My Boko Haram experience Twice lucky
It was 8pm on a Saturday in December 2011. I was driving home from a certain restaurant at the West End area of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, where I had enjoyed a good meal. had just spent about a month in the troubled city, where I was posted after my induction in Abuja to start my journalism career in the Daily Trust newspapers. As I left the West End roundabout onto the popular Baga Road, I was oblivious of the impending danger ahead of me as I drove excitedly at a moderate speed, listening to music from the speakers of my car.
Being new in Maiduguri, I was yet to be acquainted with the rules and realities of life in a city globally acknowledged as one of the most dangerous places on earth. So I innocently drove on the empty side of the road, bypassing the lengthy queue of motorists waiting to pass through a checkpoint ahead. As I cruised, I watched in amazement, how every motorist would abruptly apply breaks, maneuver and shoehorn themselves into the packed queue, avoiding the empty flank of the road where I was like a plague. In my surprise, or more correctly, naivety, I never bothered to ask any of them why they were voluntarily joining a queue when they had an option to avoid it, neither did they tell me the reason for their action until I came face-to-face with ferocious-looking Joint Task Force (JTF) soldiers, who flagged me down.
The worst part of the experience was that as soon as I approached the checkpoint, one of my colleagues, Ahmad Yusuf, gave me a call, asking to know where I was. The decision to answer that call would later turn out to be an accident that almost cost me my life. The two soldiers, violently angry, first blinded me with their flash- lights, then ordered me out of the vehicle and demanded to know “who the hell” I was. Eye-to-eye with gun barrel Before I could identify myself, one of the soldiers had already loaded his AK47 rifle and pointed it at my face. He was seconds away from pulling the trigger when his colleague, who perhaps took pity of me, pleaded with him: “Don’t shoot him please. Let us know who he is.” With my heart thumping violently in my chest, I stammered: “I am a journalist... just returning from a restaurant at West End…”
“Who were you talking to on the phone and where is your identity card?” barked the soldier who saved me as his colleague kept insisting on ‘wasting me.’
Still in absolute fear and confusion, I managed to explain to him that I was a Daily Trust reporter newly posted to Maiduguri. I showed him my letter of introduction, which was fortunately, neatly folded in my pocket (because I had not been issued with an identity card).
As I was answering the questions, Yusuf called again and the soldiers decisively warned that answering the phone would mark my last moment on earth. So I ignored the phone, which was already on my car seat, and proceeded to respond to the soldiers’ further questions. After reading my letter of introduction, the soldiers asked why I decided to bypass the queue when I could see other motorists joining.
“Don’t you know that this side you are driving on is meant for only the governor and us the soldiers?” they asked. Sweating profusely, I replied that I didn’t know and promptly apologised.
They further quizzed me on who I was talking to on phone as they ordered me to empty my car trunk. As I opened the car trunk I told them I was talking to my colleague who was asking where I was since I was a stranger in the city.
After conducting a rigorous search on my car and examining all the items in it, the less aggressive soldier became satisfied and allowed me to go, but his colleague, still skeptical, warned me sternly: “I will waste you if you ever answer any call here again.”
“I am so sorry sir, it won’t happen again,” I pleaded, pushing away the phone as far as possible from me as I resumed behind the wheel. Trembling and still unsure if that soldier would not fire at me, I slowly drove away from them. Immediately I managed to escape from that terrible encounter, I resorted to drive on a speed as low as 20km/ hour and turned off the music I was listening to until I reached our office, which was also on Baga Road.
There, I met Yusuf who looked relieved upon seeing me return safely. Upon my first arrival in Maiduguri, our then bureau chief, Hamza Idris, who had been away on a short trip to Jos, Plateau State on that fateful day, had entrusted me to him for guidance on how to safely conduct my duties in that dangerous environment.
When Yusuf asked where I had been, I was quick to tell him how I was stopped at a checkpoint, but was still too horrified to explain the details of the encounter. “Allah dai ya kiyaye ni,” I mumbled and asked him to escort me home, where I had a sleepless night. Next time I’ll shoot you Again, on January 17, 2012, I was involved in another chilling encounter with the JTF soldiers along the same Baga Road while I was driving back to the office after an assignment. As I approached our office, I noticed two unusual checkpoints mounted I managed to escape from that terrible encounter, I resorted to drive on a speed as low as 20km/hour and turned off the music I was listening to until I reached our office, which was also on Baga Road less than 100 meters apart, with a couple of JTF soldiers conducting a stop-and-search operation on vehicles. When I stopped at the first checkpoint, I disembarked and opened the trunk of my car at the instance of one of the soldiers, who searched the vehicle and asked me to move on. Shortly after I proceeded, just before reaching the second checkpoint, another operative, apparently unaware that I had been already searched, shouted at me to stop, and without waiting for any explanation, ordered me to disembark from my car. The furious soldier, wielding a whip, rushed towards me, raining insults and accusing me of not submitting my vehicle for security checks.
“Who are you, idiot? Why would you not stop and submit your car for search? I could have shot you,” he shouted, ignoring all my pleas and explanations, before attacking me with his whip. After venting his anger, the soldier briefly calmed down and allowed me to identify and explain myself. While flashing my new identity card to him, I told him that I wouldn’t have passed the checkpoint if his colleagues who were also listening, had not cleared me to move. But it appeared that my explanation only enraged the operative as he promptly ordered me to pull out every item in my vehicle, including papers and spare tyre. He deliberately shunned me for over an hour before he finally asked me to go, albeit with a chilling threat: “Next time you fail to stop, I’ll shoot you.”
Although the JTF authorities later apologised to me over the incident after I filed a complaint, I, however, learnt to be more careful in my interactions with all security agents, especially soldiers who appeared to be almost always quick tempered.
Also, I gradually began to understand that it was best to remain indoors any time there were attacks because you could be caught in a predictable crossfire.
In February, 2012, I was transferred from Maiduguri to Kano after I fell sick, but these memories have become so etched in my mind that sometimes I shiver whenever I remember them. But I thank Allah that I am still alive to tell the story without having to look over my shoulders.