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People I lived with for over 20 years in Bauchi, killed my family over a cartoon from Denmark
Guardian Nigeria
Follow
7/4/2025
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đź—ž
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00:00
Some dates carved themselves into your soul, sharp as a blade, for Tim by the
00:09
Codric Michael that was February 20th 2006. Bouchy State burned that day.
00:18
A thread cloaked in the name of religion tore through homes, hearts and futures.
00:24
For Tim, it left only ashes and a wound that will never fully heal.
00:33
It's always a painful memory. It's an experience I always remember every day. So on the 20th of
00:42
February 2006, a Monday, there was a religious crisis that happened in Bouchy State. They
00:49
prevailed that time. That was a publication by Danish Jilang posting newspaper that publicized
01:06
an editorial about Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. So that publication sparked a lot of
01:15
controversies and violence across Muslim countries, including Nigeria. So on the Monday,
01:23
19th February, we were watching TV when we saw that it has started in Maduguri. People are protesting and
01:30
killing people, burning houses and all of that. So it was my mom actually that actually saw the
01:38
the TV program. So she now called us to see what is happening in Maduguri State and she said okay.
01:42
Tomorrow, 28th Monday, she declared a fasting for all at home that let's fast and pray for Nigeria,
01:49
for peace to be in Nigeria. And we never knew that that Monday is going to be our last moment on earth.
01:55
So it was a very painful experience that day around 2pm. We just heard noise and banging on the gate,
02:04
stoning, stoning, stoning the roof of the house. I mean, pandemonium everywhere. We were like,
02:11
what is happening? By the time we peep outside, we discovered that we have, I mean, there are a lot
02:18
of youth outside, numbering almost 30. They were all chanting Allah wa kubar.
02:25
Today we are going to see your end and all of that. We were like wondering what is happening,
02:33
what's going on? Why all of this? We never knew that it was the ripple effect of that publication from
02:42
Denmark on the 30th of September 2005 that really escalated to the 2006 Nigeria.
02:52
In the midst of the bloodbath, Tim stood guard over his little brother and sister as the world fell apart.
03:02
When they came, they have nowhere to go. We cannot hide because they've already
03:09
all rounded the house and some people were even holding a general kind of petrol because they wanted
03:14
to set the house on fire while we were sitting inside. So they keep on trying to enforce themselves
03:21
into the house and unfortunately they broke the gate and they came in. When we discovered
03:27
they entered the compound, we ran into, we were all seated in the city room before we ran into the
03:32
dinner room that my mom's room, they lie down on the floor, praying that probably
03:38
God, we just sealed through and nothing happened to us. Unfortunately, when they came in,
03:42
they started looting, they were carrying TV, whatever they could carry. I saw one
03:47
even climb up trying to dismantle the satellite dish that was up, trying to dismantle and we were just
03:53
watching them, we didn't say anything. People thought they wanted to like steal, let them
03:57
protect, carry whatever they want to carry and group it. Alas, it wasn't, the story wasn't that way.
04:05
So after the story, they carried what they wanted to carry outside. They could not drive out,
04:10
there are two cars already inside the compound and they broke the windscreen, the glassy and all of that.
04:19
Someone just peeped from the window of the room and saw us lying down and said,
04:22
ah, we are inside, they are inside. That's how they broke the door, they came inside and
04:29
they pushed the door, forced themselves inside and my key sister that was by the side,
04:36
that was the first person they saw. The first matcha they, I mean, they had on her,
04:42
her head slipped into two. I saw it and I was like, oh, she's gone. And she screamed, you know.
04:49
So when my mom heard the scream of, ah, that's a dying person, she looked up, she was lying down.
04:56
And when she looked up, they match at her face too and caught her and all of that.
04:59
So they match it in everybody. And it was very unfortunate. So I, they came to my side,
05:12
they match it in my head, at the back of my head and I went blind instantly. I think there's a
05:18
nerve connected to the eyes there. I just went blind and another caught on my neck here.
