by Mike Smith
‘I have this respect for uniformed personnel because they command respect’, he said when I asked him why he wanted to become a policeman. ‘Wherever uniformed men – police, army, air force, navy – wherever they go, people respect them a lot.’
Later in the conversation, I asked him if that would have come from his father.
‘Yes, yes.’
After some time on the force, Wellington began to realise he needed to do more if he wanted to continue to advance through the ranks. He decided to go back to school, and in 1999 he was admitted into Ambrose Alli University in Edo state to study public administration. He said he continued to work as a policeman during that time and was placed on night duty to allow him to attend classes. He graduated in 2004, and five years later he was accepted into the police staff college. After completing the course, he was posted to Kano. He had mainly been in the investigations department throughout his career, and he remained there in his new posting. Before his injury, he said he had never been shot at and the toughest situation he had dealt with involved armed robbers.
At around 6 p.m. on 20 January 2012, Wellington finished for the day at state police headquarters in Kano and took the walk back to the barracks. He had only a one-room flat since his wife was not there with him. She had remained in Kaduna, where he had been posted before attending officers’ college. Back in the barracks that evening, he intended to prepare food for his dinner, but was interrupted by yelling and the sound of gunfire and explosions. When he walked out, he saw a man dressed in the green beret, black shirt and green trousers worn by the mobile police branch of the service, estimating he was between 15 and 30 metres away. He was thinking that both of them could run back to headquarters, or if that was not possible, to a church located inside the barracks to take cover.
‘With the gunshots going everywhere, I just came out, and I wanted to lock my door, and as I turned to lock my door, I saw somebody in a mobile uniform from head to toe’, said Wellington, still lying on his back on the mattress on the floor. ‘I was thinking it was my colleague – the mobile men that are being posted to man the barracks gate and the armoury in the barracks. And I was trying to beckon on him so that we could all run to safety, and before I could say Jack Robinson, I didn’t know myself again. I was already on the ground.’
‘He is the one who shot?’ I asked.
‘He is the one that shot.’
‘You thought he was police, but he was one of the —’
‘One of the Boko Haram members. I thought he was my colleague, and if he was my colleague, we would have run to safety. And maybe he would’ve shielded me while we were running. But I never knew he was an enemy. They have invaded the barracks. They have taken over the whole barracks [...] The one I saw was carrying [an] AK-47, because I saw him very vividly, very clearly, before he shot at me. I never knew that he was going to shoot at me. In fact, I didn’t even think in that direction. I did not.’
Later, as I asked him further questions on the details of what happened that day, he pleaded for me not to go on. ‘I don’t want to recall this incident, honestly speaking’, he said, his voice sorrowful. ‘I don’t want to recall this incident [...] In this condition today, it’s very traumatic, very, very traumatic. I know what I’m passing through. I know what I’m passing through. I know what I’ve suffered.’
After his six months at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, he decided to return to Warri and begin looking into how he could travel to receive treatment. He had bought a wheelchair for himself, and he chartered a vehicle to drive south from Kano, reclining the front seat so he could lie back for the 11-hour journey, enduring the rough ride over Nigeria’s poor roads. Once back home, his brother went on the Internet to research Fortis Hospital in India, which his doctors had recommended. He exchanged emails with doctors there who told him the cost of his treatment would be in the area of $10,000. With that in mind, Wellington calculated that he would have to come up with about $16,000. Including the money donated by Kano’s state government, he was about $4,000 short. He said his family went to work trying to pull together that amount and was eventually able to do so, and he began planning the specifics of his trip to India.
In November 2012, he took an Etihad flight from Lagos, and was able to sit in business class so he could be in a reclining seat. After a stop in Abu Dhabi, he and his wife landed in New Delhi, some 15 hours after leaving Nigeria. The hospital sent a van to pick him up at the airport, and once at the hospital, his consultant began a series of tests. The results were not good.
‘So finally, he now came out with this report and said that I have only one option now, that I did not come to Fortis in good time’, Wellington said. The spinal injury had apparently worsened, and the doctors informed him that the only option was stem-cell therapy, an experimental procedure. Plastic surgery was also needed to repair a worsening bedsore. The stem-cell procedure came first, lasting about three hours, though Wellington said he felt no pain, thanks to the anaesthesia. Several days later, he underwent plastic surgery for the bedsore. He said doctors told him that if he did not begin to feel sensation in his lower limbs in six months or less, he should return for another round of treatments. After a period of recovery, Wellington flew out of India on 31 January 2013, hopeful that he would eventually be back on his feet.
There was more trouble just after he landed back in Nigeria. His wife, while tending to him at his brother-in-law’s house in Lagos, noticed that the plastic surgery for the bedsore had ruptured. He had also begun to develop new sores since he had been lying in different positions to allow the surgery to heal. They returned to Warri, again by road, and he decided to enter a health clinic in hopes that they could deal with the sores. He remained there for six months, receiving antibiotic injections and with nurses cleaning and dressing the wounds, before leaving in July. He paid a bill of 650,000 naira, or about $4,000, but the sores had not healed.
