A lecturer at the Federal College of Education,
FCE, Kabuga, Kano, Chief Christian Ojimba, in a
recent interview with Vanguard recounted the
ordeal he and some of his students went
through when Boko Haram members visited
their school on September 17th, an attack that
lasted 45minutes. Below is what he said...
"It was a very serious attack and an
unexpected one. Before the attack on our
school, Boko Haram terrorists had attacked
Kano State Polytechnic inside the city
centre, with the new strategy of using
female and male teenagers, who they arm
with bombs. In broad-day light on
Wednesday, September 17, our school, the
Federal College of Technology, Kano, was
attacked.
That day, I didn’t have lectures, but, in my usual
way, I had to go to school, because I am very
friendly with my students.
I am always in my office to solve their
problems because I love my students. I must
say that I had premonition which, if I had
heeded, I wouldn’t have been involved in the
attack. One, I didn’t have lectures; two, when I
got to the school gate, I discovered my office
keys were not in my bag; three, my wallet
containing my identity card, driver’s licence and
other important documents was not with me.
But when I got to the office, my colleague had
already opened the door with his own key. If
the door had been locked, I would have gone
back home.
I stayed in the office, Room 78, upstairs at the
new site of School of Arts and Social Sciences,
FCE, Kano. Around 1.15pm that day, I heard the
sound of multiple bomb explosions at close
range. Before you knew it, there was
pandemonium. Students and staff were running
helter skelter for their lives. On noticing this, I
came out of my chair to check what was
happening and what I saw was the Boko Haram
people wielding AK-47 guns shooting
sporadically and directly at everyone at sight.
Downstairs, they had killed one of our lecturers,
Dr. Thomas Kayode Ajamu from Ogbomoso, Oyo
State. Dr. Ajamu, a former Head, Department of
Christian Religious Studies, CRS, was buried that
same week.
So when I came out of the door, there was no
way to pass. Dead bodies littered everywhere
because this attack happened at the prime-time
for lectures.
Before the attack, I have reason to believe
terrorists came on surveillance. Several male
teenagers came visiting our offices in pretence
that they were begging for money. The one that
came to my office said, teacher good afternoon,
please I am going to the hospital, I am not
feeling too well, but I don’t have money for
transportation. Even though I don’t understand
Hausa very well. I replied him in Hausa, that I
forgot my money at home, that there was no
money on me, and he thanked me and left.
That was the conversation during the
surveillance time and they did it in all the blocks
in the five departments of the school-
Department of History where I belong,
Department of Geography, Social Studies,
Christian Religious Studies, Islamic Religious
Studies, and the Deanery. They surveyed
everywhere before the attack.
My office is located on the first floor of a one
storey building, so, I couldn’t jump down. I saw
students jumping down, some got injured, while
others didn’t. What I did was that I hugged a
pillar from the first floor, trying to come down
through it. So, when students noticed I have
created an escape route, many joined me and it
was in that process that there was a stampede.
I fell down and couldn’t move because the long
bone joining my right knee got broken and
shifted out of its socket.
I was trapped. I couldn’t run because a Boko
Haram man was just a stone throw. So, I told
myself, ‘to God be the glory, God receive my
soul in heaven’. There was no escape, the man
was directly shooting sporadically at any person
in sight. He was shooting directly at both the
young and old. They didn’t spare young boys
and girls who came to the school to sell
groundnut and pure water. All of them where
shot dead.
At the end, there was a massive attack, many
people were killed, several others were
wounded. The big testimony of it all, was that
the Boko Haram man was standing on me, while
shooting at others. When I saw him I played
dead. I remembered when I was in Alvan Ikokwu
College of Education, Owerri, in 1984, there was
this lecture we had then on self-defence
mechanism. I remembered the lecturer told us
how to escape if we were in situations like this.
So, that knowledge came into me. Another thing
that came into my mind at that critical moment
was that I remembered that I and my wife had
been praying and fasting against gun shots,
bomb blast.
At the Boko Haram man stood on me as if I
was a dead victim, I didn’t know how God
seized the pains I was going through as a result
of the broken knee bone and also my breathe
was also seized.
Few minutes later, the man left me and was
walking away towards the school gate. At that
same time, there was one of the female
lecturers in my department who was finding her
way out with four others. The man spotted them
and asked them to say their last prayers. While
they put their hands up to say the prayers, the
bomb the man had on his body blew him up.
Shortly thereafter, a security guard came to me
and asked me to stand up, stand up, but I told
him I couldn’t, that my leg was broken. He tried
to pull me but it was not easy because I was
bigger than him. He managed to pull me to hide
behind a door inside a class. There too, I also
played dead because the sound of gun shots
was still raging.
Some minutes later, I peeped from the door and
saw some policemen inside the school. I was in
dilemma as to whether to call them to come
and help me or not, because, sometimes, these
Boko Haram people dress in police and military
uniforms. Everybody had vacated the school
premises, nobody knew I was behind the door
writhing in pains. I said if the policemen were
not authentic security agents that means I am
gone, because there was still sound of gun
shots.
God receive my soul
I said within myself, if they were genuine
policemen, I have a testimony to tell, but if they
were fake, God receive my soul. So, I
summoned the courage and called them,
‘Officer, officer, please come and rescue me’,
and they said ‘who are you?’ I introduced myself
as Chief Ojimba of History Department of the
college. I told them I fell from upstairs and my
leg was broken.
It was then that they mobilised other soldiers.
They asked for my ID card. I told them I left it
at home. They didn’t believe me and threatened
to kill me. I said I couldn’t stand up, my leg was
broken.
I said they could waste me but I was a lecturer
in the school and they could confirm by going to
my office at room 78. I said they could see my
two phones and a new laptop in the office. Yet
they didn’t believe me, so, they ordered me to
pull-off my shirt and singlet which I did. They
further asked me to pull-off my trousers and I
cried to them that my legs were already swollen
and my bones broken and I could not. In harsh
tone, they warned that if I fail to obey their
instructions they will shoot me. After doing that,
they also asked me pull-off my short, which I
did and was stark naked.
Well, one shouldn’t blame them, because they
were actually doing their job. They wanted to
confirm if I was not one of the terrorists, and
was not concealing any bomb in me. When they
noticed I was stark naked and nothing was on
me, they instructed me to put on my clothes.
Then, they rescued me out of the place. An
Assistant Superintendent of Police, ASP, that
came with the team, an elderly man like myself,
carried me on his back, with three other soldiers
carrying my swollen right leg to the waiting
school ambulance. I cried like a baby, as I was
taken to the Murtala Muhammed Specialist
Hospital, Kano. I have never cried like that
before all my life. It was then that they brought
out dead, Dr. Ajamu of the Department of CRS.
He was shot inside his office, because the Boko
Haram people went to offices, classrooms and
toilets shooting anybody at sight.
I stayed at the specialist hospital with my
broken leg inside Plaster of Paris, POP, for
about a week. But I must confess that I was
impressed by the way our school’s governing
council, the school management, students, staff
unions, friends and relations rallied round me
while I was hospitalised.
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