‘I have never seen the General vulnerable to any situation. He is always in control’

Fatima told me once. Well neither had I, until it was my turn on the duty roster to clean his house. I spent a week and some days doing everything he asked me to. He didn’t speak much. The sharp contrast between who he was outside his house and his personality indoors was staggering. I came to the realization that he was human after all; and that was like a groundbreaking discovery for me.

He always drove me out of the room when he received a telephone call.

‘Nobody is allowed to remain in the HQ when I am on the phone’, he would say.

On the last day of my assignment to the General’s house, he received a call by his bedside while I was sitting on the floor dusting the numerous pairs of boots under the bed. He knew I was still there but strangely, he received the call anyway. Whoever was on the other end of the line seemed far more powerful than General Abubakar. After saying ‘hello’, the General froze and stared out the window as if he was having an out-of-body experience. Then he attempted to speak a few times, but the words came out incomplete. It was clear he was being cut-off by the caller with  every attempt he made at speaking. Finally, as if given the go-ahead now, he started mentioning cities in the Northern parts of Nigeria and some figures:

‘In Kano, 20. Maiduguri, 12. Kaduna, 11….’.  He choked for a while and then went on to say ‘No, we are not wasting your money Sir, we haven’t been too successful in our latest attacks because the government forces have been a thorn in our flesh’.

Sir? The General had a boss? The whole conversation began to make sense to me at that point. Those numbers he was mentioning were the death tolls from their recent attacks. I had already heard the numbers; I had heard them from the stories the militants told us when they arrived at the camp after each invasion. So I knew. Had the death tolls been lesser, I wouldn’t be any less devastated than I was already. Apparently, ‘Sir’ wasn’t too pleased by the small number of people losing their lives to Boko Haram invasions in the past weeks. He should have been there to see the militants gloat over their kills like some village boys retelling the story of their snail-catching expedition.

I wanted to know who ‘Sir’ was. I wanted to know the person whose voice made General Abubakar stroll back and forth in his own room with less confidence than even I would. I wanted to know who it was that was throwing money behind the terrorists. I really wanted to know. Was he the same person behind those trucks that marched into the camp at midnight almost every fortnight to deliver guns and all kinds of weaponry to the militants? All those sophisticated machines and cameras stashed away in boxes inside the General’s house, who bought them?

The revelation I had after eavesdropping on that telephone conversation left me more petrified. It was like a door had been opened right before me, revealing who the real enemy was, only that he was faceless. The deception of terrorism is that we often loath the puppets parading themselves on the internet and on the news without thinking who could possibly be the puppeteer. ‘Sir’ could be taking a stroll on a beach at Hawaii. He could be walking in the midst of the horde on the sidewalks of New York City or jogging with his dog down a sandy path in Saudi Arabia. Whoever he was or wherever he lived, we should all be scared because he is faceless. If ‘Sir’ was that nasal voice on the phone that could make even General Abubakar look like he needed to use the bathroom, then we should all be really scared.  I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that a worse-than-the-General walked freely somewhere on God’s green earth yet the General was in the news because he posted videos on YouTube proudly claiming responsibility for every Boko Haram invasion. They are fooling us all. What hope do you have in a war when you don’t know the real enemy? The guy who claims to be behind the evil acts of Boko Haram is actually a front. That is very scary!

Early the next morning after the telephone incident, the militants came into our tents to wake us up. They came wielding assault rifles as if preparing for a war or another invasion. We would have known if they were about to embark on another attack. Before they left the camp for any attack, they were always taken through a series of rituals. I couldn’t tell whether the rituals were for fortification or a preparation for death – seeing that their whole psyche was conditioned to accept death for a ‘holy’ cause. Then out comes the Babalawo from nowhere. None of us had ever laid eyes on him on any ordinary day in the camp. However, the day before every Boko Haram attack, he would appear and lead the jihadists through a series of rituals. The atmosphere was extremely charged by their chanting and dancing. Baba blew white powder over each of them while hopping and throwing himself about as if possessed. He had this eerie appearance. He was barely clothed by the animal skin he threw over his left shoulder. Anytime I saw him, I made funny mental pictures of his appearance, because I felt he was too small to be of any spiritual use. A beaded dark imp was what I often pictured in my head. His whole demeanor spelled evil. The beads on baba’s wrists and waist rattled abruptly with each step he took and that made it easy to notice his presence even while we were half-asleep. Sometimes at night we could hear him reciting incantations outside our tent.

