Khalil* and I became friends on Facebook sometime in 2015, but had never exchanged a word until 2017, when, as an SS2 boarding student, I had the chance to operate my smartphone somewhat freely.
He introduced himself as a final-year student at one of the higher institutions of learning in Sokoto State and said he had an irresistible affection for me because of the content I shared. I was overjoyed. And knowing that I was chatting with him from secondary school, he regularly recharged my airtime balance. “So you could buy data,” he would say. I was too uninformed to imagine anything wrong.
But he had a mission.
On a certain morning, I went to class late and found two of my classmates doing frog jumps at the assembly ground, panting heavily as though they’d run a thousand-kilometre race. When I asked what they had done, my seatmate said they were punished for being in love. I froze!
Then, I remembered reading ‘I love you’ one night from my friend, Khalil, when he told me that he was horny and would have loved to have me by his side so he could sleep in peace. His message was in English, above my understanding. When I told him that I didn’t understand what he meant, he said that if I wouldn’t mind, he could come to my school to say hi.
I replayed the conversation in my head for a few minutes until my seatmate asked if I was actually wondering about any other person involved in a similar case. I was, but nodded my head to say no.
After class, I turned on my device and chatted with Khalil. I used to call him Yaya because he was way older, but that evening, my message read differently. It opened up with “Khalil dan homo (gay)…” followed by naughty insults and curses. I blocked him before he could even respond.
A few days afterwards, a senior colleague, Rabi’u*, came to my hostel and told me that his Facebook friend, Khalil, sent him to apologise to me on his behalf, reiterating that I had misunderstood his message because he knew nothing about homosexuality and all he needed from me was a genuine friendship. But I dismissed it.
Earlier in 2023, I unblocked all the people I had blocked on Facebook, including Khalil, but I decided to check his friends list. I found that all of our mutual friends graduated from my secondary school; some of them are even my friends.
Lo and behold, Khalil is none other than Rabi’u, who, upon investigation, was found to be deeply involved in homosexual relations with young boys in the school. He approached most of his victims through social media: Facebook and 2go.
Despite his expulsion from the school, my heart kept racing as though it might save his next victims.
Curator’s note: Mr Cool was 15 at the time, while Khalil was considered to be around 22 or 23. In the neighbourhood where Mr Cool grew up, homosexuality is regarded as a huge taboo and offence among residents. Once one is found in the act, they’d find it hard to associate with their friends and relatives. However, as villagers started attending boarding schools, higher institutions of learning, and exploring business opportunities outside their community, the act seemed to become rampant among adolescents and young adults.
As narrated by: Mr Cool* (Sokoto, Nigeria).
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