Daddy, where is mummy?•Baby of Gombe female teacher slain by her students asks after three months
By Linus Obogo (linusobogo@yahoo.com)
Saturday, June 2, 2007

•Dutiful dad, Michael feeds

Living index

Where is my mummy? Where is my mummy? That is now the refrain Mr. Michael Oluwaseesin, husband of the slain teacher in Gombe, is gradually getting accustomed to, as he now grapples with the routine of baby sitting his two little kids, Temilade, 3 and Temiloluwa, who has just clocked one during the week (May 30th), since the callous butchering of his wife, Christiana, at the hands of her own students.

Conservatively, Temilade hurls this poser four times before the turn of a new day. Even at night, she is haunted by the spectre of her motherlessness. And she questions her father on this, not minding the oddness of the hour. On these ceaseless occasions, the response has always been “mummy has gone to Jesus”.

Mrs. Oluwaseesin was teaching Government at Government Day Secondary School, Gandu, Gombe State, before she was roasted alive by the Islamic students of the school on March 21, this year.
A practice he was hitherto unfamiliar with, Michael, a Medical Laboratory Scientist with one of the Federal Medical Centres, since the horrifying incident, has been saddled with tending to his kids whose mother’s life was cut short by the same people she laboured upon to civilize.

Now playing a tripartite role of a father, mother and nanny, Michael wakes up twice every night, between 12 and 3: am, to make food for little Temiloluwa and by six he is up to get Temilade ready for school.

That is the cross he is bearing with philosophical calmness for now and for a long while ahead.
Innocently pacing around while the interview was going on (May 25th) last week, Temiloluwa, in a gesture of ignorance, tells a story of a baby deprived the cuddling and comfort of a mother. Yet Michael could read the farmished mood of his son, evident by his restlessness and know when to fix his grub.
Literally backing him while awaiting this reporter’s arrival that Friday, after being on call the previous night, Michael, a native of Osun-Ekiti, from Moba council area, said he is fully resigned to his new role as a mother and father of his children.

“They (children) are my cross and I have to bear them. I cannot pass them on to any other person. They are my children, and nobody is going to look after them better than me, their father. I am now their father and mother, even their nanny. I wake up early in the morning to prepare Temilade for school and then cater for her little brother, Temiloluwa. I am still looking for a nanny for them. Until I get one, I will continue to take care of them myself.

For instance, I was on call last night (a day before this interview held) and came back this morning (Friday), so that gives me the opportunity to be home to look after them.”

Temilade (My first child)
asks where’s my mummy
It has been a refrain for my first child, Temilade who is three plus to ask: where is my mummy? She does this everyday. Even in the midnight, she wakes up to ask for her mother. But every time she does, I tell her that her mummy has gone to Jesus. And since she is not old enough to know what happened, she takes it that way and just keeps quiet. Her mother took her to school on that fateful day, but was not the one who brought her home after school. So you can imagine the sense of loss she feels, even as a little child.”

Life so far?
Well, so far, the Lord has been my strength. But humanly, I will say it has been hard. However, my children and I are being encouraged everyday by the Lord, who has been using various people, including pastors to administer words of encouragement to us.
This, plus my personal encouragement has been carrying us through, ever since the barbaric incident occurred, on March 21, 2007.
My wife was a teacher at Government Day Secondary School Gandu, Gombe. We had been residing in Gombe since 1991. I was working with the State Specialist Hospital, Gombe as Medical Laboratory Scientist.
Before the incident, I had secured a job with the Federal Medical Center, Abeokuta, and needed to use my annual leave to study the working environment before relocating my family to the west. I did not want a situation where I would leave certainty for uncertainty. But before then, we had lived and worked in Gombe for five years.
It was March 2, 2007, when I left Gombe to resume at the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta. I needed to get certain things like accommodation, school for my family before moving them down. We had set our minds to relocate to Abeokuta. And the only way I could do that was to leave my family for a while in Gombe.

How I got to Gombe
I found myself in Gombe as a result of the National Youth Service Corps scheme. It wasn’t as if I went there on my own. That was in 2001. By 2002, I had completed the scheme.
At the end of the scheme, I was privileged to be given the state honour’s award as the best corps member of the year. That earned me an automatic employment with the state government. It was on this ground that former Governor Abubakar Habiu Hashidu directed that I should be employed at the state specialist hospital.
From my youth service period to when I was absorbed in the state civil service, I had been involved in various social and humanitarian services. I was the state chapter chairman of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria in Gombe.
I was also a member of the Private Hospital Regulation and Registration Agency, a body set up by the state government to monitor the state of hospitals and practice in the state.
Generally speaking, I had served Gombe State selflessly and whole-heartedly. As far as I was concerned, I had no other state to dedicate myself to than Gombe. The same attitude permeated my wife. We both regarded Gombe as our home.

