From being a son and student in Adamawa, he became an IDP trying to survive in Lagos. It was in this unfamiliar part of the country that Daniel David almost died. How did he survive it? Daily Trust reports his touching story, and that of the kind-hearted family which saved his life.
Daniel David, 23, an only child of his parents, dreams of being a soldier. Little did he know, in his fifth year in Secondary School, he would flee from his home state, and years later, be saved by strangers. It all started in 2014, when his village, Daraha in Hong Local Government Area was attacked by Boko Haram, insurgents who have terrorised Nigeria’s Northeast for years now.
In Darha, Daniel had been sent on an errand by his parents. Upon his return, he discovered his neighbourhood had been invaded and his home left in ruins. Everyone was running for their lives, and like they, he instinctively made for the forest. He remained there for five days, hungry because there was no way to get food. When he saw his parents’ corpses he cried like never before. But the will to survive burned in his heart, so he crossed into another village. People were running scared there too, and when he spotted a truck loaded with goats and cows, he climbed aboard. Amid these animals, he travelled until he was far away from home.
Several hours later the truck stopped in a strange town. Daniel didn’t know where he was from the beginning. He would learn he was in Alaba Rago, in Ojo LGA of Lagos State. As usual, Daniel’s survival instinct re-surfaced, after all, he didn’t live a lazy life. His parents had been farmers. His every day activity consisted of carrying people’s baggage at Alaba International Market and at night, and sleep outside closed shops.
Sometime in 2015 Daniel started, among several other homeless people, to sleep in front of the house of Mr. and Mrs. Nwabueze.
This was where Mrs Nwabueze Gladys met Daniel. “It was six months ago, when I came back from church. It was past one o’clock and I told him to leave because it was afternoon,” Mrs. Gladys, 49, a schoolteacher, narrated. When Daniel sat up and greeted her, “good morning” in English, she was taken aback. Her daughter, a nurse, Chioma Nwabueze would later attribute this and Daniel’s amiable character to why her mother picked interest in him.
Mrs. Gladys asked Daniel who he was and why he was sleeping outdoors. The young man responded that he had nowhere to sleep. He told her his father was a pastor and how they were killed, the same story she later repeated to her daughter, Chioma, which made her cry. Daniel further explained that he had to stop sleeping in the market because the shop owners prohibited it.
“I helped him because, as it is written in the Bible, what you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me. Also, I know I should love my neighbour and this young man was my neighbour,” Mrs. Gladys explained.
Daniel was given food to eat that fateful day, and Mrs. Gladys didn’t see him again until weeks ago when she returned home to see him looking thin. His stomach was hurting and he had been vomiting. “He said he had been sleeping in the marketplace,” Mrs. Gladys said. She bought him some drugs and gave him Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) t help with his loose stool. He regained his strength, and after eating and resting in front of the house for a while, left around six o’clock in the evening.
The next day, a Saturday, Mrs. Gladys was at the backyard of her house with her family when her first son told her that Daniel was greeting her. He told her he was going to have his bath at a public bathroom. However, later a young man and Daniel came in. The man narrated how Daniel came to the place they worked at Alaba Market and started shouting that his stomach was hurting. The man said he didn’t know what to do and people were asking him why he brought a dying man to the place and that he should take Daniel away.
“The man was from Adamawa too, but not in the same area as Daniel,” Mrs. Gladys said. “Because I had experienced ulcer pain before, I bought drugs for him and the pain subsided. Two hours later the pain started again. After my daughter came back, we took him to the hospital and he was diagnosed with Ruptured Appendicitis.”
When Chioma, who had never actually seen Daniel, came home to find a “skeletal” looking man in their living room, she was shocked. “Since I started work as a nurse, his stature is the scariest I have ever seen. Even one who has tuberculosis or HIV doesn’t look that way,” she said, and narrated how their landlady had insisted Daniel shouldn’t sleep in front of their house. “My mum used to give him food and gave him a blanket to cover himself. My father wasn’t around so we couldn’t make a decision about bringing him into the house and the man who brought him said he was coming back but never did.”
Chioma got a motorcycle and took him to their family hospital. There, she used her family card. She thought it was something minor but the hospital insisted on admitting him because they suspected appendicitis. Her father, Mr. Nwabueze, slept in the hospital with Daniel, and the next morning they confirmed the problem. The doctor said if they didn’t conduct a surgery, Daniel could die.
“I am a nurse, so I understood the implication of going on with the surgery,” Chioma pointed out. She told her father they should go to the police station because they couldn’t ascertain Daniel’s identity. Unfortunately, the police said they wanted to detain Mr. Nwabueze, “That he made a mistake and if the boy dies it will be on our head. We had to bribe the police N5,000 for them to leave my dad and follow us. We kept looking for one person from Adamawa who could identify that the boy was from there,” Chioma continued.
Sunday, then Monday went by. It was on Tuesday when Chioma saw that Daniel was dying and his temperature was very high that she paid and signed for the surgery. “It cost N150, 000. As a nurse, I begged and was allowed to be there throughout the surgery which became successful.”
But it wasn’t easy even after the surgery, Chioma sighed. Daniel had complications after the surgery because he had a rupture and infections all over his body. His stool had to be passed through his stomach because there were a lot of bacteria. “We spent a lot of money after that. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. Because of the way the health sector is, I had to be there to ensure things went well. I noticed some things they didn’t. He had wounds all over his body and I had to ask them to give him anti-tetanus injection,” Chioma said.
When Chioma posted Daniel’s hospital photograph on Facebook, Blessing Bulus, daughter of Captain James Bulus, who is from Adamawa State, immediately made contact with her. Daniel has been with the family since, at Ojo Cantonment in Lagos. Blessing told Daily Trust they were awaiting the arrival of a military personnel, who is from Daniel’s village to come and take him home.