05:24
Ah, now my eyes opened again. I was like, hey, this is the end. Then I noticed that they've
05:31
not reached where my younger brothers were. The two of them were just, okay, I just lie on them.
05:36
I tried to pull a kind of cover, a shield to just cover it and then I lie on them so that at least
05:42
they must see the two of them. That's how they caught all of us and match it and match it. My elder
05:47
brother was by the side of the door and they thought we were all dead. We were all in the pool of blood.
05:54
Tim lost his mother that day, his brother and baby sister. Their home, their laughter,
06:03
their warmth swallowed by flames while he was massetered brutally.
06:11
But Tim survived. Clinging to his girlfriend's hand, a grief fears unyielding, he escaped.
06:19
After like five minutes, we thought that those guys have gone. So we tried to escape from the house
06:27
and we noticed that someone has already poured fuel on the roof and the house is burning already. So
06:33
we are trying to look for a way out to escape from the inferno. So in the process of trying to run out
06:41
of the house, my mom was the first person I went to. When they saw her coming, I mean with the
06:47
caught and blood and they thought she, I mean, they thought she was dead. But seeing her again,
06:51
they had to hack her again instantly and she fell down outside there and she died. My elder brother
06:57
two followed, they hacked him and he died too. My sister was already there. I mean, she couldn't move
07:05
because she's dead. I was soaked with blood. But the two of my other brothers were on hold. They were
07:15
dead. So they were able to escape. And in the process of escaping, they ran down and they followed me.
07:26
I was a bit faster than them. So I entered a nearby house. In the house, there were about three or four
07:32
rooms. I just passed the first and second room. I entered the third room and all of a sudden, they just
07:38
came in. They started shouting, where is he? Where did he enter? And the small boy just came from nowhere.
07:42
Just told them, ah, you're looking for this boy. I jumped the face. That's how they ran out of their
07:46
house again. That's how God saved me that day from 2 p.m. till around 7 p.m. before we were able to
07:54
make it to the hospital. And by the time I ever got to the hospital, I've lost every blood in me because
07:59
when they're doing all the stitches, all the sutures, everything, I wasn't feeling any pain because
08:05
there's no blood in me. I just thank God for sparing my life. But while I was in the hospital,
08:10
I still got the news that because we have a bakery in the house and we're trying to produce
08:17
that there's a production going on. So the news later got to me that my elder brother and my mom
08:23
that they killed outside the gate, they later burned them because they put my mom in the oven
08:28
to roast and she died. I mean, she was roasted inside the oven and beyond recognition.
08:33
So I think after my day, we were given mass burial because we couldn't see them after the whole thing
08:39
up to today. So that's how we left for the hospital. And when my pastor got wind of the story,
08:51
he came to the hospital that night and we said, we heard the news that some people heard that
08:57
particularly I'm still alive and they know how terrible I could be if I come back. So they were
09:03
planning to come back to come and meet us in the hospital to silence some of us that survived the
09:09
carnage. So he bundled us in his car and he took us to Josh from Bauchi. I was just with boxers,
09:18
stained with blood and that's how I stayed for a week. So after we got to Josh,
09:25
the clinic was not disclosed before security. So I instructed someone to go back to their house
09:32
and take a snapshot of the building when it was still burning. And after the whole thing,
09:37
that's how I got the pictures of the house and the bakery and the cars that were born inside the house.
09:44
So Tim doesn't hide it. Rage consumed him. Revenge whispered, promising to his the heck,
09:53
but in the quiet of sleepless nights, something else steered.
09:58
Three thoughts came to me, very powerful. The first thought was, okay, since this had happened
10:04
and the people that carried out this evil act, most of them are the people who grew up with in the same
10:11
community. I mean, we stayed there for over 20 years. My dad was in Bauchiha for over three decades. And the
10:17
people that we see as families, as neighbors, as people we relate with are the people that came to
10:25
Korea this act. So I felt, oh, if these people can be this callous, I can be more callous. So I decided,
10:32
okay, I'm going to launch a reprisal attack. I'm going to destroy, if possible, the whole of Bauchiha state.
