A teenager, Amina Yusuf, paraded by the military on Wednesday in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, said she failed to detonate her explosive because she did not subscribe to Boko Haram ideology.
The 17-year-old told newsmen in Maiduguri that she was abducted five years ago alongside her parents in Madagali in Adamawa State, after a terror attack on the village.
Yusuf said: “I was abducted alongside my parents in Madagali in Adamawa after the terrorists attacked our village.
“We were taken to a camp in the bush where we were forcefully indoctrinated by the group.”
The suspected suicide bomber alleged that her parents were killed after they had refused to be indoctrinated.
Yusuf said: “My parents were executed because they did not join the group.
“I was married off to a Boko Haram militant, with whom I lived in the camp.
“One day I was asked to wear the bombs.
“I was brought to Maiduguri with an instruction that I detonate the bomb where there is large crowd of people.”
She said that she declined to detonate the explosive because she did not want to die.
Yusuf said: “They said I should press the button, but I refused and allowed security men to capture me alive.
“My four siblings are still with the terrorists in the camp.”
Major General Lucky Irabor, the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, had presented her along with two unidentified girls to newsmen during a weekly briefing in Maiduguri.
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