My Encounter with Boko Haram Foot Soldiers – Barr Aisha Narrates Her Interesting Story Part 2
This is a continuation from My Encounter with Boko Haram Foot Soldiers Part 1.
... Shekau said ... it was because of acts of maltreatment over the crash helmet against his followers. “They killed our people and nobody is doing anything”, and that government had betrayed them and so on. I asked him what that betrayal could be and whether we could address and stop it. It was getting close to the fasting period. He folded his hands, bent his neck and kept mute. That was his nature.
He then said, “Mama, my hands are tight. I am not alone in this thing. A decision has been taken. They must fight this war unless you can go and meet the governor.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see the governor until the war started. When I heard about the fight in Bauchi on a Saturday, I called Yusuf (which was the last time I spoke with him) and told him I heard something was happening in Bauchi. He admitted it, saying, “yes, we are the one.” He added the war would engulf everybody beyond Bauchi. I thought he was joking. I spoke with his father-in-law on phone that Saturday night. The following day, our own started (in Borno state). I tried to reach him on phone but his line was not going.
On Monday, someone came to tell me that he saw Muhammad Yusuf at the West-End area. I rushed there but could not see him. Two days later, I saw him on television talking and the next thing I saw him on the ground. Instantly, I knew there was going to be a problem. That is where we are now.
Q: Were you still seeing those boys living in your house after that?
A: One week to that incident, they disappeared again. When things cooled down, one of them rushed in to tell me that “Mama, we fought a war, we killed this and we killed that.” I shouted at him that small as he was, he could go to war? But he replied that was how Allah wanted it and they did the work of Allah. He said he had come to tell me he was going back to the battlefield and he wouldn’t know if we would be meeting again.
He told me to keep calling his line and promised to always answer my calls so long he remained alive.
The boys left and, in a short while, became commanders in the Boko Haram group. The whole thing was very funny to me. Suddenly, they started changing fast; they no longer looked like those kids I called my children. The other day one of them came to see me in my house. When I told him to sit down for a talk, he curtly responded, “No, ma. As you are seeing me here, they have given me an assignment and I have to go and do it.”
When I enquired the manner of the assignment, he calmly replied it was to kill someone. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t stop them. That situation remains till today.
Q: Were you at a point scared of any association with them and thought of cutting off all ties with them?
A: I have always held that even if those boys should turn to snakes, I would remain with them because I believe they will never harm me. Anytime any of them comes around, what he tells me is the story that this one has died and that one has become this and that.
Q: When they relocated to the bush, did you ever go there to see them?
A: I have been there several times at different locations to see them. Sometimes, I will cook for them and take the food there. Sometimes they will be the ones to phone me and say, “when next you are coming buy suya and drugs for us”, and things like that. At a time majority of them were dying before they started recruiting more and more people.
Q: When you go to the bush to see them, where do you stay?
A: Whenever I meet them in the bush, we sit down and talk freely like mother and children. They will show me different bombs and ammunition. I will ask them what they are doing with those things and will joke with them it’s themselves they will bomb with them, not me. They will burst out laughing, saying “Mama has come again.”
Sometimes I will even stay there overnight. Their major requirements are food and drugs. There had been occasions I stayed three days with them in the bush.
Q: How do you always find your way to wherever they are?
A: In most cases, they will be the ones to call to ask me to bring them food, drugs and/or money.
A: When I inform them I am on my way there, they will start directing me, saying things like, “go out of your house, cross the road and you will see a car like this, like that. Open the rear door and sit on the back seat and bend your head down while in the car till the journey lasts.”
Q: Do you still know the whereabouts of some of those boys living in your house then?
A: Some are dead, some are still in the bush, while some are in jail.
Q: Have you ever sold them the idea of dropping their guns and accepting amnesty?
A: Yes, I have been doing that right from day one. In the beginning, they were telling me that, “Mama, we don’t like this thing that is happening to us. We are sure something is wrong somewhere. If government can call us and ask us, we shall tell them everything. Let government dialogue with us and tell us how to stop all these things and we will stop.”
But as time went on, they started talking negative of government. They were saying government was no more doing this and that. One of them told me, “Mama, the ocean we are swimming in is very deep. This thing has graduated from the Jama’atul Ahlil Sunnah into something else.” He said “the big men in Nigeria know what I am saying,” adding, “such people will not allow peace to emerge because they have their interests.”
Q: Weren’t they ever afraid you could betray them to the authorities?
A: They know I will never do that. In any case, whenever we come together to Abuja for peace talks, we always move so closely until we return. You need to see us at the airport as if we are fused together. In case there is any danger, all of us will go. Anywhere I take them, we sleep in the same hotel and eat the same food.
They will all converge on my room to watch television. I will tell them to look at the good things of life that they are missing and they will confidently reply, “Yes, but one day in Allah’s kingdom is better than all these.”
Q: Have they ever told you if the group is factionalized, as it seems they are no more doing things the same way they started?
