Before
the accidental bombing that took place in Rann on January 17, there have being
reports that militants of the dreaded Boko Haram group take young boys across
the country and the boarder to force them into the sect.
The entire local government called Kala Balge, in Borno state
was a peaceful home to thousands of Nigerians most of whom who spoke Kanuri,
Shuwa, Kotoko and a little Hausa.
Fourteen
year-old Babagana Bukar survived and is alive to tell the story of how Boko
Haram, the dreaded islamic fundamentalist group in the North east, killed his
father in his presence.
In an investigative report by The Cable, Bukar and his family
woke up on an early morning in 2014, just to have Sahur the pre-dawn meal taken
by Muslim faithful in the month of Ramadan, in preparation for the day’s fast.
After
the meal, they had their ablution and were preparing for Salat al-fajr, the
first Muslim prayer of the day when Boko Haram insurgents laid siege to their
homes.
“Any man who was old enough was killed. I watched them slaughter
my father,” he said.
The
14-year-old and others whose fathers had just been put to such brutal death
were asked to join the Boko Haram sect as foot soldiers.
Bukar
speaking in Kanuri, a very popular language among the dwellers of Kala Balge,
Ngala and Gamboru, said: “They
rallied us and we were forced to follow them, with the goods that they took
from our homes.”
The
14-year-old was not willing to join a sect which killed his father in their
quest to gain territories and do “the will of Allah,” as they continually said
in attempts to brainwash the young boys.
“When I had my chance, I ran, and as God will have it, I escaped
Boko Haram. I came across a river, which was knee-deep. I carried my bicycle
and walked through the river, on my way through Gamboru.”
Bukar
slept along the Gamboru border of Nigeria and Cameroon on his first night, but
his destination was Chad.
For
him, it was more reasonable to travel to Chad than to make his way to the state
capital, Maiduguri, Nigeria, and his reasons are understandable.
Bukar
who is now 16, said he avoided every path where he saw prints of motorcycles
and cars, finding his way through bushes and villages.
“Engineer”, as he is fondly called because of his skills with
phone repairs, narrated how he went from Gamboru, to Gwado, to Afade, then
Kousséri, a city in northern Cameroon, before crossing over to Chad, where he
met up with his grandmother, after four tiring days on the road.