THIS IS HOW MY FRIEND RUINED MY LIFE

For nine years, 34-year-old Naomi Christopher has lived in a tiny prison cell regretting bad advice from her friend, after she was lured into a drug trafficking trap. The year was 2003, and Naomi was in her second year, pursuing a diploma in procurement and supply in one of the colleges in the country. 

Like any other young girl, Naomi, then 22, had the ambitions of becoming anything—better career and the attendant good life—after completing her studies.

But it was not until she met her friend Ashura Mohammed that all her plans evaporated into thin air.

Recounting the events of November 2003, she says she was approached by her best friend, telling her that there was a ‘deal’ of her lifetime.But given her poor economic conditions back home, it was a deal that looked irresistibly too good for her. While she did not give direct consent to partaking in the deal, little did she know that she would live to regret for the rest of her life.

At home, Naomi was living with step father and her mother, having lost her biological father.

Just like normal friends always do, Naomi was hanging out with her friend Ashura on that fateful day.

When Ashura broached the idea of acting as drug mules outside the country, not knowing who they will be working for, Naomi gazed at her friend reluctantly and unwilling to join in the crime.

“I didn’t feel any pressure at the time, because my friend was not forcing me to accept,” Naomi told Pesatimes in an interview outside Kisutu Court in Dar es Salaam after she had been set free after serving her prison sentence.

“My friend asked me to give the answer, and I said No, and my answer seemed to be right at the time. We changed the subject and started talking about other things until we finished our drinks and decided to go home. But before we parted ways, my friend gave me a number to call in case I changed my mind,” narrates Naomi.

It was three days later that her friend Ashura requested her to escort her to Sinza (in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam City), where she was going to meet with a person whose identity she did not want to disclose. But Naomi did not know that Ashura was trying to lure her into a deal Ashura had flatly rejected.

Her instincts never warned her that they were actually going to meet the very person behind the ‘deal’ she was opposed to right from the start. She finally consented and decided to follow her friend. By the time she realized her instincts had deceived her, it was already too late.

“Three people who claimed to be policemen stopped the taxi we were in and went straight to my friend’s purse and got out thee packets filled with white flour, which I later on came to know was cocaine,” say Naomi.

Even though Naomi had no single idea of what her friend was carrying, all the three, including the tax driver, were charged with possession of and trafficking in drugs , and after three years of hopping to court,  Naomi was sentenced to 11 years in prison, which were later on reduced to 9. Her friend was handed 14 years’ imprisonment, while the taxi driver was set free.

“There was nothing I could do,” Naomi said, adding that she was living with her mother and step dad in a very poor economic state. While the thought of get-rich-quick would seem to salvage the situation at home, she knew that taking a shot at illegal drugs dealing would not be a viable short cut.  But she was indeed ensnared in the very ‘deal’ she at first felt uncomfortable with.

While she has gone through hell in all those nine years behind the bars, all is not lost for Naomi.  She is looking forward to rebuilding her life.

She still wants to bounce back: Go back to school, get a good job, and marry and have children.  She knows, while she has been through a lot, God will be on her side.