Earlier today, on my way back from an errand, I was in a public transport vehicle when we drove past a custom officers checkpoint. The officers had stopped our vehicle and checked the booth of the car to make sure we weren't smuggling anything that we shouldn't be smuggling.
As I watched him do that, I couldn't help but remember the story my mum had told me some few years ago. It was a story concerning something she had experienced between a custom officer and a woman at a checkpoint. In the past, my mum sold bags, from school bags to handbags and various kinds of bags.
So she would visit the neighbouring country where these things were sold really cheap, and then bring them back home to sell. On one of her trip, they had got to a checkpoint and an officer had asked a lady in the bus who had a baby strapped to her bag, to show him the baby.
Apparently she had covered the baby from head to toe with a piece of cloth and the officer couldn't tell if it was a real baby or if this lady had strapped some contraband on her back to make it look like a baby.
Lagos is a crazy place and the majority of the people here should be in a mental asylum, and I say that because this lady had refused to take off the clothes. She kept on telling the custom officer that it was her baby strapped to her back, and when the officer got fed up, he had taken the butt of his rifle and struck the baby at the back, probably hoping to hit something other than a baby.
But he was wrong. The woman was indeed telling the truth, and due to the force the officer used, the baby died on the spot. When my mum told me that story, I couldn't help but feel like they were both at fault, but most especially the woman was because all she had to do was show him the baby's face and all of this would have been avoided.