Survivors of weekend’s attack on a college
of agriculture in Yobe State have described
their ordeal in the hands of Boko Haram
members as horrific, reports BBC.
Sagir Adam, 21, survived the weekend attack
on his agricultural college in north-eastern
Nigeria when suspected Islamist militants killed
about 50 students sleeping in their dormitory.
“It was a night of horror,” he told me,
struggling to find words to describe what
happened.
Gunmen in military uniform in a convoy of two
vehicles and motorcycles stormed the college
at about 01:00 – a time when students are
asleep in their hostels, surrounded by
complete darkness.
Yobe State College of Agriculture is down the
road from Gujba village. The entrance is
fenced but the rest of the campus merges with
the bush that stretches from Yobe state into
the deep forests of neighbouring Borno state –
the stronghold of the Islamist group Boko
Haram.
Its fighters regard schools as a symbol of
Western culture. The group’s name translates
as “Western education is forbidden”.
Despite the attack, and others like it, Mr Adam
wants to go back to the college and continue
with his studies as he believes an education
will help him find a job.
But he is now back in his home town of Nguru
– a four-and-a-half-hour bus journey from
Gujba – and his parents will never let him go
back to any school as long as the danger of
Boko Haram exists.
His father has told him that his priority is to
stay alive.
Yobe State is one of the poorest and
educationally disadvantaged states of Nigeria –
it is certainly the least developed state in the
north-east.
Sharing a border with Niger to the north, it is
arid and its inhabitants are largely farmers.
But farming is becoming more difficult or
impossible as a result of growing desert
encroachment.
Shrinking class sizes
Many tertiary students I have spoken to in
Yobe’s major towns – Damaturu, Geidam,
Nguru, Gashua and Potiskum – say their
parents have asked them to return home for
security reasons.
Three states in north-eastern Nigeria have been
under a state of emergency since May when a
security operation was launched against Boko
Haram.
Many of the militants left their bases and
violence initially fell, but revenge attacks
quickly followed – several on schools in Yobe.
“I always live imagining I can be killed. No-one
is sure of what will happen,” Potiskum resident
Kadai Musa, who has three wives and 15
children, told the BBC about life under the
state of emergency.
He says none of his children have gone to
school in the last six months because of fears
of further attacks.
“We no longer care about anything else except
to live and see the next day,” he says.
Agricultural lecturer Bukar Mustapha can
testify to shrinking class sizes. He says the
weekend attack may mean teaching unions will
refuse to allow staff to go back into classrooms
until security can be guaranteed.
But there is no security in the remote area
around Gujba, a village along a major road
linking Yobe with Adamawa State.
Apart from some mud houses sparsely strewn
over an area the size of two football pitches,
Yobe State College of Agriculture is the only
prominent feature of Gujba.
At the gate of the college there is a security
guard, who is usually untrained and armed
with a torch light and a bow and arrows.
In the early hours of Sunday when the gunmen
arrived, they demanded that the night guard
show them the hostels for male and female
students.
He prevaricated, saying that most of the
students had gone home for the weekend –
only pointing out one dormitory.
Other students awoke when they heard the
shooting – the sleeping students were killed
with guns and a hand-held saw.
Some students died running, while others were
killed after being mistaken for bandits by
villagers as they fled.
The gunfire lasted for four hours. Hostels were
burnt, the college’s shops ransacked.
No security agents intervened during this time
and the militants eventually left with the
college ambulance.
When dawn broke, dead bodies could be seen
dotted around the hostel area.
All day, wailing and tearful relatives hung
around the morgue in the state capital
Damaturu, 30km (18 miles) north of Gujba,
where the dead bodies had been conveyed.
The two sons of Ishaku Lawan, a 60-year-old
driver, survived the dorm attack.
“I am grateful to Allah my sons survived,” he
told the BBC.
“After previous school attacks in Yobe state,
we have been asking government to provide
security in other schools but nothing has been
done. Now the worst has happened.”
Most Yobe residents bemoan this precarious
security situation.
They have been living with on-and-off curfews
for more than a year.
Motorcycles were banned because of the many
drive-by shootings – a trademark of Boko
Haram killings.
Thousands of young men who earned their
living running motorbike taxis are out of work.
But now life is more risky than ever.
Muhammed Abba, a civil servant in Damaturu,
has visited his mother in Maiduguri, in Borno
state, every weekend for more than a decade.
But in the last two months he has been unable
to make the journey, which takes about an
hour.
“In recent days, gunmen of Boko Haram have
been blocking the road and slaughtering
commuters. They killed over 100 recently,” he
said.
“They normally operate in the evenings and
early mornings. My mum begged me not to
come and see her because of the risk involved.
“Going to Maiduguri now by road is like a
suicide mission.”
For now schools will officially remain open in
Yobe, but they are likely to be abandoned as
Boko Haram increasingly targets them.
But Mr Lawan is desperate for his sons –
Muhammed, 23, and Fusami, 25 – to get an
education.
“I want my sons to be educated. I am 60 and a
driver – I don’t want my sons to be like me. I
will look for a school in a state where there is
security,” he said.
His meagre driver’s salary means he will
struggle financially, but he says it will be
worth it to send his sons to any school outside
Yobe State.
Source: thenation
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