In the middle of all the hullabaloo about Abuja being unsafe, I camped at 2500 ft above sea level on Maitama hills this past weekend along with some old and new friends. Some were locals, people who lived or worked at the bottom of the hill,
We took a few ‘precautions’, like taking an exploratory hike earlier in the day, arming ourselves with machetes, and also letting locals in the area know we were camping. These were mainly for psychological safety than any real prevention of mishap. In case things really went south I sent my brother 6000 miles away details of who I was going with, where the car was parked, and what time to raise an alarm if he hadn’t heard back from me.
All went well and we had a great time camping overnight. Set up and slept in tents, drank palmwine, ate real fruits, roasted yam, fish and meat on the fire, and I even cooked a pepper sauce up there. When I shared pictures and videos and everyone kept asking me, “you no de fear kidnappers?”, “you slept in the bush overnight”. While I was worried, and had thought several times about if it was safe to go ahead with the plan, it was still a thing I wanted to do, so I did.
That was the 2nd or third time in as many weeks I had gone out of my way to do something even while being scared. Not endorsing recklessness, but in so many parts of life, fear can keep you from doing things you really want to or should do. A bible verse says - The lazy one [manufactures excuses and] says, “There is a lion outside! I will be killed in the streets [if I go out to work]!” . When you’re overly fearful it’s something similar because there are more than enough reasons never to leave your house, or comfort zone. Fear can be crippling when we don’t realize that it’s okay to be afraid, and then still find a way to do the thing. I highly recommend it.