I have this friend called solomon. Solomon has a younger brother called Simon. On the 12th of February 2007, Simon who walks for a Spare part Merchant at Oyingbo, was sent to Balogun market, Lagos Island, by his boss to buy him some goods. When Simon got to the market, he went straight to his regular customer where he's been buying things from for the past 2years. Simon's customer, popular called Iya Bukky, didn't have everything Simon needed. She sold to him what she had and asked him to go elsewhere to buy the remaining. Simon decided to leave his goods with Iya Bukky and come back later to get it after purchasing the remaining items. At the next street from Iya Bukky, Simon went into a shop that had exactly what he wanted. The owner of the shop, an elderly man of about 60/65years old, introduced himself as Alhaji and was very pleasant and courteous to Simon as they came to an agreement about the goods. They settled on 14, 000 thousand Naira. Simon paid. Then he realised he couldn't carry the goods himself, he asked the Alhaji where he could find people who carry stuff for other people in the market. The Alhaji showed him where to go. Simon left in the direction the Alhaji pointed to him not knowing his life was about to change in the next couple of minutes. Simon got back about 10minutes later with the person to carry the things he had bought. He pointed the goods to the 'carrier' and as the 'carrier' was about to pick them up, the Alhaji stopped him. Then asked Simon to pay him for the goods. This surprised Simon because he knew he had paid and this he told the Alhaji. The Alhaji agreed that Simon had paid but that Simon stole the money he had paid him and more money he kept in his drawer before leaving to find the 'carrier'. Simon couldn't believe what he just heard, so he raised his voice, called the Alhaji a liar and tried to take the goods he had paid. The well known Alhaji in Balogun market started shouting 'thief' 'thief', 'ole, ole'. Before Simon knew what was happening, he was surrounded by area boys who asked the Alhaji what happened. The Alhaji told his story and noboby bothered to ask Simon his own version. They first searched him and when they didn't find anything on him, they descended on him. They hit him with their fists, sticks, iron, anything and everything they found. He was stripped naked. There were over seventeen thugs that beat Simon till he almost collapsed. Then one of them suggested they burn him. By this time people had gathered the mob beating the thief. One of the thugs went to look for fuel, one went to fetch tyres while another one went to fetch matches. In a minute or so, Simon would be history. But then there was this little girl in the crowd that recognised Simon, she had left her mother's shop to come watch the thief being beaten, and then she realised she had seen this same boy in her mother's shop just less than 30minutes ago. She recognised him especially because her mother had asked her to sit and watch over the goods Simon had bought pending when he came back to collect them. And she had reluctantly sat with the goods until she had heard the commotion in the market and had snuck out to watch even when her mother had warned her not to go. Young Bukky went running to her mother and told her the thief they caught and were about to kill was the same person who had come to their shop earlier to buy things from her. At first Iya Bukky didn't understand what her daughter was talking about but decided to go check things out for herself. As she got there, she saw Simon naked on the floor, tied with ropes, blood everywhere, two tyres around his neck and petrol being poured on him. Iya Bukky shrieked, managed to cut through the crowd and fell on Simon. She wrapped herself on him and started shouting that the young man was known to her, had been her customer for years, he was no thief, and she started crying, praying and begging. They tried all they could but Iya Bukky refused to remove herself from Simon. She said if they wanted to kill him, they should kill both of them. Fortunately for Simon, Iya Bukky was well known to the area boys and after long minutes of pleading from Iya Bukky, the area boys left with their deadly weapons. Iya Bukky removed the tyres from Simon's neck and she and two other males carried Simon to her shop naked. (Simon was unconscious at this point). She washed away the blood, found him clothes to wear and waited for him to wake up. When he did, he gave Iya Bukky a number to call, it was his boss's. His boss called Simon's older brother Solomon, together they went to pick Simon up. He was taken to the hospital where the doctor said he had internal bleeding, broken bones, fractured ribs, torn ligaments and so many others that will take years to heal. Solomon called the police on the Alhaji, he was arrested and locked up. Two days later, he was released. And nothing was heard about the case again. The police were not interested in persecuting the Alhaji, they just asked Solomon to go take care of his brother. Solomon is 29 years old and he couldn't stop crying about what this people had done to his baby brother (Simon is 24). When he came to my house to tell me the story I coudn't believe it until I went to the hospital to see Simon. He was a total mess. Almost killed for something he didn't do. I cried like I'd never cried before for such an injustice. Simon wasnt my brother but there was a time as I stared at him on his hospital bed that I wished I could get hold of the guys who had done that to him. I was so angry I felt like sending the police after the area boys myself. The worst part is that none of the area boys was arrested. Not one. The police went to the scene of crime, made their investigations, and closed the matter. Not a single area boy was arrested. Simon is still in the hospital and will be there for another 2/3 weeks. He will be fine one day and one day God will reward all of us for the evil we commit against our fellow human beings.
