Ikenna Nzeribe was the sole survivor after assassins from Boko Haram
stormed his Nigerian church in 2012, just 60 miles from where the
jihadists last month abducted more than 200 girls.
In an interview with CNN, he told his sad yet triumphant story.
The church massacre remains vivid for Nzeribe three years later — as are
the scars on his face, neck and arm. The Muslim extremists fired shots into the air and shouted “Allah Hu Akbar,” or God is great. Nzeribe and 13 other Christians hit the floor.
They were mourning how Boko Haram earlier had killed three fellow
Christians, but now Boko Haram was coming for them.The masked gunmen
shot the 13 worshipers in the head, fatally.Now it was Nzeribe’s turn.
“As soon as I saw the man, I knew it was over for me.The only thing I
could do was say a last prayer, which was ‘Blood of Jesus cover me.And
that was it for me.
Nzeribe, a handsome banker, was shot in the face with an AK-47 assault
rifle, blowing away his jaw, lips and part of his tongue.He faked death —
“until they finished,”He bled profusely.
“I would say I died in the process,But God brought me back to life.”
Rescuers took him to a local hospital in Mubi, a suburban area in
northeastern Nigeria where he was part of a Christian minority and where
the mass shooting in church occurred.He was later flown to London,
where surgeons reconstructed his face.
Nzeribe recalled looking in the mirror
for the first time post-surgery.What he saw was “a very different
person,” Nzeribe said, shaking his head. He stopped the interview,
wiping away the tears and finding composure after long breaths.
A zigzagging scar runs up Nzeribe’s chin to his upper lip. His mouth is
even more disfigured, but at least he can talk, in soft tones. And he
has a great laugh, though he can’t smile.
He’s had more than a dozen surgeries, with more pending.
He’s now recovering in Houston, where he receives treatment and lives
with his wife and their baby, joining a Nigerian immigrant community
whose residents find the climate similar to their native country’s. His
attorney, Frank C. Onyenezi, is working on Nzeribe’s immigration status.
“We’ve come a long way,” Nzeribe said of his surgeries and reconstructed face.
He’s flattered to hear how he appears younger.
“It gives me confidence,” he said of his surgically reconstructed face. “It gives me hope.”
A devout Christian whose tale has been publicized in the religious
press, he said has forgiven the gunmen of Boko Haram, whose mass
abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls has outraged the international
community.
“The first thing I did was to forgive them.Had they known better, they couldn’t do that.”
But Nzeribe isn’t naïve: He is warning the world about how Boko Haram
and its leader, Abubakar Shekau, commit atrocities with impunity.
“Everything he says he will do, he does them.It gives them a sense of
fulfillment and makes them want to do more.Just like al Qaeda, they are
very, very destructive.
He now prays for the kidnapped 276 girls, still missing in Nigeria
