Man Who Lost Wife & 6 Kids In Jos Blast, Cries Out

Audu Go­yar Chime, who lost his wife and mother of his children in December 11 Jos blast, narrated what had become of their life after the tragedy.

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The 43-year-old native of Plateau State is still in shock over what had happened to his beloved spouse Jummai, The Sun reports.

The two had lived in a happy marriage for 22 years and the woman’s passing came as a big blow to the whole family.

The grieving husband narrated how he had been looking for Jummai in the hospital after the incident. He eventually found her: the dead body lying on the floor of the Plateau Hospital morgue among other corpses, yet to be claimed.

“I was devastated. If she was sick and died, it would have been easier to bear than to find someone who left home hale and hearty dead in a mortuary about 24 hours later. If I say it has been easy for me to bear, I will be lying. When I went out today, it was to collect drugs from the clinic to help my heart.”

The family now experiences not only emotional but also serious financial problems. Audu is to support their 6 children of different age.

“I cannot think of how I will cater for six children alone. I am a mason. I fend for my family from the proceeds I make from working at construction sites. But lately business has been bad. We do not get much to do. It was this woman that was helping out from the little she makes. She usually bought what we ate on her way back home. The children are also not finding it easy to bear. The little one cries throughout the night because he cannot get breast milk. We now give him the food we eat and supplement it with Viju milk. When he gets up in the night we give him Viju milk again. After whimpering for some time, he sleeps off.”

Like many other relatives of Boko Haram victims, Audu confessed that he had never thought that the tragedy would hit his family.

“I have been hearing about Boko Haram but never thought it will ever come close to me or that I will ever become a victim. We are poor and only going out to look for our own daily bread. If we decide to stay at home, nobody will come to our rescue. So, see what has become of us going to look for our daily bread.”

The widower prayer for job to allow his children to finish their education. Without Jummai he has no one else to rely on, except for God.

“My appeal now is that people should assist me with a job. I do not want to remove my children from school. I have three in secondary school and two in primary. The eldest one needs to write his SSCE exams to be able to further his studies. It is only the last one that is yet to start school. I am now looking onto God to assist me. When their mother was alive, she was assisting me with their feeding and schooling but now the future looks bleak.”

He also expressed discontent with the fact that some blamed the traders for going to the market and attracting the crowd.

“Even though the traders were blamed for going to that market, but my own wife was not selling there. She was just unfortunate to be there at the time of the incident. She has no stall there. There is no way one could have known that danger was lurking at a corner. Govern­ment should know that any gathering can become a target for these evil people. They attack churches and mosques. Can they also blame people for going there? While my family learns to cope with this sad situation in which we have found our­selves, we leave our fate in God’s hand. Just like my son’s name, we believe God’s will be done.”

One of Jummai’s daughters, 15-year-old Faith, disclosed how they had learnt the terrible news, which changed their life.

“By six in the evening, she was usually back home. What kept her till 6:30pm when the bomb exploded I do not know.

When I did not see her up till 7:00pm, I went down the road to look for her. All the other women who went out to sell wares like her were all back home. I went as far as Jenta Makeri to look for her but did not see her.

 

“When I came back, the boys in the area also went out to check on her but came back with no news. That night, nobody could sleep. We were awake throughout the night and were hungry hoping she would come back with something for us to cook for dinner. Before my mother died, my youngest brother, who is about one year and two months old was still breastfeeding. He cried throughout the night. In the morning, the search was taken to the various hospi­tals. It was at one of the hospitals that we found her dead.”

According to the state officials, December 11 gruesome attack in Jos killed 31 people.