We’re hopeful they’ll return someday –Chibok mothers

It took her about five minutes to finally utter her first few words when she sat with our correspondent in a church building in Anthony, Lagos during the week, depression clearly written all over her face. It was about a year ago, precisely April 14, that she got the news – just like over 200 other mothers – while returning from the farm that Boko Haram insurgents had kidnapped her daughter from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

On the day she was leaving their hometown, Mbalala, for school, Hauwa Musa, 17, promised her mother that she would end her suffering someday: she would go to school, study hard for exams, gain admission to a tertiary institution and get a good job in the end of it all. However, it’s the 383rd day since she was kidnapped with her colleagues, but her memory still lingers on in the heart of her mother.

Mary Musa, Hauwa’s mother, who came to Lagos for medical treatment on the bill of a non-governmental organisation, has been facing many internal and external battles ever since the incident. But maybe she had a premonition of them all before they even started.

She said, “During the height of the insurgency, she came home from school one day and after a while, she said she was going back again because their exam was drawing nearer. I think it was an emergency when they were called to resume back to school. She demanded for some items, but I told her I could not afford them. I promised her that after a while, I would send those things to her, but behold my plight now!

“Usually, anytime she was going to school, I wouldn’t accompany her, but that day, I helped her carry her things to the park. I called an okada rider that would take her to the park and we climbed the motorcycle together. I pleaded with her, ‘Please bear with me, I’ll send those things you asked for later.’ It’s a N500 drive from Mbalala to Chibok. I never knew that would be our last conversation. That was in March. She never told me what she wanted to become in life, but she’s a hardworking girl and I know she could have made it in life. She is beautiful and strong.”

Musa has, perhaps just like the mothers of the other girls, been expectant of her daughter’s return someday, but long patience, they say, wearies the soul.

She added, “Since my daughter was taken along with others, I’ve always been thinking of what could have possibly happened to her. I have not had good night rests. I don’t have appetite for food anymore. Our house was burnt by the insurgents. Our farm was destroyed. My husband and I sleep in an uncompleted building in our hometown now. I have been living in fear. I am trusting God that someday, she will return. Each day I sleep, I see her in my dreams. Yesterday also, I saw her again in my dream. She came out of a gate and I was calling her to come. She answered me twice, ‘Here I am, mother; here I am mother.’ I know she’ll be back with her friends.

“Many people say we have been sent help, but as far as I am concerned, I have not received any help from anyone. My husband has been bedridden for months because we used to sleep outside. He was infected with pneumonia and there was no hospital to take him to. He cannot walk and eat. Some people have also been using our plight for their gains and we are unhappy about this development.

[/media-credit] Musa, Dauda

“For instance, some people would say they want to help us, would then come to take our pictures, videos and we would not see them again. They would promise they would bring help, but we’ve not seen any. They would take our data, but we are yet to see any result whatsoever. I think this is not fair. We are suffering, yet some people are making fortunes out of our predicament.”

Mary is however determined to make her daughter succeed, despite all the challenges. When Hauwa is released from the hands of the Boko Haram, “I will send her back to school, but not in Chibok again,” she said.

Hanatu Dauda, whose daughter, Saratu Dauda, was also abducted on April 14, 2014 by Boko Haram, also had a sad tale to tell Saturday PUNCH. Though she barely looked up as she narrated her ordeal in the past one year, one could rightly guess that her heart was up in the heavens – silently praying for the release of her daughter.

Moreover, when she heard that about 200 girls had been rescued from one of Boko Haram’s strongholds, Sambisa forest, she was ecstatic, but that wouldn’t stay for long as the Nigerian Army confirmed that the girls were not the ones from Chibok.

Also from Mbalala community, she has had to grapple with the fact that her daughter was missing – but hopeful that her release was imminent.

“The girl told me she would continue to pray for me and that when she finished schooling, she would end all my suffering. She promised she would assist all her siblings to become great people in life because she’s the only one we could send to school,” Dauda said. “She said she would keep praying for me. During holidays, she loved learning to sow and design clothes. I think she wanted to become a fashion designer. She instructed me to plant groundnut before she left for school in March 2014 so that when she returned, she would buy a sewing machine to start preparing for her passion.”

Hauwa

The 45-year-old said she was not expecting any financial assistance from the government except for the release of her daughter from Boko Haram.

She said, “We are not looking for government’s money, but our daughters. And then we want peace in our land again. We want our daughters, we want security; we want our lives back. Our girls were entrusted into the hands of the government to keep them safe, but they failed them.

“Apart from my daughter, I know other girls that used to go to farms and work as labourers. It’s from there some of them were able to pay their school fees. My daughter would have turned 19 this year, but we are sad we won’t witness it and she too wouldn’t be able to celebrate it. I have been crying every day. The government promised to rescue our daughters many times, but they have not fulfilled their promise.”

With the news of the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from Sambisa forest late Tuesday, many people thought they were perhaps the Chibok girls who were kidnapped from their school on April 14 last year and Hanatu had thought her daughter would be among the rescued, but alas, they were not!

However, a civil rights lawyer based in Abuja, Mr. Jide Oluyemi, implored the Nigerian military to do more in rescuing the Chibok girls same way they rescued the 200 during the week.

He told our correspondent on the phone that if the security forces could invade Sambisa forest, they could as well raid anywhere else.

“Do what is right for our girls to come back. I believe the incoming administration should also continue from where President Goodluck Jonathan will stop in terms of security to avert another crisis like this forever. Nigerians want action,” he said.

Also, Mrs. Doris Yaro, the founder of Gabasawa Women and Children Initiative, the NGO that brought Mary and Hanatu to Lagos for treatment, implored the Federal Government to see to the welfare of the Chibok mothers, while still searching for their daughters.

Saratu

She said, “We brought them to Lagos where they could have access to better health care facilities for treatment. Some of them have been diagnosed with pneumonia, ulcer and others, but we have been taking them to a private hospital for treatment.

“When I went to Chibok to meet them when the incident just occurred, some of the women were really suffering. They were down and depressed. While some surrogate mothers were carrying placards in Abuja, the real mothers were in their communities, weeping.

“The government should do more to help bring relief to these people. When the girls are found, the Chibok mothers would be happy to smile and live happily again.”

Likewise, an advocate of the BringBackOurGirls group, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has said the fight for the release of the Chibok girls would continue until they are found. Just after thanking the military for their rescue operation that saved 293 girls and women on Tuesday, she said the Chibok ones also should not be forgotten.

“What are we demanding? What are we asking for? The Chibok girls! They are never to be forgotten. We are inspired ever more to press on for the rescue of our 219 Chibok girls. The Federal Government must spare no effort to bring back our girls,” she wrote on her Twitter page late Tuesday.