Zainab Musa was once the proud mother of four children in a small farming village near Bama. Her husband, Musa, grew millet and maize, and their evenings were simple—lantern light, laughter, and bowls of tuwo out in front of their little house. Then one night, the sound of motorcycles, dozens of them screeching through the village, shattered the quiet.
“They came shouting,” Zainab recalls. “At first we thought it was soldiers.”
But they were from Boko Haram bandits. Before the bewildered villagers could say ‘Allau Akbar’, the insurgents had set houses on fire, shot men who tried to run, mauled the aged and weak. Musa, Zainab’s husband pushed his wife and the children out through the back door while he ran toward the front, hoping to distract them. That was the last time she saw him. Multiple gunshots that tore through the night told her that her life would never be the same again.
Zainab fled with her children through the bush for two days before reaching safety. Today she lives in an IDP camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri. Where her village once stood is now a big pile of ashes.
Ibrahim Abdullahi wanted to be a teacher. His father wanted him to be a Muslim cleric. His mother told him he could be both if he stayed focused on his studies. Unfortunately, Ibrahim was just 14 when bandits attacked their village in Zamfara State. Both his father and mother were killed in the chaos.
Suddenly, Ibrahim found himself responsible for his two younger sisters, aged seven and five.
They walked for three days with a group of fleeing, villagers before arriving at an IDP camp.
Read Also: Echoes of Trauma: Why Nigeria must confront the trauma of its women, By Lillian Okenwa
Now Ibrahim fetches water, queues for food rations, and comforts his sisters when they cry at night.
“I used to dream of becoming a teacher,” he says quietly. “Now I just want my sisters to grow up alive.”
At an age when he should be in school playing football, Ibrahim is learning how to survive.
Read Also: Echoes of Trauma: The silent wounds of Nigerian men, By Lillian Okenwa
Maryam Bello’s husband was shot in front of their children. She still clutches the now rusted key to the house that was set ablaze in the early morning raid that changed her life forever. She went to bed a happy mother of four and a ‘landlord’s wife. By the time the day broke, she was a homeless widow with a dozen and one questions from her children she had no answer to, more questions she herself needed the owner of the universe to answer too.
Her village near Kankara was attacked by armed bandits who were looking for cattle and ransom victims.
Maryam’s husband refused to reveal where the cattle were hidden.
They shot him in front of their children.
The bandits then burned their home.
Maryam escaped with her three children and now lives in a cramped tent.
When rain falls, water seeps into the tent. Food is once a day. Bouts of malaria and diarrhea were their regular visitors.
But what hurts Maryam most is watching her children forget what life used to be like. She does not even know where to restart their lives.
Abubakar Sani was once a prosperous farmer in a rural community outside Sokoto. Today, he is a casual farm hand in Lagos, living in an uncompleted building with his sons who work in a car wash. His family once cultivated groundnuts, beans, and sorghum. Then the bandits arrived.
At first they demanded “taxes”—bags of grain and livestock. The villagers paid out of fear.
Soon the demands became kidnappings.
One night the bandits returned, firing guns and ordering everyone to leave.
Abubakar and his family eventually joined the hundreds of displaced Nigerians who travelled days in open trucks from the north to Lagos.
Now the man who once owned acres of farmland survives on leftovers and a meagre daily pay.
“I used to feed people,” he says, staring at the ground. “Now I struggle with my children and wife over food, cover my children with my robe when it rains and when where we live is flooded.”
His greatest pain is not hunger. It is the loss of dignity.
Seven-year-old Fatima no longer speaks.
Her silence began after an attack on her village near Gwoza during one of the worst waves of insurgent violence.
Militants from Boko Haram stormed the community she lived with her parents.
Fatima watched as her grandfather was shot while trying to help them escape. The old man’s blood splattered on her face. She wiped her face in reflex, stared at her bloody palms, screamed and then fainted. When she came to, she did not utter a word and hasn’t, since that tragic night.
Doctors say trauma can silence children like that.
Sometimes Fatima sits quietly drawing houses in the sand with a stick.
