The Department of State Service and the Nigeria Police on Wednesday afternoon paraded a 13-year-old female suicide bomber arrested in the wake of an attack on the Kano textile market.
She was picked up in an unnamed hospital in Kano.
The arrested female suicide bomber identified herself as Zaharau Babangida.
Babangida claimed to be an indigene of Bauchi State.
She told reporters in Kano that she was recruited into the heinous act by her parents, who delivered her to the insurgents in the bush.
She could however not say the location.
Describing the insurgents she encountered in the bush, she revealed: “Some of them were white and some of them were black, but they were all armed.
“They took us to the bush, near a thatched house.
“They called the three of us and some other women.
“Each of us was called out separately and asked if we would sacrifice our lives (Istishadiya).
“But I asked them this: ‘What is Istishadiya?’
“They responded that it was suicide bombing.
“I said ‘no’ to their request.
“They promised me that if I commit suicide, I will enter paradise.
“When I refused, they threatened to kill me and threw me into a ditch where they keep sinners.
“They have already surrounded the bush to prevent the women from escaping.
“Because they said that they would kill me, I granted their request.”
Babangida she accepted to commit suicide so as to be allowed out of the bush alive, noting that following her acceptance, she and the other two suicide bombers were conveyed to Kano and on a tricycle, for the suicide mission in the market.
She added: “When we dropped at the market, one of the girls announced that we would enter the place, settling in different locations, urging the rest of us to detonate our bombs once the first one had gone off.
“Then the first girl entered with her own bomb into the market and as we went, the second girl asked me to detonate mine, but I refused.
“After that, she detonated her own bomb and the explosion hit me and injured me on the leg.
Babangida said she slipped out of the market in the confusion and went to the main road from where she boarded a tricycle and headed to Dawanau, on the outskirts of Kano, where she had lived.
She said: “At Dawanau, some of our neighbours came and I sought help.
“I asked to be taken to the hospital, but the women there said that their husbands were not at home.
“It was one of the elders in the area that finally took me to the hospital.
“At the hospital, the medical personnel started dressing my wounds.
“They had sewn the injury.
“Then later the driver of the tricycle who took me to Dawanau surfaced and reported that he saw something inside his tricycle that I had forgotten.
“Although I tried to deny initially, they later called the soldiers on phone, who came and took me away.”
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