Story from Haruna YUSUF
Fatima Innu is the grandmother of five children living with her in Dakwa, FCT.
“The reason why these five children are living with me is that, we were living happily before bandits stormed our village in Zamfara State killing everybody including my daughter In-law, who was 8-months pregnant at that time and also the mother of these children. Her husband, who is my son, took to his heels and since then, we have not seen or heard from him. We don’t know if he is dead or alive.” She recounts her ordeal.
Innu said when they were stranded in Zamfara state capital, a concerned individual asked if she had any relatives anywhere so that they could take her there and she told the person that she has another son that trades in Dakwa, FCT.
She further said, “That was how I and my grandchildren were brought here. I must say this, since we came here, we hardly feed and none of these children are enrolled in school”.
Another woman also narrated to Neptune Prime how she left Yobe State as a result of insurgency (Boko Haram) that attacked her home and killed many people.
“When the criminals came, my husband ran for his life and the children and I tried to escape. As we were moving, we were stepping on corpses, trekked for more than four hours and slept in a village. After then, we got a vehicle that was going towards Abuja, so we joined for free and they brought us to Gwagwalada. After spending some days roaming around, someone brought us to Dakwa. As a result of the challenges we faced, out of my seven children, I have lost two of them, remaining five and none of them have been enrolled in school because of lack of funds” Aisha Abdullahi said.
Aisha added that, sometimes she has to fetch sand for builders in order to feed. She gets N1000 or 1500 dally to cater for her five children.
Maimuna Abdullahi hails from Maiduguri. Her case is not different from the previous women .” When Boko Haram attacked our area in Maiduguri, they killed my uncle, Ya Malay, right in front of my eyes, so in order for us to stay alive, I decided to run out of Maiduguri. I backed my grandmother and my mother backed my child, that was how we walked through the bush for almost a week before we found our way to Abuja,” she narrated.
Recall that northern Nigeria is besieged by insecurity challenges such as banditry, farmer/ herders crisis and insurgency and the effect of this has shown greatly to affect mostly women and children in Nigeria.
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