By Hawwah
Abdullahi Gambo
Sometimes, the wounded were left for days to die a slow painful death and some others were thrown into a mass grave with the dead and ended up suffocating to death.
Somehow we survived the first evening of the attack. That night, I smeared myself with blood and told my brother to do the same. We hid amongst the corpses pretending to be dead. We were too scared to move, to breathe or to cry. We laid there under the corpses for days. I don’t know how many days it was. It seemed more like years to me.
My little brother ended up dying. He had been hit by a bullet but we didn’t know and he bled to death while we were hiding under the corpses.
I lost every member of my family in the genocide.
I escaped from this massacre with a Hutu woman who had also lost her family in the attacks that took place in her Tutsi husband’s village. The truth of the matter (regardless of which ethnic group you may come from) is that women and children always end up being the worst affected victims of genocides and wars. We end up paying a high price for these conflicts that we did not cause! We end up being offered as the sacrifice for the fighting amongst our people. We end up becoming collateral damage in the hostilities.
This Hutu woman I call “My angel” adopted me and raised me as her own child. She sent me to secondary school and university. Today, I am one of the youngest serving members of parliament. And I am playing an active part in our 20th anniversary activities. And that is why I have written this letter to tell Nigerian women my story.
I am really upset with Nigerian women. I can see that your country Nigeria seems to be heading in the same direction my country was 20 years ago. You can see from my story that you just cannot afford to allow that to happen! You just cannot afford to let your country continue to slide down that slippery slope of disaster. Please do whatever you can to stop the downhill ride to tragedy, ruin and catastrophe! Please do something now to stop it! And do it with a great sense of urgency!
A great human rights advocate, Alison Des Forges, once wrote this about the Rwandan genocide, “This genocide was not an uncontrollable outburst of rage by a people consumed by ‘ancient tribal hatred’. Nor was it the preordained result of the impersonal forces of poverty and over-population. This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power.”
In the years leading up to the genocide, Rwandans were been conditioned into a climate of ethnic hatred, terror, fear, and impunity which was created by extremists in government, politicians and the intelligentsia. Doesn’t that sound quite similar to what is happening today in your country, Nigeria?
In Rwanda, a climate of impunity was deliberately fostered on Rwandans by the Hutu power drunk politicians and elite. In the early 90s, Tutsis were blamed for all kinds of problems and evils in the country. Brutal and violent attacks against the Tutsi people and their property went unpunished. The Tutsis ended up becoming public enemy number one and they were made easy targets for violent attacks by fellow citizens. They even gave Tutsis a derogatory name “inyenzi” meaning cockroaches and they also called Tutsis snakes, filth, cannibals etc.
Nigerian women, read the handwriting is on the Nigerian wall. I just heard that 59 Nigerian children were murdered in their sleep in their hostels. You have to stop the madness NOW! You have time to stop the madness going on in your country. Now is the time to stop it!
We Rwandan women also had time to stop the madness but we didn’t do enough and we paid the price! I will end with what humanitarian, Carl Wilkens, said about Rwanda’s recovery. He said, “One of the things you can point to in the recovery is women”. He added, “A lot of people ask, How do you get accountability? How do you fight corruption? And I say ‘Women.’”
As the world celebrated the International Women’s day on the 8th of March, as Rwanda lines up activities for the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide and as Nigeria also celebrated 100 years as a nation, I know that Rwandan women will play their part. And I am sure as Nigerian women read this letter, they will be emboldened to also play their part in building the GREAT NEW NIGERIA Africa deserves!
I am counting on you Nigerian women!
Rwandan women are counting on you;African women too are counting on you.
God bless Rwanda!
God bless Nigeria! And God bless Africa!!!
Concerned Rwandan woman
Concluded
