On February 16, 2020, I walked into church desperate for encouragement. I wore a nice red dress and an even nicer smile but deep inside, I was hurting. It had been a rough weekend and I had just moved from Lagos to Abuja so I had no real support system to lean on. The church was supposed to be my safe place, yet it launched me into my worst nightmare.
I sat in my usual spot and noticed an older woman who kept smiling at me. She looked so much like a friend’s mother and that gave me a strange sense of comfort. She had an air of authority about her so I could tell she was either rich or powerful, or both. You couldn’t tell by the way she dressed though.
She kept looking back to make small talk and I tried to be as polite as possible. Then when I got up to dance, she told me how beautiful I looked and asked if I was dating anyone. I said no and then she prayed for me that I wouldn’t end up with a typical Abuja man. I still don’t know what that means.
She said I should invite her to my wedding, so we exchanged numbers and that was that. Or so I thought. Two days later, on Tuesday, I got a call from a strange woman asking me to meet her somewhere in town. I wondered who the crazy lady was and when she kept calling, I blocked her number.
On Thursday, February 20th, I got a call from a courier company saying they had a package for me from Lagos. I had asked a friend to send a shipment of my books to Abuja so I assumed it was from him. I walked to my estate gate to pick up the package and just as I arrived, the supposed delivery man showed me an ID card. “I’m a policeman,” he said. “Please step outside.”
Let me just state here for the record that I’ve always been terrified of Nigerian policemen. If I’m in an Uber and the driver gets stopped by the police, that ride has ended for me. Whenever I get anywhere near a police officer, I have a mini panic attack. So you can imagine how it felt for me to be the sole focus of a Nigerian policeman’s attention. I was like a zombie.
He showed me the older woman’s photo and asked if I knew her. I said I just met her on Sunday and we exchanged texts. Then he said “Please come with us.” At this point, I lost it. In any other country, those four words are innocent, but in Nigeria they have been the last that many have heard before going to the other side.
I told the police officer that I wouldn’t go anywhere with him until he could produce a warrant. Instead of a warrant, he produced a colleague who had been watching from a black car with tinted windows. I panicked and tried to run back into the estate but they grabbed me and handcuffed me. Tears began to roll down my face. I couldn’t believe it. I had done everything possible to avoid being involved with the police. Yet here I was, in handcuffs, because a nice old lady gave me her number in church.
I sat in the police car and wept quietly as they drove me to an unknown destination. I wondered if this was how my story would end. I moved to Abuja in search of greener pastures but what had seemed like foliage from afar was turning out to be carpet grass.
To be continued…