Post by Kenneth Franklyn (@kenfrank)

Part 1
This story I am about to tell is my true life story, how I started my life journey, and the contribution of those people we call kidnappers or terrorists today.

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I still get surprised by the stories coming out these days — herdsmen tied to kidnappings, rapes, things I never imagined growing up. Then I stop and ask myself: _Are these the same people I lived beside?_

The same Fulani men who passed through our compound in the middle of nowhere, greeting my grandfather in Hausa, drinking water from our calabash, trading milk for yams? It takes me back to June 3, 1993. That’s where my story starts — as a boy who loved two things equally: business and education.

I wasn’t a child who waited. I had cousins abroad who sent money to keep me going, but I didn’t want to live off that alone. I was hustling — selling, saving, planning. My mind was already outside Nigeria. The UK or Germany. That was the dream. Study, work, build something bigger than the village.

But the visa process was slow. Too slow for a boy who felt time slipping. Age, papers, money — there were things I didn’t control, and I hated that feeling.

Then one afternoon, a friend showed up with a thick book. An _Atlas_. He spread it on the floor and ran his finger across continents like it was nothing. “You can go by land,” he said. “Through Benin, Niger, Mali, up to Libya. Six to ten days if you know the route.”

I leaned in. It sounded real. Easier than waiting for a visa that might never come. I asked him questions — about borders, about transport, about money. Later I realized he’d never even crossed the Onitsha Bridge. But at that moment, I believed him.

I decided. I wouldn’t tell my family. No point making them worry about something that might fail.

One morning I went back to the village. Not to explain, but to see my mother’s face one more time. I sat with her, ate her pounded yams, listened to her talk about small things — the goats, the market, my younger sister’s exams. I memorized it all.

That same evening, before I left, my father called me over.

“Maduabuchukwu,” he said, using my full name. The name he only used when it mattered. “You came home, and now you want to leave again in a hurry. Is there anything you need to tell me?”

I looked down. “Nothing, Papa. All is well.”

He studied me for a long time. Then he said quietly, “If you say all is well, then all is well. It shall be well with you, my son. Go. The road will bow down its head before you. When you are stranded, a man and a woman will rise to help you.”

He placed his hand on my head and let me go.

I walked out with that blessing heavier than any bag I could pack. I didn’t know then how much I would need it.
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