It sounds like a movie story but it isn’t. Abubakar Umar, who has just graduated in Petroleum Chemistry from the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, was shot thrice by Boko Haram insurgents. He survived despite not receiving medical help for almost 24 hours. He is planning to write a book on his “miraculous survival”. He shares the synopsis of the book with KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE at his graduation last Saturday.
•The story of a Boko Haram survivor
Many in the graduating Class of the 2015 American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, won thousands of naira in prizes for excellence in academics and leadership at an awards dinner last Friday, but the prize for courage, which went to Abubakar Umar, surpassed them all.
It was only Umar that parents, teachers and dignitaries from far and wide, including the university’s founder, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, gave a standing ovation as he made his way from the back of the expansive hall to the podium to receive his prize. Umar fell a victim of Boko Haram insurgency last year because of his dedication to community service. It remains a miracle that he lived to complete his BSc programme. He had no medical help for almost 24 hours after he was shot last December 4.
The university’s President, Dr Margee Ensign, described Umar’s courage as profound and deserving of recognition, especially as he was busy raising funds for the less privileged before he was attacked.
The genesis
It was not for want of adventure that Umar, who hails from Jigawa State, stayed behind after the university closed last December to do extra community service. It was because the university requires all students to undertake community service projects of their choice – programmes they must initiate, raise funds for and implement to positively impact on their host community; and also because of his passion to help the less privileged.
He said: “Here at AUN we do a lot of community service. For example, there’s this secondary school that has some extension of classrooms and they don’t have paint. So we organised some of our students to buy paint to paint those schools. We also tutor some of them. Also women from the community are taught English and Mathematics. Some are also taught tailoring and others.
“I happen to be someone that loves travelling and anytime I am travelling, I see a lot of people, challenging people, lots of struggles everywhere. I notice some people trekking some kilometres just trying to get drinking water so I know that not all people are from the same place, and some get many things easier than others. Hence, I believe that by reaching out to those people, one day, the gap won’t be that wide and everyone will be okay.”
During his community service project, Umar said he helped to paint a secondary school in Yola and also teach mathematics and English, among other activities.
The journey
Done with his extra community service, Umar left Yola at 6am with the hope of stopping over at Jigawa to visit his grandparents before getting to Kano, where he lives with his parents. He was aware of the increasing insecurity in the northeast, which forced the university to close earlier than normal for the year. He took precautions by stopping in the transit town of Gombe to get some items for his grandparents and share information with fellow travellers on how best to proceed on the journey. That interaction made him to change his route.
“The travellers usually converse and exchange ideas about what is happening on the road. That was where the drivers were saying the road from Gombe to Bauchi was not safe. Usually, the road used to have more than 12 checkpoints, but on that day, those people coming from Kano said they saw no single checkpoint. And the military personnel stationed there are not usually brought to that place; they have their containers there so they live at that place.
“For some strange reason on that day, no check point was seen. So the people were very cautious and they shared the information with us, telling us that we should not pass that road because anything could happen. A road that there is no check point, you know, you are on your own. So we decided that there is a much safer road, which is through the Nafana-Bajuga road, which will take you to Potiskum; then from Potiskum, you pass to Jigawa and then from there, you get to Kano. Although that was a longer route, on that day, it seemed to be the safest of all roads.”
Sadly, it was not. It was on that route – about three hours into the journey – that the insurgents struck twice.
“So myself together with some public drivers, we passed that road and unfortunately, that was where it happened. We passed Bajuga, we passed Nafana, I think I was almost 40 km away from Potiskum. That was where the road was really bad, so I slowed down. When I slowed down, these insurgents came out from the bush and they started shooting drastically at us. At first I wanted to stop because I noticed they were putting on the military uniform. The trousers were military and the timberland boots. But they were putting on head bands and screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ so it made me realise that these were not military, they were the insurgents. So I downshifted the vehicle and sped off. And that was when they shot me on my left arm.
“I kept on driving. I was very scared; so scared that I did not even notice that I had been shot. I was bleeding and kept on driving. I think I drove for five minutes when I noticed that the road was very rough again. Within that interval of five minutes, there wasn’t any check point or any town in between. I wanted to stop anywhere I could reach quickly, like the nearest town, to report the incident, but there was none. After the five minutes, I noticed another check point and the pot holes and the road was very bad so I slowed down. And when I slowed down, the same people came out again and they shot me the second time. That was when I was shot twice at my right arm. But I had to continue driving, because if I had stopped, it would have been the end. I don’t know where the energy came from.”
Help
After some distance, Umar abandoned his car to seek help. He was bleeding profusely and getting weak. But help did not come early. Despite meeting about four groups of people in the village (called Daudu) where he stopped and speaking Hausa to them, they did not help him; they even ignored him. The last group of older men only volunteered information, advising him to avoid the major roads within the village because the insurgents were around and preaching.
