14/01/2026
When I was a child, my father once told me that it was better to be called an introvert than to be found among the wrong company. Years later, that wise counsel manifested in my life when I lived in Suleja, a town in Niger State.
It was Christmas in 1995 and in the spirit of the festive season; my friends and I had gone to a party in Oyus Guest Inn. I lived alone in those days and worked as a barber in a salon. I was carefree and wanted to be in the company of boys whose parents were rich, having come from a poor home myself. Peer pressure was taking a toll and asserting its claims on me. I thought I was having fun.
So, I hung out with these friends of mine until 3a.m. There were many people at the party, most of them youths. And because it was Christmas, most of them were drunk but I wasn’t. When my friends announced our departure, I quickly bade farewell to the lady I was privileged to dance with and off I went with them. As we strolled away, we chatted about the party and the fun we had had.
There were seven of us. Three amongst us were smoking w**d. The fourth was smoking a Benson and Hedges cigarette while the remaining three of us simply tagged along in the cold. The roads were deserted. In those days, Suleja was just like a sheet with few dotted spots in the shape of houses.
Suddenly, we heard a shrill scream ahead. The biggest boy among us urged us to quicken our pace. Like indentured servants, we hurriedly followed him to the direction from which the cry had come. When we arrived, we discovered that the screams had come from a petite young lady who was being chased by three boys. What her offense was, I never knew to this day.
"Please," the lady ran to me and held my jacket, using me as human shield. "Please beg them for me."
The assailants whom she was running from charged menacingly towards her but my friends quickly waded in and demanded to know what her offence was.
"Walahi, nothing will stop us from hurting this girl today," one of them shouted angrily.
That was when I recognized him and called his name. He was one of my clients. The haircut he sported was my handcraft.
"Please, pardon her for my sake," I pleaded passionately.
"Japheth, you don't know what this girl did. If you did, you would let me deal with her," he snarled in Hausa.
For good ten or so minutes, I begged them. Finally, he looked at the girl and said, "Count yourself lucky today. Next time, you…" He left the threat hanging.
When they were gone, I felt like a hero, a proud knight in shining armour, having saved the day. But my drunken friends thought differently. My heroic deed soon became my undoing.
I asked the lady where she was heading to.
"Maje," she said in a panicky voice.
Maje was quite a distance from where we were. I asked again why she had come that far just to attend a party and she said she was with some friends who had left while she was asleep.
"How will you go home now?" I felt genuinely concerned and wanted to help.
She begged me to let her stay at my place until daybreak and I agreed. My friends were now ahead of us. I hadn't the faintest idea what they were going to do until the biggest boy broke out of the pack and turned towards us.
"You girl," he growled menacingly, "come with me."
I and the lady were bewildered.
"What is it?" I managed to ask but my query was met with a hard stare.
It was when he yanked off his belt and started raining blows on the girl that I realized that the situation had gotten out of hand. They five had conspired to r**e the girl! The poor girl had escaped the wolves pursuing her only to run into the den of lions.
Her clothes flew into the dark in seconds. I was crying helplessly now, begging no one in particular to help, but my friends were all determined to have their way. Crazed with lust, they were now all naked. In my very presence they did the unthinkable, the very zenith of evildoing. One by one, they brutally abused her. And amongst them all, just one person thought it wise to use a condom.
In the meantime, choked with disgust, I decided to leave the scene but that feeble act of protest fetched me slaps and curses from all of them. They called me a woman.
"Coward!" the biggest boy fired hotly and kicked me in the groin, sending me flying into the air. "This na the last time wey you go ever follow us!"
"He must do too," one of them screamed and before I could register a protest, my clothes were yanked off me like banana peels.
I suddenly realized that I hadn’t chosen the right company as my father had always counselled. I had become a criminal being in their midst. When I had been stripped, they flung me like a piece of rag on top of the girl who now lay motionless on her torn clothes.
"Oya, fire!" one of them bellowed and the others laughed at my misery.
