Survivors tell stories of Kano’s ‘Black Friday’
Survivors of last week’s attacks by Boko Haram in Kano that claimed hundreds of lives might share the same tragic incident, but they shared their different accounts of how they survived the devastation. Last Friday’s multiple bomb blasts in Kano left behind many gory tales. According to the official tally, 185 people died in […]
Survivors of last week’s attacks by Boko Haram in Kano that claimed hundreds of lives might share the same tragic incident, but they shared their different accounts of how they survived the devastation.
Last Friday’s multiple bomb blasts in Kano left behind many gory tales. According to the official tally, 185 people died in the devastation that was visited on the ancient city, for which the Ahlal Sunnah Lidda awwatil Jihad popularly called Boko Haram claimed responsibility. The multiple bomb explosions targeted at security personnel also left hundreds of people with various degrees of injuries in several hospitals across the town. “My brother, Sagir, may not be able to walk again as the doctors say he may have to be amputated,” a relative of one of the survivors told Weekly Trust amid tears in one of the hospitals yesterday. Still traumatized, Sagir could not even speak, save for a short comment: “It is Allah’s will but I am alive.”
Like Sagir, Mamman-Lawan, a trader in Kantin-Kwari, may not be able to walk again. At his hospital bed, in shock, the pain caused by the damage to his right leg which was bandaged all over, was visible.
Muhtari Umar Dami, who was fishing in a pond close to the Assistant Inspector General of Police’s office at Sharada Quarters, where the attackers also hit, said the tragic experience was worth revealing. According to him: “On that fateful Friday afternoon, I was fishing when the bomb exploded, accompanied by dust, even as people started running in different directions. I was inside the water when a metal shard from the explosion hit my arm and leg.”
Dami said he immediately called one of his boys who mobilised his colleagues that came and brought him out of the water taking him to his house. “When I was taken home, my relations realized that I was seriously injured as my left arm was fractured and they took me to Murtala Mohammed Hospital. By then, it was already nightfall, I was taken to the Emergency Ward where I saw many victims brought to the hospital and we were admitted.”
Dami told Weekly Trust that when the blast occurred, he was fishing along with one of his sons, who was luckier. “Nothing happened to the boy and I thank Allah for that,” he said, describing the incident as a calamity. “It’s like a nightmare one will pray never comes to reality.”
Compared to Dami, the case of Corporal Ali Abdullahi of the Kano State Police Command was more and dramatic. “I survived the tragedy by pretending to be dead. I first tried to escape on my motorcycle and suddenly I saw a young man of about 20 years appear from nowhere. He aimed a gun and shot me in the chest and on the upper arm. I fell to the ground and impulsively it occurred to me that the only option was to pretend to be dead because he was really advancing towards me. And that was how he left, thinking that his mission to kill me had been accomplished.”
Abdullahi said it’s an experience that he hates to recollect. “Even though I survived it, I saw real hell. I went unconscious for hours and only woke up when the dawn breeze blew. I was then brought to the hospital.”
For Constable Isa Shehu, his family are currently entertaining fear that he might have sustained brain injury. The officer, lying critically ill at hospital could not give an account of what happened to him. His brother, Mohammed, spoke on the fears the family now entertain over his condition. “As Muslims, we believe it was ordained by Allah that he will suffer this but our main concern is whether the injury has affected his brain, which we don’t pray for. He has not spoken to anyone since the incident, but the doctors are doing their best and we believe and pray he recovers soon,” said Mohammed.
While Shehu got trapped on duty, 14-year-old Bello Sadiq was hit by a stray bullet. He was admitted the hospital with no relative to take care of him as his only supporter, his mother, is also critically ill and in need of help, too. “I was just passing by the Police Headquarters at Bompai when the shootings started and I was hit by a stray bullet on my leg. I did not know when the bullet hit me, all I can remember is that I had a sharp pain on my leg and realised I couldn’t walk again. I fell down, unconscious, but woke up in the hospital the following morning. “However, more painful is the fact that my mum who would have been the one to stay and take care of me in the hospital is also sick at home, while my father is late. So here I am at the mercy of good Samaritans and hospital staff. I rely on them for food and everything.”
Ibrahim Shehu is the driver with the Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG Zone 1. He was lucky to have survived the attack but with a fracture on one of his legs. “I can’t even describe what really happened, all I know is that it was something horrible and after the heavy sound of the explosion and the black smoke that enveloped the atmosphere, I only woke up to find myself on the hospital bed,” he said.
Sanusi Muhammad, 30, a businessman also told his own story. “Everything went black. I can remember seeing a vehicle heading towards the gate of the police Zone 1 office. The driver forced his way through the gate and continued to drive around until the bomb exploded. Unfortunately, I was trapped inside the premises,” said Mohammed.
For Malam Ali, 60, he prays it doesn’t happen again. “I thought it was the end of the world, literally, since we were taught that it will occur on a Friday,” said the elderly man, managing to speak even though obviously in pain.
While some told their stories as they treat the wounds sustained from the blasts, two women at Giginyu, an area behind the SSS office, were forced to labour by the explosion. The two pregnant women, Aisha and Zainab, who are wives to two brothers and living in the same compound in the area, delivered their babies due of the trauma of the explosion at the SSS office, whis is behind their house. Aisha was said to have delivered a baby boy at home few minutes after the explosion, while Zainab was rushed to the hospital where she gave birth to a baby girl hours later.
Business activities in the city have paralysed as there tends to be more people travelling out of the city due to fear, than those travelling in. The popular New Road Motor Park has witnessed a rise in the number of passengers who throng the park to board vehicles heading South, Weekly Trust observed. Other mini-parks where travelers board buses to the South-West also witnessed an increase in the number of passengers, many being Youth Corps members. An official at the park said it is true that they have more passengers than there should be at this time leaving Kano. “Normally, after Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have less people travelling but now the situation has changed, since the bombings.”
The leader of the Igbo community in Kano, Igwe Boniface Ibekwe, said he was aware that his people are leaving the state out of fear. “We did not ask anybody to leave, we are working hard to address the challenges and douse tension,” he said. While all markets in the city have fully resumed – even though people are still operating in fear – banks within the city remained closed by Wednesday last week. Weekly Trust observed that banks mostly located along Murtala Mohammed way, Ibrahim Taiwo, Magaji Dambatta and Maiduguri roads remain closed as customers visited and found their gates locked. Officials of the banks declined to comment over the closure, but it was apparent that it may not be unconnected with the bombs. Customers used ATM cards to withdraw money while those without one wait for the banks to open, as their closure has stalled business activities in the state which is considered the commercial nerve centre of the North.