Their counsel ultimately proved useful as the back routes led him to his helpers – though he was initially turned away by them too.
He said: “I just took a left turn and I was going. I never knew where I was going but I was just walking and I found myself in the compound of someone. I met a lady there and she wanted to give me shelter to stay but two older women in the house said I cannot stay because if the insurgents came, they would kill me and kill them too. So in order to protect themselves, I have to stay out.
“I pleaded, because I knew if I should leave that place, I was going to die. But they said if I should continue pleading, that they were going to scream and call them and they were going to kill me. I said there was no need for that and I thanked the old woman and was on the verge of going.
“But as I was about to go, the old woman told them that the insurgents told them that they were going to attack Gombe and those people happened to have relatives at Gombe. So the old woman told them that ‘if you cannot help this young man, how would you now expect God to protect your own relatives that the Boko Haram are going to attack next?’
“That was what convinced them that I can stay at their house but should the insurgents come, they don’t know anything about me. So I said ok, I would take my chance. They took me to a toilet where I hid.”
From about 10am after getting to Dauda Village to the next morning, Umar stayed without medical attention because none was available in the village. It was perhaps the longest wait of his life as his military contacts could not rescue him until the next day.
With his car and all its contents stolen, he had to depend on his hosts for first aid and contact with the world.
“When the man of the house came…I directed him to make the salt and water solution to be very thick and asked him to pour it on the wounds. I could see my bones from the injuries, because they were very deep. He poured it and funny enough, I don’t know what happened, maybe because of the trauma, but I did not feel any pain at that point. He used rags to tie my hand that I had a fracture. Fortunately, the bleeding reduced to drops. That sustained till I think around 6pm.
“He gave me his phone and that was when I made contact. I have friends in the military. I called them. The person I know in the military was not in town. So he called his friend and the friend then called me; he asked for my location, I told him. That was around 7 ‘o’ clock in the evening. He told me that no one can come and take me at that particular moment because Gombe State had imposed a 24-hour curfew then; no one was allowed to move. He said from Potiskum where they were coming to rescue me, they were afraid that the insurgents may still be around. So there might be a chance that I might eventually die unless I stayed there till the next morning. I said no problem. He told me not to take a lot of water; that if I take water I might die, so I didn’t take anything. He told me to get some antibiotics if it was possible. Everyone had left that place so there wasn’t any pharmaceutical help of any kind. I have to stay there till the next place and that was when they came to get me.”
The next day, in order to get help, Umar said he disguised like a mad man to beat Boko Haram informants.
“The man of the house told me that there were Boko Haram informants in that particular village. So if I am going out I need to dress like a mad man and disguise myself so nobody would recognise me; and I had to go through the back door so that no one will see me and I won’t put him into any sort of trouble.
“And that was exactly what happened. I covered myself in chicken dung and some sand, mud and something like that. I removed my shoes; put them inside my pocket, and walked barefooted like a mad man. I walked to the road side and they came and took me to Potiskum, where I received first aid treatment before my parents came and took me to Kano where I had surgery. And I think I didn’t recover until after 14 weeks,” he said.
Recovery
Eight weeks in hospital stabilised Umar enough to return to school towards the end of January. But it took another six weeks before he could remove his cast and learn to write again. He missed examinations; could not take notes in class and had trouble with post traumatic stress disorder. But, he got help from the university.
He said: “Even when I was recovering I hardly slept for over two hours in the night or may be one hour. I had nightmares. But later on, I kept on getting help from the AUN Psychologist, Regina Musa. She did well. I also received therapy from AUN clinic.
“I resumed school sometime late January (21st/22nd) – that was about eight weeks. I had to be with my POP cast for like I think extra four or five weeks. And then I just attend classes but I can’t write. I used my phone to snap the blackboard, stuff like that. There were exams then but I couldn’t write them. The school knew about my situation so they said that they were going to give me make-up exams when I was alright.
“After the cast was removed, it took me like two extra weeks to learn to start holding my pen because I had a fracture in my right hand and I could not write. You can see that it is still not fully alright. They gave me my make up exams and here I am. I passed and I have graduated.”
Future plans
Despite the challenges, Umar graduated with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.00 (on a 4.00 scale), which is an equivalent of a second class upper degree.
His immediate plan, with his school’s support, is to write a book on his experience; then go for further studies.
Above all, Umar is grateful to be alive and now he is a Petroleum Chemist.
“The day of the incident, I felt like I could have died because I passed out. I lost so much blood; there wasn’t any transfusion; I stayed for 24 hours without any medical help. So I believed I could have died that day but somehow Allah kept me alive for some reasons I guess. Who knows maybe completing this degree is one of the reasons.”
