Man Narrates What Soldiers Did To Residents Of Rivers Community. Graphic Photos

Read as shared by Facebook user, David-Jack Aribima. 

I neither snatched a ballot box nor threatened the life of any citizen. I had only stood, shocked by what these power thirsty men have turned our land into—this theatre of war. Before my eyes three bodies, soaked in blood, were lugged to the alleyway were I stood. The guns rattled close by, and I fled with the many other people who ran for their lives.


A gang of boys camouflaged in military outfits, heavily guarded by armoured cars and men of the Nigerian military, trooped down the road, shooting directly into the town and at anyone who was suspected to be a member of the PDP.

I sprawled on the ground in a makeshift bar I had found at the waterside where I had run to when the shooting became very intense. The armies followed, shooting directly at citizens who had come out expecting to see an election, but now face their death sentence. Peering through spaces between ground and wooden walls, I saw people, many people bleeding from their necks and backs and bellies and jumping into the river.

I was there, lying on that temporal space between life and death, still trying to post on a news on my Facebook wall when a trudge drew closer, matched the wooden wall down and cracked a gun to my head.

At this point, I knew it had finally happened. We had earlier heard the news of their plan to incarcerate members of the PDP before the elections. Although they had no been very successful at this plan, early this morning, the Secretary to the Akuku-Toru Local Government Council was pick up from his house under very severe torture.

I quickly taped the SHARE function on my phone screen to post what I had written in wait of what might happen.

"I have been arrested by men of the Nigerian military. I don't know what will happen next," it read.

Why some people found it difficult to believe this news and chose to make jest of it on my wall, is what I still struggle to understand. Does the news sound like a scam or an attempt for one to score some cheap popularity? I do not think so. I think of it rather as a measure taken for my security.

Five military officers arrested me. They had riffles, daggers and another young man who begged mercilessly for his life. The boy had also been apprehended from a room where he was hiding for his life.

"I from this compound o," he begged. "Na as them they shoot for our house, na'im make I run come hide for here."

I brought out my voters card quickly to identify myself as did also the man. But it was only a waste of time as the army officers snatched our PVCs without any effort for identification.

We were moved to a compound belonging to an APC stalwart. Here, we were to be identified by APC members for what I knew would be an implication.

"Ehem! See am there," a young raised an accusation on our entrance into the yard. He was obviously pointing at me. " Him follow. Na them be the boys."

What follow were strokes of koboko. Slaps. And a teargassing of my eyes until I heard a voice from afar.

"No no no, it said."

" Leave this one..."

"I know him..."

"He's not one of them."

I ran as fast as the soldiers booted my back and buttocks.

I did not bother to say anything to the men who ordered for my beating or the man who saved my life this evening.

But I recognized the voice that said, "Leave this one." It was of a man who comes from this place and knows me to be of this land. It was the voice of the land.

The land does not consume its own.

We will overcome!