Terrorism Survivors: The Terrorist killed many people in front of us. - UN News Terrorism Survivors: forced to fish, farm, fight, they slaughtered three of my friends. -UN News Boko Haram Fighters kills dozens at a funeral in Nigeria. - THE GUARDIAN Nigeria: Female Boko Haram suicide bombers kill 3 in Mafa. -The Defense Post A bomb detonated near the Banex plaza in Wuse district, Abuja, 12 kilometers away from my home. I felt the tremors as I lay on my bed, secretly reading my mother's hidden stash of the Cosmopolitan Magazine. I quickly ran out of my room to find my mother: I needed an explanation for what had just happened. 'Is this an Earthquake' I asked myself, 'But that's not possible, Nigeria doesn't get earthquakes. It has to be something else.' And it was. It was something far worse than natural disasters. With natural disasters, there’s always an excuse, because we tell ourselves that it's Mother Nature's fury or her way of restoring balance, that there's nothing we could've done to prevent it. "It's preventable but not unstoppable," they say, "part of the earth’s cycle." But what's our excuse for Terrorism. What is our excuse for spilling our fellow man's blood, or for making people refugees in their own country, for destroying innocent lives and properties? What do we tell the poor little children that have to grow up without a family, without love or joy, only pain, and suffering? Nothing! Because our evils are inexcusable. The entire nation couldn't sleep. How could we when a bomb detonated in Abuja, our nation's seat?. It was unimaginable, but it had happened. My phone kept buzzing with messages from loved ones who were worried about our safety. I texted friends who lived in the area, scared that something terrible might have happened. Nifemi, a close friend of mine, lived within the proximity of the detonation. She said that she was asleep when it happened but observed the after-effects. Bodies were strewn all over the streets, properties destroyed, but nothing was worse than the smell and screams of burning people. It was agonizing. Six days later, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bombing. We were not surprised: we already knew who was responsible. It was their signature move, their Modus Operandi, causing chaos and destruction. Sadly, this was not their first nor would it be their last. Dr. Martin Luther King jr. reminds us to reject persecution by stating: "The Ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." Boko Haram believed that they could silence and force us into submission through fear and death, but all it did strengthen our will and love for one. It brought the whole nation together to defeat a common evil. In my community, terrorism awareness campaigns were created to educate the masses and garner international support. My mother, the Global Director of the Operations for the Independent Pan-African Youth Parliament, a youth-led organization that advocates for women and youth empowerment-based policies and addresses the issues of gender-based social-economic and political disenfranchisement; organized relief centers for the victims of terrorism attacks. As the Head of the IPAYP students' club, it was my duty to hold discussions on Counter-Terrorism measures, ways of curbing terroristic notions from the grassroots, and conflict resolution. Living in a country with over 200 different tribes and many religious sects, there is bound to be a lot of finger-pointing and tribal/religious discrimination but, as I said in our discussions, we shouldn't let the actions of a few determine the way we feel about an entire group. Retaliation is never the key. Eventually, as we moved forward from the tragedies of the past, we were faced with yet another form of terrorism: Police brutality. During the whole Boko haram debacle, the economy collapsed as the government invested the country's resources in combating the terroristic organization. Crime and corruption increased exponentially especially the infamous 419 scams. A task force known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was created to combat the increase in robberies, kidnappings, etc. Along the way, as the government began to cut the pay of many of its workers, SARS deviated from their duties of protection and serving the people to extorting, brutalizing, and torturing women and youths. For over a decade, SARS has conducted illegal search and seizure, violating humans rights, extra-judicial killings, and many more vile acts. The #ENDSARS came into existence after a video trended on social media showing a SARS police officer shooting a young Nigerian man in front of a hotel and then driving off in his vehicle. Protests erupted nationwide after weeks of outrage. The government responded by sending the military and police force to violently disband the protesters almost inciting a second civil war. As the dust settles, with countless lives lost, Nigeria is trying its best to pull itself by its bootstraps. Citizens are afraid to return to work, schools are closed, medical facilities are lacking. Many people lost their livelihoods during the looting and burning of stores. Go fund-me pages were set to help the many directly affected by the protests and shootings. Our organization is among the many trying to provide aid and reach to the affected. Nothing is ever too small. This grant will help provide the grains that will feed many families and make life just a little better for the rest.