MALAM BELLO DAURA AND HIS TORTURE CHAMBER By Saleh Bature
Malam Bello Daura, also popularly known as malam Bello mai almajirai, is a local islamiya teacher and the proprietor of a reformatory home in Daura, an ancient town in Katsina state. My eyes had seen the horrible and pitiable condition of the inmates at the controversial reformatory home he owned, 5 years ago when I visited the facility.
In 2014 during Ramadan fasting period, my senior sister sent a distress call to me, pleading with me to save her wayward son, who had been in malam Bello’s school for two months. She was so agitated and profusely crying because of what she heard about the bitter story of maltreatment and abuse, meted out to inmates by those who were supposed to be their guardians at the facility.
At first I blamed her for taking this hasty decision. I had the conviction that gidan sarka was a more befitting home for her defiant and recalcitrant son. She disagreed with me and insisted that I must travel to Daura and bring back her son. With fasting on our mouths, we left Azare for the three hour onward journey to Daura. I was accompanied by a friend and son inlaw to the mother of the boy and my nephew on the trip.
What I saw when the inmates were coming out from the building to congregate under the shade of a tree to study the holy Quran was indescribable. I could not believe the horrible sight of children and men in tattered clothes chained to metal railings with their hands and feet shackled together. Only slaves during the dark era of trans Atlantic slave trade could be treated in such undignified and merciless way.
The “school” was built with a Hausa traditional mud bricks which is the common building in villages in the North. It had six compacted and poorly ventilated rooms that were jam-packed with the inmates. Inside the building were a variety of worthless items that littered the ground. As we approached the main door to the building, we were greeted with a very offensive and suffocating odour. The nauseating smell emanating from the inmates could reach the veranda, few meters away from where we were sitting and discussing with Malam Bello. An inmate who spoke on behalf of his colleagues lamented that they bathed once in one to two weeks.
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The exposure made by the inmates about the illicit deeds inside the supposedly corrective home is not spurious or exaggerated. More disturbing and worrisome is the revelation by an inmate named Zaharadeen. He told the police and a group of journalists how three keepers at the facility sodomized him. Those who he pointed accusing fingers at were sarkin gida, Hassan and another malam whose name was not clear in the interview. Three inmates among whom was a thirteen year old boy from Zaria had admitted to rampant homosexual abuses at the facility.
Who is to blame? Malam Bello is certainly the principal culprit. To be fair to him, I believe he established this reformatory home as a business outfit and with a genuine intention to correct wayward kids. Another nephew of mine is lucky to have been reformed at the centre. He is now married and a responsible man. However, corruption and greed overtake Bello Daura’s hitherto good intention. From my chance interaction with the then 73 year old man, way back in 2014, I got to understand him as a local malam whose time was preoccupied in the remember of Allah with his rosary beads on hand. He cannot however feign to be oblivious of the atrocities committed by his lieutenants at the facility. He should therefore take sole responsibility of all the abuses that happened there.
Children are the coolness of the eyes’ of their parents and the future leaders of our nations. In Nigeria, they are seriously at the risk of extinction. Despite their frail and unsuspecting mien, reason why they should be protected and catered to their every need, some parents make the costly mistake of taking defiant kids to the so-called reformatory homes. I met with a former class mate at the defunct Bauchi College of Art and Science (BACAS) who came to visit his son at the facility. My heart bled when I saw the innocent looking child who the father spoke a lot about his notoriety for drug abuse and thievery. The father is a diplomat who currently serves Nigeria in Europe. So parents are also complicit in the crime committed against their kids in unregistered corrective homes.
Lastly, the elders in Daura town and security agencies operating there are also to be blamed for failing to detect the torture chamber in the town. They cannot claim to be ignorant of the abuses going on in gidan sarka in their town.
The government, local traditional authorities, religious leaders, parents and security agencies should live up to our expectations. Man’s inhumanity to man should be considered as a grevious crime which must be punished to serve as deterrent.
