03. What is Safety, A Boy from Northern Nigeria, Realty Check

Warning: This episode includes sensitive content not safe for children.

It’s just after supper in your hut. Your mother and father are tending the fire and tidying up as they ask that you go to bed. Tomorrow, father is going to take you out into the fields for the first time as a young boy. It’ll be your first time learning about the tills the ground using hand-tools. He’s going to show you all of the corn crop that was planted from the prior season and it will be your turn to help him plant seeds in preparation for next season harvest.

You tell your mother you’re still hungry so she hands you a fresh mango from the basket of fresh fruit she picked from the massive mango tree growing just outside your hut from early today.

You sink your teeth deep into the mango. The sweet juice seeps out of your mouth as you pull your mouth back from your bite still lipping the bits of mango fiber stuck between your teeth. “Mango is my favorite,” you say to yourself as you finish eating down to the pit.

“Now off to bed,” says mother, “tomorrow is a big day for you.” You hope into bed, place your head down on the pillow still half licking your fingers or the mango juice and picking the strands from between your teeth. As you fall asleep you think about the exciting time you are going to have with Father tomorrow, and you can’t wait to wake up.

You awake to the sounds of footsteps in the hut. It sounds like father and mother talking in the next room. You rub the sleep out of your eyes and look out the window – it’s still dark outside. It can’t be morning yet; father usually wakes up early for work, but this seems too early.

You begin to hear muffled, distant shouting coming from outside the hut. Father and mother are talking more loudly now and it’s beginning to sound like the whole village is has awoken. You hear more voices outside, and the voices are sounding louder and with more excitement in their voices about something.

Your father and mother run into your room and pull you up out of bed. “We have to run,” they say to you. Their here.”

There’s not enough time to grab anything from your room as you’re hurried out of the hut by the arms, fathers firm grip around your around your forearm and mother’s in his other hand.

As the door to your hut opens, your mind is flooded watching the other huts in your village as people begin to poor out of them and begin running in different directions.

The screams and yelling of the people outside are now far surpassing the volume level you are used to hearing even when hearing mother and father most excited. And then unfamiliar sounds begin to happen that you’ve never heard before like snaps, pops, hissing, and thuds all around you. People are beginning to fall over as they run and struggling to keep their step.

You realize in your paralyzed stupor that you’ve stopped moving because of the things you are seeing, and nothing is making sense. I grew up with these faces and I have friends lying about the ground still frozen with their gazes fixed on nothing. Your father is pulling on your arms really hard, and yells, COME ON, WE HAVE TO GO NOW!

As you, father, and mother make for the tree line, three dark figures step into your path and suddenly something else grabs you by the back of the neck and hard crack to the back of your head makes your eyes cease to see and suddenly you feel nothing.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, “At the end of 2018, some 41.3 million people were internally displaced due to armed conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations, according to Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).”

During my recent trip to Nigeria with Integrita’s Men’s Ministry we visited one of these IDP camps for displaced boys due to conflict in and around Jo’s due to cult activity, secret society activity, and in most cases, terrorist activity.

This was our opportunity to meet with these boys who had lost everything and there was still no one they could turn to for help either from family or friends. When I say camp, I use that term loosely because even if I were camping up in the Los Angeles recreational areas there would be cleaner living conditions and facilities in which to live. Yet it was a safe haven for these boys who had nothing, who lived together, all suffering the same fate as the other and all sharing a commonality between the story by which brought them to this place.

We played soccer with the boys for about an hour or so before they gave us a tour or the facility. I met a little boy named job while we were playing soccer with all of the boys. He kept staring at me while we were in the backfield playing defenders so I decided to say hello, give him a high five, and ask his name.

“Job,” he said. It’s not uncommon, especially for new Christian boys and girls, to adopt a new biblical name as their new name. This is because when they are rescued, they are assisted with living and immediate health concerns, then they teach them to read and write in the camps, as well as, teaching them the gospel of Jesus.

When studying the bible, the little boys and girls will select which biblical name they like the most and fits within the context of their own lives.

I responded back to Job, “Rogers,” I said, pointing at myself. “Rogers?” He replied as he giggled and smiled as if my name wasn't a name you were supposed to have like “toaster” or “lamp.”

During our tour of the facility Job wanted to show me where his bunk was. The facility had four large walls and an open courtyard in the center with two medium sized trees in the yard on which there were already boys climbing the branches to see who could reach the highest point first. The boys living quarters lined the outer walls with three or four bunk beds inside. Muddy and dilapidated little boy’s shoes lined the walls of the sleeping areas.

He walked me into his room with two other boys right behind him. “This is mine,” he said as he pointed to the top bunk of a tri-bunk bed. “Top bunk!” I said, “very cool. I love the blanket you have. Its very nice”

As we continued to walk the facility I felt called to ask him more about his story after asking him about his time there and what sports he loves to play.

