The Deadly Journey

                    The Deadly Journey

                         (a short story)

    

                        

                               By

                      Lene Ododomu

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Bose lost her father at a very tender age. She was still in primary school when her father died of a tragic accident by falling down from a palm tree. He was a palmwine tapper who was well known in the whole street of Ijebode, Lagos.  

When his dead was announced to the people in the street, mourning travels across the whole street. Bose was deceivingly brought home and was told about the news, although she was still a child that doesn't understand the pain of losing a love one. Since after the dead of her father, her mother, Modupe is the only one takes the responsibility of her education and well being. She is the only surviving child of her parents. She helps the mother to hawk plantain anytime she returns back from school.

 Bose wrote her final o'level exams with the money she earned from labouring work and with a token support from the mother. Also when she was in the university, she be the one to support herself by hawking sarchet water on the street. But luckily she met a young man who supported by paying her school fees and also rented an apartment for her, but unfortunately she lost him immediately after her graduation from the University of Lagos.

Bose met a lady called Ayomide while returning from the market. She was her secondary school mate whom she helps academically but can't compare herself with her with a difference that Ayomide came with a brand new car and while she was trekking with legs with plantains that remained in her sales from the market. They embraced themselves after recognizing each other.

"What happened to you, my dear Bose? Why are you this helpless?" asked Ayomide with a mimicking voice.

"This is how God want me to be for now. According to predestination in the circle of life or the rite passage in African cosmology of Oral literature, before a man was born he was already destined by God of he will become on earth. Predestination is explained that, it is a man’s first link with God, his creator. It is the first stage of man’s life, the stage before real life. It is also regarded as man’s destiny. It is hinged on the belief that what becomes of man on earth is decided before he was born partly by him and partly by God. Man is given opportunity to choose what he wants to be by indicating before the stool of heaven, the divinities being his witness. God then bestows on him the second portion of his destiny after which he is given birth to. The portion of man’s destiny awaits him on earth and this is dependent on the circumstance of his birth and Ii is encounter with benevolent or malevolent forces. I tried want to point out a fact that every human on earth has a meaning of the day he or she was born as a child. We have days which started from Monday to Sunday and each of these daty carried the meaning of every persons destiny. It was said that a child born on Monday is raised by a single mother and always struggled before achieving his or her dream and I was born on that the same day. I doubted it when one of our Professors taught us this thing during my school days in the university. So I had to visit him in his office to make the calculation and it became very accurate with what he said" replied Bose.

"But you can change your destiny by working for it" said Ayomide.

"It can't be possible because destiny is inevitable just like death" replied Bose.

"Well, I have a very good plan for you. I will introduce you to a friend called Mr Kofi who's a Ghanian but a naturalized citizen of Nigeria after fulfilling the requirements of the Nigerian constitution by spending 15 years in Nigeria. He had helped so many young Nigerians, especially ladies. I believe your narrative will change too once you meet with him. I will take you to him myself tomorrow. I will brief him before tomorrow so that I will leave both of you to discuss, but adhere to whatever thing he tells you" said Ayomide.

"Oh, wow! I will be very much grateful, Ayomide. Indeed you are a good friend" replied Bose with exciting voice.

"You are welcome, my dear. Let me drop you home" said Ayomide.

"Thank you for that" replied Bose as she excitedly jumps into the car and she was dropped in her junction.

Ayomide brought Bose to Mr Kofi as promised. They arrived to his apartment at Banana high land and met him with a group of Whitemen. He gives them an eye signal that he is having a meeting, so they waited for him at the visitor's sitting room. He joins them immediately after the meeting and Ayomide excuses them as planned.

Bose was not comfortable by sitting alone with Mr. Kofi because he's a somebody she doesn't know from anywhere. He ordered for a bottle of water for her and also insisted to serve her food which she declined. He told her that he had been brief by her friend, Ayomide but some processes need to be done before traveling her out of the country. He then asked her to bring N1,000.000.00 to process her visa and ensure her that he had already arranged with a white man in Libya who will employ her for a very good job with tangible monthly payment. She became so excited but still broke down by the amount of money he mentioned. She had this thought that since Ayomide can owns a house and cars, the money she is asked to bring will not be a problem to her. So she related the issue to her but Ayomide refused to assist her, instead told her to look for the money by all means and settled the man to process the visa.

"You can't expect me to initiate you into a secret cult where you will make everything you needed in life and then sacrifice for you to meet the satisfaction of the grand master who is the head of the secret society. So you are expected to do the sacrifice yourself and then enjoy your wealth with an autonomy" said Ayomide who drove off immediately she drops her at her junction.

Bose relates this to her mother but happily gets a response from the mother to sell their family land. She thanked the mother and promised to pay her back with greatness to change the narrative of the family. She sold the land in the following day and gives the money to Mr. Kofi to process the visa.

