Two women who watched as three men with them were slaughtered, literally, during the Boko Haram crisis that rocked Borno State recently tell their story to Ikechukwu Amaechi
As Patricia Ibe hunkered down in one corner of the room taking a call on telephone from a man she never met and may never meet, only one thought ran through her mind. That may be the last call she will take in her life. She may well be dead in a matter of minutes and the man speaking with her on telephone could be the messenger of death. But it was a call she must take if her already precarious situation was not to get worse. The man talking with Patricia was a soldier with the Borno State security outfit called “Operation Flush.” They were coming to invade the headquarters of the fringe Islamic sect, Boko Haram, which professes the rather queer doctrine that western education is a sin. And Patricia, a 22-year-old Accountancy student was one of the dozens of people held hostage by the extremists who promised to marry them and ensure they never lacked anything again if only they would “cooperate.” “A man who identified himself as an Operation Flush operative called and asked if I was Patricia and I answered yes,” she with her voice shaking. It took her some minutes to rein in her emotions before continuing. “He said they were coming to rescue us and asked where we were. I said we were at their camp and he said they were coming to bomb the place and that we should pray because it was going to be a battle so that we would not be caught in a crossfire. He said if we come out alive, we should thank God but that they would do everything possible to reduce casualty of innocent people.” When the phone went dead at the other end, Patricia hugged her friend, 14-year-old Chidinma Obigwe. It was their idea of saying goodbye to each other, two people yoked together by an adversity way beyond their wildest imagination. “I was just telling God that whatever sin I had committed, he should pardon me and have pity on my soul,” she said, her eyes now misty. The harrowing ordeal of Patricia and Chidinma started on Sunday, July 26, the day Mohammed Yusuf and his followers launched their jihad on a system they believed was evil. They wanted to overthrow the government and seize power, kill as many kaffirs (infidels and unbelievers) as they can and install the system of government they believe will be a one-way ticket to heaven. One of the hallmarks of this system is that women will neither go to school nor work because they are not supposed to suffer but stay at home, wait on their men, enjoy and be enjoyed. While Chidinma, a secondary school girl was living with the assistant Pastor of the National Evangelical Mission in Wulari, Maiduguri, Sylvester Nseobong, Patricia, a parishioner lives outside but stayed back after church service on that fateful day to help out with a meeting by the elders of the church. Because it was late to go home when the meeting ended, she decided to spend the night in the parish house so that she could go early in the next morning. It was a decision that nearly caused her life. Both Patricia and Chidinma were sleeping when their nightmare started. “I was sleeping when our assistant Pastor woke me at about 11.30 pm,” Patricia recollects. The Pastor was on edge over the sporadic shooting of guns and deafening explosions. He also woke Chidinma up. When the clatter of guns became louder and sounded nearer, the three decided to leave the Pastor’s house and moved into the church believing that the intruders will have a sense of what is sacred. They were wrong. Of the five people that went to take refuge in the “House of God,” only two came out alive – Patricia and Chidinma. And they came out alive because they are women. “They said we now belonged to them,” Chidinma recollects. Patricia narrates how the men who were slaughtered like animals begged for mercy. “They were on their knees begging, but the Boko Haram people said there was no mercy for the men; that they will kill all the men and marry the women. They said they would take us to an Arab country and marry us there.” For a 14-year-old, Chidinma’s experience inside the church where she watched her guardian stabbed to death and two other people beheaded is bound to haunt her for some time to come. Two weeks after, the ruins left behind by the Boko Haram faithful were still there as evidence of what the Rev. Daniel Egboka, Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (Borno State chapter) and senior Pastor at the National Evangelical Mission, Maiduguri, describes as a “consequence of hatred.” Inside the church, the teenager picks her steps as she moves from one end to the other, showing where they were when they were attacked. “That was where the security man was killed,” she explains. “And this is where our pastor’s elder brother was killed,” she further explains while bending down to pick something. “And these are his bone and remnants of his clothes still at the spot where he was burnt,” she said holding human bone and a charred piece of cloth as she stood up. Was she not afraid? A disarming and innocent smile dances on her lips. “I was but I am beginning to overcome the fear. I wish it never happened and there are moments I wake up with a start but I am coping,” she says. Watching her, it is difficult to believe that she just came back from the pit of