Before the devil struck
“When I left on March 2, for Abeokuta, I made it a point of duty to call her on phone everyday to find out about their well-being. I did this every morning and night.
As soon as I got to Abeokuta, part of the things I was trying to fix was to get her a job. So on March 20, which coincided with the day my medical director got her employed with the medical centre. She wished me good luck when I called to tell her about my discussion with the medical director concerning her employment.
In what appeared a reversal, she called me on Wednesday, March 21, (before now, Michael always called first) to tell me that her car had been damaged by the students. She also said there was mounting tension in her school. Not quite long, the phone went dead and I could not hear her anymore. I became worried. I thought it was a network problem, so I tried to call her back, but all to no avail.
I made spirited efforts to contact my friends and brief them about what my wife was trying to tell me. I pleaded with them to go to the school and find out for me what was happening. A friend had called me on Sunday that there was a problem in Gombe State.
Another friend also called to hint me that there was tension in Gombe because of the problem between the former governor Hashidu and Danjuma Goje So I called my wife to tell her about the development in the state and she said she was aware. She told me they were secure. She said she had been at home since her last paper was on Wednesday March 21. And it was to be her last day in the school as well.
On Monday, a send forth was organized for her as the school authorities knew she was leaving them. She took photographs with her members of staff.
So by Wednesday, she was in class to invigilate Islamic Religious knowledge (IRK).
In accordance with exam regulations, she requested all the students to put aside anything incriminating so that the exam could begin. But there was a lady who had a bag beside her. She refused to heed the instruction. My wife took the bag from her. As I was informed, after removing the bag, she either kept it outside or in front of the class. But to her (his wife) surprise, the girl started screaming Allahu Akbar (Allah is great). The female student claimed that there was a Koran in the bag. Then she raised an alarm and mobilized her colleagues.
She was chased all over the school. She ran to where she normally left our little baby who was still breast-feeding. The students laid siege to the house, threatening to burn it down if my wife and baby were not released to them. The lady was afraid, but she ensured my wife escaped. But she did not release our baby boy. My wife again took refuge in the principal’s office. The students were also at the principal’s office requested she be released to them. A request the principal obliged and my wife was handed over to them. She was stabbed, flogged and later set on fire. People watched helplessly while this carnage was going on.
She was completely burnt beyond recognition. But because she was my wife, I was able to recognize her.
On Thursday March 22, I was in Gombe to collect her corpse. My investigation revealed, however, that there was no Koran in the bag. I was told it was a Koranic inscription on a piece of paper which bore relevance to the examination of that day. That was what they (students) considered as a desecration of the Koran.
Curiously, that was the first time she would supervise IRK since she had been teaching in that school. Until she was killed, she was teaching Government.
Even after my wife had been burnt, they still wanted to kill our little baby, Temiloluwa, who was ten months plus then. They came after him and surrounded the house he was being hidden to see who would come to take him away. Even when the police were called in, they could not do anything to help because of the mob. It was in that confusion that a lady disguised in “Jelbab” went into the house and sneaked him out on a motor bike.
There was also an attempt to torch my house. That was how our baby was rescued from their clutches after they had burnt to death his mother.

Investigations
Since the shameful incident, it was just recently that my source hinted me that about twelve persons had as at April been arrested and detained. But strangely, the main culprit, the lady who raised the alarm had not been arrested. According to the source, judgment was slated for May 28, even when the culprit was yet to be arrested.
As the husband of the deceased, I have been completely shut out and left in the dark, as far as the barbaric incident is concerned. I have not been officially informed. That is why I believe that nothing is going to come out of it.

Perfidy of Gombe govt.
After the incident, Gombe State Goveernment set up a 14-man committee, whose members were 99 percent Moslems. Only one member was a Christian who is the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Gombe chapel. I learnt CAN vehemently rejected the composition of the panel. CAN insisted on another committee, which the government agreed. This second committee, I understand, had two Christian members. No difference from the first.
As I speak to you, I don’t know the terms of reference of the committee and what the outcome will be. But to my utmost surprise and disappointment, I read in a national newspaper on March 29, entitled “Who is after Danjuma Goje?” written by one Wole Arisekola that the sum of N10. 5 million, was given to me by Governor Danjuma Goje. It was also caused to be written that the governor paid a condolence visit to my house in Abeokuta. I want to state dearly that he did not visit me and no money was given to me.

