. Before I met Amin. I would often say to people, “Protesting is useless in this Nigeria, it’s just a way for people to feel good about themselves.’’ I would come to accept later that this was a good reason for protesting too. “It’s not like the people in government see you. Our leaders don’t care, they’re shameless.” They care. That I would learn the hard way.

That year was a peculiar year. Nothing seemed right with it except the way it was so sweet to say. Twenty-Twenty. It was the year I turned twenty, the year Amin turned twenty-five, on his birthday, I had written him a note that read: “To the social change you so desire. To the future we would see together’’. A joke. That year, there was a virus. Millions dead and still counting. There was ASUU strike, nine months and still counting. And then there was #ENDSARS. Casualties unknown and unnamed.

It was spontaneous yet organized. The response was sporadic and all usual government antics failed. We had Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, 60% of the population, money and a fire they couldn’t quell. At the time, while this protest was ongoing, it was everything. It gave me life, a purpose, a reason to dress up and leave home. Maybe, this was why I did it really, to feel good about myself, to be near him as often as I could, to draw from him, I don’t think I care about Nigeria that much, to have put so much time and effort into fighting, screaming at bad governance. School was out of session and being my restless self, I couldn’t just sit at home. I wish I had. I wish we had that day. In the days of the protest, I would leave my house to go to his, where he stayed with his mother. He was always never ready. He spent a good part of the night working on getting things ready for the next day, so he slept late and woke up late, I knew this but I would spend a good part of the morning nagging him for never taking things seriously and he would tease me “Yet I’m the activist o. You need to chill babe. It’s not that deep”. But we both knew that was a lie. It was deep for him. We would often make love in his room. Slow, unhurried acts of passion where we gave and took in equal measure. Then he’d have breakfast while I watched and talked. He’d do the dishes, lock up and we’d leave together. That day, he had been complaining at the breakfast table. He didn’t feel like going. He felt nothing was changing, that no one was listening, that it was becoming a joke, a parody of some sort, the president was ignoring us and it was getting to him. I had been the encouraging girlfriend, the one every activist desires and egged him on. “You are at the center of this all. If you’re not there a lot of things could go wrong. You have to be there”. I was wrong I couldn’t have been more wrong. He didn’t have to be there. If he wasn’t there, things would have continued, it wasn’t his fight to finish. This was different, it wasn’t his time to shine as an activist. And even now that is blood has been shed for a salvation that never came, no one will sing his name. His, is an untold tale.

I left. I left him. Just a moment before they came. In their green khakis with oppression sewn into them. I had left because it was getting dark and I had a curfew. Unlike Amin who had since set the rules for his mother, I still had to get home before 7pm no matter the circumstance. A tanker could have fallen on third mainland bridge and the whole of Lagos be burning, I had to find my way home before 7pm. I remember getting home to my family and telling them how the crowd remained undaunted and daunting. I was especially gloating to my Dad who had said the youths would tire out soon and we would stop before Buhari even noticed. “You people need to realise that ending SARS is not the solution to your problems. And most of these youths shouting end SARS are just yahoo boys frustrated by SARS doing its work”. My Dad had said in his usual anti end SARS rhetoric.

“SARS is a special squad against armed robbery. So even if they were arresting yahoo boys they’d still be out of line. And they are not even fighting crime, they have become a nuisance. They just randomly profile people assault them and extort them. And this movement is not just about scrapping SARS. It’s about ending police brutality, about demanding good governance, about accountability, about the youths finally not following your generation’s footsteps in just complaining endlessly.”

I heard Amin in my own words. My dad had laughed with something that looked like pride on his face. “You people are calling it a movement now? I don’t blame you people, if ASUU was not on strike, you won’t have time for this”

“More reason why we should be doing this” And then Twitter went berserk.

I had been scrolling through my timeline half-heartedly while conversing with my family. It took a while for the images to register. When they did, I screamed. A guttural sound that did not at all sound like me. And then the phone calls and messages started coming in.

“WHERE IS AMIN?”

I hope you never have to do this - Look for the corpse of your loved one.

I hope you never have to see this - Bodies that would never move.

I hope you never have to smell this – Blood, fear and pain.

The next morning, after I woke up, actually after I left my bed because I could not sleep the entire night. I left for Amin’s house. I was in shock; how could this happen. Was it this bad? Did soldiers now just start shooting at people for singing the national anthem and waving the national flag? Was Nigeria really this bad? My Dad had driven me there in a surprising show of support for the movement. Apparently it took blood to wash the dust off his eyes. When we got to Amin’s house, I knew I would never be able to love this country again. There she was, his Mother sitting sprawled on the floor in the most undignified manner. This woman who always told Amin to “dress responsibly”. This woman who always looked so graceful. This woman who ironed even t-shirts she wore indoors. I remember my surprise the first time I saw her doing this, she was a great contrast to my own mum who walked about in wrappers and cornrows that always seemed to need a redoing. “My mum is something of a mysophobe, you shouldn’t admire her. Amin had said in response to my ‘I admire her. She’s so organized and always looking impeccable”. So like Amin, to have used the word ‘mysophobe’. He always saw things in their extremes. That man I loved. There she was, just staring at nothing, observing, not seeing. Her gaze seemed to be saying “You people should have just worn your hair black and left your laptops at home and stopped driving flashy cars because the freedom you craved came with a great price which you paid but that freedom wasn’t even delivered to you. Hahaaaa”.

I knew even before I heard from one of those people called sympathizers. Those people who always hear of bad things happening. How do people hear about deaths so fast anyway? He was gone. Forever. Amin’s father had been called from the scene by a friend who had been at the toll gate, protesting as well. They had chosen to call his father because he would know how to break the news to his mother, he would know what to do. This man who had not been in their lives for the past 25 years of Amin’s life was the harbinger of bad news to the woman whose heart he broke. This man must be strife personified.

I walked into his room and there he was, lying there, unchanged by death. He still looked angry at a lot of things, he was still beautiful. I touched him, gingerly at first, then I laid next to him. Next to his cold stiff body and let myself feel it for the first time. Grief. This was the end.

There’s a lot people don’t say or tell you about grief. I definitely did not expect it to burn this hard and fast, I did not expect to be so bothered I couldn’t get my tenses right when speaking about Amin, never sure whether to speak in the past or in the present but he feels too close by to be in the past yet he is nowhere around. I definitely did not think I would be grieving for Amin who died for protesting by protesting. That I would become an asylum seeker because I was fighting for a place I no longer loved, fighting for something I cannot really articulate. Grief is indeed mad. The most painful thing was not that Amin died. It was the futility of it, of his death, of our cries, of babies being born in the middle of the street because they could not get to hospitals, of sick people dying in transit, of students being home, of traders being looted, of Shoprite not being available for excursions, of policemen being roasted, of mothers walking the streets naked, of fathers wading through mortuaries to pick up the bodies of their dead children. The futility of it all. Nothing has changed. We would be doing this again soon. Same problems. Different hashtas. Till then. #sọ̀rọ̀sókè wèrè

Amal🍒