For Mary Peter, Treasure Ayuba is not just a grandson. “He is my blood and flesh. His mother only gave birth to him, but I am his everything. He and I had a strong bond even before he was born,” she said.
For this reason, when her sleep was interrupted around 2 am on July 5, 2021, to be told that the young Ayuba, who had just turned 12 three days earlier, was abducted from his school dormitory, Mrs. Peter broke into tears.
34 fathers raped 48 own children in 2yrs
‘I quit civil service job opportunity to become painter’
“I rushed to wake his mother and the rest of the people in the house. We spent the rest of the night crying and praying before we rushed out to the school at dawn,” she recalled the moment in an interview with Daily Trust Saturday in the family’s small bungalow in Kaduna’s suburb of Mahuta.
Her grandson was among the 121 students abducted from the Bethel Baptist High School, located at Maraban Damishi in Chikun Local Government of Kaduna State last year.
During the overnight raid, allegedly masterminded by a bandit kingpin in the area, Tukur Sharme, two military personnel on guard duty at the school – Private Salisu Rabiu and Ordinary Seaman Bilal Mohammed – were killed.
Ayuba was a new student enrolled in the school to begin his journey toward secondary education. The school was chosen because his mother – who finished school – believed it would be a good place for the moral and educational development of her child. She had no suspicion that the boy’s journey to her alma mater would be short and end in tragedy.
