Here was hard evidence at last that the army was beginning to win its war against terror. Columnists, radio pundits and talking heads on television sang the praises of the president. They said that unlike his predecessor, he was serious about wiping out the terrorism scourge and restoring the nation’s glory days. There were reports that the federal government was going to increase the army’s budget allocation, but these were yet to be verified. Mallam Umaru Abdullahi listened to all of this on his small transistor radio, and even though his daughter’s name wasn’t mentioned – none of the rescued party were – he knew she would be coming home.
It was not unusual for us to wake up, just before the first call to prayer, to the sound of guns crackling through the air. So when we heard the gunshots, we thought nothing amiss. We simply thought our men had come back home from battle. Save for two elderly men and two new recruits left behind to guard us, they had all left our camp two days prior. Soon enough, we heard the rumbling of engines and the grinding of tyres driving through sand. Ululating, we rushed out to greet them; the merriment of our voices combining with the ricocheting bullets to make an illicit harmony. It was not until the cloud of red dust their arrival had stormed up dissipated before we saw clearly that these men in green fatigues, black face masks and black boots were not our men and their war was not God’s own. These infidels shot our ineffective sentries and burned down our homes. Then, they corralled us into their trucks and cars and drove us back into the sinful world we thought we had left behind for good. Why did we look so mournful? they asked. Couldn’t we see they were rescuing us? Didn’t we understand they were giving us our freedom back? Huddled in our floor length hijabs, we choked back our tears and kept our eyes downcast. After what we had just witnessed, we knew better than to say anything. Our fates were now in the hands of a new set of men and all that was left of the place we had called home was fire, smoke and ruins. For some of us, it was not the first time we were leaving our past behind in such a manner, and for some of us, it would not be the last time either.
About fifty girls and women were rescued on that August day dawn raid. Within twenty-four hours of their liberation, pictures of their faces were plastered all over the newspaper. Here at last was hard evidence that the army was beginning to win its war against terror. Columnists, radio pundits and talking heads on television sang the praises of the president. They said that unlike his predecessor, he was serious about wiping out the terrorism scourge and restoring the nation’s glory days. There were reports that the federal government was going to increase the army’s budget allocation, but these were yet to be verified. Mallam Umaru Abdullahi listened to all of this on his small transistor radio, and even though his daughter’s name wasn’t mentioned – none of the rescued party were – he knew she would be coming home.
A few months later, half listening to his radio, half listening for strange footsteps and sudden noise, Mallam Abdullahi watched Rahima, more shadow than form, make her way around the room in the uncertain gait of a visitor. Rahima had changed a lot. Even with the film over his eyes that made him live in a permanent harmattan haze, making him rely more and more on his ears, Mallam Abdullahi could see that his daughter was taller, almost his own height, womanly yet still girlish. She was quieter too. He missed the way her laughter used to ring through the house, how on returning home from school or an errand, she almost always ran into the house at breakneck speed. Her mother would scold her and, apologetic, she would mumble sorry and drop her gaze to the floor, only to repeat the episode the very next day. “There will be time for decorum,” he would rebut his wife whenever she appealed to him to set the girl straight with a stroke or two of corrective bulala. “Let her enjoy her childhood.”
And just like that, that childhood was now over. He recalled how he used to make her school uniforms himself. The radio that kept him company in between patterning, cutting and sewing clothes for his clients told him about women all around the world doing great things. He had been determined that just like them, he would hear his daughters’ names mentioned for something noteworthy. Some sort of exploit that would be renowned locally and internationally was bound to be their fate. Naturally, this had meant their education was a priority. Perhaps he should have been more specific because his daughters ended up making the news, but for different reasons than the ones he had envisioned.
It was the radio, this very radio he held in his hands, that blared out the news that several students in the northeastern part of the country had been shot by a group of masked men who had stormed the school earlier in the day, shouting that western education was forbidden, haram. He remembered saying a prayer for the parents of those children and thinking no more of it. A long-time client’s daughter was getting married and the older woman had paid an express fee for a trousseau of wedding outfits. He had to work faster and more efficiently than usual. It was not until he got home that he learned the unnamed northeastern town mentioned in the news was none other than his very own Maiduguri and the school in question was the very same Magajiya Girls’ Secondary School his children were enrolled in. Among the shot and wounded was Nabila, his first daughter, whose life was at that moment ebbing on the floor of an overcrowded hospital. And Rahima? She was one of the girls the attackers had abducted and absconded with. All this in broad daylight.
At least, Mallam Abdullahi conceded, God had been kind to him. He had lost his first daughter, but he had lived long enough to see his second daughter return to him. Her mother had not been so lucky. Pushing through the illness that deluged her following their twin catastrophe, she had tried to hold on to the hope that she would one day welcome her daughter home and embrace her again but it was not meant to be. At least, not on this side of paradise. Shortly after, he had married again but there were no children this time around. His new wife, Maryam, said the children were taking their time coming. He allowed her entertain hope but Mallam Abdullahi knew that they would never come. The time for that had passed. When he first married, he had not been young, so the chance for children now was very unlikely. And even if some miracle happened, he could not bear to see again the dreams he had dreamed for his children dashed.
He had wanted his daughters to attend university. Even if they never made it to the world stage, he wanted them to go further than he and their mother had in life. Early marriage would derail all of this, the radio had told him, and as with everything else, he believed it. So when people, friends and family, with that old way of thinking where women are concerned, began to drop hints that his daughters were of marriageable age, he insisted they finished their schooling. All the big-big English would ruin their chances as they got older, was the counsel but he stood his ground. But for these yan Boko people and their iskanci, his dream would have come to fruition, but see what happened. As God was his witness, he had tried his best but Rahima had now been out of school for three years. Three years out of sync. Was there any use in her going back? Plus, most of the schools in their area were shut down anyway. And there was also the matter of his sight. He could no longer work. The only thing to do was to broker a marriage for Rahima. Given the circumstances, it would be difficult but not impossible. Perhaps her husband would send her to school. Perhaps not. It was regrettable, this decision, but there was nothing else to be done. It could not be averted. Mallam Abdullahi stroked his chin. Although the radio was close to his ear, the voices in it seemed far away. The fog behind his eyes were giving way to darkness. He knew it was time to retire. Sleep was calling his name.
THE END
