- Verifying ENDS’ report on the Sambisa camps
29th May, 2014
Written by Musa Abdullahi Krishi
Dr. Fatima Zanna Gana is the founder of the Purple Heart Foundation and one of the active members of #bringbackourgirls campaign. Her foundation is involved in taking records of the women and girls abducted by the Boko Haram sect in Borno State for the past three years. In this interview, she says members of the sect live a lavish life in the Sambisa forest largely because of the money they get from unknown sources.
So far, what would you say about the campaigns on bring back our girls?
For the campaign, I think it’s been good. We kept our heads together. We’ve been doing our meetings, going out for our campaigns, and now the world knows about the girls and the other girls that have been missing for three plus years.
So, I feel it’s doing well. It is just unfortunate that we still have no news of anybody being rescued.
The police have been preventing people from protesting.
How has that affected the effort?
As a democratic nation, we have the right to express our desire. We put them on the seats they’re in. If we put somebody on a seat and we can’t tell him what he’s doing is wrong, then that is no democracy. Democracy is freedom of speech, movement and everything. It is our right to protest.
What has your foundation been doing? What is your area of interest and how far have you been able to carry that out?
The term purple heart was derived from the purple heart medal that is being given to soldiers that are wounded; when they’re going home, they give them the purple heart medal. It just came to me that any person be it a man; woman or child that is in need of help is wounded in one way or the other, whether emotionally, spiritually or physically. Right now, our primary concern is these girls in collaboration with a lot of organizations and the Borno State government. Actually I’ve been doing a lot of things that have not been on record. As far as I am concerned, I feel I don’t have to do things to show the world, since I’m doing it between me and God. But some people encouraged me to come out, especially my husband, to do it publicly.
What are some of those things you’ve been doing?
We help the needy, pay hospital bills, school fees and anything that comes our way. People come to us with different kinds of problems, but we do our own investigation; we have to ascertain the fact that that person is in a particular school and has not paid the fee. It ranges from primary school all the way to university.
How old is your foundation?
On paper, its three years old, but it has been existing for quite some time. I have been a part of NGOs right from secondary school. We registered our first organization, me and a couple of friends from Essence, that’s where I finished from. It was a children’s aide association. We did fund raiser. It was fantastic during those days, because our proprietress is an American, and she encouraged us to reach out to the under-privileged.
She took us to LGA schools to get them food and all that. So, it’s been part of me. Even as a child, anybody that knew me back then, knew I was always talking about opening an orphanage when I grew up.
When I was in the university, I invited a couple of friends where we had Al-Aman Foundation. We paid hospital bills, fed people during Ramadan and all that. Unfortunately, when we finished university; that was the end of it. We did not register it because 9/11 happened and Muslims all over the world were threatened, accounts were frozen, so that Al-Aman was too Islamic in name, but it wasn’t only Muslims that we were helping.
What role has your foundation been playing in taking account of the girls abducted so far by insurgents in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states? How many people have you come across?
I can’t say this. It’s confidential. These girls, to us as a foundation, are not to be used for social media or to promote a foundation. As a mother, I will never allow my child to be exploited. But the fact remains. If you go down to Maiduguri right now, go to any street or a local set up like Gwange, for example, ask them how many of their children have been abducted? You’ll be shocked.
Go to Bama, go to Konduga and ask. Right now for a fact, one of the girls that came back from the camp said even married women have been abducted. They use them as nurses and cooks. They wash their clothes; they’re just slaves in that camp. It’s quite unfortunate.
When did the abduction start?
I can’t say for a fact, but it has been almost three years now, because the former Boko Haram never abducted people. They just shot their target. Even if you’re in a group of ten, they shoot that one person that they want and leave. Even if they go to somebody’s house, they would never look at the women and children. They just do what they want to do and go out.
You know when other people started negotiations, I think along those negotiations maybe they negotiated with the higher devil.
What do you mean by that?
