In a New York Times article, a woman who escaped the clutches of Boko Haram gives a chilling account of how the terrorists train women and girls to become suicide bombers.
Read below:
“Hold the bomb under your armpit to keep it steady”, the women and girls were taught.
Sever your enemy’s head from behind, to minimize struggling.
“If you cut from the back of the neck, they die faster,” said Rahila Amos, a Nigerian grandmother describing the meticulous instruction she received from Boko Haram to become a suicide bomber.
Of all the many horrors of Boko Haram’s rampage across West Africa — the attacks on mosques, churches and schools; the mass killings of civilians; the entire villages left in ashes after militants tear through — one of the most baffling has been its ability to turn captured women and girls into killers.
Ms. Amos, 47, said the fighters had come to her village in the morning, firing weapons as they spilled out of cars and rounded up women and children.
Not long afterward, Ms. Amos, a Christian, said she was forced to enroll in Boko Haram’s classes on its version of Islam, a first step on her way toward being taught the art of suicide bombing.
After months of training, Ms. Amos said, she was finally able to escape her captors one day when they had assembled for evening preaching. She stayed behind, gathering two of her young children and a grandchild so they could make a run for the Cameroonian border.
“I don’t want to take a bomb,” she said inside this refugee camp in Cameroon that stretches across a vast landscape dotted by tents and mud huts.
Ms. Amos, now among the 58,000 residents of the Minawao Refugee Camp, described a system of grooming potential bombers that involved food deprivation and promises of eternal life, tactics that cults have used for decades.
She said that when Boko Haram stormed her hometown in 2014, her two brothers were shot dead.
Her husband managed to flee with five of their children, but Ms. Amos did not make it out, and neither did two of their other young children and a grandchild. Boko Haram rounded them up with other women and children, putting them in a long ditch to contain them.
They stayed there for days, eating one meal a day of a corn paste made from powder. Finally a fighter arrived and asked a fateful question: Do you want to follow Christ, or do you want to be a Muslim?
The women all agreed to follow Islam, fearing they would be killed otherwise. Their training began.
Ms. Amos described a six-tiered daily education track for the women that she called Primary One, Primary Two and so on. The first two levels were Quranic training. Primary Three was training in suicide bombing and beheading. “How to kill a person and how to bomb a house,” she said.
“They told us if we came upon a group of 10 to 20 people to press this,” she said, speaking of a detonator.
The instruction given in the upper levels of the training — Primary Four, Five and Six — was a closely guarded secret among the fighters. Ms. Amos said she never learned what took place there.
Ms. Amos was lucky. Boko Haram fighters decided not to “marry” her, a euphemism for the rapes the group commits, because she already had a husband and children. She counted 14 women and four girls in her training classes who were not as fortunate.
Throughout her months in captivity, Ms. Amos was fed one meal a day and lost weight, a fact confirmed by her nephew living in the Minawao camp, who stared at her scrawny frame and said, “She used to be a big woman.”
Boko Haram incorporated the lack of food into the training, Ms. Amos said. Several months ago, she said, fighters rounded up the women and took them to an old factory to view a set of plump, well-fed girls who had plenty of food and water. Follow our ways, the fighters said, and you can have enough to eat, like these girls.
The girls, some crying, told Ms. Amos they were from Chibok, the Nigerian village where Boko Haram had captured the schoolgirls. American State Department and military officials said they would investigate the statements from Ms. Amos about the girls.
“They were very fat,” Ms. Amos said, compared with herself and the other women who were being held, “and they had lots of water.”
The authorities in Cameroon and Nigeria said that many of the experiences detailed by Ms. Amos matched the accounts of other women and girls who have escaped Boko Haram, or who have been arrested before they could detonate bombs.
Ms. Amos’s descriptions are also strikingly similar to details recounted by other freed women and girls, including depictions of the funeral rites performed before female bombers were sent on missions.
In Cameroon, many of the recent bombings have been carried out by girls in their early teens, leaving officials and analysts to wonder whether the girls were aware they were carrying bombs.
Yet some of the bombers in recent attacks in Nigeria have been found to wear their hair pulled back from the face — a hairstyle reserved for burial rites, a sign they were ready to die…
Source: NYTimes
There was pandemonium in Lasisi Apapa area of Total Garden, Ibadan, Oyo State, last night as a man simply called Baba David battered his wife after some heated arguments.
Baba David, an obviously jobless man, who his wife claimed to be a doctor had come home that evening to announce that her sister would be getting married coming weekend, and that she should be ready to follow him to somewhere outside Ibadan.
