 |
| Boko Haram Members Adamawa varsity student spends days inside forest fleeing |
A staccato of gunfire and bomb blasts woke the people of
Mubi, Adamawa State, from their sleep on Wednesday, October
29, 2014. The security situation in the area, the second largest
city in the state, took a turn for the worse when dreaded Boko
Haram insurgents invaded the town with their armoury and
unleashed mayhem on civilians. Anguished screams of fleeing
residents, mostly women and children, echoed like the
tormented voices of damned souls suffering in the grip of hell.
Amid the terror and confusion in the town, 27-year-old
Cosmas Ugwu, a final year student of Economics at the
Adamawa State University, Mubi, along with his course mates,
were attending the 7.00am lecture by a visiting lecturer to
their school, identified as Dr Emmanuel Ani. The lecturer was
rounding off his course for the semester because the
examination was scheduled to start in few days’ time.
As the smoke of gunfire thickened in Mubi town, many
students and lecturers, ignorant of the situation in town, went
about their business on the university campus. However, few
others had got hint of the bloody attack and escaped quietly
from the campus. Quite shocking was the fact that even the
heavily armed security officers at the university and their
armoured personnel carrier simply vanished, as insurgents
advanced with inexorable force towards the university.
Ugwu told this reporter that he lost concentration during the
lecture when he observed curiously that some of his course
mates had quietly packed their books and sneaked out of the
classroom. Instinctively, he quietly excused himself to find out
what was amiss, only for his fears to be confirmed by the
Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university, Dr Zira, who told him
in clear terms to run for his dear life because the insurgents
had taken over the town.
Ugwu confessed that his dilemma at that moment was
indescribable. Aside the fact that he faced instant
condemnation in the court of Boko Haram, a dreaded sect that
sees western education as evil, he would be punished by
death for being a leader of a Christian group, the National
Federation of Catholic Students (NFCS) where he was popular
as the President. So, with the speed of lightening, he dashed
into the lecture hall and alerted other students and the
lecturer that the terrorists had invaded the town and possibly
infiltrated the university.
“The lecturer was confused and he didn’t know where to go. I
pleaded with my friend to drive him to our HOD’s house.
There was no lecturer in the area at that time. My friend drove
the lecturer there. I escaped from the school and rushed to my
room, which was quite close to the school. At that time, we
were hearing gunshots everywhere, bomb-blasts at different
sections. The noise of the bombardment and people fleeing for
their lives created confusion everywhere”, he recalled.
Ugwu’s harrowing experience in the bush for four days, where
he walked hundreds of miles on foot before he got to Yola,
provided an insight to the unspoken agony suffered by other
students and families in Mubi during the bloody attack.
“Whoever closes the school door opens the gates of prison,”
says Victor Hugo. That was exactly what the Boko Haram
sect did at Mubi. They opened the gates at Mubi Prisons and
set the convicted inmates free before sacking the students of
Adamawa State University.
The busy streets of Mubi became thick with the smell of
death, as sounds of bomb explosions drew nearer. Amidst
confusion and loud wailing by helpless women looking for their
children and husbands, the terrorists surged like Hitler’s army.
Schools and shops that had opened for business hurriedly
closed, as people too numerous to count, poured out on the
streets with their luggage like refugees. Among these helpless
people were children, pregnant mothers, elderly men and
students of Adamawa State University, who had only few days
to commence their end of semester examination.
Ugwu was shocked beyond words when he ran to the school
gate, only to discover that all the security officers had
deserted their duty post. He recalled his disappointment.
“This is not a case of disarming the security,” he said. “The
security men ran away before the insurgents even approached
the school. We were not aware that there was no security at
the gate again. It was later that they told us that those in
military uniform were not federal troops but Boko Haram
members in military camouflage. Only God’s intervention
saved us from death. They would be shooting at different
directions and we would be running for our lives. They would
be pursuing us, shooting at the same time. Old men, women
and little children were not spared. We were just running with
the hope that wherever death came, we would die. It was the
worst experience of my life.”
That the young man was on the wanted list of the terrorist
became obvious as soon as he ran out of the school
premises. Although he met a chaotic scene in the town, some
hoodlums quickly identified him as an enemy and pursued him
with cutlasses and other dangerous weapons. His attempt to
pick up his credentials and laptop computer in his room nearly
cost him his life.
“I saw smoke everywhere. I ran into my room and drew one
iron rod I kept on the floor. I suspected that those following
me heard the sound of the rod that scratched the floor. They
thought I had a weapon in the house and they withdrew.
Within that brief moment, I picked up my credentials, which I
had earlier kept aside in a file, and my small laptop. I jumped
through the window and in less than one minute after I had
escaped to the street, the building exploded. I never knew that
when I ran into the room, the terrorists planted a dynamite to
blow up the building and kill me as well. But I was lucky
because they had to allow it some minutes for them to escape
before it was detonated. People thought that I had died in that
explosion but I escaped unhurt,” he explained.
Earlier before the attack in his apartment, the insurgents had
bombed his shop where he engaged in petty business on
holidays. With only his credentials, laptop and a pair of shirt
and trousers he wore to school, he dashed into the bush like a
fugitive and wandered for four days, walking as far as the
Cameroonian border.
Rescuing an 8-year-old missing boy
Although Ugwu was running for his life, he could not turn his
eyes away from an eight-year-old boy, Thomas Danguari, who
was abandoned by his parents.
