Wives of Boko Haram terrorists share their love stories

Walasa, a town near the Nigeria-Cameroon border, was reclaimed by Nigerian soldiers from Boko Haram insurgents in May 2016. Most of the Boko Haram fighters ran away, leaving their wives and children behind, though some of the fighters died.


About 34 women were rounded up with their children, packed into vehicles and taken to a safe house in Maiduguri where they are now receiving psycho-social treatment designed to rehabilitate them back into society, away from their husbands who are regarded as terrorists.

The state's governor, Kashim Shettima has promised will eventually reunite the women with their families and relations in Maiduguri, Borno State though pregnant ones among them say they fear that their children will never meet their fathers.

These women who have very fond memories of  their husbands, don't see their husbands as terrorists but as loving men. It brings to mind the quote by Robertson Davies, which says “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”


According to them, once upon a time, elephants and leopards roamed Sambisa; the forest which stretches for nearly 40,000 square miles in the southern part of the northeastern state of Borno and has born the brunt of Boko Haram's insurgency.

Now, it is Boko Haram members and their families who live among the scatterings of acacia, baobab, tamarind and neem (dongoyaro) trees.

Social workers from the state's emergency management agency, a local NGO called the NEEM Foundation and the state's Ministry of Women's Affairs counsel the women throughout the week, in turns.

The social workers from interaction with the women at the safe house, have found that say that the women with age range from 11-27, see their husbands are working for God, they do whatever they ask of them; contrary to many human rights organisations who claim that the wives of Boko Haram fighters are coerced into carrying out acts of violence, the women at the safe house.

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