Auwalu Saidu remembers his elder brother, Babayo, with robes and horses. The kind worn and ridden by royalty in northeastern Nigeria. He remembers him through colours, too. Royal festivities in their hometown of Mubi, Adamawa State, are a spectacle of more colours than the rainbow, but Babayo’s signature colours were white and red. He wore the robe, called babban riga in Hausa, proudly. 

In 2005, he was conferred the title of Barade, which means the royal head of security and commander of horsemen.

Babayo had always been drawn to royalty and had worked with Sarkin Mubi, the King of Mubi, for a long time. As Barade, he led the king’s horse convoys, tied his turban, and fulfilled other royal obligations in the palace. It was his full-time job, and he took pride in it. He basked in the praises his brothers sang of him, known as kirari (praise chant). 

“Even when we did something to him or upset him, we’d do that kirari to diffuse the situation, and he’d laugh and forget about it,” Auwalu recounts.

Babayo also married into royalty. His wife is the daughter of the King of Mokolo, a town in Cameroon. After their wedding, she moved with him to Adamawa, where they lived for about 25 years and had four children together. It has been 11 years since he went missing, and she still waits for him. 

The last time Auwalu saw his brother was on a Wednesday morning in 2014. They were living together and had exchanged greetings before Auwalu left for the market that day. Later, word began to spread that terrorists were on the outskirts of the city, so he sold what he could, put the money together, and quickly came home to tell his family about the rumour. But they were not as alarmed as he was. Auwalu took his wife and children and left for Gela, a nearby community, leaving Babayo, who did not believe the news, and others behind. 

“After I left, I was told that he had been seen on a motorbike with one person in front of him and another behind,” Auwalu tells HumAngle. 

After a few days of not hearing from him, Auwalu started to look for his brother. He searched through the town they fled to, asked around, and tried to contact people who were with Babayo, but there was no luck. He also tried to call his phone, but the cellular network had been disrupted at the time.

Auwalu was then told to go to the highway, where corpses had been discarded and people were searching for their loved ones. He went there conflicted. On one hand, he desperately wanted to find his brother, and the pile of bodies carried a faint, bitterly ironic kind of hope. 

On the other hand, he dreaded the possibility that his brother lay among them. He did not want to see his body cast aside in an open field, nor imagine the state he might find it in. He knew the human body does not last long under the elements before worms and insects claim it, but nothing prepared him for the dreadful, inhumane condition of those corpses. He had seen bodies before, but always in their “fresh” state, when they were washed, shrouded, and prayed over, as is customary in Islamic burial rites. Within a day, the dead were laid to rest with dignity.

Yet as he scanned the lifeless faces in front of him, there was no room for wonder. Under a tree, he saw a body so swollen it looked ready to burst. It was not Babayo. None of the bodies were. But that single, bloated corpse seared itself into his memory and shook him to the core.

“That day I couldn’t eat,” Auwalu recounts. “Even when I was offered food, and it was right there in front of me, I couldn’t eat it. I was in so much shock. It wasn’t until the following day that I started slowly eating.”

As the years went by, Auwalu continued to search for his brother. Two years ago, a driver in his area, who regularly transports drinks between Mubi and Cameroon, claimed to have seen Babayo in Cameroon. Auwalu went there and scouted refugee camps, and asked around, but there was no trace of Babayo anywhere. The person who was “seen” was not him. Auwalu left Cameroon, realising that he had been misinformed about the whereabouts of his brother. 

About four years ago, Auwalu had launched yet another search for his brother when he came into contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which had reached out about Babayo through its missing persons programme. He was then enrolled in the ICRC’s Accompaniment Programme, which he says has taught him patience and resilience. 

It has also provided support to his nephews, Babayo’s children, helping them cope with their grief. After his brother went missing and the war subsided, Auwalu took in two of them, Dahiru and Salisu, who have lived with him ever since.

Dahiru remembers his father with schoolbooks and a football. His father always asked about his studies, whether he had revised well, and whether he was keeping up. But the memory that lingers most is the day a fight over a ball led him to be beaten up by friends. His father consoled him and promised to buy him his own. He did, and it became one of the symbols of his father’s care. 

