The Night The Canal Fed

27th of January, 2002

The fire came like a living thing, spewing out of the earth, spitting flames into the sky so high no bird could fly through it. It built towers of heat, thick with smoke, choking out even the stars. The ground trembled like it was afraid. We thought the world would open and swallow us.

Each blast cracked the sky wide open. Every explosion sent us, friends, family, neighbors, all diving for cover like hunted animals. We scattered without thought, like sand thrown into the wind. People ran blindly, stumbling into the bush, tearing through thorns and undergrowth. Blood marked our escape, smeared along hidden paths now made visible by panic.

The children were the first to fall. Their deaths were the beginning of something worse. When the little ones started dying, their parents, mothers and fathers ran back into the fire to save them. They could have survived, but they never returned. Others lived long enough to die slowly, killed not by bombs, but by grief. Some died a day laters, bodies intact, but spirits shattered.

The worst part? Many of them watched it happen. That kind of pain settles deep in the bones Even now, nearly twenty years later, some of those parents still mourn.

I remember some of us, myself included, slipping into the swamp that stretched between Anthony Village, Ajao Estate, and Gbagada. It was dusk, but it felt like night had fallen forever. Inside the barracks, the slaughter was already underway. At least two people, maybe more, were cut down without mercy. No one gathered their bodies. No wake. No funeral. Just silence and smoke. They were lost, and we knew we’d never bury them.

Word spread fast. People from far off, thinking our area might be safer, flooded toward us. They came by the hundreds, clinging to hope. They gathered around the banana plantations near the canal. But hope turned to terror. Panic took over. People slipped into the water, screaming. The canal opened its mouth and drank blood like wine.

The waters once familiar turned hostile, hungry. People were swallowed whole. Others crawled out broken bones snapped, faces bloodied, bodies torn. The screams were endless. We couldn’t count the wounded. We didn’t try.

No one could record it. We had no proof. No phones. No cameras. No witness but our own memory. And what good is memory when the sky itself is falling?

Opeyemi Odeseyi