Life has been so hard, unbearable

As the world marks the International Day of Remembrance and Tributes to the Victims of Terrorism, KANGMWA GOFWEN reports on the travails of Internally Displaced Persons and how they have been surviving after fleeing from their abodes.

February 26, 2012 was a cool beautiful Sunday morning in Jos, the Plateau State capital. The sun came up shining brightly through the sparsely distributed cloud above the sky as birds sang melodiously in the trees surrounding the Boys Brigade Headquarters in Ibrahim Taiwo area of the city where this reporter lived.

The family had decided the night before to attend the first service at the COCIN headquarters which began at 8 a.m. So the usual early Sunday morning rush was in play as we were all hurrying to beat time for service. Together with other people from our neighborhood we got to church some minutes past 7 a.m. The others, including my elder sister, went on into the main church auditorium while I went down the Sunday school section with my daughter.

Just when I was about to sit down holding my then one year-old daughter, there was a very loud explosion and for a second, the clock stopped ticking, life stopped happening, dust covered the beautiful blue sky we could see moments back. There was pandemonium and all that could be heard were the cries of terrified children and parents rushing in to pick their children.

There was chaos everywhere as everyone was looking for their loved ones to ascertain their safety; I rushed to look for my sister. It was a huge relief the moment I saw her; she was covered in dust but thankfully she was unhurt. Unfortunately, the story did not end this way for some families in church that morning and for many other victims of terror attacks.

Such was a slice of what victims of terrorism endured. For those who survived the ordeal, their trauma is everyday, as they are usually left with the scars and the psychological wounds that even time might not heal.

Bitter experiences

Rukkaya Bello, a victim of terror attack who has now relocated to Ibadan where she tries to piece her life together and survives through street begging, lost her husband and seven children to Boko Haram terrorists in DoronBaga in Baga Local Government Area in Borno State about four years ago.

“I don’t have any children anymore. Boko Haram killed all my seven children and my husband,” Rukkaya, looking forlorn and hopeless, shared her horrifying experience with the dreaded terror group.

“We were moving around with our cattle when Boko Haram followed us into the bush; they killed all the men and boys, rustled our cattle and abducted my seven daughters-in-law. I don’t have anyone left; it is just me and God. I did not have female children;  they were all boys and Boko Haram killed all of them.”

Rukkaya is one of the over two million people affected and displaced by insurgency in the country’s North-East. Left to wonder alone in the bush without family and loved ones, Rukkaya, just like many others, journeyed down South to find succour and fend for herself.

“I was alone and lonely, so I came here,” she said. “After they killed our husbands and male children, they left a lot of women in the bush. We couldn’t stay in the bush without our cattle, so we moved to town.”

In memory of victims who lost their lives to acts of terrorism and the resilient spirit of the survivors such as Rukkaya, August 21 was set aside annually by the United Nations as the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute of Victims of Terrorism.

The day is intended to provide an avenue for the voices of survivors and victims of terrorism to be heard as they seek justice. These acts of terrorism have left irrevocable impacts on victims, some of who find it hard to get their normal lives back. These victims, most times, feel left out and abandoned; they have to struggle to get their rights.

Obviously, acts of terrorism have left telling effects on millions of people ranging from physical to emotional traumas. Showing her bullet scar, Halimatu Sadia, another victim who relocated to Ibadan and is now begging on the street to survive, said: “I spent about three months in the hospital (after being attacked); my head was swollen.”

Halimatu has difficulty recounting exactly what had happened to her having gone through a lot at the hands of bandits in Niger State. “If you ask me any question and you see me quiet, I am trying to recollect what had happened,” she explained.

Describing the attackers, Halimatu said she is so sure they were not citizens of Nigeria because their appearance did not resemble that of any ethnic group in Nigeria.

“They were carrying Ak47 guns; very tall with their hairs plaited. I could tell they were not Nigerians because they all have piercings on their heels; there is no culture in Nigeria that allows piercing of heels.

“The bandits attacked us in the night; they killed several people. They dragged my neighbour out and butchered him in our presence. In different directions we all ran for our dear lives. I trekked from Gandi barefooted to Mokwa in Niger State. I had just N10 on me; I was haggard and tired with just my headtie. The clothes I was wearing were the only thing I was able to escape with. Thankfully, I met one woman when I got to Mokwa. God bless her. She was the one that helped me,” Halimatu narrated.

Many victims, like Halimatu and Rukkaya, have relocated to Ibadan and other parts of the South where they now beg for alms to survive. To them, the North is no longer habitable.

“The North is no longer sweet; they (bandits) do not allow us to live in peace. They have abducted our husbands and killed them; so who would you live with for God sake?” Aisha Garba, one of the victims said.

“To think that we all live in same country, yet these enemies will not allow us to live peacefully in our communities due to sheer wickedness; it is heart-breaking. They would come while everyone in the family is together – husband, wife and children and without any provocation kill our husbands, leaving us with the children. Who will give us food to feed them if we do not come to the South to beg?” Aisha queried unable to subdue the pain she felt.

“People will insult us and say all sorts of things to us because we are beggars without knowing our predicament. God will judge in this life and beyond everyone involved in this act of wickedness.

