“So, when I saw you, I saw my mother in you. I was in shock. It was as though she had come from the dead to comfort me. I did not see much of your face in the tent when the chief commanded me to marry you. But when you stood before me in this tent for the first time, I knew my mother had come back to me. I could not tell you then. The feeling was too much for me. And I knew I could not harm you, would never harm you.
“Like my mother, you are too young to be made pregnant. That was what happened to my mother. She was too young to give life to another human being. But our people do not care about such things. What they like is what they get. I came to learn later that her condition and those of the other women who were condemned to live on the outskirts of town was not because they were witches or cursed. She, like the other women, had me too early and I was the cause! How can I forgive myself for making her live that sort of life away from her only child?
“And then you came, you who look so much like my dear mother! How could I make you go through what my mother went through? Yes, I’m a man and I feel entitled to a woman because of the hard life we live here, but not in these circumstances. But having forced you on me, I knew there was going to be a limit. To be frank, I regret I had to do anything intimate with you. But that was the most I could do. Please, forgive me!”
And he held me tight as though his life depended on it. He told me to be strong. He said there were young women who were sent out with the deadly weapons who were more sensible than others and who plotted their own escape. He asked me to be wise and to always think of staying alive because these people had no cause worth dying for.
Dikko told me many other things that night. That night I could not sleep much. Thoughts of my own mother filled my mind. I had not seen her since we arrived here about ten months now. What had happened to her? Was she well? Did she think about me? What task did they assign her? Would we ever see each other again, especially if these killers for an impure god were to send me on a suicide-bombing mission? Was this goodbye to everything that I knew and cherished?
Escape
THE next morning, they came for me just like Dikko had predicted. They took me away and abused Dikko for not doing his job as a real man should. How could he be with a woman for ten months and not make her pregnant? They said he was becoming a liability to the jihadist cause. With the way they were losing men, how would they find replacements if all the men were as impotent as he was?
I listened to these charges with silent joy in my heart. What did they know? Did they know that there was more to a man and a woman having the same heartbeat than making a child? Of course, they would not know, blockheads that they were, since making jihad was all they knew and cared about.
Then they took me away to a big tent. A man was talking. He praised the wisdom in what they were doing. The jihad was a just cause, he said, and they needed everyone to play his part. The mission was to destroy all the strongholds of the evil government of Nigeria and replace it with sharia, the just government of their ‘god!’
There were older women in the big tent as well who were preparing the girls and cloaking them with the hijabs of death. My turn came and they strapped me with one. I felt light and heavy at the same time as I felt the evil object around my body. So this was it? I was going to die and there was no other way out? I held my breath for what seemed like a lifetime. Then I closed my eyes and exhaled.
Some of us were assigned to markets, some to army and police checkpoints and barracks while yet others were to be sent to mosques and churches. They told us the button to press that would take us to heaven. We listened to them telling us what to do, how we should evade capture and take as many people with us to heaven as was possible. We were all girls, young girls being sent on errands of death but they dressed it as if we were going to paradise.
Paradise? What paradise was that? Paradise of death? Why did they have to lie? What did they know about paradise? Only God took people to paradise, not bombs? Did they not have shame that they also had to lie to us? Was it to make it easy for us to do as they wished?
Some of the girls were sniffing, others were crying, but nobody paid them attention. They only told us to be strong and that it was for the good of their ‘god.’ They said their god had reserved a special paradise for us because of the ‘holy’ work we were about to carry out. Holy work? Good God! I thought these ruffians had brains. Did they imagine that we all belonged to the same ‘god?’ How could they be so stupid? How did they think I could ever join with them in serving their ‘kind’ of god, a murderous god? God forbid!
All these thoughts swirled in my mind as they prepared us for the deadly mission. We were the innocent lambs being led to the slaughter for an impure god. I knew my God even if it seemed He had forgotten me in my many months of trouble since they killed our father and brother and brought us here and separated me from my mother. I could never belong to their petty god.
They then put us in trucks and drove off. They drove for a long time. Then they stopped and changed us from their trucks to smaller cars that continued to take us to our destinations. After a while, they started dropping us off one after the other near our targets. Then I was the only one left in the car. They took me to a point in the road and asked me to get down. They pointed out a military checkpoint to me that was a bend away from where they stopped and ordered me not to fail as they had also ordered the other girls. They said they would be watching me and if anything went wrong they would shoot me dead. I nodded and turned in the direction they pointed.
After turning the bend, I saw the military checkpoint and the soldiers guarding it. They were many, and held their guns ready as if waiting for me. I held my breath tight and felt the weight of the bomb strapped to my fragile body, but continued walking towards them. There were other passersby also going in different directions. I stepped in line with those going towards the checkpoint. I did not dare look back to see if my guardians of death were watching me as they had threatened. I walked on stiffly and offered silent prayers in my heart.
‘Dear God, this is not your hour for me,” I said. “I shall not do as these ruffians demand. So help me, Father!’
Just as I got close to the checkpoint, I grabbed the man next to me and started shouting to the soldiers that he was a thief and that he had stolen my purse. There was confusion as people hurried away from us; they didn’t want to be involved in any fracas with the soldiers so close. It was so unexpected. The man was in shock; he knew the implication of my accusation right in front of the soldiers. He started saying he didn’t know what I was talking about, that he was not a thief. Two soldiers came towards us and separated me from the man. They then took us to the building behind the checkpoint. In the middle of the commotion, I cast furtive glances for signs of the Boko Haram men who had brought me. I did not see or notice any of them coming towards us.
I was relieved when they quickly took us away from the road to the makeshift building by the checkpoint. My captors would have to force their way into the building past the soldiers to kill me, I reasoned, and then the soldiers would be ready for them. When we got inside, the soldiers asked me what happened. Then I told them to listen to me carefully, that I had only used the man as decoy to deceive my captors, who had sent me on a suicide mission. I pleaded with them not to shoot me because I was not on the side of the fighters and that I was innocent.
At the sound of suicide from me, two soldiers had their guns trained on me. The room was tensed with danger. But a senior officer in the room told them to stand down. He then asked me to tell them about the suicide mission I’d mentioned. Then I pulled up my hijab and a gasp of horror escaped the soldiers as they fell back in alarm. In panic, one of the soldiers shot at me but missed and hit the right foot of the senior’s officer. He aimed at me again but before he could fire, the wounded senior officer reacted fast and shot him in the right arm with his pistol. His gun fell from him and the senior officer ordered his men to take him away; he was quickly dragged out of the room.
I was in total shock. I was close to being killed in the hands of the men I had run to for help. I quickly told the senior officer my plight. I told him I did not want to die and that they should help me remove the bomb. I began to cry.
“I don’t want to die, please,” I sobbed. “Please, help me remove this ‘thing!’”
The senior officer commanded one of his men to sound the alarm bell. He asked another to fetch an officer named Obot. They both burst into the room a moment later. The new office looked at the bomb hugging my body like a lover and quickly told his boss that there was little they could do about it right there and mentioned some technical terms. His boss ordered him to get a truck ready at once. He asked me a few more questions about the men who brought me to the checkpoint. I explained as much as I could, how they said they would shoot me if anything went wrong and I failed to kill many people at the checkpoint. Then they wrapped me in army blanket and took me out of the building through the backdoor and put me in a truck.
As the truck sped away, other military trucks followed from behind with many soldiers in high alert, their sirens blaring, guns ready. Faintly, I could hear gunfire in the direction from which my guardians of evil sent me to die for their meaningless war and god. I shut my eyes as I was being sped to safety and uncertain future in the direction of Maiduguri. Only thoughts of Dikko and my mother floated in and out of my mind…
