A reporter’s journey to Chibok

This reporter took a taxi to Uba. The taxi dropped me at the Adamawa State side of the town. I crossed over to the other side of the road and I was in Borno State.  I told union officials at the Uba Borno park that I was a journalist going to Chibok to report on […]

This reporter took a taxi to Uba. The taxi dropped me at the Adamawa State side of the town. I crossed over to the other side of the road and I was in Borno State.  I told union officials at the Uba Borno park that I was a journalist going to Chibok to report on the abduction of schoolgirls Governmnet Secondary School Chibok.  I wanted to know if it was safe.
The officials there allayed the fears that had been gnawing at my heart ever since I embarked on the journey to Mubi from Abuja the day before. The time was 8:00 am Monday morning. I asked for a driver who would take me to Chibok and bring me back after my assignment. A driver was summoned and the full load fee to and from Chibok was calculated. It was N7,600 and I offered to pay 7,000 and he agreed.
On the road
As the journey to Chibok began, I called Mr. Hosiah Abana, the leader of Chibok community in Abuja, who had encouraged me to travel to his town if I wanted to talk to families of the abducted girls.  I told him I was on my way and asked him to remind the contacts he gave me that I was on my way, as I was not ready to spend more than an hour in the town. He assured me that I would get the people I needed and that I was going to spend at least three hours in the town.
As we left Uba, the courage given to me by a Mubi-based Igbo man, Mr. Alex, a fellow passenger from Abuja to Mubi, on how safe going to Chibok was, began to desert me. He had kept assuring me that nothing would happen even when we slept at the check-point at the entrance to Gombi town in Adamawa State.
Each town and settlement we got to brought relief and by the time we got to Wamdeo, fear has disappeared. But it quickly resurfaced at Askira Divisional Police Headquarters. The two buildings used as the police headquarters had been razed down, leaving the cops with a make-shift base, seemingly made out of corrugated iron sheets.
The driver told me the two buildings were razed by Boko Haram members on different occasions. The policemen at the check-point looked shabby, the straps of their rifles were threadbare. I asked the driver when we are going to get to Chibok and he assured me that it was not far. But there were no milestones, which made the journey seem longer.
At last we got to the end of the tarred part of the road, about four kilometers away from the town surrounded by hills. The first check-point was manned by soldiers. The second was manned by mobile policemen. I noticed that they took cursory interest in our car, but asked those with luggage to wait for scrutiny.
“Neglected”
At the town’s park, I met Dauda Ndirpaya, a local government officer, and told him about my mission. After having me identify myself, he looked at me in the face and said: “You are just coming about four weeks after the incident? You press men just neglected us.” I explained to him that I couldn’t embark on the journey because I was told it was not safe at the beginning and that I only ventured to come when I was assured by a community leader that there was a safe route. He seemed satisfied and asked a local National Union of Road Transport Workers official to take us to one of the parents whose daughters were abducted.
But in the town, business seemed to be going on as usual.  Shops were open, except the ones looted or razed by Boko Haram members on the night they attacked.  People, mostly women, were queuing up for water with yellow jerry cans beside boreholes and hand-pumps. Even in the Government Secondary School Chibok about two kilometers from the main town, where Boko Haram infamously abducted over two hundred schoolgirls about a month ago, the hand pump was busy.
About two kilometers father from the school were vehicles taken Boko Haram fighters to evacuate their loots, but  burnt down  when they broke down as they were about to branch off the Chibok-Maiduguri road.  Traces of sugar believed to have been looted from one of the shops within the town were still visible in one of the vehicles.
But back in the town, Chibok’s other school, Universal Basic Education Junior Day Secondary School, had also been closed down because of the attack. School-aged children roamed the streets whether on errand from home or just out play.
The safest route
After spending about four hours in Chibok town, I started looking for an escapee among the abducted girls to share her experience with me. In the process I met an old man, asked him about a contact that I was told would take me to one of the girls. The old man sitting by the road said he was a stranger going to Maiduguri. The driver, who was now like my fixer, confirmed to me that the road was now used to go to Maiduguri, not only by people from Gwoza, but also those from Bama. He added that it was not only the civilians that used the road but also security operatives because most of the other roads were under the control of the insurgents.
Later, we were directed to a village by the roadside for us to reach one of the escaped girls. We had to leave Chibok and take few kilometers back before we could branch of the road to Jajal, the village where we found one of the escapees.
The village was far deep in the bush off the road, we were already contemplating letting go of the opportunity to interview the girls when we saw what looked like houses in the from afar.  Aside bad roads, what the villagers call “primary school” comprises two blocks of decrepit mud huts with empty doors and windows.
By the time I was done and we headed back to Uba, the apprehension of what might lay ahead on the road returned. But it was replaced by hunger and fatigue when we made it safely to Uba. While the rest of the journey back to Abuja was without incident, my brief visit to Chibok will continue to haunt me for a very long time.