I grew up in the city of Lagos which happens to be one of the smallest state in Nigeria but also one of the most populous. Everyone has this mentality that if you want to make it big, you have to travel down to Lagos to work and that has made everyone from all over the country, to go down to Lagos to make a living.
Majority of the celebrities are also based in Lagos. So it's almost as if Lagos is the capital of Nigeria, even though it isn't (it used to be, before the capital was moved to Abuja).
Anyway, living in a city with that kind of population, crime is bound to be on the rise. From robbery, to all sort of crazy things like sacrifices placed by the road sides. We've all gotten used to seeing or hearing of things like this that it's now almost a norm. I've seen and heard of a couple of crimes every now and then. Some of this perpetrators had been lucky enough to escape after committing their crime, while some had not been that lucky. Either they were caught and handed over to the authorities, or they faced jungle justice, depending on how severe their crime was or who they committed the crime against.
But majority of the crime I saw were petty robbery that really has no interesting story to it because it's either someone robbing a store or forcefully taking something (like phone or a purse) from someone on the road.
One crime that I did hear about and probably will never forget was when I was still in high school. I had woken up one morning and got dressed for school like I always did.
I began to walk down to school because the distance from my home to my school wasn't really that long, I always preferred to walk even though my parents always gave me cash for the bus, it was a way I used in having more money either to save or for lunch.
Well I had began my journey to school that morning when I got to the main road only to find a corpse at the side of the road. According to the news I heard, the dude had tried to steal from someone and he had ended up dead.
I still remember this story because that was the first time in my life that I was seeing a corpse in real life and it was so terrifying. That corpse had remained on that road for some few more days before the authorities came to take it away to the mortuary.
I remember how swollen the corpse was by the time it was taken away and it just gave me goosebumps because it kinda reminded me of my mortality.
Till date, I think that is the more gruesome crime related thing I've seen in my life and I honestly don't plan on seeing another corpse anytime soon because I hate anything that reminds me of my mortality so much.
Here's my entry to the Hive Learners weekly contest. You can read more about it here.
Dang, seeing a corpse is something, seeing one at young age that is terrible. The part where you mention that it tooks DAYS for autorities to pick it up...wow! I donlt even want to imagine it, just the how swollen it was part is enough for me, ouf, I feel ya
Yeah it was a terrible thing to see, especially at such a young age.
Unfortunately, I kinda grew up in a ghetto so no one really cared about the corpse, not even the authorities and that was why it took them that long to arrive.
The first time I saw a corpse I was traumatized, till date I still see that man if I close my eyes.
I understand bro.. It's never a good thing to behold.
Corpse on the road for days, imagine the kinda smells that were oozing out and saturating the environment.
Jeez, I wanna puke😢
It was terrible.