THE DAY OUR WHOLE VILLAGE RAN BECAUSE THAT STUNK HAD A GUN__15TH OCTOBER

In my village there's a hunter called Baba Sango. He keeps a lot of animals in cages behind his house. One day his little grandson came to visit and left his toy gun there.

Nobody saw what happened next.

A skunk came into the compound that night, sniffing around the dustbin for food. And somehow, as it ran off, it carried the toy gun with it.

By morning the whole village was shouting.

"That skunk has a gun! That skunk has a gun!"

People came out with sticks and stones. Mama Nkechi, who sells akara, was yelling, "Shoot it! Shoot it before it shoots us!" Children were crying. Old women were running.

Baba Sango stepped out with his real hunting gun, ready to fire. But when he got close, he started laughing.

He said, "My people, calm down! This is my grandson's water gun! The skunk isn't armed, it's just scared!"

The skunk was trembling behind the dustbin, gripping the little blue toy gun in its tiny hands, staring at all of us surrounding it. It was more afraid of us than we were of it.

One small boy walked up, picked up the toy gun, and the skunk bolted into the bush.

Then everyone burst out laughing. The same people who wanted to kill it were now clapping and laughing.

Baba Sango said something that day I'll never forget.

He said, "Fear makes small things look big. We saw a skunk with a toy and thought it was a killer. That's how life is. Plenty of things we fear are just toy guns in the hands of small skunks."

Since then, whenever someone in the village gets too scared about something, we say, "Remember the skunk with a gun."

And everybody laughs and calms down............

IMAGE SOURCE AI