Human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, gives a detailed account of a heroic widow’s survival of Boko Haram terrorism and epic reward
In over a quarter century of human rights work, there are few exhilarating moments like this one I am sharing on Mother’s Day.
I met “Rose” during a meeting with terrorism survivors I organized at the US embassy Abuja for a visiting congressional delegation investigating the 2014 Chibok abductions.
Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson was deeply touched by the stories of Joy and Lydia, two schoolgirl cousins, who had just escaped from Boko Haram in Chibok weeks earlier but the story of Rose moved us all deeply.
In her first extended interview with a Hausa language radio journalist in April 2021, she narrates her travails and the new twist that made her an even more heroic survivor than I realized in the seven years I have known her.
This is Rose’s account:
It all started in Maiduguri (northeast Nigeria) when Boko Haram terrorists attacked the barracks where my family lived. My husband was a policeman and he was transferred from Taraba State to Maiduguri just three months before the Boko Haram attack.
I had three children, while I was 8 months pregnant with the 4th child.
As at the time the terrorists attacked the barracks, my husband said “these people are going to kill me, but before they get to me I’ll kill them too”.
He cocked his gun and began to shot them down as they came through the door of our house.
While he did that I hid my eldest son under the bed while his immediate younger brother I hid in a drum and covered it with clothes. The 3rd child was with my parents because school was on vacation and he likes to visit his grandparents. So I had taken him to the village to visit them. So when Boko Haram attacked the barrack on the 27th of June, 2009 only one son wasn’t at home.
When they attacked, they started killing people, but my husband Peter shot as many as he could till his 30 bullets ran out.
When they got to him with their weapons, they hit him and he fell to the ground, then they decapitated him from behind.
They decapitated my husband, when I saw what they did to him I started crying. They grabbed me and pushed me.
While I was crying, they told me to lay down on the ground but I refused because I was in anguish, so I squatted. I tried to escape, I started running and running but they reached me and grabbed my shirt till all the bottoms were ripped off.
They aimed their machete towards my head but I blocked it with my arms that’s why you can see these scars on my arms. The cuts on my arms weakened me. I ran away from them and tried jumping over the fence but they reached me and grabbed my leg and I fell to the ground.
After they asked me to convert to Islam and I refused, They aimed the back of my head with their weapon but God did not allow them to succeed, so they tried from the front. They slit my throat and left me there for dead.
After three days on a Wednesday I was there lying on the ground it was during the early rainy season, my head was in the running ground water. When I tried to get up I realized that it was my head moving but not my body.
I was found by workers clearing corpses for burial and taken to the Teaching Hospital in Maiduguri where I was on admission for one year seven months. I was discharged after that time, but was told to come and undergo another surgery. I was later referred to Jan kwano mission hospital in Jos (central Nigeria). I was at Bingham University Teaching Hospital Jan Kwano for eight months where I had surgery again. At the Teaching Hospital in Maiduguri where I was going for follow up they attached a tracheostomy tube, and said it will be there permanently, but God made it possible that the surgery was done successfully and the place was closed up permanently. I was later taken to Dasha Orthopaedic in Jos because of my arms. The surgery was done, but the arm is not as strong as it used to be. Right now I can not hold this sachet water for an hour without feeling pains. That was how I got better and after living with my parents for a while started living in Jos with my third child that was with the grandparents.
He was all that was left of my family because after I recovered in the hospital I was told that my two sons were killed that awful day as well. Of course I had lost the pregnancy as well. It took a while for me to get my only remaining child away from his grandparents to live with me.
Recently my father called me and said he learnt that one of my sons is alive, but he needed to find out to be sure.
His investigation revealed that there was one of my husband’s friends and colleague back then in Taraba State who was a Mobile Policeman before he became a military personnel. He was transferred before we were also transferred to Maiduguri. We were in Maiduguri for three months before the Bokoharam attacked. Three days after the attack, the military men that went for duty at the southern part of the country came back. They came to the police barrack to see what happened at the scene of the massacre. My husband’s friend and his superior came to our house. There his superior found my son, the one I had hidden in the drum alive!
He took my son with him. My husband’s friend could not say anything to him because he was afraid of his superior and what he might do to him to silence him. The superior officer did not report about the existence of my son, he took the boy to his own village and hid him. My husband’s friend kept track of his superior. Even when he was transferred to another place, my husband’s friend worked his own transfer to the same place without his superior’s knowledge. When the superior officer was due for retirement, my husband’s friend saw an opportunity, so he said to him “I have enjoyed working under your leadership, so I will accompany you to your hometown “. He said that so he will see where the boy was. When it was time to leave, my husband’s friend applied for casual leave and followed him.
After some time, my husband’s friend came to make enquiry to know where my parents or my husband’s parents were. Nobody could tell him where to find them but he recalled knowing that my father is from Michika. He traced where my father worked and asked of him. He was told that my father no longer worked there but his older son did. So he met with my elder brother who happened to be his classmate back then in school. My husband’s friend narrated everything that happened to my brother. My brother contacted two of my father’s sons who were also military and they arranged to go meet the retired superior officer.
When they got to the officer’s house, they spoke to him about my son but he denied knowing my son. My husband’s friend then showed up and his superior was shocked. He admitted that the boy was with him, but he requested that they allow him keep the boy. He said he never had a child of his own since he got married. He was asked why he did not follow the due process for adoption. ‘What he did was illegal’ they told him. They gave him options; either they report him to the government or the military or he hands the boy over to them. So he said “take the boy, I give up”. That was how my son was taken to my father’s house.
When my father-in-law heard about my son, he came to my father’s house and requested that the boy be given to him. He claimed that I refused to allow my third child stay with him. My in-laws took everything that belonged to my husband: money, documents; even my own clothes and left me with just the worn out ones. They said I can have access to my son only if I agreed to marry one of my husband’s brothers. I had refused and that is why I eventually had to find a way to take him away with me to Jos. Because of that history and tension, my father was forced to give my newly rescued boy to my in-laws to take with him to his village.
There at the village my son was taking care of the sheep his uncle had. He was enrolled in school but they did not allow him go to the school. They won’t pay his school fees till when it’s time for examination. What will he even write at the examination when he has not attended classes?
One day he went to tend the sheep on an empty stomach. His water bottle was empty and he was so hungry so he went home to eat. When he came back to the flock, he discovered that one was missing. His Uncle chased him with a machete and the boy ran for his dear life.
Since where my father lives is not faraway from that village like the distance from Jos to Bukuru, my son was able to find his way back to my father’s house with the help of the vigilante. My son narrated what happened to his uncles who had first rescued him. My brother called me and told me all that transpired, so I sent money for transportation to send my son to me. From Mubi they sent him to me in Jos.
My brother went to my in-laws and asked the paternal uncle about my son but he said he did not see him. My brother reported him to the authorities for child neglect. They then told my in-laws that the boy is with his mother.
Now my son is with me. He has been with me for a month and two weeks. He’s not yet in school but I intend to enrol him into one. I also intend to see how I can afford a private tutor for him at home. He has a lot of catching up to do. I myself am not educationally sound but he will need my help. My son is 19 years old now. He was about seven years old when I hid him in a drum.
