The Shrine…
Crude. Cruel. Absurd. Call it any of these words and
many more and you won’t be wrong. Twins are still not spared in some
communities in Kwali and Abaji Local Government Areas of Abuja Federal
Capital Territory (FCT) decades after a Scottish missionary, Mary
Slessor, championed the campaign that stopped the killing of the
children in Nigeria. The story as packaged by Sunday Vanguard’s LEVINUS
NWABUGHIOGU AND LAIDE AKINBOADE.
The journey into the villages of Tunga, Gomani, Zaiha, Dongoruwa,
Tubudu, Kutara, Paiko began from Abuja-Lokoja highway. The connecting
village was Dafa. And it was here that we parked our vehicle, hired two
motorbikes to continue the journey because of the rough terrain. The
villages have a common language called Bassa just as they are united by
their cultural heritages. They believe that twin babies are a taboo and
the children desecrate the land, and must be dealt with accordingly,
i.e. killed. The people are no Christians or Muslims. They are
traditionalists. There is total lack of government presence in the
communities. No road, pipe- borne water, hospital, school. Yet the
villagers vote during elections. They have representatives in the
Council Areas, House of Representatives and Senate.
Guide and interpreter
Before Sunday Vanguard set out on the journey, arrangement had been made
with a guide who would also have been the interpreter. But it turned
out that the guide could not make it. We resorted to using motorcyclists
as interpreters with the villagers.
The first port of call was Gomani where we met some men under a tree.
They told us there were missionaries in the villages and took us to a
building, described as a church, where we had a chat with a 60- year-old
man who identified himself as Moses. He is the pastor in charge of the
church. He declared that he was posted to the village only recently and
that he was yet to know the practices of the people. He viewed the
question as to whether twins were being sacrificed in the village with
suspicion and declined to answer.
Infant mortality
Leaving Gomani, we waded through the forest on motorbike until we were
greeted by a cluster of mud houses, signposting Tubudu village. On
arrival, we met some children playing games. Our presence interrupted
their games. One of the boys smartly greeted, “Good afternoon, sir”. We
tried to establish a rapport with the people through the boy. But our
looks betrayed us as we were marked out among them as total strangers.
How to get answers to our enquiries became difficult. We asked for the
village head and chiefs but were told that they might have left for
their farms.
Shrines
In a manner that tended to depict “it -is –our- culture- and- therefore
-we- will- show it off”, the villagers built shrines that dotted
everywhere. In every compound, there was a shrine strategically carved
on the wall of a barn, simply announcing that twins had been sacrificed
there.
Our enquiries produced one resident who claimed not to have been an
indigene but had lived in the village for five years. He spoke Hausa and
English Languages. The man subjected us to a barrage of questions
trying to ascertain our identities and mission. By the time he became
convinced, he agreed to talk to us on the condition of anonymity. He was
one of the missionaries there on rescue mission. He said his mission
was to fight infant mortality. When we shared our experience with him,
he said, “If you are a stranger, they will not tell you that they kill
twins in the village but if you live among them, they tell you. Bassa
people kill twins.”
Taboo
Our source began his story: “I work for Christian Missionary Foundation
in the North Central of Nigeria., I am here because I was posted here
and our aim is to reach out to the unreached in Abuja. I have been here
for the past five years. My mission here is to stem infant mortality. In
this village, they believe a woman is not supposed to give birth to
more than a child; so they kill one of the children at birth if they are
twins and leave the other because twins are a taboo to them.
They also kill single babies if, at the point of birth, the mother
dies. Initially they were not giving us the children, but a woman with a
strong heart for her children would come to us and say, ‘I cannot
accept this, I don’t believe this child is a witch’. So, some of them
bring the children to us. When a woman brings her child to you at the
point of death, you won’t be able to say no. You see innocent child
about to be killed, you won’t be able to say no. Some of them bring
their children to us and say, ‘look they want to sacrifice these
children’. We live among them. “As they deliver twins, they don’t waste
time to bring them to us because they imagine the evil that can befall
them. ”So how do they kill these children? They poison them. You will
see a child is eating but terribly ill, they use spiritual means to
poison the child. Sometimes the child dies instantly. It is a spiritual
thing, you see a woman gives birth and within seconds the child dies.
”Few months ago, one incident here. There was a woman who had lost
four children. It turned out that it was her own brother who was the
one bewitching her. Spiritual things are things you don’t see with naked
eyes. The husband went to a herbalist to promise him that if the baby
she was carrying didn’t die, he would give him something. But when the
woman gave birth the baby died within three hours.
Practice not strictly religious
“The villagers are traditional worshippers, they worship the spirit of
the dead, river and trees. Though we have Muslims and Christians among
them, they still go back to their traditional practice. So, it is like
they practice their religions and hold their culture passionately. And
they initiate their children into it also; so, as the
older ones die, the younger ones continue. So, what we do is to help the children.”
Asked whether it is everybody in the community that practices
traditional religion, he said: “Some of them that are enlightened are
against it and, even then when they are not enlightened, the women are
against it. But what can they do? The leadership and most of the people
are involved. It is their culture and they hold it tenaciously.”
Rescue mission
According to him, some of the village women are excited about his
foundation rescuing the children. “They come around to see their
children living fine. Some of the children have even started school. As
they pass out of schol, they would be taken back to the villages to
proclaim the gospel. Initially, people outside the villages were coming
to us for adoption of these children but we refused, they have been
saved to serve. Initially some of the villagers were proud of the
culture but when they discovered that it wasn’t good they tried to do
away with it. Some of them have come to give their lives to God. Some of
them are happy with us, “he added.
“But some of the village women are still ashamed to see the children,
maybe because of their positions in the community. So, they don’t come
to see the children;. even when they come in secret and tell you they
want this baby to be rescued. Some of them might not be happy for
rescuing the children. Because Basa people are proud people and they are
proud of their culture but with the help of enlightenment and gospel,
some of them want to do away with it. About three years ago in Kutara, a
woman gave birth to twins, both girls. They called me and I told them
that if they poisoned the babies, the foundation would take them to
court. So we left the village but I kept on monitoring the babies. When
I went back few weeks later, the girls were okay. The twin girls are
doing
wonderfully well. If I hadn’t threatened them they would have poisoned the twins as they usually do in their culture.
Building a home
“The foundation has been rescuing children for the past 16 years ago.
Initially we were not rescuing the children, because in the vision of
the ministry, the mandate was not there. But when you see a problem and
the Lord gives you solution then and life is involved and lives are
being taken everyday, what do you do about it? So, our Directors
decided that these babies must be rescued. Right now it is one of our
core focuses in this work.
In the home, we have about 42 children, some of them are twins. Five
of the children were rescued from this village. The oldest of the
children is about 16 years and the youngest is months old. Culture in
these villages is not a tenable reason for getting rid of them.”
Government presence
On government presence, he said, “We really don’t have government
presence in the village. “There is a group, Greenfield Mission, that
wanted to build primary school but they didn’t come on time. The local
government came and built the school. I was teaching in the school. For
teachers to come from Kwali is really difficult especially during
raining season as the whole place is flooded,” he stated.
“There is no clinic around here. There used to be one close to EYN
but the building is bad. If there is any medical emergency the villagers
are left on their own or they use traditional medicine and make
sacrifices. But now there are two doctors that volunteered and come
every Monday to administer drugs.”
A Federal High Court in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Friday ordered the State Security Services to release a terror suspect, Alhaji Abdullahi Berende, on bail, pending an arraignment before a court of competent jurisdiction.
