20 days after, Dapchi abductions haunt families
Since February 19, the Dapchi community remains bowed, fervently praying for the rescue of its abducted daughters.
As he told his story, the calm and comportment Alhaji Deri Kadau exuded seemed to have sufficiently concealed his emotional pain. He is pained by the abduction of his daughter, Aisha, by Boko Haram insurgents; he was, by conviction rather than by convenience, enduring the pain of being the spokesman for the 100-member association of the parents of the abducted girls of the Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi.
The abduction on Monday, February 19, was the first time Boko Haram struck Dapchi. Less than a fortnight after, the sizeable Kanuri community had been clothed in sufficient resilience by some compulsive conviction to eke out even the barest convenience to continue bearing the grief, even as it remained palpably haunted by the shocking events that transpired.
From the town’s main motor park metres away, down to the vicinity of the famous college, residents were going about their numerous businesses in different sizes of groups in the fashion of a normal village square. Apart from the commiseration visits by relatives, and neighbours of affected parents, nothing would suggest the February 19 calamity ever happened.
This community might have chosen to adapt, because it had to source strength from faith in God. The trio of Alhaji Deri Kadau, Kachalla Bukar and Modu Budu, whose daughters were among those abducted by the insurgents, told their frightening tales, with haunted looks on their faces.
“It was past 6 pm of the fateful Monday,” Alhaji Deri, whose daughter, Aisha Deri of Senior Secondary 1 was among those abducted, recalled, continuing, “the insurgents arrived at the location of the checkpoint before the bridge, and they immediately started shooting sporadically, as they dispersed into town.
“They did not kill anyone, which suggested that there mission was not to kill us; their only destination was the girls college; so they roamed around town until they accosted someone and coerced him to direct them to the school; he led them to as far as the primary school near the college, where he pointed at the college for them; he then sought their permission to go home, they granted him the permission; then they called their colleagues who had dispersed into sections of the town in search of the college to hasten forth, that they had found the school; then they stormed the school,” Alhaji Deri, the treasurer of the hastily formed Association of the Missing Dapchi Girls Parents and the spokesman for the entire community on the calamity, recalled further.
Alhaji, whose other daughter, Hafsat Deri, was able to escape abduction, continued: “the insurgents came in military camouflage, but they were wearing slippers instead of military boots; they stormed the school, hastily persuading the girls to enter their Tata vehicle so that could ‘save’ them from Boko Haram.”
“Many of the girls scaled the fence with their teachers and fled in different directions into the bush; but the insurgents carted away well over 100 of the girls in the Tata bus; they drove off into the bush, taking the direction of Gumsa; we heard that they were not even speeding; one of their vehicles even developed fault. They stopped and repaired it and drove on; and they even observed their sunset prayer at Gumsa,” he recounted.
He continued: “We were necessitated to form this association of over 100 parents by what we observe as the state authorities’ indifference to our plight and lukewarm attitude towards rescuing our daughters; the state authorities did not even register any notable presence here until Thursday, three days after the adversity struck us.”
“To this day, my wife, the mother of Zara, is still down with the shock that she cannot stand on her feet; she barely sleeps or eats,” Modu Budu, the father of abducted Zara Mohammed, 16, of SS2, said.
Kachalla Bukar, the father of abducted Aisha Kachalla, 14, of SS2, merely repeated the community’s grief and grouses with the state authorities expressed ealier by Alhaji Deri.
Unlike Dapchi, which until last February 19, Boko Haram insurgents had never attacked, Babban Gida, in Tarmuwa Local Government Area, was attacked by the insurgents thrice over the years. Children of Babban Gida are, therefore, experienced in scaling the fence and fleeing to the bush.
Therefore, only three of the daughters of Babban Gida attending the Dapchi school Maryam Mustapha, Binta Yerima and Aisha Usman, were abducted by the insurgents. Because they are used to the sound of of the insurgents’ guns, when they heard the gunshots of the storming insurgents, they, along with their teachers, scaled the school fence and fled into the bush.
Falmata Mohammed, 17, of SS3 Tech., fled by scaling the fence. “I am grateful to Allah for saving me,” she said, recounting, “I am used to the sound of the gun of the insurgents because they attacked our town here, Babban Gida, three times, and we got used to fleeing through the fence; so when they came into our school premises, after shooting in town, I ran toward the fence and scaled it, but I fell while and sustained wounds in my effort to jump down the fence; I am just recovering.
“The shock of the attack will not affect my performance at school; and I am even ready to return to school should it be opened for us to write our exams; but I believe no parent will allow his daughter to return,” Falmata said.
Halima Alhaji Karam, 16, of SS 2A, could not scale the fence before the storming insurgents caught up with her and hurled her into their vehicle. “When they drove far into the bush, one of my slippers fell, and I jumped off to pick it, and that was how they drove off, leaving me. I was running in the bush when I met a woman with whom I roamed together in the bush. She is a nurse. We arrived at the village where her hospital is, and later I was returned home. About 50 of us daughters of Babban Gida attend the Dapchi college, and all but three of us succeeded in escaping the abduction.”
“I want to continue schooling, though not at Dapchi. But if my parents say I should go back to Dapchi, I will,” she said.
“All we want from government now is the immediate rescue of the abducted girls,” Mohammed Abdullahi, Halima’s guardian, said.
“Over one week now after the abduction, government does not seem to be making any serious move towards doing so. We believe government and the security agents are complicit in the abduction, otherwise they would have mobilized enough security to rescue the girls before the insurgents carried them far,” he said, him too with a haunted look that seemed to match not only the residents of Dapchi, but the whole town itself, with a longing for their daughters safe return.