Most Nigerians probably never knew
that there was the female wing of militants or freedom fighters, as some
youths who delved into militancy in the Niger Delta region, preferred
to be addressed.
Veronica
(not her real name) told Vanguard Metro, VM, during her graduation
ceremony from the Centre for Creative Arts Education, CREATE run by
popular Nollywood actress, Hilda Dokubo, that she was in charge of the
armoury in one of the camps.
According to Veronica, her job on
the duty chart at the defunct militant camp was to take stock of every
weapon that left the armoury and when they came in. She said she was
recruited into the camp by her boyfriend. Nelly, also not her real name,
said she acted as a spy on security men for her camp.
The
graduates, all 50 females, had one story or the other to tell on their
roles in their various militant camps before the advent of the Federal
Government amnesty programme for repentant militants. They said they
were now at peace with themselves since they embraced the amnesty
programme.
Meantime, the Executive Director of CREATE, Hilda
Dokubo, said it was not easy getting the female wing of the militants on
the amnesty programme. According to her, the ladies were apparently not
in the list of those to be disarmed, demobilized and rehabilitated.
This
probably was because nobody imagined ladies played active roles in the
militancy struggle. The understanding in some circles was that militancy
was entirely an all male affair.
Platoon of militants
For
Linda (also not her real name), militancy was not entirely a male
thing. She said there were occasions she led a platoon of militants,
adding that not too long after she joined the camp she was promoted to
the rank of ‘Brigadier General’ for her courage and swiftness. She
said she was likely the only female ‘Brigadier General ‘in any defunct
militant camp in the whole of the Niger Delta region.
Dokubo said
it took extra effort on the part of her organisation to get the females
listed in the amnesty programme, after which 50 of them were recruited
for the first phase of one year training in various skills, character
and all other necessary areas required for proper rehabilitation and
reintegration into society.
According to her, the girls literally
had little or no knowledge of Western education, adding that her
instructors had to start teaching them from A, B, C. “So with chalk and
slates we helped them write A to Z, identify A to Z, pronounce them,
read them by their sounds and by the way everyone else reads them. We
also taught them how to write from one to ten all the way to a thousand.
Most
of them couldn’t even identify their names if they saw it; so we also
taught them how to spell their names by the sound of their names. And
before they left here, every single one of them could write their names,
identify their names even when it was written by somebody else, sign
steady signatures that they never could sign before, go to the bank on
their own, do transactions in the bank on their own, be able to count
their money before, during and after purchase.
“We taught them
skills, but for me what was most important that I think we gave them was
value for life and value for who they are and making them understand
that they can be the best of whatever they choose to be. We taught them
two major areas of skills and I will say them the way NABTEB (National
Business and Technical Examination Board) described them.
One was
animal husbandry, which we call Integrated Agriculture and the other
one was Creative Arts Craft, classified into decorative and accessories.
For
the husbandry we did snailry, fishery and poultry and we actually
started from hatching to processing because in the course of training
them we took them to existing farms to see how farms are and to ask the
owners what their major challenges were.
“For the fish farms we
found out that the major challenge was how to market the product. So a
lot of time they sold them in a hurry because after they get to a
certain size if you don’t dispose them they die and that becomes a loss
to you. Then we came back and said we must deal with that challenge and
what will be our best way to deal with it.
We then agreed on
processing; let’s dry these fish and chickens, let’s clean these snails
and let’s package them ready for sale and we did that and that was how
we took it all the way to processing. So from hatching the eggs of the
chickens, the fish and the snails we took them all the way to
processing, ready for market.
“Some of the trainees when they
graduated left here to get actual employment and we are having to call
back five of the women who did agric to send them to farms to help
train people on how to do this preservation I talked about.
In a
way we have also gotten employment for five of the 25 in the agric
class; we ourselves are retaining three of our best as training
assistants who are going to stay and work with us.
We believe
they will serve as good mentors and motivators for the new intakes. Some
of the bead works you see there (pointing at some beads) were done by
them, the rug on the floor, all those bags (pointing at them), were done
by them. We do a lot of bead and wire works, fabric works, our bed
sheets, duvets and so many others, were all produced by these women;
they have become professionals and anyone wanting to engage them can
really do so.
“Whilst we were training them an organisation had
an events management training and I decided to send 10 of them. Out of
those 10 who went for that professional session, seven got certificates
of excellence that was more than a pass mark.”
The
former Pamela Anderson lookalike Sabrina Boing Boing photographed
herself lifting up her top and offering her breasts to a calf in the
snaps, The Sun reports.
