How Soldiers Killed My husband, Joy –Widow

The marriage between Mr. Wagley Dauda and his wife, Nankyer, would have been two years old on April 30 this year. They lived in the suburb of Jenta Adamu. Their one-room-and-parlour apartment is located in the heart of the suburb, towards the end of the ‘Konta’ (the tarred road), as it is referred to. The house is located on low land area. To access it, one will have to walk down a number of steps carved on rock. As one descends, one is faced with four doors leading into different apartments. One of them belongs to the couple. They had lived happily together in that humble abode because, according to Nankyer, they had serious plans and hope.



The marriage is blessed with an eleven-month-old son. Thirty-three-year old Wagley was a security officer at University of Jos and from what he earned, he saw his wife through her HND programme in secretariat studies at Plateau State Polytechnic. The plan was that, as soon as his wife was done with her studies, he would enrol in an evening school and rewrite his O’ level papers. He hoped to get into the university to read a course that would improve his status and gradually get them much better life, including accommodation. But that hope was dashed on February 17, 2013 when Wagley was gunned down at Old Airport Junction in Jos. He had boarded a cab to go to work while returning from funeral service of a village member. The gunshot was meant for the driver of the cab who had taken a wrong lane because of traffic hold-up.

The bullet touched the driver by the shoulder but went right into Mr. Dauda’s chest. He was trying to get out of the vehicle, but it was too late. He was rushed to hospital, but before anything could be done to save his life, he gave up the ghost. According to his wife, Nankyer who sat in the midst of her friends as they paid her condolence visit, “In the morning we left together for burial at Bukuru. The church service was for late David who came from the same village with my husband. It was held at Pandam COCIN church. After the church service, we left the church together in a bus and when we reached the main road, he came down from the bus to join a cab to go to work. The service ended around 10.O’clock. He said he would not be able to get to the village with us in Mangu because of his work.

We had not reached the village when we got a phone call that we should turn back to Jos and drive straight to Air Force military hospital because there has been an accident involving my husband. “It was when we got to the hospital that we were told that it was a gunshot. At the military hospital, he was transferred to Jos University Teaching Hospital where he finally gave up. The military men were with us until he finally gave up. I learnt his corpse was later taken back to the military hospital. It was from there he was conveyed days later for burial in his hometown in Bokkos.” Acording to his wife, there was no premonition that something untoward was in the offing earlier in the day. Her husband was “his usual self, there was nothing unusual about him the day he died. My husband was not a troublemaker.

His biological parents are late but he has other siblings. My husband started work with UNIJOS just before our wedding in 2011. Since the incident, I have not seen anybody from the Military or the STF since we parted at the hospital. But his colleagues from the university have been coming here on condolence visits,” the young widow mourned. With the breadwinner of the family gone, 30-year-old Nankyer confessed with tears rolling down her cheeks that the future now looks bleak. Her greatest fear is how to bring up the innocent boy who is too young to understand what has happened. “He is too young to ask questions, even though he feels his absence. He has not been his usual self since the incident occurred.

He does not play, he cries a lot and does not sleep well,” she said of her son. Nankyer, whose parents live in Mangu, said they are not capable of adding her responsibility to theirs. She stays alone in their home in Jenta Adamu; except for her elder sister who is staying with her and would remain until she is strong enough to stay alone. Though her late husband had about nine siblings, she knows all of them are battling with their own responsibilities to be able to add hers to theirs. “We depended on my husband for our livelihood; he lost his mother while he was in secondary school; at least he had reached somewhere before she dies but the same cannot be said for Samuel,” she said. Meanwhile the Special Task Force (STF) says the soldier, who shot Mr. Dauda, is still facing a board of enquiry set up to look into the case. The STF spokesman, Capt. Salisu Mustapha maintained that when the investigation is completed, the military will then know what to do.