.
Click here to read the continuation of My Encounter with Boko Haram Foot Soldiers Part 3.
... Shekau said ... it was because of acts of maltreatment over the crash helmet against his followers. “They killed our people and nobody is doing anything”, and that government had betrayed them and so on. I asked him what that betrayal could be and whether we could address and stop it. It was getting close to the fasting period. He folded his hands, bent his neck and kept mute. That was his nature.
He then said, “Mama, my hands are tight. I am not alone in this thing. A decision has been taken. They must fight this war unless you can go and meet the governor.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see the governor until the war started. When I heard about the fight in Bauchi on a Saturday, I called Yusuf (which was the last time I spoke with him) and told him I heard something was happening in Bauchi. He admitted it, saying, “yes, we are the one.” He added the war would engulf everybody beyond Bauchi. I thought he was joking. I spoke with his father-in-law on phone that Saturday night. The following day, our own started (in Borno state). I tried to reach him on phone but his line was not going.
On Monday, someone came to tell me that he saw Muhammad Yusuf at the West-End area. I rushed there but could not see him. Two days later, I saw him on television talking and the next thing I saw him on the ground. Instantly, I knew there was going to be a problem. That is where we are now.
Q: Were you still seeing those boys living in your house after that?
A: One week to that incident, they disappeared again. When things cooled down, one of them rushed in to tell me that “Mama, we fought a war, we killed this and we killed that.” I shouted at him that small as he was, he could go to war? But he replied that was how Allah wanted it and they did the work of Allah. He said he had come to tell me he was going back to the battlefield and he wouldn’t know if we would be meeting again.
He told me to keep calling his line and promised to always answer my calls so long he remained alive.
The boys left and, in a short while, became commanders in the Boko Haram group. The whole thing was very funny to me. Suddenly, they started changing fast; they no longer looked like those kids I called my children. The other day one of them came to see me in my house. When I told him to sit down for a talk, he curtly responded, “No, ma. As you are seeing me here, they have given me an assignment and I have to go and do it.”
When I enquired the manner of the assignment, he calmly replied it was to kill someone. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t stop them. That situation remains till today.
Q: Were you at a point scared of any association with them and thought of cutting off all ties with them?
A: I have always held that even if those boys should turn to snakes, I would remain with them because I believe they will never harm me. Anytime any of them comes around, what he tells me is the story that this one has died and that one has become this and that.
Q: When they relocated to the bush, did you ever go there to see them?
A: I have been there several times at different locations to see them. Sometimes, I will cook for them and take the food there. Sometimes they will be the ones to phone me and say, “when next you are coming buy suya and drugs for us”, and things like that. At a time majority of them were dying before they started recruiting more and more people.
Q: When you go to the bush to see them, where do you stay?
A: Whenever I meet them in the bush, we sit down and talk freely like mother and children. They will show me different bombs and ammunition. I will ask them what they are doing with those things and will joke with them it’s themselves they will bomb with them, not me. They will burst out laughing, saying “Mama has come again.”
Sometimes I will even stay there overnight. Their major requirements are food and drugs. There had been occasions I stayed three days with them in the bush.
Q: How do you always find your way to wherever they are?
A: In most cases, they will be the ones to call to ask me to bring them food, drugs and/or money.
A: When I inform them I am on my way there, they will start directing me, saying things like, “go out of your house, cross the road and you will see a car like this, like that. Open the rear door and sit on the back seat and bend your head down while in the car till the journey lasts.”
Q: Do you still know the whereabouts of some of those boys living in your house then?
A: Some are dead, some are still in the bush, while some are in jail.
Q: Have you ever sold them the idea of dropping their guns and accepting amnesty?
A: Yes, I have been doing that right from day one. In the beginning, they were telling me that, “Mama, we don’t like this thing that is happening to us. We are sure something is wrong somewhere. If government can call us and ask us, we shall tell them everything. Let government dialogue with us and tell us how to stop all these things and we will stop.”
But as time went on, they started talking negative of government. They were saying government was no more doing this and that. One of them told me, “Mama, the ocean we are swimming in is very deep. This thing has graduated from the Jama’atul Ahlil Sunnah into something else.” He said “the big men in Nigeria know what I am saying,” adding, “such people will not allow peace to emerge because they have their interests.”
Q: Weren’t they ever afraid you could betray them to the authorities?
A: They know I will never do that. In any case, whenever we come together to Abuja for peace talks, we always move so closely until we return. You need to see us at the airport as if we are fused together. In case there is any danger, all of us will go. Anywhere I take them, we sleep in the same hotel and eat the same food.
They will all converge on my room to watch television. I will tell them to look at the good things of life that they are missing and they will confidently reply, “Yes, but one day in Allah’s kingdom is better than all these.”
Q: Have they ever told you if the group is factionalized, as it seems they are no more doing things the same way they started?
.
Click here to read the continuation of My Encounter with Boko Haram Foot Soldiers Part 3.
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