‘The wounds were infected, so they were giving me antibiotics, but the truth of the whole thing is that the doctor said that I need to get to a specialist hospital where they can handle the matter. They cannot handle it’, Wellington said after having a relative assist him in showing me the worst of the bedsores as he lay on his mattress. ‘I was spending money and I was not getting anything. I was spending my salary on treatment and drugs, and a few individuals, my friends, assisted me with money.’
He had also not regained any sensation in his legs and decided he should try to return to India, but to do so, he would have to raise thousands more dollars. While he was still in the clinic, a delegation from the ministry of health visited on a routine tour of private hospitals and were taken to meet Wellington. After hearing his story, they introduced him to newspaper journalists, who wrote stories on his plight. Features appeared in June 2013, including in two of Nigeria’s largest newspapers, along with his contact information in hopes of donations. They ran pictures of him lying in his hospital bed alongside an older photo of him dressed sharply and standing proudly in his ceremonial uniform, taken at the police college in Jos in 2009. A headline in Nigeria’s Guardian paper bluntly declared ‘Boko Haram victim, ASP Wellington, dying gradually’, while another in ThisDay newspaper said he was ‘Dying to save Nigeria’. According to Wellington, police officials again looked into his case after the stories appeared, contacting him by phone and paying him a visit, but he did not see any results. He was still receiving his monthly police salary, but he told me he was unable to access any insurance money.
Back at home in Warri, he sought herbal treatments for his bedsores, but they did not seem to do much good. He couldn’t remember exactly what herbs were used when I asked him. Family members were caring for him when I got back in touch with him in September 2013. His wife was not there, and he declined to discuss why. I found out later that he and his wife had split, with different reasons offered by her and Wellington’s brother. There was also an odd discrepancy in the number of children I was told he had, and he had begged off when I asked him ab
out his kids in Warri. I had noted when speaking to him in the hospital after the attack that he said he had five children, but his brother and wife told me later he had one son.4
After visiting with him in Warri and returning to Lagos, where I was based at the time, I began making phone calls to try to find out if his case was being attended to by someone in government. I exchanged text messages with the minister for special duties, who was in charge of organising help for Boko Haram victims, providing him with Wellington’s details. I spoke to someone in the health ministry, who told me that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had been put in charge of victims’ assistance. I called that agency’s spokesman and explained the situation, and he informed me that Wellington would have to submit an application. As a result, I asked Wellington’s brother to send me a letter explaining the circumstances. He did so and also emailed a letter from Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, where he was first treated, and a copy of one of the newspaper articles on him. I then forwarded the documents to a colleague in Abuja, who agreed to deliver the paperwork in person to the NEMA spokesman. The spokesman later confirmed to me he had received the documents and would look into it.
Months passed and there was no response. Wellington’s brother contacted me a number of times to find out if I had made any progress. In February 2014, I called the NEMA spokesman and asked about the file. He remembered me, as well as our previous exchange, and told me he was unable to find out anything about Wellington. I told him I did not understand his response since the reason for providing him with the documents was to initiate action. He said he would look into it again and get back to me. He never did.
‘Even if the government is going to spend 10 million on me, am I not worth more than 10 million naira [$60,000]?’, Wellington asked me that day in Warri in exasperation. ‘Let’s assume the government is going to spend 10 million on me to rehabilitate me so that I will get back on my feet. Am I not much more than 10 million naira? Is a life of a Nigerian citizen not more than 10 million naira?’
After not being in touch for some time, I sent Wellington’s brother an email in February 2014 telling him he should also try to contact NEMA to see if he could get a response. I did not hear back, which I found to be strange since he had always responded before. The following month, I tried to call Wellington on both of his phone numbers but could not reach him. I then called his brother, who did answer. He told me he had received my email, but had some terrible news. Wellington had died in December. He was 50 years old.
The debate about Boko Haram, its international links and jihadi ambitions will and should go on, but for those faced with the everyday realties of the violence, it is almost beside the point. The problem is nothing less than the current state of Nigeria and the way it is being robbed daily – certainly of its riches, but more importantly, of its dignity.
Glossary
Ansaru: a splinter faction of Boko Haram that has kidnapped foreigners and with rhetoric more in line with global jihadist groups. Its full name is Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, or Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa. Another possible translation is Support Group for Muslims in Black Africa. Whether Ansaru remains truly separate from Boko Haram has been debated and it appears they may work together in an umbrella-like arrangement.
Boko Haram: the Hausa-language phrase given to the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria. The most commonly accepted translation is ‘Western education is forbidden’, though it could have a wider meaning since ‘boko’ may also be interpreted as ‘Western deception’. The name was given to the insurgents by outsiders and not by the Islamists themselves, and Nigerian authorities as well as the news media continue to refer to it as such. The insurgency has morphed into an umbrella-like structure in recent years with various cells that may or may not work together, and ‘Boko Haram’ has come to stand as a catch-all phrase to describe it.
