28/08/2025
"Born of Pain, Raised by Fire"
In a forgotten corner of a Tse Ansha Gboko Town, twin boys let out their first cries, a sound of life wrapped in sorrow. Their mother, Kuwua, gave everything to bring them into the world. She labored for hours in a poorly lit room with only a traditional birth attendant by her side. Their father, Tyohumba, had no money for a hospital, no savings, only empty bottles and broken promises.
Kuwua bled for too long. Her strength faded with the sun, and by nightfall, she was gone.
The twins were named Tarhav and Mfedoo
Tyohumba fell deeper into alcohol, drinking away the pain he didn’t have the courage to face. A few years later, he remarried, and the boys grew up under the harsh eyes and harder hands of a stepmother Ngohumba who saw them as nothing but burdens.
They wore tattered clothes, went to bed hungry, and heard more curses than lullabies.
But even under the same roof, the two boys walked very different paths.
Tarhav, the elder by a few minutes, grew up with fists clenched. He fought other children for food, for respect, for survival. The streets became his classroom. He learned how to talk with his hands, how to lead gangs, how to use fear as a weapon. They called him "Fire" — unpredictable, d*ngerous, untouchable.
Mfedoo, on the other hand, chose silence. While Tarhav raged, he read. When Ngohumba wasn't looking, he'd sneak into Gboko south primary school, listen from windows, copy notes on scraps of paper and befriend some of the neighbors' children who taught him how to read. He worked odd jobs to buy exercise and text book and pay school fees as well, cleaning gutters, washing cars, selling water at Gboko motor park.
He studied under streetlights in the night and borrowed textbooks from kind strangers.
Years passed.
Tarhav was arrested at nineteen after a rival cult war left two boys in critical condition. Mfedoo, now in Benue State University Makurdi, visited him in Gboko correctional center "Gboko prison" not with judgment, but with tears in his eyes.
"You used the fire to fight, Tarhav," he said softly, holding his brother’s scarred hands. "I used it to fuel me. Same fire. Different choices."
By the time Mfedoo graduated as a lawyer, Tarhav had already served five years.
On the day of his release, Mfedoo stood outside the prison gates in a clean suit, waiting with open arms.
“Let’s start again,” he said.
Moral:
What breaks one person can build another. Pain doesn’t choose who to visit — but we choose what to become because of it. The same environment that can crush a soul can also create a fighter, a leader, a survivor. Strength isn't born from comfort, but from the decision to rise anyway.
