I wrote a while back about how I watched a man die(Watching a Man Die). He was burned to death after being tortured by the Mob who had caught him. He was suspected thief, but nobody really knew for sure what the true verdict wss. He tried to plead his case as he was being beaten, and I don’t think anybody cared enough to litsen.
Yesterday, Ian, my neighbour’s son who has just started Nursery school stormed into our house, and with bated breath, told me, “There is man outside who has been beaten like a goat,” I am still wondering how he arrived at that association. He continued to say that, “they want to burn him.” This is when I got up and ran out of the gate, with him hot on my heels. It has been long since I last saw a man burn to death. This does not mean that it does not happen, anymore, because the news sho that suspected thieves are killed daily, by burning. My reasons for running are the one’s I expressed in my previous article. You can never be sure, and it might be a friend or family, who has been mistaken for a thief, and can get killed, as it was the case yesterday, right outside our gate.
I arrived to find a relatively young man bleeding profusely. He had a tyre aroung his body, and his colleague, also bleeding, just beside, watching him about to be lit, and crying, knowing very well that he is going to meet the same fate. A heavily built man lights that match stick and throws it on the man, but the wind blows it off. He lights another one and throws it on the man, but a person with huma emotions puts it off. He reprimands this person and puts on a third, this time careful to make sure that it makes contact with the little petrol that they had siphoned from a passing vehicle. I walk away, since I cannot sleep at night if I look at him burn. I take Ian with me since I remember the difficulty I had when I watched a man die in the same way, and I was some years older than Ian then.
As I walk away, another man who had been sent to get petrol arrives with it. He hands the petrol to the well built man who has been trying to get the fire started. This ma takes the petrol, pours it on both gentlemen, and then immediately lights the match. Now, this is where all hell breaks loose. The petrol catches fire immediately and explodes in ball of fire that gets lights even the onlookers, children included. I feel glad that I took Ian away from that place. As I watch, from a distance, those whose clothes are on fire roll frantically on the ground as their friends and families try to put the fire off. The thief, now standing alone after the people flee for the fire is covered in flames. His body scalds badly as the fire on his body goes off. But his head is now engulfed in a flames. He walks around, confused, staggering, and maybe from the shock, he seems impervious to the fact that his head is on fire. His friend who was barely burnt puts the fire off for him.
The story turns. The man who was eager to burn these two suspected thieves was the biggest casualty of the flames. When the ball of fire exploded, he was the one with matchstick, and his hands and face were badly scaleded, as he was rushed to hospital.
A man whom we consider mad, since he is always dirty and talks to himself while collecting rubbish which he carries on a huge sack on his bag later passed and provisded these closing words, as he ranted along. Complaining that the same people burning the suspected thieves are usually in church every other sunday. He wondered who gave them the right to take someone’s life. He said that judgement should be left to God alone.
Maybe, by creating circumstances in which the very man who wanted to burn these suspected thieves ended up burning himself, God showed that he is still the one with the power over life and death.
This time round, I am happy to report that these two suspected thieves lived.