So it was obvious the militants weren’t preparing for another invasion. I was amongst the 30 girls selected and forced to get dressed as quickly as possible. We were packed in the bed of one of the big trucks. The truck took off right after the General took his seat in the front. It was quite a nostalgic moment for me when we drove through the gates: I was reminded of how they brought us in. We were driven to a secluded part of the forest where the grass was ankle-height. The militants went about setting up cameras, hoisting their flags and posing with their guns in front of the camera. Within a few minutes we were all before the camera. The General gave a lengthy speech about selling some of us into slavery and how his aim was to establish a caliphate in the northern parts of Nigeria. Even the Boko haram militants were oblivious to the main reason why the General was making those claims in the video. But, I knew it. It was all just a ploy to remain relevant in world terrorism. He had to do something to salvage his fading image as a sadistic terrorist leader. He wanted to get into the good books of ‘Sir’ again. Pathetic!

Fatima crept into our tent that very night and slapped me on my back to wake me up. She whispered in my ears:

‘Isa, has agreed to help us escape. He will be here at 12 am. Stay awake. I’ll come for you’.

‘Ok’

I kept my eyes open for the next 5 minutes. I needed to stay awake to mentally process what had just happened. First of all, I was the one who was always talking about escaping. So if there was ever a plan to escape, I had to be the one to initiate it. The Lord knows how much I had to fight to maintain my relationship with Fatima because of the number of times I spoke about escaping. She simply didn’t want to hear it.

‘It wasn’t worth it’, she often said. I couldn’t blame her though. She had been a witness to the execution of so many girls and even militants who attempted to escape. The terror of those scenes had crippled her. To her, the mesh fence surrounding the camp was rather imaginary but the terror and confinement she felt from within were shackles she couldn’t shake off. This same Fatima was the one initiating our escape. How she got to convince Isa to be of help, I couldn’t tell. Isa was the water tanker driver; he sometimes drove into the camp with a truckload of drums filled with water too. I knew Fatima had an amorous relationship with him to some extent. She told me how he often expressed disgust at the activities of Boko Haram. Isa was driving the water tanker purely for the money and not out of principle. He was vehemently opposed to terrorism – but he needed the money. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that he was the one assisting us in our escape. What would make a man want to put his life on the line for two captives? We didn’t deserve any of this. I feared for his life because even if we were successful with our escape, he would be going back to the camp every other week to deliver drums of water. They might trace our escape to him and he would be executed. He of all people should have known this. And if the reality of that didn’t deter him, then nothing else would.

I must have dozed off. Fatima with her baby strapped to her back came calling again. I didn’t pick anything. We stepped out of the tent and there they were crowded around the truck. They were offloading the drums. I pulled at Fatima’s dress and told her ‘let’s go back inside, they will see us’. Apparently, she had a plan. We stood frozen in front of our tent, all that while Fatima looked away from the militants standing around the truck and focused her attention on the two conversing in front of the empty drums arranged a few feet away from the truck. I wanted to go back in. We would have been severely punished for staying up that late not to talk of standing outside the tent. When Fatima whispered ‘let’s go’ I knew it was time to run because of the urgency in her voice. The two militants had walked away so we ran towards the empty drums. The rest of them were standing at the opened end at the back of the truck. Our only option was to climb up from the side. Fatima let me go first. She unstrapped her baby from her back, handed her to me and then she joined us a while after. The two of us squatted in the midst of the empty drums while the militants packed more into the bed of the truck.

The engine of the truck started. The drums were shaking and knocking against each other. There was nothing to hold onto. Nevertheless, we remained still till the truck left the camp. Then Fatima stood up and span the lid of one of the drums open. In a single leap I entered the drum, Fatima handed her sleeping baby to me first and then she climbed into the drum slowly.  

‘Today is the happiest day of my life’

‘Ada, Me too oo’, Fatima responded.

She left the lid halfway open to let in some air. I thought of Mariama and the other girls and how I would miss them. But nothing could be compared to the sweet taste of freedom. We were crammed up in a drum, but we knew we were freer than we had ever been in the last few months.

Mariama tapped my shoulder softly from behind and asked in a whisper:

‘Are you afraid?’

Am I afraid? Is there anyone on earth that wouldn’t be? She looked deep into my eyes like one looking for a trickle of water in a dried up well. Perhaps it was hope she was looking for. Or strength. Whether my honesty would comfort her or worsen her fears, I wasn’t sure, but I had to be honest.

‘I am afraid!’