hell. Patricia interjects. “I pinch myself every now and then to know if I am the person because I never believed I will live again.” Their ordeal that started on Sunday night did not end until Wednesday when soldiers invaded the Boko Haram camp and set them free. Each of the hours they lived for those three harrowing days was like living on borrowed time. They were tortured psychologically. They endured hunger and saw death at the closest of quarters. “It was a journey to hell,” Patricia mourns. Each of the three days came with its own horror. When they were taken to the camp in the early hours of Monday morning, there were only two of them and they were welcomed with a death threat. “When we got to the camp, one of them said they should pour petrol on us and burn us but another one intervened and said they should not do that yet.” That was the first day. On the second day, they were ordered to wash all the blood stained regalia of their members until “they are as white as snow.” And on the third day they witnessed a battle in which they could easily have been killed in crossfire. Patricia describes the scene: “When the soldiers started shooting, it became apparent it was a war. The women were screaming and wailing and when we wanted to come out, all of them will say go inside. It was only when bullets started entering the place that we forced ourselves out.” When they came out, corpses littered everywhere, some of the dead being the captives, evidence of the inevitable collateral damage of war. But most were members of the sect. Patricia feels bad about the security situation in the country. “Nigeria is in trouble,” she quips, adding “I don’t know where we are headed. Nobody is safe.” Her mother wants her to come back to the East where she believes she will be far away from the extremists. She says not yet. “My mother has asked me to come back home. But I am finishing from school this year. I don’t intend to stay here but if I leave now, I will start all over again, going to look for admission. I will be finishing by December. I will wait till then but they are calling me to come back,” she said. What saddens her most is the condemnation that is trailing the controversial death of Mohammed Yusuf. Human rights activists and indeed some section of the international community insist that the man was killed extra-judicially. But Patricia wonders why that should be an issue. “I heard that the man was killed and some people are angry,” she said, her face puckered. “When I heard it, I said where are we headed in this country? Somebody that caused the death of more than 2000 people? He deserved death. But she is neither the only one who is under pressure to return home nor who thinks that Yusuf’s violent death was just deserts. On both issues she has in her pastor a kindred spirit. Rev Egboka is also under pressure to “leave the North.” “My wife is already in the East. She cannot bear this. She called me this morning to bring the children home. I will go and buy the tickets for three of them to go home. I am a target and as a typical Igbo man, I have to sit down and have a rethink and know what to do next.” For a man that has lived in the North for almost 40 years, the only thing that is still keeping him there today is the fact that the arsonists burnt everything even his bank documents. Asked to comment on the outcry against the killing of the Boko Haram leader, he was visibly angry. “But what about the people he killed? How many people did he kill? Is the international community or those frowning at his death also not concerned about the people he killed? How many followers of his were even killed, all because of him. Why should they be blaming the police for killing him? What would the police have done? I was not there, but I leant that when the man was captured, he said he would not say anything until he reached Abuja and he felt that if he got to Abuja, he may be set free. “Those human rights activists, are they not concerned about the policemen that were killed? What of the soldiers that were killed? Are they not human beings? Why should they be concerned about only one death out of several? Did Yusuf try those he killed in law court? So, I don’t blame the police at all. He deserved death.” At the camp of the Boko Haram, which security men christened “Ground Zero,” soldiers have cordoned off the entire area. A guided tour of the ruins that was once the headquarters of the dreaded “Mohammed Yusuf People” revealed how ungodly men exploit God’s name in furthering their diabolical agenda. There were the slaughtering slabs where victims were allegedly slaughtered. There were the drums of chemicals used in making bombs. There were police and army uniforms. It was a land of horror. As Patricia aptly described it, a journey to the camp is a journey to hell and in every such journey, only very few live to tell their stories. Patricia and Chidinma are two of such lucky people. Little wonder Patricia thinks her life is now bonus. “When I was there, I thought I would never live again. I went to the land of the dead and came back. I challenged God. I told him that I learnt he saved Daniel in the lion’s den in the olden days and that if he can save me in my own time, I will serve him forever with my body and spirit. Since I came out, I have been trying to keep that promise,” she said choking back tears.
