Hey, fam! Trust you’re doing well. It’s been so interesting with the guestwriting series. The first was by Felix titled “Happiness or sadness, you choose“, followed by Niyi who shared his story with the title “MOWÀ” and then Fortune wrote about “The bright side of procrastination.”
This particular piece is a long one but I’m sure you’ll enjoy every bit of it. I’ll start with a story.

Josh came to my lodge some minutes before 7pm, so we could go to school together. The school had several gates and one of the gates wasn’t far from our houses. We lived close to the school and his house was not far from mine. We walked briskly into the school so we could get a good spot to seat and get our devices charged.
Akungba, the community our school was located hardly ever had light and so everyone in the community including the indigenes depended on the University for electricity.
The power usually comes on in the morning from 7am till 4pm and then in the evening, it came on by 7pm till 10 pm and during exam period the light usually lasted till 11pm.
Josh and I usually left home some minutes before seven not just because of the seat, but because we could connect our extension boxes directly to the source and avoid intermittent disconnection of extension boxes. It is at this point you hear people speak different English. One person would speak angrily to a passerby, “Hey, you just shook my extension” or “Who shook the extension?” And then you’ll hear replies like, “It’s from the source.”

Almost every student had an extension box or socket and always carried with them their chargers wherever they went. People go to school in the evening for various reasons; to get their laptops, phones, lamps and the likes charged, to watch movies, to read, to gist, to pray, to hangout, get asked out, for meetings, tutorials and some to steal.
Josh and I had settled down and plugged our devices. Josh always had movies on his laptop and I was seeing one that evening. There had been rumors that there had been a fire outbreak caused by the sockets in one of the lecture theaters, but we weren’t sure it was true. I was into my movie and Josh was engrossed with his phone when we heard noises. People were running helter-skelter, no one knew why. Some people ran into our lecture theatre. I was shocked and was trying to secure our phones and Josh’s laptop while also trying to run and looking back to see what was the matter at the same time! In a bid to run past me, someone dragged me by the hair, this person pulled my hair for her to run out of the class. I had braids and had packed it into a ponytail, hence the pulling. And when this lady pulled my hair, I screamed out and wanted to hit her hand. Then I heard a sound on the floor! It was Josh’s laptop, I saw red that night. Everything ended as quickly as it started after that and Josh had seen his laptop fall. He was so angry and I was just apologizing and explaining how it happened. We were done charging after that. The laptop was recently bought and Josh was very protective of his properties.
Before we left we learned that one of the sockets at the lecture theatres sparked and got burnt, this was what made people panic. The class we were in wasn’t affected in any way but still, we ran.
The next day, I heard some people’s phones and lamps were stolen. Josh’s laptop was okay and I’m still trying to figure out who pulled me by my hair.

Many people have defined and described fear in different ways and so I wouldn’t want to burden you with one. You probably get the gist of what it means already. Most times, what we fear is so powerful and controls our lives. Studies have shown that fear, phobia are irrational and in reality poses little or no actual danger. It is normal and even helpful to experience fear in dangerous situations, but Fear is unhealthy when it makes you more cautious than you really need to be to stay safe.
Remember the Ebola period when people were using salt to bathe? There have been cases of people taking overdose of chloroquine because of COVID 19. All these are being fed by fear!
This period, it is important to remain sane and safe. Don’t spread fake information. Let’s use our social media handles positively this season. It’ll all be over soon and we’ll look back and learn from it. Stay safe and go through with all the safety measures!