From A Man Against The World

With my pen and journal, I write not just for the sake of my sanity, but also for whoever may care to see from where I stand:

Right now, I should be in ABU Zaria attending to my studies.  I should be at my 5th and final year by now, top of my class, with the bright prospect of making everyone at home very proud on graduation day. But that’s not the case, for I’m in prison.

They’d like to say that I had it coming, that my ears were deliberately deaf to the sirens, that I ignored all the warnings that shouted, “Stop!, Stop!, Stop!” But they’d never care to hear my own side of the matter.

It all began when I exercised my freedom of speech, when I started preaching my WEED RELIGION: Marijuana is far safer than tobacco; In fact it's even medicinal; Yes, it has tar but so does cigarettes too; Nicotine, the evil, evil substance responsible for lung cancer is found only in legalized tobacco but not in my weed, so why can't a man get legally high, and in peace.

Well, it seems now that only my friends would agree with me. Of course, only those who’ve once shared the meaning and experience in a lighted stick would know. 

Squatting in a close circle, I can still recall Biggie passing me the joint when it was my turn to take a drag - long and slow - and then I'd pass it on to Shehu, Shehu would do the same and give Ijide, and from Ijide back to Biggie – and so the circle continues until the last puff. Those were the good times.

Anyhow, there's one thing I know: if the lawmakers, the police, and all those who opposed my reasoning would just take a chance and smoke my weed, I'm sure they'd consider changing their minds. If that ever happens, they'd be making, for the first time, a conscious effort in seeing the big picture. That's all I'm asking.

Sadly, who would understand? Here such arguments hardly hold water. Basket minds are what you'd find in the Nigerian courts and big parliamentary houses – makers and perpetuators of an ill-informed law. For with a mixture of their collective ignorance they've created a law that has made the streets quite unsavoury. Even in the nooks and crannies of my beloved Kakuri, the mere scent of pot would set the police against you as if you were the most wanted man in the land. They've even succeeded in making it out to be a noble cause: The War Against Cannabis.

However, I sometimes feel I should have kept my mouth shut. In this world, if the bulk of the population chooses a belief, false or not, one man should have no business carrying placards in full view that say: ME AND MY WEED DISAGREE WITH YOU. Then again, I guess I would have been a coward if I had not shouted in the streets, the joints and, in the university – where I woefully thought perceptive minds existed. Anyway, with the help of a good smoke, how can a man not speak – how can I not speak my mind, of the lovely hemp plant, Cannabis Sativa!

"There’s a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that reason – and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality". – Dale Carnegie