Ibrahim fled his home in Gwoza, northeast Nigeria, in August last year, when invading Boko Haram fighters took over the town as part of the militant group’s self-declared caliphate.
The businessman lost his home, cars, money and his brother, who was shot dead as they fled the carnage, spending 14 days on the road and barely eating.
He now lives with his two wives and 13 children in a camp for displaced people 130km away in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
Photo: Reuters
The family relies on handouts for food and his children can not go to school because they can not afford the fees.
With more than 2.5 million people displaced by the violence in Nigeria’s northeast since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009, Ibrahim’s story is just one of many testimonies by survivors of the militant attacks.
Such stories are often lost in reports of relentless bombings, deaths and military offensives.
However, civil society activist Saratu Abiola is trying to change that through an online resource, to raise awareness across the world of the devastating human effects of the conflict.
The accounts of mass killings, rape, abductions, arson and looting on Abiola’s Testimonial Archive Project (TAP) do not make easy reading, but she said it was vital to record people’s stories of a conflict that, despite an estimated 17,000 deaths, still fails to grab headlines at home and abroad.
“This is a small nation-building project,” Abiola said by telephone from Nigeria’s financial hub, Lagos, about 1,000km from the epicenter of the violence.
“It is intended to spark dialogue and advocacy on the humanitarian consequences of the Boko Haram insurgency by raising awareness through documenting the horrendous personal experiences of survivors of the violence,” she said.
The TAP, which has now been running for more than a year, also aims to dispel many of the myths that have been created about the conflict.
One argument in the Christian-majority south has been that the violence in the mainly Muslim north was designed to scupper former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election chances earlier this year.
“I wanted to project a depoliticized picture of the situation and put things in clearer perspective, and dispel all the wrong notions and assumptions a section of the country had on the violence, which is having devastating impact on Nigeria,” Abiola said.
International attention on Boko Haram peaked after the mass abduction of more than 200 school-girls from Chibok in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, in April last year.
Abiola had already decided to act in February last year, after Boko Haram attackers slaughtered more than 40 boys at a boarding school in Buni Yadi, in Yobe state.
She had never been to the northeast, but managed to make contact with local campaigners, who then helped begin the process of meeting survivors of attacks.
“At first, a lot of people didn’t want to talk to me because they were either skeptical of my motive as an outsider or were scared of reprisals from Boko Haram if they talked,” she said.
Gradually, stories were gathered and published online at www.testimonialarchiveproject.com, providing an insight into the nature and complexities of the violence.
“A lot of us who don’t live in these areas don’t have an idea of what the insurgency is all about,” she said.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said his goal was to have all internally displaced people back home by the first anniversary of his taking office on May 29 next year.
However, with towns and villages devastated, that still looks a tall order.
Of the 2.5 million displaced, more than 2.1 million are in Nigeria, with the vast majority staying with host families or relatives.
International agencies have complained that not enough is being done to assist the displaced, who face poor living conditions in the camps and frequent outbreaks of disease.
Since the TAP’s creation, some aid has been sent as well as donations from private individuals and corporate bodies.
Security analysts and human rights groups have also tapped into the project’s growing number of testimonies for use in their reports.
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