I couldn't do anything. I simply didn’t have the nerve and the energy to do evil like them. I was limp and cold like a dog's nose. And though I couldn't do to her what they did, I have lived with guilt so poignant and excruciating ever after. My heart misses a beat even to this day whenever those horrifying images flash in my subconscious. Perhaps sharing this story in this book will lighten my burden. I know all the characters involved would have probably moved on by now but the scar still remains indelible in me.
In no time, they dragged the girl off her feet. Then the big boy lit a match and set my clothes and hers ablaze. Weeping and cursing under my breath, I stared at the glowing remains of our clothes while the beasts laughed sadistically. Minutes later, they were all gone, leaving the bruised girl and me totally n**e and crying in the cold.
Never in my entire life had I felt so worthless and hurt. The girl and I got up and began to walk briskly to my home. We were lucky it was still very dark, nevertheless we scurried from shadow to shadow, trying as much as we could to avoid paths where we could be seen. She was crying still and asking how far my house was from where we were.
I told her it was very far. We would get home soon. We saw only two people on our way and you can imagine the looks they gave us.
The joy on the face of the girl the moment I began to open the gate to where I lived will continue to remain imprinted in my heart.
“This is your house?” she asked with relief as I opened the gate.
“Yes,” I replied.
When we entered my room, she held me in a tight hug.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
I gave her my towel and led her to the bathroom then put on a pair of boxers. While she was in the bathroom, I tried to reflect on what had happened and all the things that had been happening to me .All that I could think of was that there was something wrong with me. Perhaps somewhere in the creation theatre a curse was placed on me. Perhaps it was on my parents. This made me cry the more because I could not understand why a child like me should go through all the things that I had been passing through since my birth.
I thought of doing something crazy like poisoning all the boys who had gone to the party with me and also killing myself. The thought remained in my head for a long time. But it faded away in the morning after an incident that happened hours later.
I had my bath shortly after the girl had hers. There was still a remnant of the rice I had cooked for Christmas and there was stew with chicken. I made that available and we ate with relish, both of us avoiding each other because of the loads on our feeble minds.
She was wearing my clothes, a blue shirt and a pair of black jeans.
She cleared her throat suddenly after we had eaten and she told me a story. It was one of the most pathetic stories I have ever heard. I hope to write her story someday and title it ‘THE GIRL’. She taught me something that I will never forget: forgiveness.
“I have been through a lot my brother, but who am I not to forgive?” she said in the end. “My being in this world is for a reason and I must tell you that at twenty I have learnt a lot of lessons that will carry me through the remaining years of my existence on earth. The mistakes I have made, I will try to make sure my children never make them. If I go for HIV test and I am not positive after what your friends did to me, I will forgive them and move on. Blame and guilt are the products of a heart that never forgives and unforgiveness weighs us down and keeps us far below everyone else. It begets everything that is evil.”
She went on to advise me to learn to forgive so that my heart would be light at all times. She said it was her grandmother who taught her so. She had a daughter who was about three years old. She left the girl with her mother and came to seek greener pastures in the city. Her friends whom she lived with were the ones that had taken her to the party. She said she hoped to return to school one day to complete her education.
She was still talking when my friend, the big one who had led the others to do what they did to her walked in.
He came to beg for forgiveness. I watched him kneel before the girl with teary eyes and say he didn’t know what came over him. He said he saw the two of us that morning entering my house naked and the image kept haunting him.
“All I can tell you is that you should never to do such a thing to any other girl. I forgave you even before you came here. It is already off my chest,” she said.
I could not imagine how anyone who had been hurt so badly could forgive so easily. It dawned on me that I was hosting an angel, not a human being. It struck me that I must also learn to forgive, no matter what.
I was to find out later that the girl secured admission to one of the polytechnics around and that was the last I heard of her. As for my friends, I gave them a very long rope and began from that moment to mingle with those who could help me to actualize my dream of becoming a writer.
However, like a sore that refuses to heal, I still remember that faithful early morning and all the images are still fresh and vivid in my mind.
THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE by Japheth Prosper
NB: I still remember this Christmas jollof as if it's the only food I ate last year.
