This is the longest soul piercing piece I've read in recent times😢

Written By An SS 3 Girl Named Uren, GSS Manguna, Bokkos, Plateau State. An eye witness account:

My name is Uren. I am from Hurti, a small village in Daffo, Bokkos LGA of Plateau State. I am in SS3 at GSS Manguna.

In Bokkos LGA, we farm potatoes, maize and whatever the land agrees to yield, because that is what we know best. That is how we survive. Occasionally, we trade. But it is the land that feeds us.

At the weekend, my people, the Ron and Kulere, held our yearly festival. People came from all over. Not because everything was all right, but because the festival gave us strength. It reminded us that we are still here. We are still alive. And even though we keep losing people, we cannot stop living. Besides, we know everyone will die someday.

On Wednesday morning, before the sun rose, my mother reminded me that we needed to head to the farm early, before the heat turned cruel and our energy, too drained to respond. There is always work to be done on the farm; come rain, come sun, dry or green. Life in our village follows that rhythm. For some reason, that morning, I woke with the weight of Oswald's Nightfall in Soweto pressing heavily on my chest. Mr. Mallo, our literature teacher, had painted it vividly when he taught the poem. “Feel it. Poetry is meant to be felt,” he had said.

I felt it, all right. The fear. The dusk falling like judgment. I felt it because it was no longer just poetry. It was no longer Soweto. It was Plateau. It was Bokkos. It was home. It was real.