Every drawing has a door, a tree, and smoke rising from a cooking fire.
Perhaps it is the home she remembers.
Or the home she still hopes to return to.
These five stories are only fragments of a much larger tragedy. Just on Monday, the Maiduguri multiple blasts increased the tally and our fears. Police confirmed 23 dead, 146 injured on Tuesday. The days of suicide bombings that we thought were gone came back on Monday . And it just might be the beginning of worse days.
Think of how many dreams died in that blast. Think of the number of futures and destinies that were altered, some forever, in the explosion.
For more than a decade, violence linked to Boko Haram and armed bandit groups has displaced millions across northern Nigeria, particularly in states like Borno State, Zamfara State, and Katsina State.
IDP camps were meant to be temporary refuges.
For many families, they have become long-term homes.
Children grow up there without classrooms. Parents struggle without farms or jobs. Widows mourn husbands buried in hurried village graves.
Behind every statistic is a face like Zainab’s, Ibrahim’s, Maryam’s, Abubakar’s, or little Fatima’s.
In their desolation, anger, distress and silent tears lies the some fragile hope, the only thing they can hold on to like a life jackets. But they are drowning, a region is almost under water, dragging the rest of us slowly with it. Believe it or argue with it, the next two years will have one of us eating their words.
I should be writing about the President’s UK visit or worried, like everybody else, about Nigeria becoming a one-party state. Well, I don’t care because I’m too scared to care. Didn’t security operatives just found suspected bandits around Akure Airport before the Maiduguri Monday Market blast? Are bandits not carrying off women and children in Jobele in Oyo State? The ones hauled off into the dark during vigil in Kwara, have they all returned? Ask yourself , are people still closing their eyes while praying in Kwara churches? If we take a headcount, is it the number of Muslims ‘who closed their mouths’ at the beginning of Ramadan that will ‘open those mouths’ this week, in the comfort of their homes, with their families, at prayer grounds? Think of the number of abductions we have had in the north alone, during this holy month, alone. The bandits are daily showing that they have Nigeria by the balls. They are squeezing and even threatening to fry our national balls like akara. And we just scream, curse, scream and return to politics.
It’s tiring. I’m tired, scared shitless. No apologies for my language here today. I don’t care that you even think I should care. Come on, bandits, suspected or confirmed, at an airport in a state capital in the South West!
This is not Iran or Gaza, yet we have 3,900 IDP camps. Yes. How many of those does Gaza have?
How then is this the time to worry about people who are trying to secure their jobs? Because we are afraid of being kidnapped, we are paying air fares that feel like ransom. The bandits are now a step ahead, ready to set up branches at the airports. And you want to worry about governors who don’t want to lose their security votes or buy their own cars or pay for security details? You can amend the Constitution all you want, any way you want, Nigerian politicians have finally found the winning strategy and they are doing their best to keep their careers afloat. They are saving themselves. We are drowning, all of us. How do I know or I’m just exaggerating? Think of these two real examples.
One, our Sheik Uncle has said it ho-ha that each time he had had to ‘visit’ the bandits’ coven, he was always accompanied by representatives of the security agencies, all the agencies . Ah. Were my ears deceiving me? I listened to it again. So everybody knows where everybody is? And nobody wants to catch anybody? I am thoroughly confused. Or is Uncle lying? Okay, why has the government not arrested Uncle? They, all the government security agencies ,all the big men in Nigeria know something that they are not telling us. Just close your eyes and imagine the import of what Uncle revealed and the silence that followed.
Two, our Oyinbo Uncle who promised to come with blazing guns to exterminate terror in Nigeria has swallowed the pestle meant for pounded yam. What he swallowed is not digesting, so he cannot bring the rescue guns. He cannot sit, stand or sleep. I was banking on him at least putting the fear of God in those children of perdition. But Uncle is stuck there and we are stuck here.We need something, anything, whatever kind of help. Too many ghosts. Too much bloodshed.
I just feel helpless today. Whether the President goes to UK or not, what will change? Yet something must give. I’m even tired of writing on this subject but we must helplessly trudge on, right?
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
