‘It is their guilty conscience that keeps them away from Allah’s presence’

No, I do not agree with that! The cloths they loosely covered themselves with at night probably did a better job of pinning them to their beds and away from their maker’s presence than the guilt of their evil deeds – that is if there was even a hint of guilt in their hearts.

The heinousness of their actions was like a pungent smell attempting to choke you to death. So I feared the dawn and all the anticipation of daylight terror that it brought.  I was often either snapping out of a scary nightmare or in a limbo between sleep and consciousness, fighting gory images from the scenes I had seen the previous day and the stories I had heard told. Somewhere in between the fear of the known and the anticipation of unknown evil, I had made my bed. And that was how the dawn of every morning at Sambisa was like for me.

I remember vividly, the morning after our first night there, we were introduced to the ‘Boko Haram wives’. There were so many of them! Most of whom either had babies strapped to their backs or they carried them on one hip while slightly bending in the opposite direction. That was when I first saw her … Fatima. Fatima wore a long flowing hijab that almost touched her waist. The circle her hijab made on her face made her appear as one peeping at the whole world through a hole. Her facial skin resembled a stretched elastic material, the way it allowed pointy bones to protrude at the corners of her eyes and cheeks. Unlike the others, her countenance appeared heavy with concern and affection. Maybe we merely reminded her of herself. But you could almost feel the kindness radiating from her stare.

So when it was time for them to teach us how to wear the hijab, I walked straight to her. She told me her name was Fatima and I told her mine. We made a connection right there and then. Fatima didn’t bother teaching me how to put on the hijab … she just did it for me.

‘Stiffen your neck Ada, or else the hijab will slip off your head’. She said.

I held still and made sure my entire body was stiff. She nudged at my shoulders and upon noticing how stiff I was, she giggled. By that, what should have been a madam-servant relationship melted into a friendship. Formality dissolved into cordiality. I felt I could ask her anything. When she pressed her hand on top of my head to hold the cloth in position, I felt the weight of her palm. Not like a burdensome weight but as an act depicting ownership. I was hers from then on. The other girls were being knocked and smacked in the face for not following the exact instructions given them. But Fatima gently wrapped the cloth around my head and pinned it beneath my chin.

‘I want mine to be as long as yours’ I told her. She giggled again and said ‘Ok’.

Her friendship came in as a timely relief. Mariama and I had grown distant after we arrived at Sambisa. I often saw her emerging from one of the wooden structures close to the fence at the far end of the camp. And anytime she saw me looking at her, she’d quickly look away and feign ‘busybody’. Mariama wouldn’t maintain eye contact with me for more than 5 seconds. She sometimes worked with the rest of us but for some reason she was often excused from fetching water from the tank to the quarters of the General and his men. I couldn’t believe the rumors, but with the benefit of hindsight I can boldly say she was married off to one of the high-ranked militants in Boko Haram. According to Fatima, Boko Haram wives are forced to reduce contact with the other girls. The rest of us were just human bombs waiting to detonate at some market place or school at the command of General Abubakar. Girls like Mariama were married off to high-ranked militants. They were the hens destined to lay and brood over eggs that would hatch to reveal the much anticipated foul fowls: a new generation of Boko Haram terrorists. The rest were also sold to some human traffickers and rich herdsmen from neighboring countries. Fatima had been with the militants for 18 months and knew the ins and outs of the camp, so I believed her.

‘I am a widow’

She told me once. Her husband died in kano. He was one of the militants. Fatima still spoke of him with such fondness that you would imagine they had a fairy-tale kind of marriage. They didn’t. She chuckled sarcastically when she said:

‘Alidu was only there to ward off the other militants who attempted to rape and physically abuse me so he alone could do that to me’

Fatima was confident in her guts. She believed Alidu was scared that night before he went to Kano. General Abubakar summoned all the jihadists the night before they left the camp. When Alidu came back to their wooden shed, he couldn’t look at her or their son. His last words to Fatima were, ‘… take care of your son’. There was a surge of mixed feelings that ran through my heart when she spoke about how the trucks came back to the camp the following day with fewer men than they left with. At the gathering where the militants were telling their stories and various experiences at Kano, she looked everywhere for him but couldn’t find him. I imagined the scene was just like the day we came: too chaotic for anybody to care to tell her the whereabouts of Alidu. The surviving militants took turns in mentioning names of those who had passed on to paradise. That was when Fatima heard Alidu’s name mentioned. The mixed feelings that must have hit her: news of the death of her husband and abuser. From that moment on, her life changed for the worse.

