“The ordeal of my sister, Zainab in Saudi Prison” by Hajara

THIS WEEK, THE MOST TRENDING, AND HEART-RENDING, STORY IN NIGERIA HAS BEEN THAT OF ZAINAB HABIBU ALIYU, THE YOUNG NIGERIAN STUDENT WHO WAS INCARCERATED IN SAUDI ARABIA ON SUSPICION OF DRUGS TRAFFICKING. THE FATHER, HABIBU ALIYU KILA, PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUE AT RADIO NIGERIA KADUNA, ASKED HAJARA, ZAINAB’S ELDER SISTER, TO TAKE OVER THIS PAGE TODAY AND […]

THIS WEEK, THE MOST TRENDING, AND HEART-RENDING, STORY IN NIGERIA HAS BEEN THAT OF ZAINAB HABIBU ALIYU, THE YOUNG NIGERIAN STUDENT WHO WAS INCARCERATED IN SAUDI ARABIA ON SUSPICION OF DRUGS TRAFFICKING. THE FATHER, HABIBU ALIYU KILA, PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUE AT RADIO NIGERIA KADUNA, ASKED HAJARA, ZAINAB’S ELDER SISTER, TO TAKE OVER THIS PAGE TODAY AND RE-TELL THEIR STORY.

My name is Hajara Habibu Aliyu, Zainab Habibu Aliyu’s elder sister.

On December 24, 2018 my mum, my junior sister Zainab and I travelled to Saudi Arabia through the Mallam Aminu Kano International airport for Umra, the Lesser Hajj. We arrived Jeddah around 2am on December 25, 2018 and took our assigned bus to Madinah, to which we arrived around 10am. We declined the hotel the Travel Agent had assigned to us and made our own accommodation arrangement. But we gave the Agent our address in case they needed to contact us. We then proceeded to our lodgings, dropped our luggage and went to the Prophet’s Mosque to pray and visit.

We returned to our accommodation, had some food, chatted a bit and then our mum said we should all have some sleep. I told my sister to go ahead and sleep on our bed and I would take the couch. Before I slept, I took some time off to edit some pictures I had snapped earlier. At that very moment, our door was forced open and six to seven hefty Arab men burst in. I immediately thought they had made a mistake and were in the wrong room – and I picked up courage to tell them so: “You are in the wrong room!”, I managed to announce.

Ignoring me, they started screaming “Where is Zainab? Where is Zainab? Who is Zainab?” I asked them what was wrong, and told them Zainab was inside, sleeping with our mum. The men just badged into the room where our mum and my sister were sleeping in their pajamas. When my mum opened her sleepy and dreamy eyes and saw so many men in white garments, she thought she had died and was already in heaven. Alas! It was hell!

The men asked who Zainab was. Our mum showed her to them. They took one look at Zainab and said “But this is a baby! We are looking for Zainab!” My mum told them if you are looking for Zainab, this is the Zainab. They then announced that we had left a piece of luggage at the airport tagged in Zainab’s name. We told them we had all our bags with us and we did not leave any luggage at the airport. We had just three bags and we showed them to them. They ransacked the bags and found nothing unusual, except for mum’s allergy drugs. They then told us that they were taking Zainab away. They added that it would not take long and we should just give her some money in case she would want to buy some food. And they took her away.

Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaiHi raji’un!

We waited for two hours, thinking Zainab would just return – but she didn’t; and this ordeal was to last more than four months! When the waiting was becoming too long, we called our father and, before we could tell him anything, he asked why we were still up so late. We proceeded to tell him what happened. Luckily, he took it so calmly and instructed us to remain calm as in sha Allah nothing bad would happen to her, and that he would spring to action immediately. And then we continued to wait for Zainab. We did not sleep again, but we did not hear from her or from the people who took her away.

We then informed our Travel Agent and directed him to help get in contact with Zainab and give her the number she could get us. Finally, to our relief (which turned out to be short-lived), she called around 4pm telling us that her ‘arresters’ and she were on their way back to Jeddah. She also informed us that while in the Madinah detention centre she was initially taken to, she had met an elderly Nigerian man [who turned out to be Ibrahim Abubakar, another victim of the cartel, who was also released a few days ago]. She tearfully added that the security men at the Madinah centre were so insensitive that they did not even allow her to go to a convenience, despite her pleadings.

Then Zainab started praying, and praying, and praying; she prayed 40 Rak’as without even one Salaam; so confused was she as she didn’t know what was really happening. She called us at around 12am and gave us the devastating information that “Mama ina prison (Mama I’m in prison)”. And thus began our four-month traumatic experience.

Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un!

Our dad had immediately gone to Kano airport to report to NDLEA and had demanded that they did all what was necessary to exonerate his innocent daughter. And it came to pass that there was indeed a cartel at the airport that specialised in planting drugs on unsuspecting air travellers. In our case, they had planted Tramadol tablets in a separate bag and tagged it with Zainab’s name – seeing that we were travelling light and were not carrying up to our allowed luggage weight.

Allah Ya isa for our trauma! We want justice for Zainab!

AND ZAINAB’S FATHER ADDS: “The accused cartel members arrested were Idris Umar Shehu, Sanni Suleiman, Nuhu Adamu, Rhoda Adetunji, Udosen Itoro Henry and Sanni Hamisu. Of the six, one was a staff of an airline handling company, three were clearing agents while two others were staff of a security company. It was Rhoda who confessed to NDLEA that she was indeed part of the cartel that planted the tramadol-bearing luggage on Zainab. The painful aspect of all this trauma is the bail granted by a court to these criminals who nearly had my daughter executed. And by far the MOST PAINFUL of all is that one of the suspects was even allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia. How could that be possible? It is just incredible.”

AND THE COLUMNIST ADDS: May Allah make the Saudi Authorities ask for the extradition of these criminals. If the Saudis don’t ask for them, we all Nigerians should unite, agitate and DEMAND that Nigeria extradite the criminals to Saudi Arabia to take the places of Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim Abubakar. HasbunalLahu wa Ni’imal Wakil!

“WELCOME, O RAMADAN!” ON DAILY TRUST SATURDAY COLUMN: The Blessed Month of Ramadan is here. This year in sha Allah this Column intends to run a series on NGOs and other philanthropic organisations making a difference in the lives of the poor (the orphan, the widow, the destitute, etc.) in the spirit of this most spiritual of Islamic months. So if your NGO is doing or planning such intervention, drop us a 100-word email to [email protected] that answers the “Five W’s and H” of your work (What’s the NGO; Why it does what it does; Who targeted; Where based – plus contact details; When active – Ramadan only or sustainable beyond?; and How is its work done – is it unique around the area?). The key words here are SUSTAINABILITY and UNIQUENESS. May Allah enable us see Ramadan and may He benefit us of its blessings, amin.