Arrested 13-Year Old Kano Suicide Bomber Confesses How She Became a Terrorist

The 13-year-old suicide bomber arrested by the police in connection with Kano attack, made chilling confessions.

Zaharau Babangida

The girl who identified herself as Zaharau Babangida narrated how her own father had made her terrorist.

According to Vanguard, she disclosed:

“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.”


Speaking Wednesday, December 24, with journalists, the teenager continued:

“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.”

Zaharau said that the men in the bush had continuously preached to her and other girls about suicide mission, Premium Times adds. She refused to accept the ideas introduced, but was threatened that she would be buried alive.

“I was in the bush when the people some who looks like Arabs and some huge black men told me that did I know what is suicide mission, that is one killing himself? I said no I don’t know, they explained it to me and said that if I did plus reciting Sura Albakara I will straight go to Paradise.

“I declined and told them I will not do it, they now told me that they would dig a hole and bury me alive because that is what they do to all women who refuse to adhere to their demands, and they said they meant what they said, I now complied.”

Thus the terrified had no other choice but agree to go on Kano mission, together with two other young girls.


The 13-year-old narrated what happened on the fateful day of the bloody Kano attack, which killed those 2 girls and 4 residents. According to Zaharau, they had a special guide who took them to the place.

“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 she had refused to commit the crime and follow the other girls. But the two soon they blew themselves up and left Zaharau injured.

“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.”

Meanwhile Kano State Commissioner of Police, Aderele Shinaba, revealed that one of the girls’ guides had been arrested. He however didn’t say what had happened to Zaharau’s father. READ MORE: http://www.naij.com/349503-confessions-of-13-year-old-kano-suicide-bomber.html