Bose was surprised to be told that her journey through flight has been changed and she is to travel by road to Libya. Bose didn't complain because her hope was that once she arrives to Libya she will see an end to every of her problems. But Bose was still ignorant of the fact that Kofi ate the money he requested from her to process her visa.

Bose started her journey from Niger to Agadez with 40 passengers in 30 seater bus who are also traveling with the same purpose of her, and they were both male and female but the females were the majority. Because of lack of space in the vehicle, they had to lap each other for a journey of 12 days without good food. Sadly for them, their foods got finished when they have spent just 7 days out of twelve days. 

They got to a desert road where there is no water or anything for survival and they were to spend about 27 hours to pass the road. In the cause of this critical situation, about ten of them died and their bodies were thrown away for vultures to eat. But Bose was so lucky that at that moment her menstruation came out with heavy flow and she used it as a form of water to drink just to survive herself.

It was very sad for Bose that she lost one of her co- travellers called Emeka aka "Emi" from Anambra state who assisted by lapping her for the journey they have embarked so far without any complain. She cried so bitterly when Emeka corpse was thrown out of the bus like a wasted bin.

When they finally arrived to Libya, it was discovered that only five out of the 40 passengers survived and Bose was luckily be among the five that survived and she cried again for not seen her colleagues at the end of the journey.

Bose was brought to a man called Zibiri who is a naturalized citizen of Libya from Saudi Arabia. He does not understand English to communicate with Bose, so a Nigerian lady called Adesuwa who is his secretary that had spent about twenty years in Libya that understands the Libyan language and interprete to Bose in English. From the interpretation, she got to know that her purpose of being brought to him is to use her for prostitution work. She had already being sold by Mr. Kofi and Ayomide before she got to his place at Libya.

Bose saw herself in a pit of hell and concluded in her thought that her life has come to an end. All what she has seen so far are a contrary to what she was told in Nigeria. She was told by Zibiri that she is not the only Nigerian who has become a victim of this situation. He has killed the ones who proved stubbornness with him and fed their carcass to his wild dogs. Some were not dead but he feeds them alive to the dogs.

Bose was told of these devil behaviors of Zibiri. He warned her that she will end up looking like the others who lost their precious lives due to their stubbornness that's if she fails to corporate with him. She had no choice but still refused to corporate with him, so he ordered his boys to lock her in a dark room for more than four days without food. 

When it happens that she still refuses to corporate with him, Zibiri sold her to a lady called A'shadieeyah who is a successful business woman but a drug addict. Bose was transferred to A'shadieeyah's house, a house which has about 13 bedrooms and she was instructed to clean it every blessed day. Anytime the woman takes cocaine, she will beat her like an animal and one day she angrily locked her inside a cloth washing machine for two days which almost took her life.

The woman invited two giant men to her house and locked Boss inside a room with them, so they raped her brutally and also beat her when she was trying to drag with them. But this was not enough for A'shadieeyah by just bringing two men to molest Bose sexually, so she brings more men who came everyday to sleep with her and some without condom. She concluded by sending her to a human trafficking prison where she planned her to end her life.

When Bose got to the prison ground, she saw a crowd of people working tirelessly under a fairy sun. Then when she wanted to shout, a woman who is in charge of the day's work whispered to her not to shout since she has gotten to the land of no return, a place where her voice will be swallowed because nobody will come to her aid and she will be killed like a goat if she fails to comply with them. However, she became so helpless by seeing her fellow humans working like robot without rest and she discovered that about majority of them are from Nigeria who was deceived in the same way she was deceived and trafficked. No option left for her than to pray for the will of God to be done. 

 Fortunately for her, the woman who was in charge of the workers on the day she came, visited her and hid a phone with a number of Mr. Koko-D funny, a Nigerian comedian who is a content creator. She called and explained everything to him. The woman also connected her to another security officer who guide their building and bribed him a part of money sent by Mr. Koko and stole her out of the prison.

Koko connected his Libyan friend named Abdul Qawi to accommodate Bose. Abdul Qawi prepared a visa for Bose and traveled her back to Nigeria safely. 

With immediate effect, Mr. Kofi and Ayomide were arrested by police and was brought to court where they were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. 

When Bose was interviewed by Channels TV, she told the world her story of how she went through hell during her stay in the North Africa. She shed more light on her time in Libya, and how fellow Nigerians were the architect of their plight most of the time. She told the incident that happened to her during the journey of how she drank blood from her menstrual flow to be able to survive in the desert road. She ended up by advising her fellow young ladies to be contented with what they have no matter how token it is and never let the attractiveness of money to control their minds. She became so happy that the two devils who caused her this pain have been arrested and jailed, and her regrettable story will serve as deterrent for others not to fall into this dubious trap.

A test was conducted on her and luckily no pregnancy was detected and nor mysterious deseases after being raped by the white men without protection. She was employed as a secretary by a private company in Abuja.