My Wife Died Defending Her Honour In Bandits’ Den – Widower Yusuf

Aminu Yusuf, a resident Jibia in Katsina State, has narrated how his wife, Malama Ladi, who was nursing a baby, was kidnapped by bandits and forcibly married off to one of her abductors and eventually killed for insisting on protecting her honour and that of her family.

A recorded telephone conversation supposedly between Yusuf and a leader of the bandits has been circulating on the social media. In the conversation, the leader of the bandits is heard narrating how one of his boys took fancy to their captive and Yusuf pleading for her corpse to be returned.

In an interview with LEADERSHIP Weekend, Yusuf shed more light on the sequence of events that led to his wife’s murder and says he has been restless and unable to sleep since the incident happened, especially considering all the efforts to rescue her, to no avail.

The incident, which occurred at Magama-Jubia of Jibia local government area of Katsina State last week, has astonished a lot of people at a time when people are struggling to survive the economic hardship in the country.

  LEADERSHIP Weekend, however, visited Yusuf’s residence at Magama-Jibia and had first-hand information on the depravity behind his wife’s death.

 He admitted to having been in that phone conversation with the leader of the bandits and made a series of negotiations that later became fruitless.

 According to him, the bandit leader, after kidnapping his wife, contacted him via telephone to demand a ransom of N10 million for her release. 

But he pleaded with the captor, saying he had never held that kind of money in his entire life.

He narrated that after days of negotiations, the bandit leader reduced the amount to N5 million and subsequently settled at N2 million, but he was able to raise only N700,000 along with three Android phones, which were delivered to the bandits.

 “The leader of the bandits told me that he would be travelling somewhere and I should continue the discussion with his boy, the guy holding my wife hostage. And we discussed and reached a certain point where he had to link me back to the boss, who finally agreed to collect N2 million for her release.

 He said: “I then sold my car at the cost of N500,000, and I wanted to sell my house but nobody was ready to buy because of the difficult economic situation. I was able to gather some small amount from well-wishers, neighbours and friends. Altogether we were able to raise N700,000 and three Android phones.”

 “The bandits agreed to meet with us, and we discussed with my mother-in-law to deliver the ransom while approaching the area. She agreed and did exactly as we planned because I didn’t want to end up being another victim in their hands again after they had taken my wife.

 “She handed over the ransom to them and they promised to release her the following day but they did not. Since then, the guy’s phone became unreachable.

 “After some time, I began to hear rumours that my wife was killed by the bandit. An abducted lady that was later released personally told me this. She stayed in the same lock-up cell where my wife was held captive. According to her,  my wife was forced into marriage to a man and when he wanted to lie with her, she refused and said she would rather be killed, and they shot her twice.”

 Yusuf said he has been traumatised since her death, and taking care of their two children has not been easy for him, with the one-year-old crying for its mother.                     

 “I’m just living but nothing seems good to me, because I sold everything to rescue my wife, but all to no avail. I don’t pray for my enemy to experience such a kind of tragedy.

 “I can hardly sleep or eat, even discussing with friends and family has become so difficult for me to do. My wife left two kids, the first child is three years old, while the younger one was one-year-old and still breastfeeding.

“When the bandits kidnapped the mother, he crawled to follow his mother, but she insisted that he should be left behind.”