Charly Boy: Why I Always Carry My Guns

I carry a gun because I am a responsible armed citizen ready to defend myself and loved ones. “Yes oooo”, I’m ready for war.

Last week, I was rushing to the airport to catch a flight from Abuja to Owerri en route to my village, Oguta. At the airport during the normal procedure of searching and screening, I surrendered my guns to the security agents. One of them remarked, “CharlyBoy na only you dey carry two guns?” I quickly fired back, “yes oooo Naija no normal again ooooooo”. Of course, they all laughed, but that came from the heart. I have smelt, felt and lived in war times. Yes, in Biafra. My youth was scandalized because of the Nigerian civil war. I saw people die on a daily basis either from bombs or hunger. The one that never left me, was the head flying off a body on one of the air raids by the Nigerian Air force, back then, life was very cheap.

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When Oguta fell and we had to run as refugees to the town called Akpulu, my cousin and I learnt to substitute our meals by going into the bush to pick palm nuts. We ate some and sold others. Some of us even ate lizards at the time. That was then. But I’m witnessing a different ‘kinda’ war right now. Oh!!!! See how violence has been let loose in Nigeria. It is funny how those whose duty it is to protect us are having a tea party, as if their own protection is guaranteed, celebrating their loot and flexing their vile, fraudulent, and corrupt swags’; “dem Papa”.  Chief Tunji Braithwaite once said: “There can never be a meaningful election or progress until a revolutionary change firstly resolves Nigeria’s theft and corruption crises.”

Sorry, at this rate I fear that, only a bloody revolution can save Nigeria right now.  Unemployment and poverty may not be the deal breaker for a full-blown revolution, but this “bone face” injustice, oppression of the poor, the perceived difference between what should be and what is, is the driving force of all the build-up to a crazy war between the haves and the have- nots. The danger and the Armageddon ahead are very real and potent. Unverifiable statistics put the army of unemployed jobless Nigerian youths at 50 million. Saying that the government has absolutely no clue in solving this problem is an understatement, but saying that they couldn’t really care less, seems more like the situation on ground. As the “AreaFada”, the pain and cries of the Nigerian youth is beginning to affect me in the most disturbing and unusual way and I know for sure that their patience is no longer guaranteed.

Day in, day out, I speak to hundreds of Nigerian youths through the social highways, and the stories are getting more bizarre by the minute. Some have committed suicide, some have turned into hideous criminals, the devil have taken them over as they remain idle, jobless, uninspired by a system that has failed them and has refused to protect them. Their frustration level is driving them to do things they never before thought possible, because nothing is sacred to them anymore.

What a shame that our leaders have bluntly refused to commit to a better Nigeria! Nigerian youth’s application of violence as the means to an end and livelihood is communicating something very sinister to me, that we can’t be too far from a big bang. Yet we continue to pretend that it will sort itself out, but this knack for violence is peaking. Look around you; we are no longer the happiest people on earth “joor, wahala dey and boys dey vex”. If you see ordinary “Naija” smile when everything around them is going this bad, it means that they have someone in mind to blame. War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things, the decay and the degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings that thinks dying for a better future is not worth war, is much worse. I believe that a man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight for, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a sitting duck.

I carry my piece because it is one of the effective tools that I am aware of for self-defence. I carry my baby because I’m a soldier for my family and loved ones, it is one of my many personal protection layers that I have created for myself. I carry this baby because on the whole, I expect that all will and should be well, but I also know that evil is walking all over the place. I carry a gun because I am a responsible armed citizen ready to defend myself and loved ones. “Yes oooo”, I’m ready for war. Simple! In the raining season, we need an umbrella, right? In a very cold weather, we need warm clothes, right? In the scorching sun, we need our hankies to wipe our face, isn’t it? So, in a violent environment, I need my piece, I rest my case.  “No try me oooooo!!!”