An Encounter With Bandits -By Hassan Idris

The bandits arrived Zurmi local government, Zamfara state where we lived in the early hours of the morning and requested to take my two beautiful sisters for marriage to their commander to which my father disagreed and told them they were already engaged. My father was taken to the outskirt of Zurmi local government by the commander of the bandits and some members to which others were left to watch over my sisters at home. I stubbornly followed them to the outskirt where they took my father to.

My father was tied to the hanging pole; his hands were tied thus he could not resist at all. They stuffed his mouth with piece of cloths so that he could not make noise. I was requesting and begging them to spare my father’s life in return for my sisters they had wanted.

I knew that they would have taken my sisters away even after killing my father. They were hanging him for this reason. Those poor souls were fated to these commanders of the bandits. At least my father’s life would be spared. It was better to save some than the whole family being killed by bandits. I was trying to do it, but it was too late.

They had not done all these to my father to forgive. They ruled by establishing fear in Zurmi. If they started forgiving, then their fear would have abated among people. I kept crying and screaming like the angel of death was dragging out my soul from my body. They hanged my father. He writhed in the air for a while, then his body went still. He was dead. Suddenly, a writhing and helplessness for three to four minutes in silence, and the end…I fell to the ground watching his swinging dead body. Then do I realized that we’re but mere mortals under the yoke of death.

My father was very poor, a poor laborer. We didn’t even have bread to eat. He came to Zurmi, Zamfara state in search of bread and suddenly died in the hands of the bandits. Life is not so cheap. The breaths of fifty years were snubbed in five minutes. He had not asked anything from the world and the government but security of life and property. He came to Zurmi in search of respectable meals for two times, a place to live and earnings for the sake of his children, but he got laid down by the bandits.

Hassan Idris.
ABU, Zaria-Nigeria.
Fictional story.
idrishassan035@gmail.com.
+2348135167793