The Raid On My House
So something a bit scary happened today, it was sometime around noon. I was in my room when all of a sudden there was this huge bang on my door.
"Who is that?" I had asked angrily while marching towards the door. It was obvious that I was ready to bring down hell on that person but I sure wasn't prepared for what was on the other side of the door.
The moment I yanked the door open, I froze. Standing right there was two police officers who were armed with their usual Ak47. "Where is your phone?" one of them asked me while entering my room uninvited.
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The government had said on countless occasions that the police don't have the right to search our phones unless they've got a warrant for it but who was I to tell this two heavily armed men about what some old man said in the news. I could get killed for that, people have been killed for less.
I immediately handed him my phone while the other one went for my laptop. I had no idea what they were searching for until I heard one tell the other to go through my gallery.
If I had nudes on my phone, this man was about to view it for free, something people would pay for on Onlyfans. I still kept mute as I watched them flex their muscle. It was obvious that whatever it was they were looking for, they were never going to see it. It turned out they were looking for pictures of any foreign person on my phone, that is all they need to label me a fraudster.
After about six minutes of fruitless search on my phone, they decided to shift their focus towards anything crypto related on my phone. The Central Bank of Nigeria has recently declared war against crypto and crypto traders so the police took that as another means to extort from innocent Nigerians who are trying to make it the honest way.
Once they locate your wallet, they would transfer all of your funds to their own crypto wallet in other to avoid being arrested by them, the irony.
News about this new tactics by the police has spread all over the place so I had made sure to hide anything crypto related on my phone and that was why as the officer searched through my phone, I showed no form of fear. I just stood and watched as they fooled themselves. After all was said and done, they handed me my phone before moving to the next room. They repeated this process until the small mini-bus they came with was filled with both internet fraudsters and innocent people who have never engaged in any form of fraudulent activity before in their lives.
We the lucky ones watched as the officers handcuffed them before driving off in their vehicle. I knew what was next, we all did. They would sleep in the cell for a night and then by tomorrow, we would have to go "bail" them out with some cash and those who don't have anyone to bail them out would be spending another night there.
And after all has been bailed out, the officers will wait for a month or two before repeating the same process, this time in a different hostel.
That's crazy and absurd. Like wtf? Hmm.. this country Nigeria is messed up.
Yup. Everything is just not going the way it should.
They need serious deliverance.
This is a crazy country. Why would they be going to people’s homes and be checking their phones. It makes no sense at all.
Yup, it makes absolutely no sense but unfortunately they're the ones with the guns so there really isn't much I can do rather than to obey.
It is very sad to hear this and also, scary too. Some people go so far doing wrong things but they are barely captured and here... Life struggles become more harsh day by day, it is scary.
It was indeed scary because the thoughts crossing my mind was "what if they saw something, anything and decided I was to be arrested"
I've never been arrested before in my life and I dread the day it might happen.
To stay in fear of being arrested while not even being a criminal is plain harassment. This is very injustice. May things become better one day.
This chills my spine.