WOLF MAN

     I was seated on the third line of the center pew in the church, my eyes were glued on the priest, Fr Obinna, standing behind the consecration table in his green chasuble, it was the ordinary time in the churches’ calendar, thus the green, we had just finished the post communion prayer, following it was time for announcement. My ears were straight in full attention to the words flowing out of his mouth, ‘My dear people of God,’ he said ‘we got a very disheartening report -- report of a man who kidnapped and sold off five children of his friend for the sum of five million naira.’  As expected, everyone exclaimed ‘ohhhh nooo . . . whattt . . . Jesus!’  As for me, I thought to myself, five million naira, it means two things, ritual killing or child trafficking.

     He continued ‘the man usually drives the five children to school every day with his keke (tricycle), the fateful morning he came as usual, took them and set off, few hours later the school teacher called the mother of the children, that her children were not in school, immediately the woman rushed to the man’s house and unfortunately for him found him hurriedly packing his belongings, he was shocked when he saw her, he thought no one would notice the children’s absence until closing hours, the woman raised alarm and the neighbours caught him, now apprehended he was asked of the children’s whereabouts,  he couldn’t say, all he knew was that he delivered them to the people, collected the money and left.

     He took the crowd to the bush where he delivered the children, they searched and searched but to no avail, the mother of the children, seeing that her children may never be found, slumped and died on the spot, the father standing there, watching as his world crumpled right before his eyes, followed suit, slumped but thankfully didn’t die, hmmm . . .  my dear peop—‘as he continued, I tuned him off and pondered.  I pondered hard for minutes, and for the life of me, I could not comprehend why, why a human being will look a child in the eye and sell him/her off to their death, my heart sank, my faith in my fellow man dwindled -- Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, tears trickled down for the lost children, for the shattered family.

     Fr Obinna shook his head, heaved a deep sigh and said ‘homo homini lupus est.’

     I shuddered in fear for all our children, we have become wolves, our children are now our prey and we hunt them every second of every day and devour them without a second thought. For the rest of the day, the words kept ringing in my head ‘Homo homini lupus est.’

     Man’s inhumanity to its young terrifies me.