The mood in Dapchi is still
sombre. Most families are gathered in congregational prayers under Neem trees
at street corners, while military checkpoints, which where hitherto absent, are
now glaring at strategic places. This
town, in Bursari local government area of Yobe state, north-east, Nigeria, is
yet to recover from the attack on the Government Girls Science and Technical
College on Monday, February 19, 2018.
Suspected Boko Haram insurgents,
masquerading as soldiers, lured 110 girls into their vehicles, abducting them.
Now, it is no longer the abduction that matters. But the reality that even
after ten days, nothing significant has been heard about the rescue of the
girls. While the Nigerian army and police are trading blame on who should have
been responsible for the security of the girls, their parents are still
waiting, in excruciating longing, for their return.
Hajia Ibrahim M-grah, 45, has not
had any meaningful sleep for almost ten days now. Her troubled mind has been
conjuring up images of where her 17-year-old daughter would be. Would she have
any food to eat? Would she be asleep now? What are they doing to her now? Would
she become a Boko Haram bride and mother.
Fatima M-grah (left) and her sister when they were younger |
She was seated cross-legged on a blue
rubber mat when TheCable met her at a family yard. Despite breastfeeding her
infant, the love and joy mothers usually transmit to their suckling babies
during such bonding exercise was missing. Rather, her eyes were bleary and
puffy with heavy bags of sorrow underlining them.
“I am not myself. I cannot sleep.
I am not in my senses now. I am suffering. I am missing my daughter.” This was
the little she could say in Hausa through her husband who interpreted.
Her husband, Ibrahim M-grah, 60,
says he had bought her sleeping medication but rather than being cured of
sleeplessness, she is having frequent heart palpitations. Speaking of their
daughter, he says, Fatima Ibrahim M-grah, in SS3 (final class), has only three
or four months left to conclude her education in that school.r? Or will Allah
answer her prayers and bring her back soon?
“Since I have not seen my daughter, I cannot eat and I cannot sleep,” says father of Fatima Manzo, pointing to her missing girl in a family photograph |
“She has been in the school since
JSS1. There was no problem. But she only has three months left to finish,” he
says, raising three fingers up. “After she completes her school, she wants to
go and read health tech at the school of health technology, so she can be a
community health extension worker.”
Based on the Nigerian academic
calendar, she ought to write her final exams — the senior secondary school certificate
(SSCE) — in May after which she proceeds to the next level of her studies in
September, but who knows if this dream will ever see the light of the day.
Fatima is not M-grah’s only
daughter that was missing, but he prefers to talk about only one.
“I have two daughters in that
school. The second one, Hafsa, is from my second wife (I have three wives), but
let’s not talk about that,” he says, trying to suppress his emotions.
FATIMA — BABY OF THE FAMILY
Born on June 30 2003, Fatima
Bashir had her whole future, bright and beautiful, before her. Her problem
wouldn’t have been lack of money to pursue an education as her father, a civil
servant, is ready to sponsor her through nursing school. He wants her to be a
nurse and that is why he sent her to a science school.
But on the night of the attack,
her sister who is also in the school escaped, unfortunately she couldn’t. The
house has been silent since then.
“Since I have not seen my
daughter, I am not comfortable. I cannot eat and I cannot sleep,” her father,
Bashir Alhaji Manzo, says. He is the chairman of the Association of Parents of
Abducted Dapchi Schoolgirls. “I want the government to produce our children
with immediate effect,” he says.
BOISTEROUS FATIMA
Fatima Mohammed, a 16-year-old
SS2 student, is an extraordinary child. Wery gifted and obedient, her father
testifies. The elderly man in his sixties is the district head of Jumbam, a
small town near Dapchi. He was receiving visitors who came to commiserate with
him on the kidnap of his daughter, when TheCable met him.
“I truly love my daughter,” he
says, crossing his legs on the mat in his yard. “She is very obedient to me.
The love of a father to a child is never expressed that is why I cannot express
how much I love Fatima.”
He shakes his head and tries not
to blink so that the water gathering in his reddening eye wouldn’t drop.
“I always think about her – when
I want to eat, when I want to sleep. I will be thinking which condition will
she be in now? Even when I am feeling hungry and they bring the food, I cannot
eat again. When I sleep, I will wake up and I cannot sleep again,” he reveals.
Fatima is the sixth child and is
described as a very boisterous especially in anything education. She made
graffiti on the wall of her mother’s room – telling everything about herself,
her prospects and her schooling and friends.
“She used to tell me that when
she completes her school, she wants to become a medical doctor to assist the
less privileged in the society. I wish the government put more emphasis and try
their best to rescue the girls,” he adds.
ZARA – GRANDMA’S LOVE
With sunken eyes and a lean,
feverish appearance, Hajia Fanankulu, the grandmother of 14-year-old Zara Musa,
is sprawled on a purple prayer mat, quietly counting the beads on her tasbah.
“I am begging the government to
try their possible best to release the girls. This girl is very precious to me.
Her mother lives in Damaturu, but the girl lives with me here. I am taking care
of her, and she is helping me, but since this incidence happened, I did not
sleep, I did not eat. My chest is paining me, everyday,” she says, coughing and
striking her chest.
LIVING IN DENIAL
For Fareed Musa (not real name),
whose three daughters were all kidnapped, living in denial is the best way to
save him from having a mental breakdown right now.
“I cannot begin to talk about it.
If I start, I cannot finish it, except you want to see my tears,” he says. Musa
wouldn’t reveal his real name, those of his girls, no show any of their
pictures. The reason is that he accepts and leaves everything to God.
“What can I begin to say? Is it
how I just paid their school fees and carry provision to them in school? We are
always together here, and all of a sudden, I cannot see them again? Boko Haram
stole my children?”
His eyes reddened a bit, but he
threw in a joke and eased into banter with his friends who were hanging out
with him on a mat under a Neem tree.
“Sorry journalist, I do not want
to talk about them or give their names,” he says, tilting his head
apologetically. When asked if the mother of the children would speak, he waved
his hands aggressively. “My wife too cannot. She will start crying. If I (the
man) cannot, then my wife cannot.”
He however hopes, in his distant
mind, that they will return. And if they don’t, “I give praises to Allah,” he
says.
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