I whispered back at her. As if new revelation of our predicament had just dawned on her, Mariama let out a loud cry. Two girls who sat close to us threw their arms around her in an attempt to comfort her. It was just a few hours ago that we had a conversation about how Oshevire deserved to die in Isidore Okpewho’s Last Duty.

‘He deserved every single bullet that hit him,’

Mariama had said. I agreed. We had planned to dispute Mr. Martins’ interpretation of that scene in the novel during our next Literature class. It wasn’t logical to say Oshevire was a victim when at the request of the rebels, he could have just stopped, and saved his life. No, he wasn’t a victim of circumstance. But were we?

Our beds were next to each other, so we usually had such conversations before either of us fell asleep. In hush tones, we would talk about Mr. Martins; his passion for literature; our passion for his course (maybe because we liked him so much); and how beautiful it would be to marry a man like him: handsome, attentive to detail and a lover of African novels. Mariama loved him more. I only admired his fluency and special ability to recall page numbers and quotes from the various plays and novels we treated in class. It was just lovely. Plus, I always felt something flutter in my tummy anytime he mentioned my name: ‘Ada Nnaji’.

We hadn’t been asleep for long. I jerked up out of my sleep to screams and the glow of flames through the windows. There was chaos outside and I could sense it. Mariama wasn’t in her bed. As I lifted up the mosquito net to step out, she came running. She headed straight to the corner of the room, unzipped her suitcase and started throwing her clothes over her head without a care of where they landed.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Ada, they are taking all of us away’.

‘Who?’

Just then there was a heavy knock that broke our door down. A soldier walked in pointing his big gun at all of us and saying in a loud voice.

‘Out! All of you! Out!!’

We all ran out of the dormitory to the lawns outside. Then I understood better what was going on. Jubilee House was burning. Large flickering flames gutted the building. The soldier commanded us to kneel down. Before we could comply, he was already pushing a few girls around him to the ground. There were many others kneeling down before we got there. Many of whom were still dressed in their pajamas.

They were everywhere; I counted about 30 soldiers. Chasing after some of the girls and pouring fuel into the burning flames. One of them walked into our midst and spoke some words in a language that sounded like Arabic. A few girls got up to their feet and took slow feeble steps away from us.

‘These are the Boko Haram militants,’ I thought.

I knew it because I had heard stories of how they would separate Muslims from Christians before meting out mean treatments to the Christians. Before long the rest of us were being packed into the Military trucks they brought. I saw one militant emerge from the bushes behind the drying lines; he was this gigantic being. He had caught a girl in the bush. She made several attempts to yank her wrist from the grip of his big hands to no avail. Then, in a single swoop, he carried her and rested her belly on his head. She was shouting and wailing, kicking into the air but he just wouldn’t stop walking.  He walked straight to the side of a truck and tossed her into the bed like an empty box. The trucks began to move. The wails got louder. In a single surge, ours set off so quickly and roughly. Soon we were out of the gates and I could see the school’s signboard receding.

‘I will miss Government Secondary School.’ I let the thought linger for a minute in my head. When we were approaching the Catholic Church, some girls in the truck behind ours began screaming ‘Father!!! Father!!!! Father!!!’. A few in the other trucks joined in. I was too weak to even murmur. Their cries and calls faded away with the cold wind of the night.

‘Mariama, what were you looking for in your suitcase before the militant broke into our room?’ I whispered over my shoulders.

‘My tracksuits. The green one. I can’t run in my nightie.’

Mariama loves to dress for every occasion. I had never seen her inappropriately dressed to any school gathering. Not that she feared the punishment for doing otherwise; it is just who she is. But there was no time to dress for the occasion. None of us had the opportunity to change clothes before we were whisked away that night. It was a cold bumpy ride and our bodies weren’t fully clad by the attire we had on. My legs were warm enough because we had been crammed together in the bed of the truck. Nevertheless, I spent most of the time rubbing my shoulders and my arms.

It was almost sunrise. I could see the pale blue sky through the canopy of leaves above us. We were driving through a thicket. In our midst were two militants who paid no attention to us at all. Suddenly they appeared more at ease: laughing and bickering. I could sense it. We were getting close to our destination. As I pulled my head out to get a view of where we were approaching, I was greeted by my reflection in the side mirror. My hair looked like a piece of foam that had been pecked at by a cock. I didn’t care. All I wanted to know was where we were going. I could see the wire mesh gates; the fence was of wire mesh too. I saw two men dressed in military attire running towards the gate to open it. As our truck screeched to a halt like the others before it, all the militants except the drivers got down and continued on foot through the gates into what looked like a military camp base from my view.

