I
thought it was CAN President and President Goodluck Jonathan that sent
you on a suicide mission? Thanks God it was your own parents. Wicked
parents!!
AKUKO-
#UWA.
MY PARENTS VOLUNTEERED ME, SAYS 14 YEAR OLD KANO SUICIDE BOMBER.
A 14-year-old Nigerian girl who was arrested with explosives strapped to her bo
dy told journalists Wednesday that her parents volunteered her to take part in a suicide attack.
The girl, who was identified as Zahra’u Babangida, was arrested in Kano
on December 10 following a double suicide bombing in a market that
killed 10 people.
She was presented to journalists by police and
instructed to recount how Islamist militants allegedly forced her to
take part in the attack.
14 years old suspected suicide bomber
She said her mother and father, both Boko Haram sympathisers, took her
to an insurgent hideout in a forest near the town of Gidan Zana in Kano
state.
She said one alleged militant leader asked her whether she knew what a suicide bombing was.
“They said, ‘Can you do it?’ I said no.
“They said, ‘You will go to heaven if you do it.’ I said ‘No I can’t.’
They said they would shoot me or throw me into a dungeon,” Zahra’u told
journalists.
There was no way to independently verify her story
and she had no lawyer present. No information was available concerning
the whereabouts of her parents.
Police said they had instructed
the girl to tell her story to boost public awareness about those
responsible for the December 10 attack.
Faced with the threat of
death, Zahra’u said she finally agreed to take part in the attack but
“never had any intention of doing it.”
Several days later,
Zahra’u said, she and three other girls, all wearing explosives, were
brought to the Kantin Kwari market by unidentified men.
Zahra’u
said she was injured when one of the girls detonated her bomb and then
she fled the scene, ending up at a hospital on the outskirts of Kano
where she was discovered to be carrying explosives.
Boko Haram has increasingly used female suicide bombers, including teenagers, as part of their five-year insurgency.
Kano, the largest city in the mainly Muslim north, saw four such
attacks in one week in July, while similar bombings have hit the states
of Bauchi and Niger.
Experts say the group has used girls as
bombers to demonstrate the range of tactics they have available to sow
fear across Nigeria.
If confirmed, Zahra’u’s story would be the
first known case of parents volunteering their daughter to take part in a
deadly attack.
Violence in northern Nigeria has intensified in recent months, raising security fears ahead of February 14 elections.