All these lies were published in a national newspaper...
As unfortunate as that falsehood was I must add that no amount of money can replace my wife, my grief, trauma and psychological torture I have been put through. Can N10. 5 million reunite my wife with our kids? Can money produce their mother? My first child is less than three and the second just clocked one.
My wife was one of the few dedicated staff of the school. Her commitment and industry was never in doubt. She was the only one teaching Government in Senior Secondary (SS I, II &III) one, two and three in the entire school. She attended to over 400 students as well as marking scripts for same number. And the reward was the manner of treatment she was given.
The school authorities knew she was leaving in April and they also knew that I would relocate them to the west. So they had all the information about us. If they had not given the information about our relocation to the students, they would not have struck. They knew I was off and invariably she would leave as well.
It is only God that would judge, but I am not losing sight of the fact that the whole machination was a calculated one. My wife had no grudges against anyone before she was killed.
It is shamming that the Gombe State Government published that it gave me N10.5 million and that the state governor, Danjuma Goje paid me a condolence visit, when none of these happened.
I am angered that the report and falsehood it contained could expose me to attack by armed robbers as well as portraying me in bad light before my in-laws. The report was calculated to discredit me before my wife’s family, all because of the money I did not receive. I am sorely pained by that publication. So the effort of Gombe State Government in tracking down killers of my wife has been to promote malicious falsehood against me.

No protestation from my state (Ekiti)
Nothing was heard from my state government. There was no form of protestation from the west, the region where I hail from either. As dastardly as the killing and burning of my wife was, there has never been a word of protestation from Ekiti State, from the Federal Government or the South West. May be because I am not popular.
It is rather unfortunate that what happened was taken as normal by the Gombe government, my state, Ekiti and the entire South West.
It will interest you to know that in 2002, while I was being offered employment by Gombe State Government, I was also offered a similar job by my state government, Ekiti.
But because I was deeply committed to Gombe State, I turned down that of Ekiti. It was not as if the condition of service in Gombe was better than that of Ekiti.
My outlook then was that of one Nigeria. And the reward I got was to have my wife roasted like a goat by the same people she laboured to impart knowledge on.
Because I was passionately committed to the projects I initiated during my service year, I wanted to see them through so that they would not perish as soon I left. Under Governor Niyi Adebayo, he had made it a matter of state policy that any Ekiti State sons and daughters who excelled anywhere outside the state should be encouraged to come back home by being offered automatic employment. It was under this arrangement that I was offered employment which I declined.
Even my wife also secured a job with the Ekiti State Government before I did. She was into ICT, a Micro-Soft certified professional, but because of our marriage in 2003, she could not take up the offer. The teaching job she took up with Gombe State Government was paying her less than N20,000 a month. Yet she lost her life in her quest to lend knowledge to the people.

Singled out
It will shock you to know that prior to that fateful day, March 21, as I later found out, my wife was not the only person that would have been killed. There were other Christians as well.
According to my source, there was a list of teachers earmarked for attack. But while others got hint of the plan and stayed away from school that day, nobody told my wife and she was allowed to supervise Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK). One of the teachers who represented the school at my wife’s burial told me that he was supposed to supervise the same exam for that day along with my wife. He said he was earlier called on phone and advised not to show up in school as something ominous and sinister would happen that day. As I was grief stricken, I did not want to stir a scene by reacting when he was telling me this. The teacher said a lot about what transpired before my wife was killed.
Looking at the emerging facts after she was killed, I make bold to say that a couple of teachers might be deeply involved in the murder of my wife. I stand to be corrected. They knew that day (day she was slain) was her last in the school.

I’ve lost faith in Nigeria
The word disappointment hardly captures my state of mind. In fact, I feel totally betrayed. I feel betrayed by the government of Gombe State, let down by Ekiti State and completely hopeless in the Nigeria government. To think of the sacrifice and commitment I had made to Gombe State and be paid back this way is absolute betrayal. Like a houseboy, I served the state loyally. I do not think I deserved the grisly treatment I got from the state. There is no way I can be happy. No way! And because I am not highly placed, everybody has gone to sleep after my wife was killed by her students with the complicity of her fellow teachers. So why will I not feel disappointed, betrayed and let down?
Because my name does not ring a bell, nobody is bothered that a teacher was butchered. Butchered by her own students in the full glare of the principal. There is one thing I have not lost sight of and that is that God never forgets His own. I’m only a custodian of my children, but God is the ultimate keeper.

He will take care of them.
And personally for me, if I have the opportunity, I want to leave this country. Nigeria is no longer worth dying for. I want to go to where I will be valued. How can I feel secure in a country where a whole governor endangers my life and that of my children after his people have killed my wife by lying brazenly that he visited me and gave me N10.5 million? Do you realize the danger that portends for me? Somebody can walk into this house now and attack me over what I don’t even know about. The governor is causing more harm to me with that publication he orchestrated in the newspaper. So tell me, how can I feel secure in a country like Nigeria? The best thing for me is to leave the country with my children. That is the prayer I am asking God to grant me for now. If I had my way, I would have long left following my wife’s murder to a country where human life is valued. Psychologically, I do not wish to continue living in this country.