10:39
If I can destroy all of the state, I will do that. And, you know, my background is electrical engineering. So
10:45
I thought I could just do a short course in maybe chemical engineering and say, I'll come up with a
10:51
chemical destructive weapon to destroy it. But along the line, I was like, huh, if I do that,
11:00
I've lost my beloved ones. What am I even living for? Probably maybe I should even commit suicide and
11:06
just end everything there. Then the third thing that came to my mind that was very strong was why
11:15
not just accept what has happened to you, put the bitter past behind you, forge ahead and
11:24
build resilience yourself and move ahead with life. Tim walked into the world's forgotten corners.
11:30
Refugee camps ticked with despair. Classrooms starving for hope. Conflict zones scarred by violence and
11:40
religious brutality. He carried his story, his scars and an unshakable belief that healing is possible,
11:50
even then, even now. I chose the third option to forgive these people. I tried to study the
11:58
incidents that happened and some of that happened in the past. Then I discovered that there's this
12:05
huge gap between acceptability in religion and ethnicity. So I discovered most of the youth
12:14
that perpetrated this evil act don't really understand what it means to co-exist with people.
12:19
They don't really understand the talents of religions that preachers acceptability and tolerance.
12:28
So this gap I tried to bridge by coming up with an initiative. And I launched a foundation, an NGO,
12:37
called Triad Peace Foundation. And it is officially registered with Corporate Service Commission as Triadipoji
12:43
Peace Foundation. Why I chose the Triad Peace name is because of the Triad that was killed. My mom,
12:51
my elder brother, my kids sister, and the Triadipoji. So I used it to, and the family name,
12:55
Adi, Adipoji. So I used the combination of the Triadipoji to form the Peace Foundation.
13:01
So it is called Triad Peace Foundation and officially Triadipoji Peace Foundation.
13:05
So the purpose of the foundation is to bridge the gap for peace of existence in Nigeria. Over the years,
13:13
the Triad Peace Foundation have really recorded a lot of impact in the aspect of promoting peace
13:18
originally, especially from the grassroots because I discovered that most of these youth have been
13:23
wrongly indoctrinated about religion and they have this biased mind against other people of different
13:31
religion and ethnicity. So I discovered that, okay, for us to really achieve a lot, for us to really
13:40
achieve the peace we wanted in that region, in that community, we need to target this youth and
13:45
relate them about what religion is really all about. So what we do is that we target these communities,
13:52
we go and meet the stakeholders, we meet the community leaders on how we can reach out to these
14:00
youngsters and make them change makers in the community. So that's mainly what we've been doing
14:08
and over the years we have really recorded a lot of impact. So in the course of carrying out
14:13
activities with the Triadipoji Foundation, there are a lot of impacts recorded and in the process we
14:19
even got a grant from Nature's Fund America to promote peace in some part of Abuja and Nassaral
14:25
passed it and some of the some of these activities we carried out was noticed all over the world
14:34
because of my story of forgiveness and acceptance. So I was reached out to be nominated for a peace
14:41
award in Canada. I was also reached out to be nominated for a peace award in Germany and also I was also
14:51
nominated for a national award in Nigeria. But fortunately I was able to get the peace laureate
14:57
award. I was able to get the peace laureate award from Canada 2017. Today Tim is a father. Two small hearts
15:07
call him home. He wants to give them more than a country. He wants to give them peace. The world
15:16
where no child knows the smell of smoke or the weight of loss. From fire he forged purpose. From sorrow
15:26
he carved strength. Tim Adipoji Michael stands not as a victim but as a beacon. A voice that cuts through
15:37
the dark clear and unshaken and his message is simple. If he could embrace peace against all hearts
15:47
so can you. Generally I just I want to call on people to really get to understand that God has created
15:57
everyone he called. And he has chosen to make the world diversified. I mean this diversity is a unique
16:08
coloration that God really wanted the world to be. People should try and tolerate one another and accept
16:15
differences. And when we forgive each other that's when we can really see the beauty of
16:21
diversity of diversity of religion and ethnicity then we can follow your head.
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