Christiana's story

My name is Christiana Sarah Nuhu, a graduate of the Stronger Women Stronger Nations programme from Dogo Nahauwa in Nigeria.

I'm a mother of three and probably a widow too.

My husband, Nuhu, and I got married in 2010. We started our life together in Fan, our home village, located in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State. We were young, in love and full of hope. However, looking for a better life for our new family, we decided to move to Abuja.

We were happy there but, a few years later, Nuhu suggested we move back to the village to help our extended family who were constantly under attack by the Fulani militia. So, in April 2018, we returned to Fan.

Our peace was shattered the next month when Fulani militia attacked a nearby village. My husband, like many of the young men, went with others to defend our community. He left that morning, courageous and hopeful, wearing the same shirt he had worn to church the day before. That was the last day I ever saw him. He never came back home!

At first, people said he had been shot in the leg during the attack and taken somewhere for treatment. I begged to go see him and nurse him back to health, but each time I asked, the answers grew vaguer. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.

The silence gradually swallowed my hope.

Then one day, a Reverend in my church pulled me aside: "The way this thing is," he said, "I think you should try to move on and forget about him. By now, he is surely dead because if he was still alive, we would have heard from him." In that moment, my world collapsed. It spun around me. I felt so much pain, but I couldn't cry.

How could I grieve someone I never buried? I didn’t see his body or hold his hand in a hospital.

For weeks, family members and neighbours told me not to cry. "He might still come back," they said. "You don’t know for sure."

I lived in a limbo. I couldn't sleep, my blood pressure rose to alarming levels and I felt like I was drowning in a storm of silence. It took me months to start grieving, and when I finally did, I knew I had to move on for the sake of my children. So, we moved from Fan to Dogo Nahauwa community, where I still live today.

I thought putting distance between me and the village would lessen the pain, but to this day, I wonder if he’ll just show up, dusty from a long journey and smiling like he used to. It feels like he’s not gone, just delayed. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do was tell our three children that their father was dead, even though, in my heart, I’m still not sure.

I have found strength in my children.

Looking at them reminds me of who we were as a family and who I must now become for their sake.