Caliphate: a territory ruled according to Islamic principles, with a caliph as head. Usman Dan Fodio’s nineteenth-century jihad in what is today northern Nigeria led to what has come to be known as the Sokoto Caliphate.
Civilian JTF: vigilante groups formed in north-eastern Nigeria to help soldiers root out insurgents. The name is a reference to the military’s Joint Task Force, which was the main deployment assigned to battle Boko Haram before it was replaced by the 7th Division.
Emir: a Muslim ruler, sometimes within a larger caliphate. Also referred to as shehu or sultan in northern Nigeria. Various emirs ruled over areas of the Sokoto Caliphate and the title has been preserved and passed on to the present day. Today’s emirs of northern Nigeria officially have only ceremonial powers, though they retain substantial influence. The sultan of Sokoto remains Nigeria’s highest Muslim spiritual and traditional authority.
Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awati Wal Jihad: Abubakar Shekau’s faction of Boko Haram says it wants to be known by this Arabic-language name, which translates to People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad. Another possible translation is the Sunni Group for Proselytisation and Jihad.
JTF: Joint Task Force. Military-led security deployments assigned to contend with unrest in parts of Nigeria. The JTF in north-eastern Nigeria had been the main force assigned to battle Boko Haram and had been accused of major human rights abuses before it was replaced by the 7th Division in 2013.
Salafism: a strict, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that advocates a return to a purer form of the faith. Boko Haram’s original leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was a Salafist. Boko Haram under his leadership before his death in 2009 was a Salafist-like sect based at his mosque in Maiduguri.
Sufism: a mystical version of Islam. Usman Dan Fodio, the nineteenth-century jihad leader in what is today northern Nigeria, was a Sufi. Nigeria’s Muslim establishment today remains mainly made up of Sufis in line with Sunni tradition. Opposition to Nigeria’s Sufi establishment developed in the 1970s through dissident clerics who had embraced Wahhabi-Salafist or Shiite beliefs. Such clerics retain substantial followings today.
Notes
Prologue
1 Translation by Aminu Abubakar.
2 Another possible translation for the name is ‘Sunni Group for Proselytisation and Jihad’. Translation provided by Professor M.A.S. Abdel Haleem of SOAS, University of London.
1 ‘Then You Should Wait for the Outcome’
1 The ‘martyr’ video was originally obtained by AFP northern Nigeria correspondent Aminu Abubakar, who also translated it from Hausa to English. Some details from the video were included in a story he and I worked on together in September 2011 (Aminu Abubakar and M.J. Smith, ‘Nigerian “bomber” videos emerge as Islamist fears mount’, Agence France-Presse, 18 September 2011).
2 The details of the delay before the bomb went off were first reported by Time magazine (Alex Perry, ‘Threat level rising: how African terrorist groups inspired by Al-Qaeda are gaining strength’, 19 December 2011) and Reuters (Joe Brock, ‘Special report: Boko Haram – between rebellion and jihad’, 31 January 2012). I later confirmed these details and others with a source who has seen the surveillance video from the day of the attack.
3 There had been vague warnings in the weeks leading up to the bombing which are discussed in Chapter 3.
4 Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth (Evanston, 1994), pp. 70–1, 96.
5 Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (New York, 1984), p. 2.
6 S.J. Hogben, An Introduction to the History of the Islamic States of Northern Nigeria (Ibadan, 1967), pp. 162–5.
7 Hiskett, Development, p. 59.
8 Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge, 2009), p. 30.
9 Hiskett, Development, pp. 59–60.
10 Falola and Heaton, History, p. 32.
11 Hogben, Introduction, pp. 165–7.
12 Hiskett, Development, p. 67.
13 Falola and Heaton, History, p. 28; Hogben,
Introduction, pp. 73–5. It should be emphasised that there are many different versions of the Bayajida myth.
14 Hogben, Introduction, pp. 73–4; Hiskett, Development, pp. 69–71.
15 Hogben, Introduction, pp. 73–4; Hiskett, Development, pp. 69–70.
16 Hiskett, Development, pp. 73–96.
17 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 15–21.
18 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 17, 40–1.
19 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 23–4, 31.
20 Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (Bristol, 1967), p. 10.
21 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 44–5.
22 Last, Sokoto, pp. 7–8.
23 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 47–9.
24 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 66.
25 Hiskett, Sword, pp. 70–1.
26 Last, Sokoto, pp. 15–16; Falola and Heaton, History, p. 64.
27 Last, Sokoto, p. 20.
28 Hiskett, Sword, p. 97.
29 Last, Sokoto, p. 39.
30 The Bornu Empire would lose some of its territory to the caliphate, but would ultimately remain independent, though far less powerful than Sokoto.