‘It is a community here,’ I thought. There were small wooden structures scattered everywhere – as many as the army green tents that dotted the vast land. Our arrival seemed anticipated. As we drove through the camp, countless militants began emerging from their tents and wooden abodes to catch a glimpse of us. It felt like we were captives of a war arriving in the enemy’s camp. Soon a crowd formed and followed the trucks amidst shouting and clapping. Some were shaking hands and others pumped their fists in the air – as if to celebrate their victory. Victory over whom? It was never a war! We would have lost anyway… but it was never a war!

As the trucks stopped at what looked like the parade grounds of the camp, we were asked to get down, go on our knees and keep our hands behind our heads. By this time the throng had circled us. Then out came their leader. It was obviously him because of the fear-inspiring weight his presence exerted on everybody. The leader approached the center of the circle in the company of two escorts. He took slow steps while walking around us. He said nothing. He only inspected our body parts. I lifted my head to see his face. He had a turban wrapped around his head and the darkest shade of beard spread over the area around his ears to his chin. He was angry. He looked angry. Fear and tension were heavy in the atmosphere. The look on the faces of the militants spelled out fear too. One of them ran to him with a little transistor radio. The leader increased the volume and pointed at the radio set. A smirk cut through his lips then he said ‘Bee Bee Cee.’ The crowd of militants cheered loudly. Their cheers came to a halt when he raised his left hand.

‘… we are not quite sure yet, but it seems the Boko Haram terrorists abducted over 200 girls last night at…’. That was the penetrating voice of the BBC’s Nigerian correspondent from the radio set. The leader raised his right fist in the air and shouted:

‘We are worldwide!!!’

This received a thunderous roar from the militants. Some fired a few rounds of shots into the air while others rattled some words in Arabic. It was a really chaotic scene. We couldn’t be any more petrified, however, I was more scared then than ever before.

Once again, he motioned and the noise ceased. He turned to face us now.

‘I am General Abubakar. You are welcome to Sambeeza.’

‘Sambeeza… Sambeeza…’ The word rang in my head a few more times before I figured out he actually meant ‘Sambisa’.

‘This is hell,’ he continued, ‘it is hell for you. From this day, you are going to become Muslims. We will teach you the ways of the Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) and the mothers of the believers. Jesus Christ can’t save you here. Mary is not full of grace here. Goodluck is a foolish boy for trying to fight us. Now you have to suffer.’

He nodded his head at the two militants he came with. They rushed out of sight and appeared dragging a prisoner to the center of the gathering. They pushed him to the ground. The prisoner landed on his bare chest because his hands were tied behind him. The two militants picked him up to his knees and handed a pistol to General Abubakar.

‘Do as you are told,’ he went on. ‘Don’t attempt to run away.’ While saying this he cocked his gun and pointed it at the prisoner’s head.

‘This is what happens to those who try to escape.’

Then he shot … it was a deafening sound. Birds on the trees fluttered away at the sound. The body of the prisoner dropped sideways. The blood gushing out of his head slowly crept underneath the carpet of leaves on the ground towards where we knelt.

‘Take them away,’ said General Abubakar.

‘Hail Mary is not full of grace here…. Sambeeza.’ These words echoed in my head throughout the rest of the day. We had been taken to different tents after the welcome parade. I didn’t even get to see where Mariama was taken to. It was like a scuffle the way they separated us and pushed us into our tents. Ours was a pyramid-shape tent. We were inside but the earth outside was still directly beneath us… no floor, just a couple of flat mattresses and mats scattered on the ground.  The scent of freshly cut grass filled the tent. One girl, a few mats away was still sobbing. The reality dawned on me at that moment: I was going to spend eternity here at the Sambisa forest.

‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…’

I probably didn’t finish reciting Psalm 23 before sleep snatched me away.   

We see most of these (if not all) terrorist groups claiming they do what they do in the name of Allah and hence follow the precepts of the Qur’an. We have seen some Muslim scholars come out to debunk these assertions and claim that according to the Holy book, violence should be the last resort. Whatever the case may be, that isn’t my focus today. I would like to focus on the relationship between religion and terrorism. It is very easy for Christians to go about pointing judgmental fingers at Muslims because of some of these events. Sometimes this is done in total ignorance of the fact that Christianity also has had quite a bloody history. This blog post will dwell largely on this issue: the Christian Crusades. I will urge Christians to be mindful of the fact we have had a bloody past, therefore the conversations we have with Muslims on Terrorism should go deeper than merely painting their religion red. We should do more to talk about the evidences in both Holy books that either support or prohibit terrorism.

