Ex-wife of Factional Boko Haram Leader Caught Loitering in Maiduguri

Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri

A suspected suicide bomber and ex-wife of a factional leader of the Boko Haram sect, Mamman Nur, was recently apprehended by officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Borno State.

The girl, Fatima Kabir, 15, married Mamman Nur as the first of three husbands she had while she was in captivity for two years with the terror group.
Now four months pregnant, Fatima has also tested positive for HIV.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Fatima claimed that she hails from Gwoza town and was abducted by the insurgents and taken to Sambisa forest three years ago.
She said: “I am an indigene of Gwoza town. One day, Boko Haram stormed our town, killed many people and kidnapped me.
“Since then, I have been living in the dreaded forest and was married from one Boko commander to another.

“I was tired of that horrifying life, so one day I resolved to flee and succeeded.
“As I was running, I saw a team of military men and quickly rushed to them and narrated my ordeal.”
She added: “They sympathised with me and took me to their colleagues in Gwoza, who in turn conveyed me to Kano motor park in Maiduguri and gave me the sum of N3,000 and said I should use it for food and transport to look for my parents in one of the camps for the internally displaced persons.
“So while staying there night fell and I became stranded with no where to go, until some operatives of the civil defence corps apprehended us and brought us here.”

Fatima further revealed that after her marriage to the factional leader of Boko Haram, she was married to two other insurgents, who later abandoned her and fled from Sambisa.
The other teenage girl arrested alongside Fatima, Amina Salisu, corraborated Fatima’s story that they were stranded before their arrest and never planned to detonate any explosive.
Amina said she hails from Gulak town in Adamawa State but was abducted and taken to Sambisa two years ago.

She said she was married to two insurgents during her captivity.
The Borno State commandant of the NSCDC, Ibrahim Abdu, during the briefing said his operatives had intercepted the two teenage girls.

Abdu, while parading the girls at a press briefing in Maiduguri, said they were suspected to have been smuggled from Sambisa forest into the town to wreak havoc on innocent civilians.
He said one of the girls, Fatima, confessed to have been the ex-wife of Mamman Nur and that medical tests had confirmed that she was carrying a four-month-old pregnancy and infected with HIV.
He added that the other lady, Amina, equally admitted that she was married to separate Boko Haram members in Sambisa forest.

The commandant further revealed that the girls were found loitering at the popular Kano bus park in the Maiduguri metropolis and that upon extensive interrogation, they confessed that they were sneaked into Maiduguri for possible suicide attacks.
The commandant explained that after proper investigation, the command would hand them over to the appropriate authorities for the next line of action.