Ten-year-old Abacha was taken away from home on his way to local Islamic school alongside 50 others by Boko Haram terrorists in Maiduguri, Borno State. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown until he turned 16.
His parents, powerless, watched hopelessly as terrorists whisked away their son.
“We couldn’t really opposed them,” said Abdu, Abacha’s father who resides in one of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’S) camp in Maiduguri.
Abdu who featured in HumAngle’s Missing Persons podcast said those years were days of oppression and violence by Boko Haram insurgents, adding anyone who dared speak for his friends or families was targeted.
For over six years since his son was whisked away, Abdu never heard or saw him until one day in the camp when his eyes set on his nearly grown up Abacha who was set free by state actors when he voluntarily handed over himself.
Abacha told his father that he had escaped the terror group camp and handed himself to state forces where he was held in Hajj Camp, a transit camp for escapees and repentant terrorists.
There in the camp, Abacha spent four months undergoing series of screening before he was released by the authorities after they were satisfied that he is not a combatant member of the terror group.
Elated by his safe return, his parents opened up a shop for him in the camp, where he earned a living as he was obedient and never got them into trouble.
“I have never seen a child so righteous,” his father extolled him.
But when Abacha turned 18, his parents got him to married.
Four months after the wedding, caring for the family becomes difficult for Abacha and even his shop became empty with no money to run it. This forced him into supplying logistics to the terrorists.
Abacha was arrested by security forces in the bush around Mafa LGA, trying to smuggled supplies to Boko Haram territories but no any form of communication was established between the troops and his parents.
“How can a boy that really run away from a terror group just wake up one day to go back to them, if truly that is what has happened,” Abacha’s father wondered.
