My name is Harad Banier I was a Liberian Refugee in Nigeria, hear my story. Before the Liberian civil war that leads to genocides, I lived with my father, Rami Banier, he was a Money Lender. My father was very fund of me, though I was born crippled, he loved me. Because of his love for me as the only child, he will take me in my wheel chair with him everywhere he went. One day I asked my father, “father, why do people borrow money?” He smiled and replied, “My Son, people borrow money because they can’t save. If they can save money, they will not have to borrow more than once or twice. Nevertheless, I am happy they can’t save, cause, the day everyone begins to save money our business will begin to die. Notwithstanding, nature has made it that there will always be borrowers and lenders” This was the defining moment of my destiny because I felt like been a lender from the passion my father spoke about his business. But how this will be, I really did not know because I am crippled.

Years later the Liberian war started and there was no hope that those who had borrowed money from my father were going to pay back nor was anyone interested in borrowing from him. Before the war became serious,father had to withdraw all his money from the bank and buried them at the back of our house. A month later the war had escalated and degenerated beyond just civil to genocide where massacres were the order of the day. International peace keeping organizations like ECOMUG and The United Nations Organization had all flew in to help curtail the degeneration of the war.

This fateful morning I was seated outside at the front of our house, when I saw a van loaded with men carrying weapons. Suddenly they pulled over and started shooting at every living creature. Fear griped me as I saw for the first time men, women and children falling as the bullets from the gun men blew them up. Moments later the whole village was silent and the men began to advance towards me, then I scream “Papa Papa!! Help!!” when my father heard my shout he couldn’t hide any more. So he came out from where he was hiding, just as he did one of the Gun men said “this is the popular money lender” “Yes I am, please let us live and I will give you every money that I have, replied my father. The big guy amongst thme laughed, good offer, follow him and get the money, he ordered two of his men.

My father took them to the back of the house where he had buried the money and gave everything to them. When they came back, the big man looked into the bag and laughed again “you where really making profit to have saved so much” he then turned as if he was leaving and suddenly returned and pulled his trigger and shot my father in the belly. The sound of the gun deafened me as it went out and faintly I could hear him saying “you want to live so you can finance my enemy, finish him but the boy must not die by our hands, curse be him who kills a born cripple” at the word cripple one of the Gun men pulled his trigger again and before he could release the finger my father screamed “We Are Lenders” at that very moment the bullet shattered his skull and the blood splashed all over me. I was as dead as my father, scream I couldn’t, I just passed out.





About two hours later, I could hear the sound of my father’s last words, so I opened my eyes and there was dead silence everywhere. I looked at my father he was still and coated in blood, tears rolled down my cheeks and the words kept echoing in my ears. I blamed myself for screaming because I felt empty and useless without my father, that it would have been better if he lived and I die. I sat there all night long weeping and periodically calling out for help. In the morrow, when it was dawn, I heard the sound of a vehicle coming to a halt. I at first thought it was the gun men coming for me then I realized it was the peace keeping force from United Nations. I was taken to the refugee camp outside the borders of Liberia and from there to the refugee camp in Nigeria.

At the refugee camp in Nigeria, we were well feed and taken care of by the Government and other Nonprofit Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and individual philanthropists. The able-bodied Liberians were released after four months to fend for themselves, while the physically challenged were left behind to be cared for by the government and these organizations and individuals. For me, I knew my disability was only in my legs and not my mind, so I tried severally to get out of the camp to fend for myself but this was not going to happen as long as I remained in the wheel chair and the hope of getting out of the wheel chair was long gone back in Liberia. Therefore, I needed someone who was not in a wheel chair to help me get out of the camp.

Two years later on my sixteenth birthday, came this young girl of about my age, whom I have always seen with her philanthropist parents who comes to offer us gifts. I took a step of faith and rolled down to her and introduced myself, “Hello, my name is Harad Banier, the son of a money lender and we are lenders” . She smiled and replied, “ I am Treasure Ogundeyi” Treasure! I screamed, and she said yes. “You are the one that I seek” I replied. She laughed. I invited her to my corner, there we chatted and laughed. Then I asked her why she likes coming with her parent every time, she replied “I want to touch people’s lives when I am of age..” I never waited for her to ask me what I want to become, because it was obvious I can’t do anything. Knowing how interesting it was to her my father calls me by my name, I responded, “Treasure, I want to leave this camp and be a Money Lender” There was this air of surprise on her face, “Money Lender?” She asked, and then I nodded because her parents were....Click on the link to read on http://jessynews.com/index.php/2016/02/05/a-beggar-saves-one-million-nara-and-became-a-lender/

Long.

Thats why ive never looked down on any one of them i bliv in them