In what many residents are calling a medical miracle and others a tragicomedy, doctors at the General Hospital, Bama, have reportedly “returned” the gbola of a man who tried to end his life by cutting it off with a kitchen knife.

The man, Identified as 50-year-old Modu Isa of Hausari Ward, had shocked his community on Friday when, after stabbing himself thrice in the stomach, decided his gbola had no business existing without his estranged wife, Bayanxe Modu, who refused to remarry him.

“He said if Bayanxe cannot have him, then his gbola too must go,” said a bemused neighbor, who admitted she was still struggling to process the entire episode.

But in what many are now calling Operation Return Gbola, medical personnel performed an emergency procedure to reattach the man’s prized possession. Hospital sources confirmed, tongue firmly in cheek, that “the gbola has been brought back to him and is currently alive and responding to treatment.”

Residents of Bama have taken to joking that Modu has “made history as the first man whose gbola went on sabbatical and was successfully recalled.”

Meanwhile, security sources confirmed the case has been transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Maiduguri, “because apparently even a gbola crisis’is a CID matter in Borno.”

The community, however, is still split. While some sympathize with Isa’s heartbreak, others are baffled. “Instead of cutting onions for stew, he was cutting gbola,” one resident quipped, shaking his head.

As one old man in the ward put it: “This is not suicide attempt, this is Borno comedy show. Only in Borno can a man lose his gbola on Friday and get it back on Sunday.” (Zagazola)