IT is a very, very sad story. So sad to tell. So sad to write. I feel sad writing this. But write I must. Sadness is my name as I scribble every word of this poignantly painful column.
The story of our innocent Chibok girl Amina Ali and her little baby delivered in captivity is one story that can bring tears in the eyes of God. Indeed, it has made God weep for the wickedness of man, killing, maiming and capturing innocent girls from school and sending them into sex slavery under the claim that Western education is bogus haram.
Properly captured, this is one story that can win a Pulitzer or any prestigious journalism award anywhere because of its human angle, its oddity, its irony and paradox, its morality and immorality.
In the book: 50 WORLD EDITORS— Conversations with Journalism Masters on Trends and Best Practices By Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe, there is an interview with Dele Olojede, the writer of the Pulitzer-winning story titled Genocide’s Child—a story similar to the story of Amina and her little Boko Haram baby. Olojede’s award-winning story is his coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the traumatic paradox of a mother and her baby born out of being gang-raped. The Rwandan lady Alphoncina Mutuze who belonged to the minority Tutsi tribe massacred by the majority Hutus was about the same age as our Amina when she experienced this horrific evil of being gang-raped and used as a sex slave by Hutu soldiers and hooligans. She tried to abort the baby. She even tried to commit suicide by attempting to drown herself in a lake. But some nearby fishermen thwarted the suicide bid. Eventually, she delivered the unwanted baby in a makeshift medical centre set up by Doctors Without Borders.
To understand the mindset of Amina, a child-mother possibly gang-raped and tossed from one Boko Haram terrorist to another as a sex slave, I went back to reread Dele Olojede’s classic story and his interview with Mutuze. I was shocked and moved by the inner workings of her mind—how she hated her son because he was a product of the Hutu mass rape. The boy named Gervais, “represents two irreconcilable symbols for his mother,” Olojede reports. “He serves as a reminder of the terrible violation that drove her to attempt suicide by drowning. At the same time, the baby is the only known relative she has left.”
From mother to son, it’s a love-hate relationship—the type you will find in fiction or in a Shakespearean tragedy. “I really don’t hate him but I feel this child is not mine,” Mutuze laments. “This child is not mine. I could not imagine how I would nurse this child. I looked at him and I wanted to kill him. I beat him even when I was nursing him. I beat him even now.
“At times I try not to beat him anymore, and I tell myself he is the only relative in the world I have. So yes, I feel that I am his mother.”
In Rwanda today, there are over 25,000 such children born out of the rapes and genocide of 1994. They are outcasts who are taunted and called funny nicknames such as “Little Interahamwe”— a derogative name for thugs and mass murderers. The boy would ask the mother: “Why is everybody calling me “Little Interahamwe?” And the mother would dissolve in tears.
“I was so ashamed of him,” Mutuze continues. “Sometimes I just cry unexpectedly without knowing what has caused it.”
Time after time, the mother is haunted by the images of machete-clutching thugs at roadblocks raping her in broad daylight and her ordeal as a sex slave, lamenting: “I felt my youth had gone away and I was useless. I had no one to talk to. Those were terrible moments that I constantly wished for death. There was no one to confide in, not even God.”
She had felt like killing him. “I thought of killing this baby,” she told Olojede. “I did not even have a single moment of affection for this baby. The thing that prevented me from killing it was that I would be killed myself and killed badly by those who claimed it was theirs. I would love to give him away to somebody else who can take care of him. I can’t say this is a child that brings me joy. If you know anyone in America who would like to take this child, perhaps it would be better for him and for me. I feel like giving him away not just because I hate him but because I can’t properly care for him. He would end up being a mayibobo (a street child). I don’t feel that this is the life I would want for him.”
Olojede reported that throughout the long interview, “Mutuze never once refer to Gervais as ‘my son’ or even by name. Throughout, she speaks of him in an arms-length way, calling him ‘this child,’ or ‘that boy.’”
More lamentations and anger: “Sometimes when I get annoyed with him I lash out about how he was born. I call him Interahanwe, and it’s out and too late before I can refrain myself.
“I have never seen this child being sad, despite the fact that I beat him and sometimes tell him I am not his mother. He is an obedient child, but I don’t know why I beat him often. When I go out and have a little money and I buy him something, I don’t know why I do that either.
“I just wish someone will adopt him so he has a chance at a good life in the future. When he grows up and pursues a life of his own, I hope he will look at me as someone who tried to be a good mother, despite all circumstances.”
In our book, 50 WORLD EDITORS, Olojede remembers Mutuze as a lovely woman with radiant eyes: “Her story was particularly harrowing. These were epic calamities and her entire family had been killed. She was the only survivor. There were eight or nine children. She was the youngest. She was the only one who survived, because she was taken as a sex slave and raped repeatedly. Her parents, all her brothers and sisters were killed. So she has no one in the world. This child reminds her of her rapists and the killers who wiped out her family. At the same time, this child is her child. It is this essential conflict that I think drove the narrative structure of the story.
“As soon as I finished writing it, I knew it would have a tremendous impact on anyone who was reading it. Now, you could never guarantee that it would win any prize, but always thought whether it wins a prize or not, this is a Pulitzer calibre story. Because sometimes as a journalist, when you write a story and the story is good, you know. Nobody needs to tell you.”
Yes, like the story of the Rwandan lady, I can smell an award in the full story of Amina. Not just Amina but the whole story of the Chibok girls coming back from captivity to tell their stories. That indeed would be the mother of all journalistic stories worthy of a movie.
Last words: I am encouraged by Amina’s ability to smile in spite of all she has gone through. It is a smile pregnant with meanings. A smile of courage. A smile of heroism. A smile of relief. A smile of a mother’s love for a baby born out of the chaos of captivity. A smile of gratitude to God for delivering her from evil.
It could be the mystic Mona Lisa smile subject to decoding. It could be risus sardonicus—a sardonic smile for a country that failed her daughters at the early hours of captivity. It could even be the sarcastic smile of a girl who lost her innocence and virginity to men of evil. It is indeed a sad story.
Beloved Nigerians, Amina and her baby are ours to help as we would help our own biological daughter or granddaughter back from the valley of the shadows of death—with a baby baggage. Let’s help her now, for God’s sake! May she never, never walk alone! Amina, you are amazing. You are going to be great. I am praying for you. May God bless you and your child of sorrow.
*To buy your exclusive copy of “50 WORLD EDITORS,” call Gloria on 08033445125.