It’s been 13 years and 9months since the January 27 2002 bomb explosion shook Lagos state, more than a thousand lives were lost, the explosion occurred in Ikeja military cantonment now called Nigeria Army barrack. I was really surprised when I was talking with my friends about the day we would never forget and I mentioned the blast and none of them knew about it except one of them who said her uncle that stayed in Lagos told her about it, this inspired me to write about this terrible day from my perspective.

This is my first time writing so constructive criticism is highly welcomed.

I was little when it happened but I can still remember almost every detail of what happened on that tragic day. It was a Sunday and usually Sundays are usually very uneventful in our barrack, people used this last day of the weekend to catch up with friends and do last minute running around in preparation for Monday. My mum had asked our aunt who was living with us to take my younger brother and I to our family friend’s house who lived just a stone throw away from our own house. In our barrack every residential area was given a nickname and it was like a little community, our own area was called 1004 up till today I don’t know why it was called that. It consisted of 6 3 storey buildings facing each other and two streets, each building had six flats. We stayed on the first floor of block B while our family friend stayed on the first floor of block A.
My brother and I loved going there because they had children our ages two girls, so when our aunt came back around 4pm to pick us because our lesson teacher had come we were not happy at all my little brother started crying and my mum who arrived shortly after we did had to bribe him by telling him she would give him cheese balls when she gets home, our friends daddy also gave him two carrots which he happily collected and bounced home after us. We had eaten so we just started our lesson about thirty minutes later our mum came in and when our lesson teacher asked how she was doing she said she did not know why her mind was not at rest that maybe she should just go and rest.

At about five pm we started hearing sounds like knock out outside and my mum came out to be sure it was not all in her head, she asked my lesson teacher what he thought the sounds were and he said it must be children playing with knock outs. My mum having verified what the sounds were went back to her room. Gradually the sounds grew louder my mum came out again and this time called our aunt to ask and our aunt started dancing and said it was the people who were moving next door that were making all that noise, what made her think that I honestly do not know. My mum sat in the sitting room and when the noise got even louder she asked my lesson teacher to peep through the slide doors at the balcony and see what was going on outside, he said he saw people running outside, my mum screamed that it has happened again she said it was a coup and that my lesson teacher should go and hide under a bed so that the soldiers won’t see him. He quickly ran and entered our room to hide. When the sound did not reduce my mum decided to check herself, the people outside saw her and started shouting that she should come down.

Immediately my brother and I ran to get our slippers and followed our aunt and lesson teacher downstairs while our mum stayed backed to lock up the house. We had scaled the first flight of stairs and we were on the second one when we heard a loud BOOM!!! The whole building shook and I fell down the stairs my aunt ran to me and helped stand up and she put my younger brother on her back asked me to run to the garage. On getting to the garage we met our neighbours from our block and blockA everyone had fear written on their faces. There were mostly women and children because like our dad most officers were either in Sierra Leon or Liberia trying to keep peace in the countries. I was really curious so I moved to the mouth of the garage and look at the direction of the noise it looked really beautiful, it looked like fireworks in my child’s mind I was excited because I had never since fireworks this close before and it was just across my street, I would have kept on looking at it if not that I heard another loud BOOM!!! There was dust everywhere and I was lying on the ground, my ears were hurting me, then I felt a hand pull Me back, I looked up and saw my mum pulling me and forcing me to run.

We all ran to block C and met an officer telling all of them to lie flat on their belly and place their hands on their heads, we immediately joined them. At that moment our lesson teacher was nowhere to be seen. The officer was telling all of us to keep calm and he was sure Osama had nothing to do with the blast after all what did he want to get from us, the officer laughed at his own joke, imagine him cracking a joke at such a crucial time. Anyway he told us help was coming and that everything was under control. We all believed him but the bombs had not yet finished with us. The next bomb that exploded really shook the building because the pillars in the garage came crashing down and the officer screamed “EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOU LIVES OOO!!! YOU ARE ALL ON YOUR OWN!!!”

Is dis d end?

This story will make a good Nollywood movie... But am not sure if they'll be able to act it like u've summarised!...