Agbara eniyan kan (the strength of one man)

CHAPTER 1

The chirping of the birds woke me up that morning, I woke up oblivious to what was going to happen that day. They came at noon with a loud boom like that of thunder, their guns that seemed so foreign to me, their white skin like that of sand, so different from mine, they came, they took, they killed. Even after everything was taken they still came for more, they took lives like they were weeds in in a farm. My father was the first to go, he stood there trying to defend us but was killed like a rat in his own home, right there and then I wished our house wasn't located in the outskirts of the town. The once peaceful town of Ijebu ode was now in a state of unrest, it's people ran with their babies on their backs and clothes half on , my mother rushed to get my sister who was about four at that time, standing  there still in shock of what just happened, in my seventeen years of life, I have never witnessed a man be killed like that, blood pooled over the floor as the sand skin man screamed in gibberish to me "Kini a ṣe lati yẹ eyi, kilode ti o wa ninu aṣọ agbada rẹ ati awọn ẹṣin rẹ lati kọlu wa pẹlu awọn ohun ija rẹ" (what did we do to deserve this, why do you come in your cotton clothes and your horses to attack us with your weapons) I screamed at the man, he looked disgusted and dusted his hands like they were polluted, he then gave a snobbish look and began to speak " I come on behalf of the queen to claim your land" he looked at me expecting to recieve an answer "ko ye mi"(I do not understand) he stepped off his horse, shot my leg and proceeded to go in my house, i let out a horrific scream while blood was pouring continuously over my dusty clothes, I heard two gun shots and he stepped out I turned around to see both my mother and my sister dead on the floor I got on my one knee and let out a series of curses to the sand skin man, begging the gods to exact their revenge "take him" the sand skin man ordered his subordinate "he will work for us, the others are too old anyways", "but why did you kill the young girl", the captain smiled wickedly "because they are animals and do not belong in civilization", the soldiers took me by the arms and put me in chains by a pole. It was that time oi looked around at my town, my beautiful town, the place I was born in, once clean and lively now had bloodied streets with lifeless bodies littered on the floor, in the corner of my eye, I spotted my friend Obafemi struggling with the men, he had refused to be chained down by them, after kicking the sand skin, he tried running, he ran as fast as he could for his dear life, it seems as though he would rather die than serve them but just as he was about to pass the gate, a loud boom rang across the air again and as swift as lightning, he lay dead on the floor, I layed there crying silently, because my father had always told me to be a man and men never cry , I heard a blood curdling scream nearby, Adunni, she was also taken from her home, she was Morayo, my sister's best friend, she was killed along with her entire family, every single person along the ages of ten and below were sold and the eleven to twenty five were held captive, the elders were killed brutally, either by beheading or by the loud metal object that was used to kill Femi.