Features: Two years after the ajaokuta ban in Borno, insurgents and residents now scavenge for plastics and firewood

By: Bodunrin Kayode

“Ajaokuta” is the name of a council area in kogi state. But that is for those not living in north Eastern Nigeria. In North Eastern Nigeria, “Ajaokuta” is used to mean scrap metals both in kanuri and hausa. As a result any metallic material not useful like empty “can of soft drinks” or beer which can be turned into money by making aluminum pots or containers. Anything not usable again and condemned to the metal bin made from iron or aluminium is big money to both the boko haram insurgents and the residents who search for them as relics of war.

The scavenging for these scrapes however soon woke up the recycling industry which had been restricted to mostly can drinks before the advent of the war. So many vehicles, military and civilians which were abandoned in the bush where it got broken down and became impossible to tow out before the insurgents took over 21 council areas became ready scrap metals inside the savannah. Because nobody in his right senses will spend more than ten minutes inside insurgents territory without being killed during the peak of the crisis.

This was how ajaokuta became a reality in north east Nigeria and such scraps became money in the hands of these scavengers on both sides of the divide who knew its value. These desperate scavengers of scrap materials turned even discarded car parts in organized garages to big money. And it is for that instant cash that some internally displaced people (IDPs) decided to be making fast money from it 6. This is because most of them are confined to the Head Quarters of their council areas unable to farm and fish or make a living for themselves where necessary.

With the shut down of organized idp camps in the city of Maiduguri these residents these days are becoming restless since they can’t earn their living through farming which is their primary past times. They hardly sit down where they are confined in the hinterlands sub camps pending the end of the war. This is because most of them disregard the war situation that has been declared in the north east and insist on wanting to live normal lives while still surrounded by insurgents. Some entered the maiduguri idp camps years ago without a family and now they are back to their council area sub camps with many wives and children. And they don’t see why the Governor, Babagana Zulum was complaining recently about that.

Borno State has witnessed several skirmishes between the idps and the boko haram insurgents who equally look out for similar items for its commercial value to sell and feed their numerous harem of women and children with them in the bush. However, with the early clamp down on non governmental organizations (NGO’s) who were sympathetic to the cause of the insurgents in the name of balancing acts, it became harder for the terrorists to maintain their harems and their kids. They had to desperately look for alternative plans to survive especially with the factionalization of the jihadists. Indeed former theatre Commander, General Adeniyi once shut down about three NGO’s fingered in such sympathetic practices but they were later allowed to resume operations by some powers that were from Abuja. But what ever was trickling to the insurgents was completely cut off according to sources including the controversial mama Boko Haram who had unfettered access to their commanders through her foundation. So having been left high and dry in the bush, they too started sending their wards out to scavenge not only for ajaokuta but for abandoned plastic containers and firewood. This was meant to assist their bush economy which Adeniyi did not want to thrive even as they farmed and fished in the lake Chad axis unhindered.
Consequently, it was the scavenging for these items that used to bring lingering fracas between the IDPs and the insurgents.

The most bloody skirmish in recent times

Not too recently in Rann, the headquarters of Kala Balge the idps were said to have strayed several kilometers beyond where they were supposed to stay in search of these scraps which would amount to immediate cash once they meet the right dealers. Over 40 residents on a scrap metal scavenging spree were slaughtered by insurgents believed to be of the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) stock. The killings which took place when ISWAP insurgents carrying rifles and knives rounded up a group of idps that were searching for scrap metals to sell for a living. About 47 of the scavenging camp residents who were looking for the “Ajaokuta ” were rounded up and slaughtered for daring into the known territories of the insurgents. That singular act of butchery sources told this reporter became very painful to the Governor Babagana Zulum who vowed to ban the activities of the residents and idps over ajaokuta. But are they really banned considering the fact that there are no specific check points monitoring it’s movements?

Transition to plastics and fire wood

After the banning, the idps usually confined within 5km of their council headquarters now settled for the used battered plastics trade which had existed long before the boko haram challenge started. The ajaokuta business goes on secretly in trickles because they hide them inside used plastic containers and bottles which the security points hardly bother about. Driving through the city of Maiduguri, heaps of plastics can now be seen around certain areas in outskirts like Gubio road, Baga road and several suburbs where cart pushers ask for so called condemned items to go sell. And these are weighed on scales and instant cash is awarded for those who are bold enough to penetrate Garbage bins and dump sites to get the plastics which are gathered like Ajaokuta.

