Diary of a repentant Boko Haram commander

ABUJA, Aug. 31– Looking back at the crimes he executed against
humanity, Auwal Ismaaela, a self-confessed top commander of the
Nigeria-based terror group Boko Haram, felt he would likely be living the
rest of his life regretting the atrocities he and other fighters committed.

Although he claimed to have repented now, and willfully surrendered to the
Nigerian military recently, he is, no doubt, gutted by his own past.
Ismaaela threw in the towel as government troops intensified efforts to
smoke out remnants of the terror group in Nigeria. His submission to the
military was promptly followed by a confession in which the terror group
commander said he played a major role in the abduction of more than 200
schoolgirls from Chibok, a Christian-dominated town in the northeastern
state of Borno in April 2014. “It is unfortunate that I was brainwashed and
misled, not only on some abductions but in the killings of my own people
that were innocent,” Ismaaela told investigators. “I wholeheartedly regret
my actions,” he said, noting his sins were too many.

Among his many regrets, he would live the rest of his life without a right
leg and a partially charred body — the vestiges of a senseless fight
against his country and compatriots. Amid many acts of bloodletting on
innocent people and destruction of properties across the length and breadth
of Nigeria’s northeast, Ismaaela and another repentant Boko Haram fighter
named Abu Hafsat led the killing of youths and other school children in
Madagali area of Adamawa State, also in the northeast region. Between 2014
and 2015, he commanded many terror operations which led to the invasion of
almost a dozen towns across Nigeria’s northeast region. Even his kinsmen
were not spared the violence. In 2014, Ismaaela led his cohorts to his
homestead of Madagali, where they killed some students and youths at the
Central Secondary School in Sabon Gari area of the town. “In one of the
operations, I abducted my wife named Maryam,” the repented terrorist said.

Maryam later bore him two kids in Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram’s largest
training camp in Borno State. Before the terrorists were chased out of
Sambisa Forest, the place was a “land of horror,” Ismaaela recalled.
“Women were being raped, sometimes publicly. Children died from
malnutrition and diseases as the living condition became harsher. As there
was no food in the camp, people died every day because of hunger,” he
said. Despite losing his right leg in a gunfight with troops in Konduga,
another frequently attacked area in Borno State, Ismaaela did not stop
fighting for Boko Haram. He said Boko Haram’s kingpin, Abubakar Shekau,
gave him a tricycle with which he continued to use for various operations
before he eventually surrendered.

Giving many reasons for his decision to voluntarily surrender to the
Nigerian troops, Ismaaela had since realized, also, that the sermons,
barbaric indoctrination and atrocities being committed in all the Boko
Haram camps “were misleading.” “I willingly surrendered to the military
because I was tired of the senseless killing and fight. I realized that our
people have resort to stealing and all sort of atrocity contrary to the
teaching and practice of Islam,” he added. Ismaaela, currently held in a
military detention center in the northeast region, has vowed to cooperate
with the Nigerian Military with useful information on locations and
hideouts of other top commanders of the ruthless Boko Haram group.His plea
is being considered by Nigerian authorities. More than 100 Boko Haram
members and some commanders had in the recent past surrendered to the
military, knowing full well that their actions had become inimical to the
overall interest and well-being of the nation and the surrounding countries
of Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. – XINHUA