“We have no peace in the North. We are in so much trouble and pains. (I pray) God will bless us in this situation we have found ourselves. They left us with no hope and a choice except to come to the South and beg.

“We do not even know if we have security agents in the North because these evil men kill our parents, husbands and children at will every day with impunity. We are really in a terrible situation but God will judge them,” she lamented further.

Many of the victims, in separate interviews with Sunday Tribune, accused the state governments in the North of neglecting them in their poor condition, noting that if they had got any form of support they would have had no reason to relocate down South. They added that they initially had hopes in the Buhari administration to help them but it appears the government was not forthcoming and only gave empty promises.

“We were overjoyed when Buhari won the elections because we thought he’d do well but he turned out worse. We suffered to vote this government into power. I know someone who even lost his life in the process, but alas, it was all for nothing. He came in and did nothing. Now look at the life we are living. They’ve killed all our men,” a victim who would not give her name lamented.

The victims, however, praised the efforts of state governments in the South, particularly Oyo State governor, SeyiMakinde, who they noted had done more than what the governments in the North should have done for them.

A man who identified himself as Aliyu told Sunday Tribune: “The governments in the North have done nothing concerning security; they are not concerned about our safety. Look at us with our children laying waste here. The governors in the South have assisted us in more ways than the North ever did; we are thankful to the South, but never to the North.

“What the government in Oyo State did for us here in Ibadan they did not do for us in the North. The Oyo State government built a place for us at Akinyele; we have received food items from this government and we are really thankful because we do not have this kind of treatment in the North.

“The South generally has blessed us more than the North ever did. There was a pastor that once rented apartments for us, bought mattresses and mats for us here in Ibadan. Who would do such a thing for you in the North? Honestly, we are immensely thankful to the South than we are to the North.”

It is five years down the line since the day was set aside, and it appears that a lot of victims and survivors are not aware a day such as this exists. “We are not aware a day like this exists,” Abdullahi Usman, leader of the beggars at Sabo in Ibadan North Local Government Area said.

He lamented that the government has not shown much concern about them, as often, they have to struggle to be carried along in affairs of the nation. “We expect that the government should send representatives to inform us about days like this. For instance, preparations for the next general election are ongoing; the government has been announcing plans about voter registration but no one carried us along. We were not invited nor encouraged to register.

“But because we are citizens of this country and we want to participate in everything for the sake of our children, we go all out to look for these things be it voters card or any national registration that is required of citizens and we register.”

He said though he is blind, he alongside other leaders of the beggars go the extra mile to look for concerned leaders to see how they would be engaged in the affairs of the country. “Because we do not want to be left behind, we went to the secretariat here in Oyo State and we were able to meet someone that assisted us and they came here to register our wives and children during the voters’ registration.”

He expressed their desire for government to always carry them along because they have children that they as parents wish they prosper in the society. “We have been looking for avenues like this to express our yearnings to government but it has not but been possible.”

“We have children that need assistance to enable them go to school. Personally, I have three children in secondary school; I am struggling to keep them in school. I come to beg here every day in other to keep them in school,” he said.

He added that they all do not pray that their children continue as beggars on the street like them. “We do not wish that my children remain as beggars tomorrow. So I come here every day in other to get to something keep them in school, I don’t go anywhere except here to beg. So these are some of the areas we need the government to support us but it is not forth coming.”

 

No relief materials for IDPs

To confirm the pitiable situations victims of terrorism who chose to remain in the North face, Sunday Tribune visited some  Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs’) camps in Bauchi where some of them are quartered and it was a tale of sorrow.

Those of them in Bauchi State, mostly from Borno, Zamfara, Taraba, Adamawa, Plateau, Katsina and Kaduna and Yobe states, told tales of suffering at the hands of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the course of distribution of relief materials.

The IDPs alleged that the last time they received any form of support from government was in 2017. While speaking on behalf of the IDPs in Bauchi state at Tirwun village, Bauchi, the state Chairman of the IDPs, Musa Shehu, said several representations had been made to NEMA, but they had been ignored. He then urged the state government to as a matter of urgency intervene and ensure relief material get to the IDPs.

According to him, the 56,000 IDPs in Bauchi State currently rely on the North-East Development Commission (NEDC), for succor pointing out that apart from the Commission’s intervention, no other governmental agency or NGO provides relief services to them.

He said that: “We are pleading with the federal and state government to look into our plight by providing us with food items, social amenities, sources of livelihoods for our people, as well as land, so that we can build our own houses, because many of us are living in households of host communities in the state.

“We need schools for our children as the public schools in the state do not accept them. Most of the IDPs lost their sources of livelihoods when they left their states, now most of them do menial jobs to keep body and soul together, which cannot meet all their needs.”

Speaking with Sunday Tribune, the IDP chairman, Misau Local Government Area, Idris Baba, also called on the Bauchi State governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, to provide IDPs in the state with plots of land so that they can build their personal houses instead of squatting with residents of the state.

Some of the victims of terrorism who spoke with Sunday Tribune expressed the desire that one day, they would love to go back to their roots; after all, an adage says ‘East or West, home is the best.’ However, while still trying to pull their lives together after the trauma of barely escaping death at the hands of terrorists, the best that government could do is to provide the basic needs of man which is food, clothe and shelter.

 

Additional story by Ishola Michael

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