Before I go into this topic, let me clear some misconceptions. Several people are under the impression that I "over-expose" myself and my family on facebook and that, in their thinking, contributed to my ordeal. But I don't think so. Belief in destiny and fate is one of the basic beliefs of Islam, so as a Muslim, I believe in predestination. I believe in destiny, good or bad. I believe whatever happens to one was preordained by Allah and no power on earth can change that fact.
Secondly, I don't believe I was fingered to my abductors by any informant. From what I know, they only spread their net in our estate (because the area looked nice to them), with the hope of catching a big fish. None of them knew any of us from the estate. And remember that they had undertaken several operations in Bakori before ours. They had seen and observed several "beautiful" houses in the area while passing through. Also, not only my house, but several were raided during the operation and 9 of us were initially abducted but 7 escaped along the way leaving only my sick daughter and I in their hands.
Thirdly, our abductors were stark illiterates who knew nothing about facebook and, certainly, couldn't have seen and read my posts. Besides, what about the several other people they abducted in many villages who knew nothing about the social media?
Now to the topic at hand, I've always been awkward when it comes to showing my gratitude. But it's impossible for me to just keep mute, even though some people who assisted me during my ordeal (when my daughter and I were kidnapped) insisted that I shouldn't tell anyone about their contribution because they did it for Allah's sake.
I was, nonetheless, brought to tears whenever someone out of the blue, someone I never knew before, someone I had no connection with in whatever way, someone I never expected would come to my aid during my hour of need, offered his contribution. A case in point is the Sickle Cell Association headed in Katsina by Laylah Ahmad Rufai. And you'd be surprised at the number of people who contacted me via facebook and gave their contributions.
As for my family, friends, colleagues, classmates at all levels of my education, well wishers whom I expected would help, they surpassed all my expectations. It's simply beyond comment.
I had always taken it upon myself to respond to all comments on all my social media posts by at least liking. But this time around, it was simply beyond me to respond to all. I started tentatively but was overwhelmed and I just had to give up, especially as sometimes I had to spend several days where there was no network.
At the thick of it all I gained new friends, which is wonderful. At a private clinic I patronized, New Funtua Clinic, Dr Abbey Oriolowo, waived all our bills. His wife, Zainab Abdullahi, had also contributed. She had always been kind to Laila and all my children. And I met a facebook friend at the clinic, Dr. Kabir Gambo Kurfi, whom I never knew was a medical doctor till now... I seem to have developed a knack for making friends out of medical doctors, especially on facebook… 😃... What's more intriguing was when we discovered that his wife was my wife's (Laila's mother) secondary school classmate, one of his daughters was Laila's classmate, another daughter was my daughter's classmate at Umaru Musa Yar'Adua University and yet another daughter of his was my youngest daughter's (Fatima) classmate in primary school… Wow! We found this out when he took his entire family to console us in my house! 😍😍😍
What moved me more was the kind gesture I received from almost everybody I interacted with. The chemist I patronized in Bakori, Amiru Ibrahim, wouldn't take money for the drugs I bought. And even my barber in Bakori, Honorable Ɗahiru, refused to take money from me for his service.
All I can do is to pray to Allah to reward you abundantly, as only he can repay you.