Of course, because these are almajiri boys. They are not people that can buy armoured tanks. Do you know how much one armoured tank costs? For them to be parading with brand new armoured tanks, doesn’t that raise an alarm? Even the Nigerian military don’t have such ammunition as they’re using right now. They can never afford that. So, there’s somebody or some people somewhere that are misleading these people.
We have poverty glaring us in the eyes. Most of these boys tell their relatives that ‘look the money we’re getting and the kind of life we’re living is so lavish. Free girls, free food, free everything…’ I think the major thing that is keeping them in that forest is just the money and the promise of getting more.
Where is it coming from?
How would I know? If I knew, will I be here?
But you did say that they must have been given money to buy armoured tanks and all the other ammunitions they use, who do you think is giving them the money, based on your works so far?
I am not doing under cover. I am not doing CIA or FBI work. The work I am doing has nothing to do with Boko Haram; I don’t care about Boko Haram. They’re not my problem; they’re the government problem. As an individual, they’re not my problem to solve. It’s a national problem or maybe international, so I will defer from answering any of those questions.
There are concerns that the #bringbackourgirls campaigns may just trigger annoyance among the insurgents so much that they may harm the girls; don’t you also entertain such concerns?
Of course, but should we shut up and keep quiet, because we’re afraid that they’ll harm them? They’ve already harmed them by even taking them from their beds while they were sleeping. The harm has already been done. Triggering annoyance, of course, they could be annoyed or afraid, it is a two-way thing.
What will you say about the assistance from the US, UK, France and the rest?
It is a two-way scenario. It’s either they come in to help and go or we bought our own trouble with our own hands. But they said they’re just coming in a supportive way, and if they’ll come and relieve my people of the nightmare that we’ve been living with for five years, let them all come, if it will end.
I don’t think these people will come to do more than what Boko Haram has done to our people. If you’re talking about abuse of women, abuse of the old people, so I don’t think they’ll do more than that. Labaran Maku was calling Maiduguri remote, and I answered him back, how dare he call Maiduguri remote? Let him go and ask Nweke Jnr where he was born and went to university, it was Borno State. They cannot call Maiduguri remote. They’re trying to paint a desert with people that are not educated, that are not what Borno State is. We have prominent figures in this country that are from Borno State. Where did they get their education from? It is Borno State. For somebody of his calibre to say Maiduguri is remote, I think it’s sad. That mean he is not even current.
What do you think led us to this degeneration?
Injustice, greed by our leaders and lack of community togetherness. The Chibok people, to me, have a very strong sense of community togetherness. These kidnappings and killings in schools have been going on for years, but nobody said anything. But the Chibok people came out in their own way and pleaded with their brothers and sisters that are living in the cities who then took it up.
If they don’t have that sense of community togetherness, Chibok would have been one of those stories, because as far as I am concerned, the president doesn’t want to do anything. Our president’s mind is just on 2015.
How do we solve this problem as a country?
We have what we called citizens’ solutions to end terrorism at the fountain where gather. We’re being educated. Every day you go there, there are veteran retired military men, civil servants and all that. People were just waiting for such a platform to be created.
My solution, it has already started, because at the fountain, we cut across all ethnic and religious groups. In that small group, if a Christian goes back to his church, he will tell his people ‘look Muslims are not as you think.’ If a Muslim goes back to his community, he will tell his people ‘these Christians, they don’t hate us.’
We need to learn to tolerate one another for what we are. We can’t be all the same. This has always been the problem of Nigeria, trying to make everything the same. Just because we’re one Nigeria doesn’t mean everybody should behave in the same way. We need to learn to love the diversity of this country. Some people know that we’re so passionate about religion that is why they want to use it to break up this country. I think some people out there have a lot of answering to do either here or after life, they will answer.
What would you want Nigerians to do at this point in time?
I will like Nigerians to shed more light on knowing their true religion. If you’re a Muslim, know what Islam is and practise it. If you’re a Christian know what Christianity is and practise it, and I think everything else will fall into place.