A day in a man's life when he is willing to fight and die

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Oct. 23, 2025 - PRLog -- There comes a day in a man's life when he is willing to fight and die for something dear to his heart. That late solemn morning, that thing for me was to go to the place where my mother was buried, to kneel at the foot of her grave site and pray. No one could have stopped me, neither a bandit, nor a gunman.

I turned to Akem, and asked sorrowfully "Where was my mother buried?"

"There," he said, pointing at the half inch slab of gray colored marble next to where my Father was buried.

I knelled down at the foot of the grave site and sobbed and wept until Akem came to pat my back.

When I got back up on my feet, the men where still silent, but communicating faster through their minds, corners of their mouth and eyes than they did a while ago.

Akem suspected that the sick-looking motorcyclist kept the machine running for easy escape when the attack was over. He also discerned that the bulge on the side pocket of the wiry man is either a gun or another deadly object of attack. A gun, or a rusty village stone in the hand of a cruel, hardened bandit could do damage to a human body.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in this compound?" Akem asked.

"I live here," replied the thick neck young man, his words quivering, and the softness of his eyes betraying both his lies and his cowardice.

"No, you don't."

Convinced that we have been ambushed and alluding to what actions we should take to defend ourselves, I asked Akem, "What is this all about?"

"Rogues," he said, the villages are full of rogues and bandits at every corner of the state, we might be looking at a village cell of bandits. No one is safe.

Immediately Akem said that my mind shifted to what my childhood classmate, Frank, had told me when I mentioned to him my intention to go home to my village, in Imo state. Do not go, he warned me. Then he told me how a few years ago, kidnappers waited for a man who was visiting from abroad. They waited for him in his village house, ready to kidnap, shoot, or kill him.

Recklessness indeed yields catastrophic consequences. No sane people visit their villages in Imo state anymore. The governor, I understand, does not even stay in Imo state, and for years has not visited his village. There is no safe place in Imo state. Not Owerri, not Orlu, not Ide-Ato, not Urualla.

End of Part 3

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