The Big Move

My name is Ahmed, I live in the Southern part of the country with my mother, two brothers, and my sister. Growing up in the North wasn't easy, I'm from Kaduna, and I grew up there. I schooled at Prince secondary school Kuturu road, Kaduna, Nigeria. Kaduna is located at the Northern part of Nigeria. Growing up, we had a Jolly good time at first, but after the death of my beloved father, we were forced to experience life from a more difficult perspective. I and my brothers had to do odd jobs, to cater for Mama and Sukurat my sister. We love them so much and nothing in this world can take that feeling away. While in Kaduna, we would see some of our peers, migrating to the South-South and other parts of the country like the Southeast and southwest region for greener pastures. So we spoke with Mama and decided to give it a shot, nobody knows life better than Allah, the giver of life.

We spent 2006 saving for this trip and preparing ourselves for the big move. We've never been away from Kaduna, so you would forgive our nerves for failing at that point.

We all agreed to move in 2007 to Port Harcourt in Rivers State for a fresh start without the knowledge of our evil uncle, we prayed to Allah for His guidance and protection from the unforeseen rigors of the future.

The big year came and we waited till the next month of 2007 to make our trip, we always heard there are Hausa settlements in the South so once we could find our people, it would be easy to settle in. My Mom isn't schooled, but she possesses a high level of wisdom, she is very close to Allah and tried to raise us to fear, love, and adore Allah, so I'm not surprised where her wisdom came from. The night before our trip, we gathered together and mom prayed with us, we were nervous but held firmly to the words of Allah.

The next day, we got to "God is good" motor park Mando, Kaduna. We were charged lots of money for the trip, it was much but we had prepared for it.

We rode for 17 hours to get to Port Harcourt. When we finally arrived, it was different from Kaduna. There wasn't so much to get excited about at the time as we've been made to believe, but we were here now, It was time to survive. We slept at the park till it was dawn, then we went in search of the Hausa Colony We were told about. On our way, we were welcomed by heavy weapon exchange between the Niger Delta militants and the Joint Task Force of the federal government, over the oil exploitation in the region.

Was a scary first encounter in the City of Port Harcourt. We walked right into the middle of the crossfire. Sukurat and Mama ran into a nearby building, while I and my brothers separated while trying to run for safety. We were able to find everyone after hours of massive gunshots. But the problem was, how to locate the Hausa community in Port Harcourt.

We were at Rumuola Bridge Asking the few pedestrians we found who were hurrying home either from work or the market how we could possibly locate the Hausa colony. Finally, we were told about the Hausa line by a Yoruba man named Adeola. He equally pleaded with a driver friend of his to help us with a lift, since he was heading towards the old Port Harcourt Township. It wasn't safe for anyone and considering we are from the North, and dressed differently, people didn't want to associate closely with us cause everyone was scared for their lives.

Finally, Adeola's friend drove us to Lagos bustop after a series of stops from the fiercely wired military checkpoints we went past. We got to Lagos bustop by 3 pm, while wondering what direction to take, there was a dynamite explosion near the NNPC fuel station, followed by a marathon of sporadic shooting. Everyone fell to the ground to avoid being hit by the burning stray bullets coming out of the reckless guns of these militants. Indeed it is one hell of a story to tell. We lay flat on the ground, facing the tarred road, drivers weren't left out, they parked right on the road, came out, and laid down. We were still there when mom begged Allah for another chance at life, cause this looked like the end for us. These boys attempted to blow up the NNPC fuel station, when everyone noticed that, we all stood up and scampered for our lives. We ran towards IB Johnson, whilst the endless riffle sounds, we didn't know if we would see the next minute cause we've witnessed a few hit by stray bullets and dropped dead. What was our fate? we didn't know we just ran. What was our offense? lt was the surge for a better life.

We ran through one of the streets at 'IB Johnson and fortunately, we arrived at the Hausa line. That was how we found our people without proper direction.

The shops and houses were all locked up but a few people were on the road. We found some women in hijabs, which was a sigh of relief for me and my family.

"Asalam Aleikum" Mama saluted from a distance (tho still panting) Unfortunately we lost two of our luggage, but that didn't matter cause we had life and that was the most important. "Alaikum Salam" one of the men returned the salutation, we felt a bit at ease when we heard that. We were accepted and offered seats to sit on.

We told our story of how we had located the settlement, we were welcomed with open arms by the people there. One Malam Abdul offered us food and also shelter, Mama and Sukurat were more relaxed after all the life threatening events that unfolded during the day.