Before You Act, Remember Samson

 Deaths due to cult activities are on the increase a lot not only in schools but in the streets and marketplaces in Ukpoi autonomous community these days. Various cult groups run after recruits as the military runs after recruits to beef up their depleting ranks during the war. They seem to have made that town their headquarters. 

      They had thought it was a fashion that will soon wear off with young males but they were wrong and when they realized it, it was too late. Young females and older people started opening camps and recruiting people too. 

That recent turn of events had been what is too troubling to Samson the leader of the vigilante group in Ukpoi town. They seem to not know who is who or what is what anymore. He was one among the first set of vigilante groups to be formed in that town fifteen years ago and now, he is the leader for a year only and these guys and gals are trying to nonsense his leadership.

What had been confusing to him is that he could not tell with all assurance if the wild animals claiming to be humans he is after outside existed in his own house. He has three young boys and two girls all of the same ages acting outside. 

Some vigilante members had developed cold feet on what Samson suggested. One had insinuated that what is in the rat house might be in the squirrel house too. He had said that such a frontal attack might be suicidal. According to him: “Starting with warning and education of the masses, especially the youths on the illegalities and injurious nature of what they are getting involved in before taking physical actions might be the best option” he had suggested that town union members and the king will lead such a program for three months or more. 

“ What are we waiting for to contact these people? We are losing our youths to senseless killings. Some members of the town have begun to wonder if we are for decoration or protection. What an insult. We need to assure them that we feel their anguish and their pain with them through our actions. Time is not on anyone’s side” Samson had retorted.

What was so annoying to him is that his godson that shows so much promises as a young man was wasted by these useless guys. The boy had disappeared for almost two months plus and his decomposing body was discovered after a lengthy search in the forest he was buried in by the cult he was forced into during initiation. What was annoying was that two other boys from their village were among the initiated that very day and saw his godson die and buried in a shallow grave and kept quiet out of fear of attacks by other members. They had decided It fit that maintaining the cult secrets was better than the decomposing body of their village boy and the grief the family was put in. 

     According to the boy’s parents, he had told them he was returning to school and they had given him small pocket money and little provisions and bid him a safe journey and that was the last they saw him alive. The family had thought that he was in school while his school friends had thought that he was at home. They kept getting switched off phone replies from calling his number. And after one quiz, his best friend decided to travel to his village to see what was holding him there only to hear from the parents that he was in school since a month. 

The boy’s family alerted their kinsmen to tell them what they heard from the course mate. Samson his godfather was the one who led the search for the boy without luck for almost a month before the breakthrough came. One of those initiated boys from the village had been having dream attacks and summoned up courage and told his father in secret what had happened to the boy and where to see his body. The father in turn went to Samson in secret to narrate what his boy told him.

After recovering the decomposed body and having burial, Samson traced the guy his godson died at his hands in that forest and sent him in the middle of the night where he sent his godson. No one heard him scream. He followed his nocturnal actions to other leaders of that cult and sent them all to the same destination too and no one heard them scream either.

He had concluded after seeing the guy that eliminated his godson that his godson was not in the same class as the tout. To balance the equation well he had visited two other brothers of the guy in the middle of the night too and today, both were using walking sticks. 

  He had questioned all his wards at home after suggestions from his vigilante members and all had denied belonging to any group but he was having this feeling that they were not telling him the truth. That was two weeks ago. He decided to call them again in two weeks time in the presence of their mother to ask them again. 

What the town has turned into and what the vigilante group all had faith in had been nonsense by these youths that their actions go unchallenged are depressing. A kind of bittersweet feeling he kept having for long now isn't helping his state of mind and his work.

He knew that his group is equal to the task but the idea of killing or crippling other's kids when yours is as guilty as the crippled is weighing too heavily on his heart and that of his colleagues. He had decided to press ahead as one man riot after questioning his kids again but his mind kept magneting fear in a way he had never felt since his adult life. His instinct kept disappointing him too. Anytime he wants to take action, fear will surface in a flood like manner from nowhere. He had tried using physical force to suppress it but kept losing and succumbing to the feeling until heaven provided a breakthrough a week after.

It was the laments from the mother of a fat teenager one group machete and left to die after wasting family resources telling him what those Bastards told his son.

They had mocked him for being too fat and had to machete him in strategic places and told him: “Now we wait for diabetes to do the rest for us and watch your family finance go kaput,”

They had been threatening the boy out of his money and when the extrovert boy turned into an introvert overnight, his family had known that something wasn't all that right until it happened. 

Once again, the first feeling was that fearful one of not knowing if what he is gunning for after outside hibernates inside his family too.

  “ why is it that whenever I am about to go after evil the safety of my kids will be what holds me back” he had rhetorically asked himself. He sighed loudly and went in search of his instrument of justice and acted despite his fear. He went after those machete guys that night and all were in wheelchairs in the morning. Once again, they saw nothing and no one heard them screamed.

He had afterward within a week balance six more equations of similar nature while the king and town union were delivering lectures. He had concluded that the universe and his ancestors use fear as a sign for him to act. 

His offensive seems to be achieving results more than that of lectures.

It will be considered an anomaly of the highest standing not to use violence against violent people. “most people don’t understand any other language outside theirs” he told the town union leader one day.