The crusades are defined as ‘expeditions to deliver the holy places from the control of Muslims’. There came a time when Jerusalem and other places regarded sacred by Christians were invaded and controlled by Muslims. Christians saw these places as sacred because of their historic value so far as Christianity is concerned. Some of Christianity’s most-revered monuments are there, hence Christians from the West went on pilgrimages there once in a while (as is the practice in other religions too, especially Islam). Due to the fact that Jerusalem and other places had come under the control of Muslims, they began preventing Christians from coming there on pilgrimages. The Holy Sepulcher is said to have been transformed into a mosque. This really angered Christians in the West. Incited by Pope Urban, an army of soldiers embarked on what is known as the first Crusade. The emblem of the Crusaders was a red cross, which was boldly printed on the garment they wore over their armor. The crusades were bloody. A lot of people were killed. Similar to what we see today done by the various terrorist groups. Nevertheless, they didn’t record success every time they went on these crusades. They were sometimes defeated. But this didn’t deter them in anyway, for to them they were fighting in the Lord’s army (Like terrorist believe today). The Crusades were politically motivated. The series of attacks on the holy land was a way through which kings in the West and even Church leaders in Europe, gained power by conquering all the places they did.

When it comes to Christianity and practices within the Church, Jesus Christ is that stamp of approval. He is the center of our faith, hence if there is anything we do today that doesn’t conform to the new life He introduced to us while on earth, then it is totally unacceptable. So to be sure whether or not the Crusades (terrorist activities) are acceptable in the sight of God, we need to look at what Christ thought about ‘Violence in the name of God’. And since He never changes but remains the same eternally, then it means those are His very sentiments even today.

The Crusades can simply be referred to as, violence in the name of the Lord. Fighting in the Lord’s army to capture the holy city thereby preserving the Holy city of Jerusalem and some Sacred Monuments. In the bible we see Jesus address the issue of ‘violence in the name of the Lord’ twice. The first of which took place in the garden of Gethsemane. Where before he was arrested, Peter, in a fit of anger, cut off the ears of one of the soldiers. Peter acted as an extremist here. His violent expression of love for the Savior is an example of religious extremism. Nevertheless, Jesus didn’t approve of it. Jesus’ reaction to this event tells a lot about his attitude towards so called ‘violence in the name of the Lord’. The bible says he picked up the ear and stuck it back to the head of the soldier. These were his exact words to Peter afterwards, ‘Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword’. Then  He goes on to say that, if He needed protection, He would pray to his father to send down 12 legions of angels. By the way, 1 legion = 3000 – 6000 (Roman soldiers), so calculate the number of angels at Jesus’ beck and call. If he needed people to fight for him he would rather call down angels. So I believe Jesus’ message to the crusaders is no different from that which he shared with Peter – ‘PUT YOUR SWORD BACK INTO ITS PLACE!!..’

Secondly, we see Christ express his attitude towards so called ‘violence in His name’ on the road to Damascus. Saul was one of the Pharisees, busily persecuting Christians and overseeing their killing. To him, this was service to God. But Jesus appeared to him and said, ‘I am Jesus, who you persecute’. Amazing! Saul wasn’t as shocked by the appearance of the Lord to Him as he was about what Jesus had to tell him. To Saul, he was serving the Lord by persecuting Christians, but it turned out that the very person he thought he was serving was the one he was persecuting. Jesus doesn’t in anyway approve of killing human beings in His name.

The command was, ‘Go ye into the world and preach the gospel’. This is what we are supposed to do as Christians. And not to force Christ down people’s throats through violence. Religion places more premium on religious monuments and Holy places than on the human soul. That is why you will find most of those involved in violence in the name of the Lord, very prepared to die for the preservation of sacred places. Religion values traditions, laws, paraphernalia, Holy lands, Sacred Monuments etc. Christianity values the human life and the destination of the soul. Jesus once said that, the temple with all its majesty and splendor would be brought down and reduced to nothing – not even one stone would remain on the other. This would have offended the Pharisees if they had heard it. Simply because they were religious people who were always known to hold dear these monumental representations of their faith and not their God or human life.

Christianity isn’t a religion. Christianity is an imitation of a lifestyle. It is being Christ wherever you are. It is a faith, it is a walk, it is a lifestyle. It is an adoption into the family of the God called LOVE. Hence, if you truly are his own, you will walk in LOVE. Love is spreading the gospel and not killing for it.