From Gubio, with love: An eye-witness account of the Massacre

he first time Boko boys attempted to enter our peaceful settlement of Baduma, they were not successful. Rumours, like smoke, had circulated throughout our sleepy town that the militants were planning an attack through Tchad. We heard that they had run out of food and basic supplies and were, therefore, desperate.

The ward head called for several meetings of both young men and the elderly. Our strategy was simple: the young men were to take up their petty arms: hoes, cutlasses and machetes, while the older men would pray and engage the services of experienced marabouts.

Charms were distributed and the holy book was recited in many different versions that it was impossible to keep count. Word was sent to the Army that we had successfully repelled them and that we needed their help.

We were not so foolish to believe that our woes were over, indeed we knew they had just begun. Like Gaidam, like Auno; we knew they would refuel and come back for us and it was that fear that settled in the pit of my stomach, loosening my bowels and robbing me of the sweet relief of sleep.

We continued our daily activities as normal, calmly going about our duties while a cloud of impending doom hung precariously above our heads.

Our leader, the ward head, asked us not to despair, but instead to spread hope to our wives and children. Each time I returned home from the farm and looked at my wife, my youngest child strapped to her back, I felt a deep rumbling in my tummy causing me to race to the hut behind my house which served as our toilet.

Stories of the Boko boys abducting women and young boys from neighbouring villages had reached us and we were all filled with dread. Prayer, the ward head said. Prayer was our only solution.

The second time the Boko Haram boys came, we were caught by surprise. I say surprise because, even though we knew they were coming, we didn’t think it would be so soon.

Barely a month later. Also, the Army had promised to help us. And so, that morning, as we sat gathered in the village square, deep in concentration, in what had become our customary prayer of peace, the sight of four armoured tanks took us by surprise.

The tanks were emblazoned with the logo of the Nigerian Army and our initial surprise were accompanied by relief. The Army had come to help us, or so I thought.

The rumbling in my tummy started again and I took advantage of the excitement that their arrival caused, to seek refuge in a nearby toilet.

The combined sounds of screams and gunshots are one I will never forget.

From the toilet, through a small makeshift window, I saw that it was the Boko Haram boys and not the Army as we previously thought.

The militants had surrounded the group of men which I had previously been part of and opened fire. As hot urine dribbled down my leg, I watched as these people, humans like me, fired gunshots at all the men in the square, waving their guns up and down, chanting in ecstasy.

They continued to shoot until all the men lay on the ground, dead. Some, who had attempted to flee were chased after and tied up. From my tiny peephole, I counted sixteen of the abductees and watched as they were loaded into the back of their trucks. My heart hammered so hard against my chest, I felt they could hear it.

It seemed like days, months even, in the toilet that had become both my safe haven and prison, before they left. Again, it was the screams of women that alerted me, that it was safe to come out. Women looking for their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers among the numerous bodies littered on the ground.

The enormity of the carnage that had just happened, accompanied by the feeling of coming so close to death, swept me off my feet.

I knelt against a wall and sobbed my heart out. The cries of women and children continued throughout the day as we buried our people and even when the local vigilante group and army arrived.

When asked how many people died, I close my eyes and remember the shooting. Some say 81, others more than that. Some bodies had already been taken by relatives who lived in nearby villages before the counting started. Some had already been buried.

The worst had happened, I reasoned, why were we so concerned about the number? Was it not enough that we had lost our brothers, fathers and sons?

What good was the exact number to the government anyway? Is that all we are- mere statistics?

My sleeplessness which was previously due to fear is now overtaken by nightmares and guilt. Guilt that I had survived when all my brothers had not. Guilt that I had been hiding in a toilet when my friends were being shot. Mind-numbing, gut-wrenching guilt.

I should be dead.