She was raped almost every night since then by different men.

‘Sometimes two. Sometimes three. Sometimes I didn’t know how many, because I passed out in the middle of all the torture only to wake up in a tent full of stinking snoring men’.

When she said this I could feel the tears sting at my eyes. Then she told me she sometimes even woke up in a different tent from the one she remembered being taken to. At this point I lost the fight to my tears; warm tears came streaming down my cheeks. I was scared. In my fear I yearned to comfort her, but words failed me.  What do you tell such a person? That it was going to be alright? In hell? I couldn’t lie to her even if I tried. I wish I could uplift her spirit but mine was quickly sinking into an abyss of despair and in need of urgent rescue too.

‘You have been through hell’. I finally said.

‘Yes I have.’ She heaved a long sigh.

‘It may be your turn soon. When they come for you remember to keep your legs wide apart, eh?’ She pulled at her left earlobe with her left hand while saying this. ‘And close your eyes till they are done’.

That was it? That was the drill? How was that supposed to make it any bearable? All the time I spent with Fatima revealed one thing: though she never mentioned it, she had no desire to escape. She never called Sambisa home, but she pretty much was at home there. And I felt she was walking me down that road too. I didn’t like it.

As our custom was, before we went to sleep, one of us would share her experience with the rest. Often sad stories. Often stories of rape and abuse. That was one way we bonded as fellow Boko haram slaves. One night Hawa narrated her ordeal at the hands of one of the militants to us; it was the saddest story I had heard told. Whispering to nobody in particular, she narrated her story knowing that she already had our ears without asking. Hawa’s made us all scared. Fear hanged in the room. The fear was so tangible, you could touch it. She recalled being hit from behind with the butt of a gun by one of General’s men. The heavy knock rendered her comatose for hours. The very moment her eyes were opened, she felt a sharp pain at the back of her head and the militant’s heavy arm resting on her bare back. Hawa turned around and saw the heaving hairy chest of the beast next to her. She panicked, but mastered the courage to get up. Finally she covered her nakedness with a cloth, stepped out and took slow painful steps to our tent in the dark.

Hawa had always attracted so much attention from the militants because she had a fine body. For obvious reasons, she was always sent for to run some errand or clean their wooden sheds. She couldn’t find the words to describe the torture but we perfectly understood her cries and cried with her. When she said her head still hurt, three girls drew closer to comfort her.  With a soaked rug, one of them massaged her head where it hurt. As if rehearsed, she dabbed at the back of Hawa’s head after each sentence she whispered. The incident inspired more than sympathy in us  – we were all petrified! I thought it was a case of paranoia at first when she said she suspected the Boko Haram wives had a hand in it.  But she went on to tell us how she had always been harassed by them.

‘You want to come and steal our husbands abi? We shall see…’

One of them had said this to Hawa a day before her bitter experience.

And as she walked through the dark after the rape, a bunch of them saw her and immediately started scoffing at her.

For this reason and many more, I was always grateful for Fatima. Her love and affection kept me sane. Sometimes I felt she went through all the pain for my sake, that I wouldn’t have to taste much of it. She taught me when to feign period cramps to avoid being whisked away in the night. Her predictions were so accurate, it was as if she knew the times the libido of the militants peaked. Yet, she still assured me that a time was coming when that trick wouldn’t work anymore. A harsh reality I had to face. But who am I to complain? In the middle of a God-forsaken forest, I found a sister and for that I was very grateful to God.

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.