The wife was not comfortable with the news, saying how could the sister be getting married, and they would only hear five days to the occasion, and that she suspected foul play.
It was at this point the wife reminded him of what he said early this year that his friends were using their first children for money ritual, and that since that time she had decided to be very careful with him. Moreso, mama David claimed she had been noticing some ritualistic exercise the house.
It’s of note to state here that, mama David’s parents were not aware of her marriage to this man. In fact, her parents do not even know the man, neither do they know where she stays.
In the course of the crossfire, Baba David openly said that nobody could ask her whereabout from him, and that he met her in a brothel in Ibadan, and she became pregnant for him and moved to his house. And they have one child, David.
For daring to say she would not follow him to the wedding, the man descended on her and beat her blue black. He flung the boy from staircase, and they both (mother and child) sustained serious bodily injuries.
It was the cry of the woman that attracted the neighbors, one of who is a policeman. As the policeman attempted to rescue the woman, Baba David delved him a blow, and he had no choice than to call the patrol team who came to whisk him away to detention.
Even as he was being bundled away, Baba David was still boasting that when released he would make sure he killed his wife. One of the neighbors had to call the landlord, simply called Mr. shola, to ensure that the man is evicted from the environment.
We only just heard about his new house!! Davido just announced the signing of a deal with top international beverage, Pepsi.
He first shared the news came via Snapchat of signing the deal with Paul O before he took it on to Instagram.
He said,
New deal alert!!! My new Pepsi deal is sweeter than!!! 2 Years with the best!! Thank you Lord for your continuous blessings!!!@pepsi_naija!!!
Davido is also an ambassador for MTN, Close Up among other companies and he joins the ranks ofWizkid, Seyi ShayandTiwa Savageas Nigerian brand ambassadors for Pepsi.
Congratulations!!!
Nollywood movies amuse me as much as they frighten me. I spent a greater part of my childhood watching them and over time, certain movie scenes shaped the way I behave.
For instance, a memory from a popular 90’s movie makes it difficult for me to accept a free ride from a total stranger. Also, I am wary of accepting gifts from people I do not know, especially when it’s a consumable product.
This is a new one. I thought.
One minute, he wasn’t back,
Two minutes, I picked up the can and shook it, scanning for visible holes.
Five minutes after, I thought I was being paranoid.
Orijin Zero is 100% natural, herbal, non-alcoholic soft drink that has less sugar than regular soft drink, a drink that will challenge you to ‘Rethink Your Soft Drink’.
Here are the 15 Signs a debtor who doesn’t want to pay back will possess…
1. When you call to ask for your money and they’re like
Hay God! On top my own money?
2. When they completely stop updating on social media.
If you like delete all your accounts.
3. When they start using God to swear.
Don’t let God punish you.
4. Onigbeses and “I didn’t see your missed call”
Ode, how will you see?
5. When they start acting brand new.
6. When they always find a way to imply that they’re broke when they see you.
Na so.
7. When they ask if they can pay you in installments.
5k now, 3k later, 2k on your death bed.
8. When you message them on Whatsapp and they leave you on:
See my life.
9. When you ask them if they saw your message.uy
Don’t let me swear for you.
10. When they start telling you about one money that will soon enter their account.
I’ve heard you.
11. Whenever they see you in public.
See this one.
12. When they start telling you about their family problems.
Is that what I asked you?
13. When they message you an epistle everytime you remind them of the money.
Is this one mad?
14. When they start reminding you of all the things they’ve done for you in the past.
“Remember that time I bought you Zobo in JSS2? And you might in 400L currently.”
15. When they finally block you everywhere.
Somebody wants to die.
The End
You like it? – Drop your Comments.
Source:- Zikoko.com
Nollywood star, Desmond Elliot, has advised the Federal Government to take advantage of the entertainment industry to attract youths to agriculture.
Elliot, who is a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly representing Surulere Constituency, made the call in an interview with theNews Agency of Nigeria (NAN)in Abuja on Monday.
He urged the government to invest in the industry as it has the capacity to influence young minds.
The ugly incident is currently going on at Dapsey Oil in Igando, Lagos state.
NSCDC officer pointed a gun at the officer in charge of security at a filling station in Igando, Lagos state. The argument is currently going on, Gunshot going on right now at the Filling station.
We hope the Lagos state government send down the right agency to look into this Issue before it get messier.
See more photos below:-
