North East

‘How do you people cope?’

If I had a Naira for every time people asked me that question, I would be a billionaire by now. The question almost always comes up when people realise, I am from the north eastern part of the country. Or I mention Maiduguri in conversation.

‘Do people still live there?’ Nope. Aliens live there.

‘Why can’t your family just leave?’  Umm….maybe because they live and work there?

‘What do these Boko Haram people want?’ Hold on, let me ask Shekau. How am I supposed to know???

The truth is human beings are a resilient species. I see it etched on the faces of my family, distant relatives, friends and strangers alike. I look at my mother’s face and I recall the day she called me, crying, after a soldier used the butt of his gun to break her car headlights at a checkpoint. She was on her way to the work and did not notice that soldiers had set up a new military checkpoint. I remember the day my sisters went to the bank and soldiers opened fire into the air to scare off civilians as they rushed to Baga, where the Boko Haram boys were reported to have been seen. Some of the bullets hit our car and my sister rushed out in panic and was running bare foot on the road. A passer-by had to hit her and drag her to the floor. He asked her to lie flat on the ground and remain still until the commotion was over. She is eternally grateful to that stranger. My other sister passed out in the car and only came around after the driver was able to return them home. I still remember the driver’s reaction when he returned. My mother had heard the news over the radio and was frantic with worry. There was no GSM service in Maiduguri (as the military had shut it down due to security reasons) and so she could not reach them. She stood at the gate of our house crying. When they returned, the driver came out and stared at the bullets that had dented the body of the SUV. He sat on the floor of the garage and burst into tears as he realised their close shave with death. Have you ever seen a grown man cry?

I am in awe of the resilience of my aunt whose husband was shot at close range by Boko Haram terrorists. ‘Alaramma’ as he was fondly called was an Islamic preacher in Potiskum who warned against the ideology of Boko Haram and for that he paid the ultimate price. The young men pretended to be students in quest of knowledge and when they entered his living room, shot him. He died on the spot. I have lost count of the numerous similar stories I hear whenever I travel home. The people who have lost their lives, those whose limbs have been amputated and those who live with the nightmare that is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When I met a woman whose three children had all perished during a bomb blast in school, I burst into tears. She had moved to Kano to escape the nightmares but they had followed her. For her, no drug would ever erase the image of the charred remains of her children.

And yet, difficult as it is to say, the war has brought with it some progress to Borno and Yobe states. The war against Boko Haram has waged on for close to 11 years and in those years Maiduguri, especially, has witnessed an economic boom due to the presence of NGOs. The Caucasians came to help us with the war against terror, but they also brought with them their foreign exchange. And with that came a hike in the rent of properties. Mighty shops appeared out of nowhere. Businesses in the popular ‘Post Office Area’ that sold phones and gadgets flourished. White people are seen everywhere overpaying for basic amenities. My mother told me of the time she nearly screamed when she saw an old Kanuri woman selling mangoes to a white woman at N1000 a piece!

Which begs the question – Do we truly, in our hearts and might want this war to end? It is one thing to feel pained when a loved one is shot dead and another thing to collect dollars in your shop when a white man tells you he has no Naira. Granted, the gravity of the war has decreased significantly as there are no villages occupied solely by Boko Haram or any area where their flag waves boldly as was the case previously. And to be fair- the Nigerian Army are doing a tremendous job. Still. More needs to be done. The frequency of their attacks in the past few days has been alarming.

On the 5th of January 2020, we were scheduled to leave Maiduguri for Kano via Potiskum. One hour into the journey, we met traffic. When we did not move for 10 minutes, I knew something was up. Hundreds of cars, trucks, busses and trailers were parked at the check point. The road had been blocked. The Boko Boys had been sighted in Damaturu, a few kilometres from where we were. The choice was ours, to wait until the road was cleared which seemed foolish as I had no idea when that would happen and the kids were already becoming irritable or to return to Maiduguri. I decided on the latter. Better safe than sorry.

Later, we heard from the DSS who said the road was safe to travel. We decided to try again the next day. We set out bright and early, armed with snacks and food in preparation for the three-hour journey to Potiskum. We bade our farewells, yet again, and joked that this time, we were really leaving for good. Just a few kilometres outside Maiduguri, around Njamtilo, at a check point, we met another traffic. I was just about to ask the driver to go out and investigate when all hell broke loose. Suddenly out of nowhere, we saw army and police armoured vehicles speeding in the opposite direction and screaming at the top of their lungs: ‘ku juya, ku juya’, meaning ‘turn back, turn back’. The boko boys had struck again. I do not know  from where our driver learned his James Bond moves, but I will forever be gratefully for the lightning speed with which he threw the car into reverse gear, made a sharp U-turn and sped back towards the ‘Welcome to Maiduguri’ sign, along with hundreds of other cars driving maniacally.

That night, my kids refused to sleep in their beds and snuggled up to me instead. We were squashed like sardines but we were safe. And that is all that matters. Alhamdulillah.