Fire wood is equally not left out of the foraging business. As a matter of fact, firewood has become the second largest revenue earner for resident IDPs in the state capital. The camps may have closed officially but a lot of resident IDPs who live with relatives in the metropolis go hunt for firewood in the thick savannah and sell to residents most of whom have abandoned charcoal which moved from N3,000 to N10,000 a bag. This has forced many civil servants in the upper lower class to move down to fire wood as the new savior. So with firewood dumps in almost every crevice of the state now, it has become a safe alternative to these ajaokuta scraps some of which have become death traps because residents usually walk into improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) planted by insurgents in the name of hunting for them. Many innocent souls have perished in that process.

However. If residents in key towns in the state must fulfill their destinies to generate enough revenue to feed themselves, since free feeding may be terminated this year, then fire wood scavenging has come to stay as a veritable index in fulfillment of their individual desires. Firewood and plastics have become a heavy source of bush market revenue which even the government can utilize in beefing up it’s internal revenue. The mantra of plant trees where others are felled can only apply where there is safety. Nobody can tell residents of tashan Kano and surrounding suburbs down to Bulumkutu who go into the nearby Molai bush to source for fire wood to plant one tree there. His or her business is to grab the wood and return back quickly before the armed men in the other side come out to look for theirs. That is the new slogan of the down trodden in Borno state.

Features: Two years after the ajaokuta ban in Borno, insurgents and residents now scavenge for plastics and firewood

REMEMBERING MY ONE YEAR STAY IN YOBE State

By Afolabi Gbajumo

Reminiscently, I was one of the first batches of Graduate Youth Corpers posted by NYSC in 1992 (33years ago)to the then newly-created Yobe State after the FGN carved it out from Borno State. We had our rigorous Camp Training consisting of graduates from various tertiary institutions in Nigeria and overseas at the Institute of Management Studies,Potiskum, headquarters of Fika Emirates.

One funny scenario was as if NYSC inadvertently desirous to fine-tune or re-charge my mentoring tutelage on human rights’ advocacy/struggles allied to my boss the Great Gani Fawehinmi, SAM, SAN (of Blessed Memory) whom we earlier in 1988 honoured revolutionarily with Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM) under our OAU Students’ Union at the then University of ife. (the Great Ife)

We equally started fighting for his release from the dreaded Gashua Prison the preceding few years in 1989 while I was in school. Surprisingly, NYSC posted me to the same Gashua where he was incarcerated which really gingered my spirit.

Incidentally, while some of our camp colleagues were pressing frivolous buttons of “man-know-man,” at the top echelon of NYSC for reposting from that very..very.. far-North back to the South, I deliberately in principle, refused that corrupt practice by preferring to spend my youth service year in Yobe state.
This was because I believed in conscientious sacrifice giving rise to true developmental interest of our dear Nigeria and Africa as a whole. Hence, without any objection or influencing anything,I, and another Great Ife colleague Bunmi Adamolekun moved to where we were posted for our primary duties and we were to serve as Lecturers at the College of Education, Gashua (COEGA),Yobe State (now Federal University).

Indeed, the terrain over there in the North-East Nigeria was quite arid with a lot of sand making it look almost like a desert. But the good news then was that there was no boko haram terrorists plying the Savanna.
Observably, however,I saw the build-up to that gangsterism from the body language of a huge number of under-aged innocent children thrown to the streets as beggars devoid of any parental or societal care in what they tagged “almajiri” (literally meaning the wandering disciples in quest of Islamic knowledge) wandering around the streets. I painstakingly initiated efforts to assist in reducing that menace by introducing an enlightening forum aimed at solving the issue of almajiri through a compulsory course named Citizenship Education I lectured in that COEGA.

