Bomba Dauda
ABIGAIL GARBA, 20 years old, mother of 4, wife of Garba Maigida, a peasant farmer from Gonan Rogo in kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, had forced labour on 13th May, 2020 and gave birth to a set of twins a day after she escaped being killed and trekked for about 25 km with an 8 months pregnancy and her two children when Fulani herdsmen attacked their isolated community at the thick of the night, killing 30 people, hacking 10 and razed houses in the most unthinkable and despicable manner.
The story of Abigail is quite a luck that she gave birth in one of the most unimaginable circumstance and still alive without a doctor or a nurse to ensure the safe delivery of her twin babies. She had forced labour because medical personnel at the hospital in Doka where she was going for antenatal told her that she would deliver her babies in June.
However, she gave birth a month earlier which is as a result of the traumatic scenes she is contending with and the long distance trekking she was compelled to embark on.
She said, the omen that visited their community started somewhere around 12:10 midnight, when they were deeply asleep, a day before she gave birth.
“When the attackers came, we were sleeping at midnight. The sound of gunshots woke us up, we were startled and confused, then, we called one Peter Magaji who is also resident in the community and we asked him what we should do and he told us that we should remain indoors. Which we did. Locked our doors and stayed back.
“But later, we heard people running and screaming and I came out with my two Children and started running into the bush. We ran to a place where I was exhausted. We couldn’t go further, we sat under a tree trembling, weak and despair. We then noticed two men coming from an opposite direction, from a nearby village, not certain where they were going at that time.
“When they approached us, they asked us what we were doing there, I then narrated to them what befell our community and one of the men ordered the other to go bring a motorcycle at home and one of them rode us to Doka and we slept in one house.
“The next day we continued trekking, heading to Rimau to take refuge with a relative. When we reached Rimau in the night having trekked the whole day without food. I gave birth that same day, at night, to these twins l am holding right now. I gave birth without any single item required of an expectant mother. As it is now, we are sleeping in a ramshackle apartment, in a room that the door is unhinged.
Her husband who they lost each other at the middle of the pandemonium the night the herdsmen attacked them is currently traumatized. Mentally unstable and easily loses concentration amid conversation.
Meanwhile, help came from RADi, a nonprofit organization that gave her and her two babies a mattress, 4 tins of NAN Milk, 10kg of rice, carton ofSpaghetti, carton of Indomie, Peak Milk, Soap, Salt and N5,000 to ameliorate their suffering. Abigail is still appealing to able Nigerians to come to her aid.
