Her eyes, which had been opened for the three days she had been there, recognized the light that streamed in through a small window. She saw a familiar hand let down a bowl of dates.
She looked from the golden succulent fruits to the pitcher of water at the corner of the gloomy room and a weak tear rolled out from her eye.
She had always looked forward to eating the delicious dates of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but she found it ironical that she would one day reject this much talked about delicacy.
A devout Muslim from her childhood, her heart was always filled with immense joy when she, her sibling and neighbours sang the song “Opopo Mecca dan roro, Aljanah nile mi”. A beautiful song, which attempted to point believers to Paradise by extolling the spotless...dazzling streets of Mecca.
So, it was with so much anticipation that at the age of 25yrs old, she had finally got the opportunity to visit Saudi Arabia.
She had traveled to Kano state to board her flight at the Mallam Aminu Kano International airport. The happiness she felt as she flew in the airplane left her in a blissful daze, but now she found herself in a condemned criminal cell in Madina Prison.
The airport security had found hard drugs in a piece of luggage with her name tag on it. The confusion as she was whisked away was overwhelming.
Days later at her trial in a Sharia court, she was in a trance like situation when a death sentence by beheading was slammed on her.
She rose up from the floor of the cell and tried to blink…her eyes hurt from the dryness that came with excessive crying. Taking a deep breath, she tried to recall the events at the Kano airport, but her memory and everything in her head were now in a whirlwind of befuddlement. The only sentence that kept pounding her mind was “you are going to die today!”.
She tried to sob, but all strength was gone. In little flashes of memory, she remembered her 3yr old son who had cried that he couldn’t travel with her… her husband, her parents, and only sister. She remembered her country, Nigeria, a country that had failed her and pushed her into the den of undeserved death.
From outside her cell, she heard the jangle of a bunch of keys. Death had come for her. The cell gates opened and two masked men walked in. The look in their eyes from the slit of their face covering was expressionless…no empathy…no feeling…nothing! They cuffed her wrists behind her and led her along a long corridor. She could hear the faint chattering of a crowd on the open execution grounds at the far end of the corridor.
One of the men wore a hood over her head and everywhere went black.
The winds of the open grounds touched her in a slightly comforting way, as they forced her into a kneeling position.
She heard a husky voice instruct her to recite the Shahada (Muslim Declaration of Belief). A recitation she had learned as a child came out in a painful stutter.
As her lips moved slowly, the darkness in the hood gave way to clear light, filled with pictures. What she had struggled to remember during her incarceration came rushing like a movie in fast forward mode.
She remembered sitting in the Departure Hall at the International Airport in Kano, and a man wearing a white jalabiya walked past her. His perfume was strong. As he moved he greeted everyone warmly. His “A salam Alaikum" came out with a pleasant smile. He also stopped briefly to speak to an airport official.
The man carried a classy leather bag with beautifully intricate and embroidered designs patterned on it. She made a mental note to buy something like that for her husband as a birthday gift.
Within the dark world of her hood, her once dried eyes moved fluidly and the scene changed to when she was apprehended on her arrival at Riyadh.
Finally, she remembered it was inside the same bag that the man at Kano airport was carrying that drugs were found. The only difference was that the cursed bag had her name tagged on it.
As her lips recited the last line of the prayer, the scene inside the hood came to an end…the sword of the executioner came down…the light of life went out…darkness returned. The nightmare was over.
