My parents donated me to terrorists, 13Yr old suspect confesses

A 13-year-old suspected suicide bomber who was arrested by the police in Kano has said that she was handed over to the terrorists who recruited her by her parents.

Zaharau Babangida was found wearing a suicide vest outside a hospital in the state on December 11 after 2 female suicide bombers detonated explosives at the Kantin Kwari textile market in the state.

The teenager said while being paraded:

“It began one day when my father took my mum and I to a forest in Bauchi where we met people claiming to be working for God”. In the Bauchi forest I met some other girls who I guessed were my age mate and their leader told us to give our lives to God and enjoy the bounties of heaven.”

“I was not moved by the soul searching preaching of bounties in the heaven and it was at this point, their leader resorted to threat and intimidation to obtain my consent. We were shown a deep hole where the leader of the group threatened to bury us alive at a point if any of us refused to play along, and at another time he picked a big gun and threatened to shoot anyone who fails to obey his command,” she said.

“It was at this point my father stepped forward to persuade me to play along, and told me to prepare to die as martyr and clear the way for him to join me soon.When I was confronted with option of death, I chose to play along hoping to find an escape route one day,” Zaharau added in Hausa.

She also spoke on the December 10 blast which she and two other girls were reportedly sent to carry out:

“I and two other girls were conveyed to Kano and quartered at the outskirt of the city by a man I could hardly remember his name, and this same man conveyed all of us to the market square and deployed us at strategic positions at Kwari market on the day we struck,” she said.

“I was taken aback when my partners were shattered to pieces barely a second after they detonated. I then rushed out of the scene to pick a commercial rickshaw to a hospital in Dawanau area of the city for medical treatment, and doctors were already attending to me when the driver of the Keke NAPEP resurfaced and showed me a metal object and requested to know whether it was mine of which I answered in affirmative.”

“I told him the object he dangled before me is a bomb and its mine, and in no time armed soldiers picked me from my sick bed to their headquarters,” she said.

The bombing in Kantin Kwari, one of Kano’s busiest markets, left 6 people, including the attackers, dead.