Maryam Adamu, A 47-year-old widow has disclosed how Boko Haram terrorists killed her husband in her presence.
She disclosed that she sometimes sleeps in an open place during the dry season, and during the rainy season occupies a one-room rented zinc hut.
Maryam while speaking with The Nation noted that the annual rent is N10,000 and paying it is difficult.
She said: “My husband was a politician. He was like a delegate in the local government. During campaigns, politicians like the chairman or councilors bring food and palliatives for my husband to share with the people here. They bring the items to our house.
I sometimes share the food items and sometimes wrappers with women; it could be sugar, rice or millet, and any other supportive package. My husband will collect them and write down the names of the people that will benefit. We used to do this together.
He was a man with a very good heart. He has the interest of the people at heart. He was loving and caring not just to his family but everyone else in the community.”
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Maryam further stated that the darkest day in her life was when her husband was forcefully removed under her wrapper by Boko Haram and slaughtered in her presence.
She said the insurgents invaded the community and gathered everyone in the same area, picking out men and young males.
“They will either fish out the men or the young males, kill them or ask them to stay aside and were later taken away,” she narrated.
She continued: “My husband was killed alongside other ten men, in an attack which was carried out by the Boko Haram people. They killed both young and old, from ages 13 and above. They were all shot dead. They selected and took others away.”
“My husband was killed right in front of me, I covered him with my wrapper and hijab. They were looking for him when they gathered the people. You know that Boko Haram did not like politicians and my husband was a politician.
A very popular one at that time. As they were killing people, one of the Boko Haram came to me and asked where my husband was. I told him, I don’t know. He asked me to stand up, before I could stand, he opened my wrapper and hijab, removed my husband, and slaughtered him in my presence.
It is such an experience I find very difficult to recall. I still recall that a stray bullet hit a pregnant woman who was sitting just beside me on that fateful day. She was bleeding seriously. I doubt if she survived because there was no medical care.”
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Maryam while speaking on settling down said staying in the Republic of Niger was a nightmare as their first settlement turned out to be in a community infested with a large number of Boko Haram insurgents.
The woman while speaking on life without her husband said, “Throughout my years of marriage with my husband, I knew as human beings and as Muslims that we shall die one day but the way my husband left me has left a deep scar in my heart,” Maryam said.
She added: “Everything is on me, feeding, health care, education and all other basic needs. Sometimes I sell beans cake and fried yam, while sometimes I cook rice for my children to sell just for us to survive.”
“When it is the farming season we hire land from the people to farm. We pay the sum of ten thousand Naira or twenty thousand Naira for a piece of land. Our only problem is the Fulani herdsmen who usually destroy our farms, especially last year when they ate everything that I cultivated with my children.
We are hoping to go again this year as we pray for a blessed rainy season. Farming helped us, it is what gives us hope but our biggest problem is the Fulani herdsmen, they destroy our farms completely and left us with nothing.”
“I manage to send my children to school even with the current difficulties, some to government schools while others to Islamic.”
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“We are hoping to go back to our houses; we left everything and ran away. I am hoping for peace to be restored so we can move back to our houses. We are now living in a house built with grass. Life now is very difficult and praying for help from God almighty.”
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