Now 17 years old and in SS2, he wants to be a businessman after graduating from secondary school, so he can earn enough money to take care of his mother and siblings. And while he dreams of the man he will become, he dreams of the return of his father, the man who took care of him so fondly when he was young.

“I feel in my heart that my father will come back,” Dahiru says. “I never think that he’s gone forever. I know that he’ll be back.”

His brother, Salisu, remembers his father with toys. Each time he passes a shop with shelves full of them, he thinks of the days his father would buy him one. At first, the memories came with worry and fear. The mere mention of his father’s name evoked such grief that he would be unable to study or play that day. But with time, he has turned that fear into prayer. And now, when he hears the name, he asks God to bring his father back in good health.

Salisu is 15 years old and in JS2. He is outspoken and full of energy, while Dahiru is more shy and measured in his speech. Like his brother, Salisu wants to become a businessman, so he can support those who have helped him, especially his uncle, Auwalu, who has been there for him in his father’s absence. “I want to make him happy,” Salisu says, “just like he’s made me happy.”

Both boys said the ICRC’s programme has given them tools to navigate their emotions. They have learned patience and obedience towards their caretakers and elders, the importance of upholding their morals, and the need to avoid harmful practices such as substance abuse. The programme also encouraged them to seek out trusted people when they feel overwhelmed, to practise breathing exercises when they are angry, and to retreat to quiet places, such as the shade of a tree, where they can calm their nerves.

The ICRC runs the Protection of Family Links, an initiative that helps families affected by war stay connected and supports them in discovering the fate of missing loved ones. It is under this that the Accompaniment Programme was launched in 2019 to support families of missing persons in the North East, while searches are ongoing. 

The programme runs in six-month cycles, offering psychosocial and economic support, along with regular updates on the search. So far, seven cycles have been completed, with the eighth currently underway. It has reached more than 700 beneficiaries. A dedicated Child Accompaniment Programme has also been introduced, with two cycles completed for 68 children aged 13–17.

Searches are conducted through various methods, including announcing names, active tracing, and photo tracing, which enable wider community involvement in identifying the missing. Through these combined efforts, the Accompaniment Programme continues to address both the emotional and practical challenges faced by families, while keeping the search for their loved ones active and visible.

Whenever Auwalu remembers his brother, worry overcomes him. But then, he says, he remembers his own mortality and surrenders it all to God.

In the years after Babayo’s disappearance, his children often asked where their father was. Auwalu would comfort them and tell them he would return. He has taken on the role of their father, caring for them as though they were his own. He does his best to fill the emptiness of their loss, to give them enough love and guidance that their pain is eased. Over time, Babayo’s sons have spoken of their father less and less. Auwalu hopes the boys will grow into responsible men, able to care for and raise families of their own. Seeing the boys calmer and less weighed down by grief has eased his own pain, too, even if it has not disappeared entirely.

“At one point, whenever something would happen, they would say, ‘If my father were here…’ But now, because we treat them well, they are happy, even as they still remember him and see his photos in our home,” Auwalu says. “If I were to speak to him, I would tell him: If you are still alive, please come back.” 

Auwalu says their mother has suffered greatly since her son’s disappearance. It has been tears and grief all these years, as he was very good to her when he was around. He provided for her and took care of all that concerned her. Since the day he went missing, she has persistently been in distress, and her health has faltered again and again. 

Babayo’s wife, Fatoumata, has waited for him for 11 years now. While some Islamic clerics ruled that she could remarry because of her husband’s prolonged disappearance, she refused. She continued to hope and believe that he would return. She was living in Cameroon with the other children. But recently, she has shown signs of being open to remarrying. Four days ago, she moved back to Mubi to stay with her uncle, who says he will arrange for her to get married.  

As for Auwalu, every time he receives news or follows a lead that ends in yet another disappointment, it chips away at his hope a little more. When he returned from Cameroon, for instance, he felt defeated and consumed by despair, and throughout his journey home, his thoughts were only of Babayo.

He has dreamt of his brother more times than he can count. Once, he dreamt that Babayo returned dressed in white. But in those dreams, he never spoke. And now, as the long years have gone by, even those dreams come to him less often.