By Gideon Para-Mallam
Alice Loksha Ngaddah, an innocent housewife, a qualified Nurse, was dutifully serving the humanitarian needs of the displaced in her home state of Borno. Unknown to her and two of her colleagues they would become ‘special guests’ of guests of ISWAP, a Boko Haram faction on March 1st 2018.
By September and October, two of her colleagues were killed. May God continue to comfort their parents and loved ones. Alice later was declared a slave.
This has been a heart-breaking news to her husband and children, her brothers and sisters. He guardian and grand mother.
They have been in untold agony. From time to time I meet with her husband and words are hard to come by in trying to describe how he feels. He has literally become a recluse. He has become a single parent raising his children as Mr dad and Mr Mom to them.
News of the release of five Aid workers on January 19th raised his hope as he hoped earnestly that his wife may be among them. When he discovered she was not, he sent this heart broken message: “Good morning Sir, Happy New Year, I am happy for the release of the other five aid workers, and at the same time not happy, because this people were abducted last December, while my wife since 2018,
“Sir, I am confused I don’t have a voice that I can reach out to UNICEF to know why they don’t want to negotiate for the release of my wife, can you please as an organization help me in reaching out to UNICEF, sir. Thanks so much for your prayers.”
Alice’s two children Jigai Rufus 8 and Binyiyan 3 are both confused and have not seen their mother for over two years now. They cry and cry ‘mummy, mummy,’ but can’t seem to know why their mummy cannot come to them. Worst still, they cannot go to where mummy is.
What a tough life.
But God remains in full control. One day we pray the innocent children will see their mother, by the grace of God.
As we remember the 2nd Anniversary of Alice in Boko Haram captivity today March 1st, the family wishes to appeal to UNICEF to do all within its power to bring Alice back home.
Recent reports indicate that Alice is still alive and appears well treated by her captors. The real truth is this: Can anyone really be free and comfortable in captivity?
This is the trajectory of Nigeria today: citizens becoming captives in their own homeland.
We wish to appeal to the Nigerian President, Mohammadu Bihari, to mobilize all the apparatus of his government to secure the release of Leah Sharibu, Alice Ngaddah, Grace Tuka, Lilian Daniel Gyang and many other countless women in captivity,- both Christians and Muslim women in captivity – literally being enslaved. God’s love and compassionate heart reaches out to all of these women.
Each member of Alice’s family; from her husband and children to her sister, guardian and grand mother remain hopeful that this hard-working, dedicated and professionally qualified Nurse will be reunited with them one day, and we pray earnestly soon.
May God bring this about.
We join the family in similarly appealing to UNICEF to go the extra mile to secure the release of this helpless mother – from the jaws of Boko Haram.
▪ The Revd Gideon Para-Mallam is of the Para-Mallam Peace Foundation which padvocates for the release of the captives in the land of the free.