Haruna Musa lives in a wooden batcher along Emmanuel Otiotio Road, Yenagoa. He is not alone. Five, may be six, young men of about his age, share the same facility. It is not the most comfortable abode for Haruna and his friends, but it is the best possible option for every night.
In the day time, Haruna and his friends repair tricycles and raise small cash to feed themselves through the day. Whatever they are able to save, they send home to their kith and kin. Haruna is sure of his breakfast every morning from the food seller who rolls a wheel barrow around, from street to street, all her restaurant packed into a tidy bunch inside the barrow.
Haruna says he has other names. He is also known as Umar Mohammed. Others, particularly back in his village, call him Baban Kuza and yet some others simply call him Daddy. But he works with Haruna Musa because that’s what is recorded in his certificate. He misses his two sisters, Aisha and Fatimah, who live in Lafia. He is also fond of his two brothers, Yusuf and Ubaidatu.
Haruna attended the junior secondary school in Kikura, Nassarawa State, finishing in 2014. He set out for Bayelsa State that same year. He has been in Yenagoa, the state capital, for the better part of a decade. He says he came to the state out of love for Dr Goodluck Jonathan, and if he were to meet the former President one-on-one, that would be a truly historic day in his life. He would have a lot to tell his friends, and he wouldn’t stop talking about that particular experience, if it were to happen.
Haruna’s most favourite wear, not surprisingly, is a green T-shirt branded with Jonathan’s peaceful face, beaming a smile from beneath a black-rim hat. Haruna believes in peace as the first step to progress. He felt bad when Jonathan left office as President, but he is grateful that he left in the interest of peace.
In times past, back in Nassarawa, Haruna used to repair motorcycles. But in Yenagoa, he quickly learnt how to repair tricycles since they over-run the streets. He is here all by himself and his aim is to make sufficient cash, feed his parents to the best of his ability, and save enough for such a day when he would be able to pay his fees through a polytechnic. If that happens, Haruna would like to read mechanical engineering.
He speaks Hausa and English. He confesses to a sense of relief even as he lives in Yenagoa. For him, it is like being abroad. He says he can afford to sleep with both eyes closed because there is peace that passeth all understanding in the state. Up north, the story is not quite the same. He readily recounts the tension he lived through in his home state in 2011. He recalls, in particular, the persistent attacks of Fulani herdsmen in Lafia, the state capital.
‘They carry guns’, he says. ‘You can see one Fulani boy with his cattle, and he will be carrying three rifles on his shoulder. They don’t have homes. They just go about feeding their cattle, but they are very troublesome. They usually attack at dawn. They sneak into town at night, and by early in the morning, they begin to shoot and attack.
‘So we had to prepare for them. We had to get guns too. That’s why in Hausaland today, there is no big man without at least five rifles in his house to protect himself and his family from Fulani herdsmen. They are very few, but that’s how they behave. They like taking land because they are looking for where to feed their cattle’.
Haruna recalls the scenario in 2011 when Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, was serially attacked. The first time, it came as a complete surprise. But when it happened again and again, boys as young as 15, 12 and even 10-year olds carried guns to defend their territory. ‘Every young boy you see in Lafia today is a soldier without a uniform. They can handle guns any time. They are combat ready, even now’, he reveals.
Little wonder that Haruna’s greatest dream is to wear the uniform of the Nigerian Army. He identified with that uniform from infancy, and he still wonders how it will look on his own body when he gets to put on khaki camouflage and step into rugged black boots.
Haruna can’t wait to take pictures of himself standing in his army uniform, a licensed rifle by his side. He has since learnt to march in precise, robotic movements, and he could pretend to be at a parade ground, shouting orders to himself in rehearsal. He is hoping that his daydream would happen someday soon, and that is why Haruna ran down south.
Seeing that many soldiers were gravitating south, he took that to mean that the recruiting point was down south. So Haruna followed in that direction, only to be told that the recruiting point is up north, in Kaduna. He should go to the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, and get his bearings right.
But now that he is in Bayelsa, he has come to know that he might as well go to Elele Barracks whenever the next recruitment exercise is on. He will be there for a rigorous two-week training, and he must be adjudged medically fit, and his papers must be okay before he can be despatched in the first or second batch, as the case may be, to the Nigerian Defence Academy, Zaria.
Whatever it may be, Haruna is ready to take orders from his senior officers, and stamp his feet in a ramrod salute. His reason for opting to be a soldier is that he wants to defend his country in an honourable way. He feels that many soldiers abuse their uniform by intimidating civilians along the road. As a soldier, his aspirations would be higher and far more noble.
Haruna does not wish to get married yet. He believes his life still lies ahead of him, spread out with grand opportunities that will enable him to excel in his chosen area of professional competence. And if he is not alive and well, how can he attain his dreams?
That is why Haruna ran to safer territory in the south. He believes that northern Nigeria has become too volatile for comfort. He has never been able to relate with the havoc caused by Boko Haram. He doesn’t believe in killing a fellow human being in order to make progress in life.
In his spare time, Haruna joins his friends to compete in weightlifting. It is the only form of sporting exercise that he knows since he can’t go too far away from his workshop. In the evenings, after a hard day’s work, Haruna and his friends pose for photos taken in the dark with their flash cameras, or make long calls back home against the backdrop of scintillating music from Dan Maraya Jos.
Haruna is happy that the number of tricycles in Yenagoa is growing and the bulk of them are owned by his own brethren from the north, who understand him when he speaks Hausa. His duty, as far as he is concerned, is to repair broken tricycles for a small pay, and he is willing to do that until that day when he will stand out in his army uniform.
