Did you know I have a SARS story? -By Adepeju Jaiyeoba

Unbelievable but true…

In my final year in the University at OAU, something had happened on campus as usual that made the authorities shutdown school activities and hostels. Everyone was given a “vacate premises notice” and we complied.

As a final year law student that year, our lecturers and faculty, not wanting us to miss going to law school agreed to continue to supervise our projects so that we can graduate within time.

This was very welcomed as we had already spent seven years studying a five year course.

As my parents reside in Lagos, two of my friends and I decided to move in with another friend who had an apartment close to campus.

Everything was going on well as we continued to work on our projects using our laptops every single day until one morning, around 5am while we were working, our doors were broken gestapo style and four men in mufti, holding guns started barking at us asking ‘Where’s your laptop’.

It was dark.
We couldn’t see their faces and they kept shining their torchlights in our eyes.
It was a terrifying moment.

We became very scared, all four of us.
We were afraid for our lives.
We only wanted to finish our projects.
We thought they were robbers.

The fear still overwhelms me as I type.

We started shouting and crying.

They held up guns, seized our laptops and rounded us up in an unpainted van and drove us away.

I thought that day will be the end of my life.
I thought of my parents, all their struggles, everything flashed before me.
I began to repent and ask for forgiveness of sins.

After what seems like an endless journey, we arrived at a police station. It was on arrival we realized that these people who broke into our apartment were policemen. All along I thought they were robbers.

They first put us behind the counter and then moved the four of us to a holding cell where we cried our eyes out. Each person thinking about their parents and siblings.

All the small law I knew flew out of my head.
I just wanted to get out alive.

After some hours, they came to call us to the counter. Next thing we saw were some of our law lecturers. Our joy knew no bounds. We started shouting their names and calling them. Asking them if they remember us and telling them where we use to sit in their classes 🤣

Apparently, someone who knew we were students, in the middle of the confusion had helped us get word to our teachers who came to rescue us.

When we got out, no one taught us to get on the first bus we could find to Lagos.

Although I’m a lawyer, police still gives me the chills.

One bullet and I could have been history that morning.

END SARS NOW!! 😡