There was a slight resistance from one of my students Usman a little older than others in the over100 of them students in that NCE 1 class who even boasted that he was 25-year-old and his male children were already almajiris in another place.But I was able to convincingly neutralize that slight resistance with my knowledge of the Qur’an and Islam which he was parochially referring to as source of that wandering syndrome.
But I enlightened him and others by bringing out my own Qur’an in Arabic as a practicing Muslim and told him to show me and the entire class where Allah (SWT) want him to surfer his male under-aged children of 5 to 9 years-old to travel far away to fend for themselves in a strange environment from where him the father/parent was residing.That almajiri syndrome was and is still the trend in virtually all parts of where I traversed in the north e.g.Katsina, Sokoto,Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna, Kano,
Jigawa, Yobe and Borno States. I was in Gashua (Bade LGA Hqtrs., Damaturu( Yobe Capital), Potiskum, Nguru, Jajere, Dapchi,etc., and Maiduguri the Borno State Capital including UNIMAID and traces of these kids roaming about for food was all over the place.

Funnily,as a youth Corp member 33 years ago,each of us received stipend allowances of #350 monthly in the midst of rising costs of living under the SAP economic policy of the barbaric regime of Gen.Babangida (rtd.) that ‘sapped’ the country since then.

Myself and other Corp members had to orchestrate legitimate protest agitating for increment to #1,000 before the jackboot regime had to jack-up our ‘allowance’ from N350 to N700 only.

Meanwhile, because the so-called “leaders” in government enjoyed diverting resources that ought to be used in helping those innocent kids educationally, socially and faithfully to be better in life from that tender age while they sent their own male and female children with those diverted commonwealths to better schools and trainings at developed cities at home and abroad.

What emanated from that experience rallied with my foresighted prediction while in Yobe based on those intimidating facts on the ground about those abandoned kids 33 years ago.There and then I said a time will come when those abandoned kids will be used by evil-minded elements to foment future calamities which later occurred unbearably since 2009 (16 years ago) till date when the so-called boko haram ( meaning western education is forbidden and condemning formal education) sprang-up their terrorisms like hell fireworks in that Borno then it spread to Yobe and then Adamawa States. Other variants and fall-outs of such violent-killers-crime today are banditry, abduction for ransom,cultism,rape, etc.

Final solution is simply that the so-called ‘leaders’ in the North, and across Nigeria, should stop diverting money and resources meant to sustainably educate,grow, develop, employ and productively engage the younger ones and others so as to finally abolish the present and future disasters of having a huge population of criminally enthrenched citizens and ‘leaders’ mis-governing the resourcefully-destined assets of Nigeria so that everyone will be pleasant to live in peace and not pieces that we have to-date.

REMEMBERING MY ONE YEAR STAY IN YOBE State

My Binoculars

A feature on the reflection on 2024: Bitter Lessons from the flood in greater Maiduguri which terminated over 150 lives

By: Bodunrin Kayode

The recent flood which swept almost 200 lives off the face of the earth in Maiduguri has become a landmark of destruction which no resident in his right senses would wish for a reoccurrence. The Borno state capital Maiduguri is the home of extreme temperatures but surely that flood was not meant to cool down the city. It was a raging flow of Alau dam water which locked and killed many in their homes because it came at a very odd hour of the night when residents were asleep. Imagine waking up in your sleep by a surge of cold water touching the edge of your bed. Peeping through the window to see that both your locked doors and windows have been inundated by water waiting to take you out of this world. That was what happened to a fifteen year old boy name withheld and myriad of other vulnerable residents of greater Maiduguri.

Indeed many State capitals in the country have witnessed such deluges but not all due to unnatural factors as was in the case of the collapse of the Alau Dam which has become an albatross on the shoulders of Governor Babagana Zulum the Chief security officer of the state. I actually sympathized with Prof Zulum within my inner man when this damnation befell the city centre of Maiduguri. This is
because the man’s battle with the bloody 15 year old insurgency is far from over. And then came this tragedy with the flood raging into the low level areas of the city centre living sorry, tears and sudden death for those who could not swim out of their homes by that wee hour of the night of September 10th 2024. Most residents in parts of Konduga, Fori, Gwange, customs market and fly over, bayan quarters, Moro Moro, Aabaganaran, Shehu’s Palace area, Post office and Monday market, the State specialist hospital, zoo area, state secretariat, 505 Housing estate and many wards too numerous to explain were surrounded and killed while crying for distant help which never came. The flood suffocated the life out of some residents who took solace on their roof tops yet became submerged with their roofs caving after hours of waiting for help. Everyone was terrified about the speed which which the flood took over habitations of residents who could not escape. Those who took chances to swim could not behold the beauty of the first light of the following day. Even those who could swim lost control because the entire submerged city centre became an appendage of Lake Chad with roof tops doting about like the Tumbus islands over 300km away before that fateful 10th September 2024.