I asked Job, “What happened? Why are you here?”

“I don’t have a mother or a father,” he said.

“How come?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment and then he said allowed, “Boko Harahm. Boko Harahm, they cut them. They cut my mother and they cut my father and people in my home. Then they shot them in the head with a gun.”

After hearing him say this I immediately dropped to a knee and I didn’t know what to say. My heart and soul was shattered into a million pieces.

It wasn’t until later that I heard the full story.

Boko Haram that had entered his village in a night raid with guns and machete’s and began systematically eradicating the people in his village.

“After its founding in 2002, Boko Haram's increasing radicalization led to the suppression operation by the Nigerian military forces and the summary execution of its leader Mohammed Yusuf in July 2009. Its unexpected resurgence, following a mass prison break in September 2010, was accompanied by increasingly sophisticated attacks, initially against soft targets, but progressing in 2011 to include suicide bombings of police buildings and the United Nations office in Abuja. The government's establishment of a state of emergency at the beginning of 2012, extended in the following year to cover the entire northeast of Nigeria, led to an increase in both security force abuses and militant attacks.”

“When Boko Haram first formed, their actions were nonviolent. Their main goal was to "purify Islam in northern Nigeria". Since March 2015, the group has been aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Since the current insurgency started in 2009, Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands and displaced 2.3 million from their homes and was at one time the world's deadliest terror group according to the Global Terrorism Index”

2015, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, rebranding as Islamic State in West Africa. In September 2015, the Director of Information at the Defense Headquarters of Nigeria announced that all Boko Haram camps had been destroyed but attacks from the group continue to this day.”

Many news outlets and online sources will say that 2019 has seen further decline in raids by Boko Haram across Nigeria, Chad, and Niger but this was not the case for Job and his family.

When Job and his mother and father were attempting to run away, they were captured, and brought back to the center of the village where the other who were captured were being held. The bodies and limbs of those who had already been cut down were remained buried in the mud where they had fallen.

Everyone from the village who had been captured were told to get on their knees. A few of the older boys were selected and pulled aside and taken away.

Now imagine for a moment you’re a 9-year-old boy witnessing this firsthand. (Expand)

Men from Boko Haram step forward with machete’s and walk toward the group. The grown men and women were approached first. And then the hacking began.

The sounds of metal whipping through the air as screams ring out.

As you close your eyes you hear men step in front of you, your father and mother. Your eyes can’t help but open at the same whipping sounds and screams from your father and mother happen in front of you.

As your begin to see the pieces and limbs of your parents begin to fall you real and convulse at the horror when two shots are fired; one after the next, as an exploding crater is formed out the back of your fathers head as he falls, and then your mothers.

I didn’t get the chance to learn more about Job’s story. How did he survive? How did he get here? How had he been at this IDP camp for a year coping with this tragedy as a 10-year-old boy?

All I knew was the why behind him being here and that he had taken the name “Job” in his suffering.

In this Bible story from the book of Job, there is a wealthy man named Job residing in an area called Uz with his extended family and vast flocks. He was considered innocent, “blameless,” and “upright,” constantly mindful to live in a righteous manner (Job 1:1). God takes notice about Job’s virtue to, but Satan contends that Job is only righteous because God has favored him generously. Thus, beginning the trepidation throughout Job’s life as his faith to God is revealed in suffering.

I know that the little boy I met in Nigeria had been through a living hell and somehow survived. I may never know how or why but I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to be with him and his friends, to pray with them, and to love on them the way they all wished their fathers still could.

The days and weeks following my trip, the story of that little boy left me with so many questions unanswered.

Why wasn’t anybody able to protect his family?

How come they couldn’t defend themselves?

So, we had some conversations with locals who were our guides and drivers to find out why Job’s story was all too common, especially in Northern parts of Nigeria. We were told that the government, due to the safety and security of the people of Nigeria had taken away the people’s means of which to fight back.

Citizens of Nigeria are not allowed to possess machine guns, military style rifles, or handguns. Private possession of fully automatic and semi-automatic weapons, or revolvers is prohibited under law according to the Firearms Act and other firearms regulations. Hunting style/bolt action rifles and shotguns are allowed to be possessed if they are granted a Firearm License and pass a background check which considers criminal, mental health, and addiction records. In Nigeria, gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm license everyone year otherwise their firearms are re-possessed by the government.

I find it very interesting that a government known for its corruption practices in government, military, and law enforcement and a culture in which is fraught with malpractice and a hierarchy of subversion would remove the weapons from its people in the name of safety and public security without offering the ability to provide aid to it’s people. I mean we are talking about a country who has an Airforce which includes about 23 planes in operation.

And yet these IDP camps are filled with children who are all running from the same problem.

I hope and pray this same posture to defend one’s self and loved ones is not adopted here.