Fifteen years after Boko Haram’s violent raid forced her to run for her life in the dead of night, a woman who once called Mallamfatori home has been reunited with the last physical memory of her late mother — a pouch of gold she buried in panic as gunfire closed in.
The woman, who asked not to be named for her safety, had fled the Borno border town with nothing but a prayer on her lips. That night, she buried her mother’s gold coins and jewellery behind her house, unsure if she would ever return alive — or return at all.
Security Analyst and Counter Insurgency Expert, Zagazola Makama, who documented the emotional moment of recovery, said the woman stood frozen when she first arrived at the site of her former home.
The house was partly collapsed. The tree stump she once used as a reference point was gone. Even the street no longer looked familiar.
Yet, she approached the Divisional Police Officer of Mallamfatori with a quiet plea: help me find what I buried the night my life changed forever.
Moved by her story, the officers began what many residents described as “a search guided more by hope than certainty.”
For hours, they sifted through rubble, sand, and memories. Then — a dull metallic sound.
Inside a tightly wrapped cloth were 22 gold coins, ornaments, a gold bracelet, and a chain — items now worth several millions of naira, but priceless to the woman who had buried them as her world fell apart.
Witnesses said she broke down in tears the moment the pouch was placed in her hands. They were not the tears of someone who found treasure — but of someone who found a piece of a life stolen by conflict.
“It feels like my past waited for me,” she later told a relative.
“Everything else was lost, but this survived.”
The Commissioner of Police, CP Naziru Abdulmajid, hailed the officers for the integrity they displayed during the recovery.
“This recovery is a testament to integrity, professionalism, and the values the Nigeria Police Force stands for,” he said, praising the Mallamfatori Division for their honesty at a time when many displaced people were struggling to rebuild their lives.
More residents continue to return to Mallamfatori following improved security in northern Borno. But it is this woman’s story — a tale of loss, resilience, memory, and restoration — that has struck a deep emotional chord across the state.
For her, the recovered gold is more than a valuable find.
It is a message from her past. A reminder of survival.
A symbol that even in war, not everything is destroyed forever.