Said he: “When the boy saw me, he was crying and wanted to
embrace me. I asked him if he knew me but he said no. He
spoke in Hausa, while I replied him in English. I couldn’t speak
Hausa. When I spoke English to him, he replied me in Hausa.
So I couldn’t abandon him there because the bullets flying
everywhere could kill him. I carried him and started running.
After carrying him for one day, I became so tired I could hardly
move. Some of my friends we met in the bush helped me at
some point. The boy said he is from Hong, a village close to
Mubi.”
Dead bodies littered surrounding bushes
Ugwu’s ears were deafened by gunfire but the horror of the
attack dawned on him much later. He said he was shocked
beyond words when a pregnant mother, who had lost the
strength to move further, was stabbed on the back by one of
the dagger-wielding insurgents and was left to bleed to death
on the street. Her distraught husband watched the episode
with tears in his eyes, but was forced to abandon his dying
wife for fear of being cut down by the terrorists. He had to
console the grieving husband and dragged him along.
With constant air strikes, Ugwu said the fleeing civilians lost
their lives in the crossfire. At that time, he said, it was not
clear whether the air strikes were coming from the federal
troops or the insurgents. But the real casualties were mostly
civilians, elderly men, women and children. He told the reporter
that countless corpses that littered the streets of Mubi paled
in comparison with decomposing bodies deserted in the bush.
For days, he and other survivors lived with the stench of
gangrene and bodies shattered by bullets, as they walked
through the snake-infested undergrowth. Bullets created deep
wounds in surviving victims that never stopped bleeding, such
that those that hung on the thin thread of life, groaned in
excruciating pain where they had no access to medical care.
According to him, it was a moment when the wounded envied
the dead.
His words: “We spent four days in the bush before we found a
place from where we took a tricycle to Yola. There was no
sleep. We kept running in the bush even in the night. People
were fleeing and you had to keep running to pass where there
was much crowd. You had to keep running as far as you could
to keep away from crowd. There was no arrangement for food
or water but as God would have it, we didn’t even remember
food or water during the period. The only thing we did was
that when we entered people’s farmland where they planted
groundnut and other crops, we harvested them and ate. When
we saw a river, people would be bathing at one side while we
would be drinking from the other side. We had no option. Now
as I talk to you, I am sick. I am about going to the hospital
because I have been diagnosed of an infection,” he said.
Running to the Cameroonian border
Ugwu and other surviving victims roamed the thick bushes,
hiding behind rocks at the sound of approaching aircraft.
Carrying the boy on his back and shoulder, as he navigated
rough terrains in the bush and surrounding hills, became his
heavy cross. His words: “We ran very close to Cameroon.
Some people ran into Cameroonian territory and Cameroonian
soldiers captured them. But I refused to run into Cameroon.
There was no road at that point but we kept running in the
bush. We were just moving east, but we didn’t go back
because we might run into the hands of Boko Haram. It was a
terrible experience. We were running without knowing exactly
where we were going. I was even the one leading people in the
bush. I became a commandant in the bush. Before they
attacked us, I would ask people to take cover. Those who
followed me came out successfully without going into
Cameroon. When we came out of the bush, people were
surprised that I survived. Some of them thought the
insurgents captured me. There was no Nigerian security in
sight during those four days that we were running in the bush.
Majority of people that died were killed in the bush.”
Arriving Yola after four days in bush
He recalled how they eventually got to Yola. Hear him: “When
we came to a place where we were able to get a tricycle to
carry us to Yola, it was just a miracle. When we arrived there,
the keke (tricycle) riders were waiting for people still in the
bush. Lots of people were stranded. But one person
approached me and asked me if I would pay N15,000 to carry
us to Yola. I pleaded for N10,000 but he refused. Somebody
intervened and he took N11,000 from me. I asked other people
there, including students that knew me to join us in the
tricycle. When I reached Yola and told my relatives that I was
coming to Abuja with the boy that I rescued, they advised me
not to take him out of the state because it could be termed
child abduction or human trafficking.”
Rejection by the church
If the horror perpetrated by the terrorists would haunt Ugwu
for years to come, the rejection he suffered at a Catholic
church in Yola (the name of the church is withheld by us)
brought him more sorrow than the enemy’s sword. He
explained that he met helpless people in large numbers in the
church, but their cries for help never attracted the expected
sympathy. Having taken the little boy he rescued to the
church, where over 2,300 displaced families took refuge, he
had hoped to register him as a missing person at the
Internally Displaced People’s centre (IDP) run by the church
but he was disappointed by the cold treatment of the priests.
He said he even had to angrily protest to the Bishop, but that
changed nothing.
Help from the police
Ugwu said he was reluctant to take the boy to the police
station because nobody could predict the next place the
insurgents might attack. According to him, his desire was to
ensure the safety of the boy and possibly hand him over to his
parents before he travelled to Abuja. But since that was not
possible, he had no option than to make a formal report at the
police headquarters, Yola.
“The next day I took the boy to the police station. The police
asked me to spend another two days in Yola for proper
documentation of the boy. I left N10,000 with my friend,
Stephen, in Yola so that he would be visiting the boy at the
police headquarters, till his parents came. I got a phone call
last week that the father of the boy came to the police
headquarters because the boy was shown on the television as
a missing person. The mother of the boy wanted to see me
but because of my health condition, I was not able to go. I
am happy that the boy has been reunited with his family.”
The reporter called Stephen who confirmed that the little boy
had been handed over to his parents. However, his promise to
send pictures of the handing over ceremony at the police
headquarters, Yola, was not fulfilled as at the time of filing
this report.
[Reported By Daily Sun]
