Old giant threes with fat, twisting trunks that outlived their
colonial planters, spread forth their huge branches of green
leaves over the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, Jengree in
Bassa Local Government Area, LGA, of Plateau State.
The hospital, said to be over 60 years old, bore all the
trappings of colonial structures in Nigeria – simple homes
of asbestos roofs with walls made of stones and well
spaced from each other; and rows of flower beds all over
the place.
In one of the wards, Pastor Emmanuel Danjuma Garkida lay
on his sick bed bare-chest, with sunken eyes that seemed
to stare at nothing. There was a wide band of bandage on
his lower abdomen. The story behind the bandage is a
summary of the bloodlet that took place in Saminaka in
Lere LGA, Kaduna State, on April 13 and 14 after the 2015
gubernatorial election. In barely audible voice, Garkida, who
hails from Borno State, narrated to Sunday Vanguard his
close shave with death.
Naming ceremony
“I come from Borno State, but I am a serving pastor with
the Redeemed Church of God, Yobe Province,” he stated.
“My wife is a native of Abadawa, Saminaka in Kaduna State
and she had come back to her parents and put to bed a
baby boy a week earlier. I had come to see her, my kids and
her family, and I could name the new child.
“I took a bike, that morning to go see my fellow pastor in
the other side of Saminaka to help officiate the ceremony”.
According to him, on arriving the Saminaka main bridge, on
the Jos-Zaria Expressway, met had a grim encounter.
Saminaka’s green line
The bridge has for long served as a kind of green line
between the two major political parties in the country, and
the two main religions. Sunday Vanguard learnt that the two
group of people had always voted in opposite directions in
all elections since 1999. Some said it even dated back
before then.
Christians and some Hausa/Fulani occupy the eastern part
of the bridge and dominate the Abadawa ward where the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has a comfortable base in
the town. The western part, called Hayin Gada and
populated mostly by Hausa/Fulani and Muslims, but with
good presence of other tribes, is a bastion of the All
Progressives Congress, APC.
‘Kill the infidel, cut him down!’
“I reached the bridge on my way to Abadawa when I met
some Hausa youths carrying weapons and inflicting injuries
on passersby who were not of their own. But since I know
some of the boys, I asked them to show mercy on people.
To my surprise some of them started yelling, “Kill him! Kill
the infidel! Cut him down!”, he said. “One of them rushed at
me with a machete. I don’t know how I managed to grab
him and threw him away. Another came with a sword and
aimed at my neck, I used my hand to receive the blow.
“I started running, and one of them used a cutlass and
wounded me at the back of my head. I started bleeding and
I could feel the blood dripping on my clothes. I kept running,
and they kept hitting me with sticks and stabbing me with
knives until I fell.
Saved by a stranger
“As they were coming to finish me off, the last thing I
remembered was that a Hausa man, well dressed in white
agbada and cap sped on a bike and arrived at my side.
”The man shouted at them in Hausa, ‘leave this man alone
and disappear now! Are you not satisfied that you have
killed him? Every one of you must leave immediately I don’t
know what happened afterwards. I went into coma, the
bleeding and pains were too much.
“The man whom I had never met before was said to have
stayed there with me, as I later learnt, until my friend, Skido,
a Yoruba man, came and evacuated me to an hospital in
Saminaka. I was told that I had ruptured intestine.
“The doctor had to bring out my entire intestine and clean
up by stomach before stitching me back. I have been
stabbed in many places. You can see the healing wounds. I
was brought here to Jengree when my condition got worse.
But I am fine now. And I thank God for sparing my life. My
sister and mother have been the ones bearing the emotional
and financial burden of this problem alone”.
District head’s account
The districk head of Abadawa, Dahiru Abubakar, himself a
Muslim, and a native of Kurama – original inhabitants of
Saminaka – wrote a report on the violence to copied
Kaduna State government and copied the heads of military
and security outfits in Kaduna State, the Emir of Zaria, the
state House of Assembly and National Assembly members
and others. He blamed the violence on a political party’s
supporters.
The district head said that on April 13, 2015, he was lying in
his palace when around 1pm he was told on phone by
someone that “some political thugs” were coming to his
palace possibly for trouble.
“Before I could come out, they had reached my palace and
immediately started destroying the doors and windows.
They were saying, ‘we will drink the blood of pagans’. They
were saying, ‘new assembly, new governor, new district
head’. They said that I should come out so that they spill
my blood”, he wrote.
According to him, they youths left shortly. He wrote that
before he could make contact with the police in Saminaka,
a fracas had broken out between the invading youths and
Abadwa youths.
The district head spoke of seeing more violence as he rode
in a car with one of his chiefs in Abadawa despite the
arrival of the police. “By the junction of Anguwan Jega (in
Abadawa), we met two motorcycles burning. Towards the
Roman Catholic Church, we saw a corpse covered with
leaves. The police picked the corpse and put it in their
vehicle”, he wrote.
Abubakar, said they came under attack in another part
Abadawa, but they managed to escape.
The attacker later left or were pushed outside Abadawa
ward, that afternoon, according to the report. The district
head said elders of Abadawa, including him, went from
street to street pleading with the youths to calm down, and
that the police would take care of everything.
From his report, he did not cross the main Saminaka bridge
on April 13.
Abubakar maintained that Abadawa became calm, and he
urged everyone to be vigilant in the night.
He said that on April 14, Abadawa was rife with the rumour
that staff of Water Board Corporation, Saminaka , and
natives of Abadawa had been murdered by the rampaging
youths from the other side.
“This triggered another round of tension as people started
looking for ways to revenge. . . Another corpse of an
Abadawa man was found by the river side. . . security
agents succeeded in chasing people back to their homes.
That helped a lot. And later a 24-hour curfew was imposed
in the town.
The district head wrote that on April 15, tension was
renewed when the corpse of an employee of the Water
Board from Abadawa was brought for burial. He praised the
Nigerian Army and the police for strictly enforcing the
curfew which led to peace. “Shops and other businesses
were opened and hungry people caged for three days
rushed out to buy food and other needs”, according to the
report.
Undergraduate hacked to death
The report listed the names of those from Adabawa killed as
follows: Habila Daniel, Danlami Gaba, Michael Timothy
Yusuf Usman and Stephen Galadima. Also, one Hausa,
Yusuf Usman, was said to have been killed, curiously in the
Hausa area of Hayin Gada part of Saminaka.
Joshua Akpama, an Igala from Kogi State and a final year
economics student of the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU,
Zaria, was also reportedly killed after he was forced out of
the vehicle he traveling in.
Garkida not on list
Meanwhile, the name of Pastor Garkida is not among those
injured according to the report.
The district head also listed several damages done to
property of many people.
Two suspects were arrested by the police and taken to
Kaduna, Abubakar stated in the report.
“The government/authority concerned should ensure that all
the perpetrators of such evils are punished according to the
rule of law, this will serve as food-for-thought to other
youths with same behavior”, he advised in the report. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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