Juliana Francis
 |
| IGP, Ibrahim Idris |
A journalist, Mrs Temitope Mustapha, working with Voice
of Nigeria (VON), has taken to her Facebook, to narrate how she was almost
killed by some youths in Kaduna State.
The incident occurred in October during the violence
that enveloped parts of Kaduna State. Although there have been series of
violence in Kaduna, but the abduction and murder of a paramount ruler of the
Adara people in the southern part of Kaduna State, the Agwom Adara, Mr. Maiwada
Raphael Galadima caused anger and subsequently led to a violent protest. Mustapha
was caught in the protest and almost murdered.
According to her, that she lives to tell the story
was nothing but sheer miracle.
Mustapha who is an Education correspondent with the
Federal Government’s owned media outfit said that she was caught up in the
violence alongside her co-passengers in a bus heading to Kano for a media
engagement on October 21, when all hell broke loose.
But while her fellow passengers, who were all male,
managed to flee to safety, she was attacked by a mob of angry youths. They pursued
and attacked her with stones, even as she fled, seeking safety. She would later
fell into gutter, where she was later rescued by a member of the civilian Joint
Task Force (JTF) and taken to hospital, where doctors battled to save her and
later revived her.
She said: “I never thought passing through Kaduna
State on Sunday 21st of October, 2018 to connect Kano State for a two day Media
Dialogue on Equity for the Girl Child Education could end up bloody for me. About
4.35pm, two times this gentleman who was in the same car with me woke me up and
said “Madam stay awake”. I replied him that I had written stories the previous
nights before I embarked on the journey. Again, this man woke me up and said
“madam please stay awake”.
When she finally opened her sleepy laden eyes, she
saw military officers seated in their vehicles.
She said: “A fellow passenger said, “Madam we have
been making calls to know the safest road” and I said, you mean this road is
safe for us all? They all answered yes.
Suddenly at Kaduna By-Pass, I saw a trailer blocking
the road and traffic was building up. Then the driver of the car I boarded beckoned
at one of the youths holding an iron rod. Of course, he responded in Hausa
language and another passenger translated this to me that he wanted to find another
route out of the By-Pass. Suddenly, a number of the young men sighted me in the
car and my driver started pleading with them, telling them “Da Allah ki ya
kuri”. I was the only female in the car and extremely unusual of me I wore a
head-tie (turban).
According to her, the young men were more than 15 in
number. They started hitting the side of the car. Mustapha’s fellow passengers
took to their heels from the front door and the left rear door.
“Then I
summoned courage and opened the right side door which was already surrounded by
men holding all manner of irons and stones. My turban (head-tie) fell off as I
started running towards an uncompleted building. Immediately I realised I could
be finished off in the building, so with heavy stones landing on my back and
long metallic objects hitting my body from behind, I turned and thought of
crossing the gutter on Kaduna by-pass.
“Yes I fell down heavily with stones landing on my
body. I watched myself being lynched with all manners of iron rods and sticks
and was being stoned at the same time. Nobody dared stopped these youths from
stoning me neither was I rescued from their hands. I actually saw one of them
videoing what they were doing to me and I sincerely was running within me to
catch up with my breathe. Death is Painful!”
She continued: “I suddenly didn’t feel the impact of
the irons on my body again and the stones were no longer making sounds to me. I
was hearing ‘Jesus is Lord’ inside my head clearly as if with a megaphone. I
was seeing my mother, my son and my daughter’s faces all at the same time and
somehow I kept hearing in my head that all they were doing was not up to the
pains labour.
“I crawled inside the gutter. Of course I was
already almost inside the gutter by the by-pass before I fell. I felt peace in
my body and I found solace inside the gutter. I saw these youths gathered on
the other side and I faintly saw a crowd of men watching me. And I saw clearly
one of them carrying a stone with his two hands right over me. I raised up one
hand pleading with him and making appealing gestures. That was the last thing I
saw.”
She regained consciousness at AMRULLAH Hospital
(also along Kaduna by-pass) on a stretcher. “I started telling them I am a
journalist with VON and that I was only passing through Kaduna State to attend
a Media Dialogue in Kano State. I attempted standing up from the stretcher but
my body didn’t respond. I was asked for phone numbers. Heaven helped me to
remember my younger sister’s number and the father of my children’s number.”
She stated that AMRULLAH Hospital came totally to her
rescue. She was given six pints of drips and placed on different anti-biotic. Head
suturing was done by a young Muslim doctor who cried while carrying out the
treatment.
“Hospital attendants were cleaning the stretcher
stained with my blood. Everybody was put on guard. The miscreants traced me to
the hospital and demanded that I should be released to them by the hospital to
be killed. This Muslim hospital saved me. They hid me away from them. I was
kept in a ward and locked in with a nurse who was given instructions not to
open the ward for anyone whose voice she didn’t know. Only the hospital
manager, the doctor on duty and two nurses were given access to where I was,”
Mustapha further recalled.
She added: “On the second day, I asked the only face
I saw when I woke up from a deep sleep: “I said please who brought me here.” He
looked at me with tears filling his eyes and said: “A JTF officer brought you
lifeless. We rejected you because you were not breathing again and insisted he
should not drop your body with us. The AMRULLAH Hospital Manager later said,
“When we refused to take you, the JTF man dropped you on our stretcher and said
you could come back that we should try reviving you. AMRULLAH Hospital treated
me and stabilised me. Then a thousand plus calls started coming through to the hospital.
They said my family members were worried, while my colleagues had sleepless
night.”
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