I WAS JAILED AT 13 GAIN FREEDOM AT 60 I was 13 years old, living in Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno. After school I used to hawk sugar cane for my father,He was a sugarcane farmer. I still remember how he would hire a wheelbarrow for 20 kobo. We’d arrange the sugarcane on it and push it around the city to sell. On one fateful day, after school, I was pushing my sugarcane around. The weather was unbearably hot. Anyone who has lived in the North knows how hot Maiduguri can get. I was looking for shade under a tree to rest. In the process, I accidentally scratched and knocked off the headlight of a car parked by the roadside leading to the garage. I was terrified. I wanted to run, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. So I stood there for 30 minutes, waiting for the owner. I didn’t know the owner was praying nearby in the mosque inside the park. When he came, I was still holding the broken side light in my hand. I couldn’t speak. Instead of listening, the man started beating me. People tried to intervene, but he brought out a pistol and threatened to shoot anyone who came close. He shoved me into his car and drove straight to the police station. That was when I realized he was a police officer. He ordered his men to put me in a cell. They obeyed. I spent the whole night there. No food, nothing. The only thing we got was bread that was shared among us in the morning. Around 10am the next day, one officer asked, “Who is this small boy?” A woman at the counter replied, “Oga said we should keep him there.” “Who are you to question oga?” One week passed. Then two. One month. I kept asking myself: Has this man forgotten me? I tried to talk to the officers on duty. No one listened. I was barely 13yrs. I cried every night, tasting the bitterness of life at such a young age. After a month, some officers gathered a group of us and took us to court. The court didn’t sit that day. The officer said, “Let’s take them on remand.” That’s how I ended up in Maiduguri prison. One year passed on remand. I was later drafted to the laundry section. After two years, I was moved out of Maiduguri. I didn’t even know where until a fellow inmate told me: Bauchi. By then I was 15. You never know when they’ll transfer you to. One morning they just wake you up, put you in a vehicle, and take you to another state. From there I was transferred to prisons in the East and West, like someone serving in the force. My last stop before returning North was Ibadan prison. From there I was taken to Kano State prison. By then I was already 60 years old. Everyone called me “Baba in the prison” I was well known. But no one believed my story. Behind those walls, people assume everyone is a criminal. God remembered me at 60. A governor visited the prison near the end of his 8 years in office. As he walked through the yard, his eyes landed on me. “Baba, come here,” he said. “How old are you, and what brought you here?” Tears fell. My heart was swollen, bleeding, empty. After 59 years, someone was finally asking what they should have asked many years ago. “I am 60 years old,” I replied. “I came here when I was 13.” Everyone shouted, prisoners and officials alike. Even the governor wept. I told him everything. How it happened. How I was moved from prison to prison. Even the condemned armed robbers in shackles were shivering as they listened. An investigation started. They found out the officer who put me in that cell was now a king — a respected and powerful monarch. The governor took me in his car, still in my prison uniform. The warders tried to make me change. The governor said no. When we entered the palace and our eyes met, the monarch lowered his head. He turned to the governor and asked, “Will God forgive me? I made an Emir cry.” Rich people think money is everything. But money is not everything. He took my youth. He took my future. He took my life. I lost contact with my family. No one to trace. I became like an alien who came into the world alone. No mother, no father,no siblings. - @nativegoast4ress