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Hello, friend. This week's choice is spelt N E S T and pronounced as /nɛst/. There is more than one meaning for this word.
When I was younger, I understood this word to be “a home for birds”. Or a place where Mommy Birds lay their eggs. But on one of those cold mornings, I heard a neighbour talking about a case where a group of robbers were nipped in their nest by the police.
Curiosity got the better part of me. So I looked up the word “nest” in my mini dictionary. There I learned the word also referred to a “hideout for bad people; a den”.
The lady who narrated the story told us how these robbers hid in incomplete buildings whenever they were preparing for an operation or sharing the spoils gotten from those operations. That discovery made my young mind see every incomplete building to be a hideout for robbers. Including the ones on my street.
So disheartening!
Photo by Alexander Dummer from Pexels
Another moment I got to understand the word even better was while watching a short play on TV about a little child called Nneka. The little orphan girl who hawked fruits for her cruel aunt was gang ra.p.ed in an enclosed building with a big black gate. It so happened that one of the gang members bought her ware from her and invited her into the compound to get her money. The naive girl who was more interested in getting her aunt's money followed him blindly into the compound only to meet her waterloo.
My mindset changed once more. I understood a nest to either be an uncompleted building or an enclosed compound with high walls and thick black gates.
With age came wisdom and I realised that a nest or “a hideout for bad people” could be anywhere. It could be a public office, an area in the metropolis, a duplex, or even a forest like Sambisa. A kidnapper could use his father's compound to keep his victims as in the case of Uduak Akpan and Iniobong Umoren.
Unknown gunmen could disappear with the victim into thick forests as in the case of the Chibok and Dapchi school girls with Boko Haram agents.
Nests in this context are not necessarily incomplete buildings or ugly haunted houses. They are generally any place where bad people meet to plot their plans. These places serve as a haven for them to carry out nefarious activities without being detected. Most of their activities are too heavy for the mouth, let alone the fingers to type.
So, how can we spot these nests?
Photo by Alotrobo from Pexels
These places are disguised to look like ordinary areas.
The only way of finding out which is a “nest” for criminals is through thorough investigations by the police and other law enforcement agencies.
Now, you know that a nest could be a good place where birds lay their eggs or a bad spot where perpetrators of crimes hide to avoid being seen by the police. The only way these criminals can be busted is through investigations by appropriate units.
If you ever find a criminal's “nest”, be sure to report the case at the nearest police station for adequate investigations to be performed.
Written by @ukpono on 22 January 2024
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@yhudy and @pandora2010