Bitter lessons and questions coming out of the raging flood water

Gentlemen, partners, there are so many lessons to learn from the recent flood which burst the sims of Alau dam and enveloped the city centre of Maiduguri. The obvious carelessness displayed by federal water engineers responsible to keep the Alau Dam stable and their inability to acknowledge that it would soon burst out of its sims was a major lesson to learn not to allow to be repeated. That the city of Maiduguri has been inundated by water once in which about 37 souls perished was also supposed to have been on the minds of the engineers as a lesson to have stuck into their brains. The very fact that the city had been laid waste before by similar angry floods was equally supposed to have propelled the resident engineers to have dived in to save the dam before the beginning of the rains but they failed. Rather they lied to the secretary to the state government Tijani Bukar who visited to ascertain the stability of the Dam and caused the government to drop its guard that all was well. That was the mother of all lessons which must never be forgotten.
The federal owners of the Dam knew that there was a threat underneath but instead of acting accordingly they left it to the mercy of the heavy rains to plunder the city of Maiduguri from almost 25 km away sending over 150 souls to the great beyond. That wicked flood incident of 2024 can never be forgotten by those who lost loved ones and properties which was dear to their existence in this world. The questions to ask ourselves after the devastation are many and it should bother both the federal managers and the state government. As a matter of fact, so many questions have been left unanswered after that damnation of 2024.

Primary among them was, did the Dam managers learn any big lesson from the 2024 flood? Were they negligent in allowing the Dam to burst its sims? Was it possible to save the Dam before its collapse? Who were the federal staff on ground that should have saved the situation? Was there any state staff involved in this dangerous dereliction of duty? Would there be repercussions for this mass murder of people due to the carelessness of some professionals? Is there any guarantee that maiduguri will not be flooded again from this same Dam? Can the residents be given an alternative source of drinking water other than what comes from Alau Dam? So many questions to bother the government and partners. And the whole world is waiting to see how many heads will roll while trying to answer these burning questions.

It is sad to note because the city of Maiduguri had been flooded in 1994 when heavy rains caused the banks of the Dam to burst emptying it’s contents into the same Maiduguri. 400,000 people were displaced then but over a million residents were displaced this time around. Many people climbed up trees to escape then but trust me there were no trees to climb this time because it caught them in their homes at the wee hours of the night. A few who sat on their strong roof tops were seen by military boats released by the 7div of the Nigerian army which had arrived by first light looking for who to save quickly.
The entire city centre including the Maiduguri specialist hospital was submerged under water. Driving in from baga road, I had to stop afyer the construction of the western area fly over of the town because the post office looked like a sea of some sorts. This was because everything below two metres were submerged leaving only rooftops for people to see. And sadly because Maiduguri is founded along the Ngadda river which usually disappears along the Firki swamps surrounding lake Chad, it took several days for the water to go down and for residents to return to their residences. The bursting of the man made Alau dam had destabilized the natural order of the surrounding swamps so everyone had to be on stand still till the extra water receded into the lake Chad sources for residential sanity to prevail. The Muna garage axis housing 505 housing estate was the last to receded making return to the place very difficult. The flooding brought in myriads of confusion as most agencies of government couldn’t realize the reality of the challenge associated with the flood until SEMA started dropping the mortality figures. Some even competed among themselves like petty human beings who introduce competition into every thing they do. Imagine one week after the health emergency sector started briefing reporters, that was when the information ministry started work at the complex of the ministry of RRR. It was wrongly called a situational room with just one commissioner present. All other stake holders were clearly absent.

Painful as it was, it took almost a week for the organized health sector to be reorientated from emergencies from insurgency and be activated into flood actions by the Commissioner of health Prof.. Baba Mallam Gana. Well for a health sector that was battling with monkey pox, diphtheria and several other challenges unearthed daily from the surveillance pillar, flood was the least challenge expected on their mind. There were much more important challenges which had to be fixed as quickly as possible. Nobody thought the challenges of the flood would advance to such a massive level as to cause so much damage as it did.

