‘Emotionally Distressed’ Victim Of Attempted Planticide Insists Suspect Must Be Punished
The accused person says he is not a threat to other plant parents in the office and remains a loving person in spite of the unfortunate but ‘isolated incident’.
While to some, February is celebrated as the season of love, others are starting the month with the loss of their loved ones. One of the cherished members of the Plant Kingdom became internally displaced on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 1, as a young man, identified as Mansir Muhammed, had its pot broken into countless shards.
Witnesses said Mansir, HumAngle’s GIS Specialist, travelled several floors away from his desk at the time of the incident, which took place in the smaller section of the newsroom. A ceramic cup was allegedly broken too.
Speaking to HumAngle Weekly, the victim, Tracy-Allen Ezechukwu, who works with HumAngle Services, described the experience as traumatising and called for justice to be done.
“I stepped out of the office to take a very urgent call and while I was outside I heard the sound of ceramics breaking,” she recalled. “So I quickly rushed back into the office to sort of understand what was happening, to find out if anyone had been hurt, only for me to look at the table and find Mansir on the floor, picking up pieces.”
She said she was confused at first because she thought a cup had been broken. Seconds later, upon a closer inspection of the crime scene, she put the pieces together and realised what was destroyed was her ceramic pot.
“Mansir, you destroyed me!” she remembered exclaiming.
Tracy’s colleagues told this correspondent the plant together with its pot were like a child to her. “She treated it like it were her own baby,” said one employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their own plant from targeted attacks. “She gave it everything she got, her love, attention, and water.”
Meanwhile, Tracy said she received no apology and saw no display of remorse from the perpetrator of the crime. “In fact, he even claimed that I had been annoying him for a while, so this is payback,” she added.
“I can’t describe the trauma that left me, but it’s all good, it’s all good. No regrets. I just want true justice to be served. I don’t know what the punishment is going to be, but he has to really pay for that emotional distress that he caused me.”
Mansir told this newspaper that what happened was, in essence, ‘involuntary plantslaughter’ — or in his words — an accident and isolated incident, adding that he was only trying to be helpful. He, however, could not help but pass the blame to another inanimate object.
“I was trying to like adjust a seat and, if anything, we should blame that seat…,” he said.
He added that Tracy had made certain demands, especially for sticky notes and stationeries, which he intends to see through.
“Please let everybody know that I am actually … remorseful. You know the chair…,” he continued, maintaining that other plant owners in the office are “very safe”. “Seriously, this is not a habit,” he stressed. “It is not a trend. I will like everybody to know that I am still the loving person they know.”
HumAngle Weekly could not confirm what eventually happened to the leafy victim of forceful evacuation. However, lending credence to the adage that while some things are indispensable, nothing is irreplaceable, another flowerpot stands where Tracy’s used to be just minutes after the latter’s displacement. The latest member of the newsroom prominently bears the name tag Akinyemi.
Members of staff are not sure what to expect going forward. HumAngle is notably a safe space for women and ideas, but many wonder if the same can be said of plants and their pots.
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