I Collected Bribe Money For 3 Years Before My Son's Death Woke Me Up

It started small. A litigant slipped ₦20,000 into my file at the Ikeja magistrate court in 2009 and said make I help am shift his case forward small. I was a clerk then, salary was ₦47,000 a month, rent was choking me. I took it. And once you take one, the door opens.

For 3 years I was collecting. ₦50k here, ₦100k there, one lawyer even gave me ₦300k to make sure a particular file 'no reach oga judge desk' on time. I bought my first car with that money. My wife thought I was promoted. I let her believe it. I was good at it too, nobody suspected the quiet clerk with the sharp memory.

Then 2017 my first son Chidi was killed by SARS boys at Ojota. Just 19. They said he was 'a cultist'. No court. No charge. No bail. Nothing. The same system I was selling for small money swallowed my boy whole. I sat in my office that week and looked at my drawer where I used to keep the brown envelopes. I wept. God forgive me, I wept. I resigned from that post the following month and started from lower rank again. 9 years later, I am Chief Registrar. My hands are clean now. But Chidi never saw the man I became.