25/07/2026
Don't Cry This True Life Story 😂😂
I was 13 years old, living in Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno. After school I used to hawk sugar cane for my father,He was a sugarcane farmer.
I still remember how he would hire a wheelbarrow for 20 kobo. We’d arrange the sugarcane on it and push it around the city to sell.
On one fateful day, after school, I was pushing my sugarcane around. The weather was unbearably hot. Anyone who has lived in the North knows how hot Maiduguri can get. I was looking for shade under a tree to rest.
In the process, I accidentally scratched and knocked off the headlight of a car parked by the roadside leading to the garage. I was terrified. I wanted to run, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. So I stood there for 30 minutes, waiting for the owner.
I didn’t know the owner was praying nearby in the mosque inside the park. When he came, I was still holding the broken side light in my hand. I couldn’t speak.
Instead of listening, the man started beating me. People tried to intervene, but he brought out a pistol and threatened to shoot anyone who came close.
He shoved me into his car and drove straight to the police station. That was when I realized he was a police officer. He ordered his men to put me in a cell. They obeyed.
I spent the whole night there. No food, nothing. The only thing we got was bread that was shared among us in the morning.
Around 10am the next day, one officer asked, “Who is this small boy?”
A woman at the counter replied, “Oga said we should keep him there.”
“Who are you to question oga?”
One week passed. Then two. One month. I kept asking myself: Has this man forgotten me? I tried to talk to the officers on duty. No one listened.
I was barely 13yrs. I cried every night, tasting the bitterness of life at such a young age.
After a month, some officers gathered a group of us and took us to court. The court didn’t sit that day. The officer said, “Let’s take them on remand.”
That’s how I ended up in Maiduguri prison. One year passed on remand. I was later drafted to the laundry section.
After two years, I was moved out of Maiduguri. I didn’t even know where until a fellow inmate told me: Bauchi. By
