Godiya Usman, 18, is one of the girls abducted by members of dreaded sect, Boko Haram, from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. In this interview conducted via the telephone, Usman, who has returned to Chibok after she escaped from her abductors, spoke about the attack, her experience with the members of the dreaded sect and how she escaped. Excerpts:
“At around 11:30 in the night, most of the girls had not slept, I was reading in my bed when we started hearing noise of gunshots. Not quite long, we saw some men dressed in military uniform enter our hostel, so we happily did what they said because normally anytime there is an attack in town, the soldiers used to come into our school to protect us.
“But by the time we got out, they asked us to show them where the school kitchen was. So we showed them. Then immediately they went there and took out bags of foodstuff and then set the kitchen on fire. They also set our hostel on fire.
“Then it occurred to us that they were Boko Haram. They rounded us up at the gate and told us to enter a bus. When the three buses could not take us all, they sent some of their colleagues to town to go and get vehicles.
“Those ones returned with a truck, which some of the girls entered. We drove out of the town and into the bush. They stopped at every village, attacked people and burnt their houses. We planned in our truck that if we stopped in any village and they attack the village, when they are not looking, we should all jump down and run away.
“So when they stopped at the next village, the ones guiding us also as usual jumped down and went into the village, shooting. We checked our side and they weren’t looking at us. The others girls on the other side of the truck checked their own side and said it was clear.
“So I jumped down. Then I looked at the other girls, they did not jump. “So I stood up and started running. When I had run for about 50 meters, it sounded as if some of the girls had also jumped down, but I could not see because it was dark. So I just kept running. I ran into the bush. When I got tired, I sat down and slept off. I was found by some vigilantes who took me home.”