Mistakes made before the declaration of Cholera

While Professor Usman Tar was briefing newsmen intermittently at the RRR complex, the health commissioner was doing his at the emergency centre on damboa road with a much larger crowd of stake holders and collaborators in the business of saving lives. That itself was confusion because the newsmen interested in the details behind the news were confused. Expectedly, many mistakes were made managing the very flood by ministries, departments and parastatals which were supposed to work as a team. The information management of such disasters are done as team. Not the way it was done with the ministry of information holding a separate news conference and the health counterpart doing theirs separately. In organized climes, this kind of disasters are usually handled as a team. What was expected was that the health ministry should have worked with SEMA, ministry of health and any other ministry which had some clearance to make in a situation room which would disseminate the right kind of information to residents and the outside world.

When cholera was declared the Commissioners of health, information and State emergency management Agency (SEMA) should have been on the same table briefing news men while statistics of the mortality rates which was toyed with as if it doesn’t matter would have received maximum attention. There was nothing shameful about giving the exact number of people that died in the disaster because nobody expected less from a flood of that magnitude.

Again for emphasis, news conferences are not meant for everyone to attend. Journalists are never civil servants and do not understand how too play the eye service game like the bureaucratic class of people whose primary goals are to please their excellencies. We work for the common man who only we owe our allegiances to and not to the big men in authority. As a result, the next time the Commissioner is declaring another Cholera disaster as he did during the flood the hall should be populated by only the reporters invited and the commissioner and his permanent secretary. Health sector partners should not be taken out of their tight schedules to witness news conferences. It’s not their business to speak for government in such cases. It’s either the commissioner, his permanent secretary or incident manager and one or two other vital director who will assist the Professor with further details during the conference. What happened last year by the time Commissioner of health was briefing without the key partner for emergencies which is SEMA was a big wrong that should not be repeated in future briefings.

Again, you do not invite journalists to news conferences and expect them to stand. That is another big wrong that must bee avoided. Even photo journalists should be given the pleasure of sitting down before the real conference starts. Most of the journalists invited including top officers of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) were standing while unnecessary intruders were troubled out of their tight schedules to fill the spaces meant for journalists to sit down and do their jobs. If someone thinks what goes on in the government house is the ideal, then they are mistaken. That is not our standard at the NUJ nationwide. We just allow it sometimes because of the emergencies surrounding the city of Maiduguri. The next time another emergency wrecks havoc in the city of maiduguri or within the BAY states respectively, we expect to see the Commissioners of health, information, SEMA and any other important stake holder on the same page with facts and figure briefing newsmen under the same roof. You do not impress reporters with the entire crowd of sector members please. Just get the key stake holders and possibly pillar heads where necessary and we would be good to go. Finally never make the mistake of incorporating a news conference inside another program. It is not right and completely against the reason for calling a news conference which is aimed at generating news for the betterment of the people of the state.

Evaluation of the management of the flood by stakeholders

But by the time the flood arrived the city, the government people in the sector realized literally that there was too much fire on the mountain. Consequently, partners had to do something about saving the lives of the residents in the state capital before worrying about the opportunistic diseases like Cholera which actually come out of such situations from experience. Come to think of it all manner of diseases were sucked by the flood which went as far as desecrating the Gwange cemetery digging out corpses that were already buried in shallow graves and spreading same its trail.

However, on a whole, all hands were on deck to save the residents who were still alive. The military saw the extent of the damage and had to step in with boats to certain hard to reach areas to bring out survivors. Those who did not give up because of old age like octogenarians and sat down with rosary in hand meditating and waiting for the water to kill them in a titanic style. Many were rescued and many are still heart broken over the devastation after the water receded.

Finally, the flood left quite a trail of sorrow tears and blood along its routes as over 150 known souls perished as reported by SEMA. The unknown which includes almajiris who could not swim are not part of this statistics. Those who were pronounced dead by the health sector are not included. Those eaten up by wild animals from the zoo are also not part of this because they turned into faeces splashed in the water.
Those who died from shock in their hospital beds are also not included in this. The University of Maiduguri teaching Hospital (UMTH) and state specialist hospital communities will never forget the litany of woes that flood of September 2024 created for them.
My binocular cannot print out all the dark images I saw with my own eyes here but my prayer is that may this affliction never re occur in the land of Yerwa again.

My Binoculars