🗣️ Gist📍 Street Gist
I Was Robbed at Gunpoint in Jos. The Gunman Was a Boy I Used to Mentor.
C
Cunning Fox from Ibadan
3 months ago
Back in 2022, I was 31 and running a small phone repair shop in Jos. I had a side hustle of selling fairly used phones to students, and one of my regulars was this quiet boy, maybe 19, named Musa. He was from the Plateau village, always polite, always calling me 'oga'. I even taught him how to change a screen once. I thought he was a good kid. One evening, around 8pm, I was closing up after counting the day's money. It was about 85,000 naira, plus two Samsung phones I was supposed to deliver the next morning. The shop was on Ahmadu Bello Way, and the street was empty because of the curfew rumours that week. As I locked the door, a hand grabbed my collar and pushed me back inside. The gun was cold against my neck. 'Give me everything, oga. No shout.' The voice was muffled, but something about it was familiar. I turned slowly, and there he was. Musa, wearing a black hoodie, his eyes red, his hands shaking. I said his name, and he froze. For a second, he looked like he wanted to run. Then he just grabbed the bag with the money and phones and disappeared into the dark. I never reported it. I couldn't. Because the boy I taught, the boy I gave a job to, the boy I thought was just hungry, was the one who put a gun to my head. I saw him again at the market two months later. He looked away. I looked away too. Omo, that night taught me something. Poverty doesn't just make people desperate. It makes them unrecognisable. I still lock my shop early now. And I don't teach strangers anything anymore.
❤️
💔
2
169
2 Comments
Sign in to join the discussion
Sign In