Sabudu village, this Papa’s compound housed two twin altars (Photo: Yinka Adeparusi for Naij)
It was a hot afternoon in April 2016, we are a set of more than 10
women who drove to two orphanages, our first stop was a home at the
Christ Treasured Orphanage in Kwali, where we visited a school under
construction with hopes of raising funds to complete the project.
The next stop on the same day was Kuje, Vine Heritage home where rescued children from culture and tradition of death, live.
The journey to my report started from there. I engaged the
missionary who explained to me how they have been rescuing ‘endangered`
children for the past 22 years and how they have a recently rescued
1-month-old twins from one of the interior villages.
Important note
And, I asked him if other media house had visited the villages in
the past, he nodded his head and mentioned a popular TV station that did
a coverage few years ago. I asked him if I can visit some of the locals
and he said ‘at your own risk’…. this made me scared.
I told a colleague. Yinka Adeparusi about my fear, Yinka became
nervous but positive, we encouraged each other which was the beginning
of the birth of the investigative report. Every risk is worth taking if
we carefully strategize.
Plan
Our aim is to get these locals to tell us about the practise and if
we come out straight and disclose our mission, they could attack and
probably kill us. We discovered that, this is a custom which they are
all sensitive about and would rather not talk about.
Yinka and I decided to stick to maternal healthcare and hospitals,
during our discussion, I will ask about child care and how the upper
tooth grows, from there to twins affairs which we asked briefly without
much emphasis, none but a family suspected us and the moment I popped
the question and our guide interpreted to them, the women started
murmuring loudly in their native language.
The situation became scary and I changed the topic immediately to
the lack of schools. This scenario happened in Dafa village, Kwali area
council.
Concern
Safety is not guaranteed; the locals could attack us. The roads are
bad and not motorable, we trekked a lot. Because they are remote
villages without electricity or phone network, we might not be able to
seek help if anything happens to us in the course of the journey.
Language and communication could be a barrier.
Yinka and I drove for almost an hour to inner Kuje, outskirt of
Abuja – the orphanage, to interview the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens
running the place. We left the home for Kiyi village to speak with the
locals, communication was hard of course but we got a guy who helped
with pidgin English. The Kiyi people speak Gwari language and said they
no longer kill twins but confessed it happened in the past. After this I
started making consultations and also commenced research about the
interior villages within the FCT area council.
Language Barrier
An Abuja indigene, Joseph followed us as a guide to Kwali and Bwari
respectively. He speaks the Gbagyi language. We met a heavily pregnant
woman who said she doesn’t want twins in the Kwali area council. She
couldn’t speak English and was in pain waiting for her water to pop so
she can give birth to her baby at home. After all was done and dusted,
it took about three locals to help with transcription and translation.
It was not easy getting this people to travel all the way down to the
city centre, some of my personal income expended into transporting them,
if you ask me, it was worth it!
Elijah, Joseph and Blessing helped translate at different times,
the three major languages spoken to us in the sojourn were; Gwari,
Gbagyi and Bassa. It is also good to note that the Abuja indigenes are
90% Christians and 10% are Muslims and other religion. We travelled
different times and days to the interior villages.
Twins Altar
The altar is very important to the report which are usually build
inside the houses, this is not easy to access. I was also forewarned not
to move closer to it because of the contents inside it which are
harzadous when inhaled. We were denied access in some houses, but got
help when a youth who is not happy with the custom took us to a house
and explained to us how things work, especially the twin altar. I must
have inhaled something from the Twin Altar because I broke down for two
days after the visit, my head was banging with strange noises, sneezing
and a kind of hallucination.
Click Here to read the full report on Naij.com
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