A Woman’s Ordeal with Repeated Kidnapping in Zamfara

The first time they came for her, in May 2023, Lubabatu Ibrahim was preparing to sleep. Terrorists broke into her home in Gana village, Zamfara State, North West Nigeria, and found her alone. Her husband, the community’s traditional ruler, was away in Mecca for the Islamic pilgrimage.

“They didn’t beat me, but they asked for money, and I told them I had none,” the 46-year-old recounted. 

That night, she narrowly escaped abduction. But the terrorists did not forget her, as they were acting under the instruction of their leader, Kachalla Falando.

For years, Nigeria’s North West has been at the centre of the country’s kidnapping crisis, where armed groups prey on rural communities, abducting residents for ransom and forcing thousands to abandon their homes. Women like Lubabatu, married to a local monarch, are prime targets, not only because of their symbolic status but also because of the assumption that their families can raise huge sums. Her story reflects a broader reality in which ordinary life has been eroded by fear, extortion, and the absence of state protection.

Her escape did not end the threat; it only delayed it. 

Months later, in June 2024, they returned, this time seizing her only son, 15-year-old Bilyaminu, the very day he came home from boarding school. 

“I missed Bilyaminu. It was his first time away from home for secondary education,” she said. “We were jubilating for Bilyaminu’s long-awaited return home as he reunited with his family and siblings from the school he had dreamed of attending,” she said. “As a mother with only one boy, I prepared so much for him and his friends during the festive period. I got him a lot of confectionery and his favourite local dishes, which he had missed.”

That evening, after a warm reunion, he came to her room to say goodnight. He sat by her legs as she patted his head. “Why have you let your hair grow so much?” she teased. He laughed and promised to cut it the next day.

But at about 1:30 a.m., terrorists stormed the village. They demanded to know the whereabouts of the matan maigari—the monarch’s wife.

“I immediately smuggled her out of her room into one of our local silos meant for preserving our assorted grains in the backyard. Only for me to return, I heard Bilyaminu crying in the hands of the terrorists. They were beating him to find out where Lubabatu, his mother, was hiding. Bilyaminu replied that he had no idea where his mother was,” Sani Maigari, the village head of the Gana community, told HumAngle.

The boy insisted he had just returned from school and did not know. His pleas were ignored. He was taken away, along with other villagers. Houses were set ablaze, including that of the community’s Imam. 

After four months in captivity, Bilyaminu was released when a ransom of ₦1.5 million was paid. By then, many residents had fled their homes. 

“There was no security official to rescue the victims,” Sani added. “We are all displaced. As I speak, we do not sleep in our homes. We spend our daytime in Gana and our night in Nasarawar Burkullu. We have been in transit daily since Jan. 6.”

Months after Bilyaminu was released, on Monday, Jan. 6, the terrorists invaded again. It was raining heavily when three armed men broke into the monarch’s house at about 11:00 p.m. This time, they mistook the monarch’s sick second wife, Sadiya, for Lubabatu.

“They forced me to place Sadiya on the bike,” Lubabatu recounted. “She was sick with a stroke. So they tried to load her onto the bike several times, unsuccessfully. One of the terrorists instructed me to hold her legs for him, as he held her by the arm and shifted the sick woman beside a tree, fearing that she could die.”

When it became clear she could not be taken, Lubabatu recalled that one of the attackers declared, “Since we can’t abduct the sick woman, Lubabatu. We will take her instead.”

This time, they had their real target, but they were unaware. 

Alongside more than 50 women and children, Lubabatu was marched through the night to Rijiyar Yarbugaje, on the outskirts of Gana. She overheard teenage fighters arguing about whether they had truly captured her. One insisted they had failed; another said they had already taken someone from her household.

The journey into captivity was brutal. The terrorists led the captives into the forest up to the Kaiwaye riverbank. “We all stopped there. Another fear of the unknown knocked on my heart, and I felt too sad again and again, as all hope was lost. I looked at the river, looked back, and I prayed to God again,” said Jamila Rabiu, another victim of the same attack.

“We trekked through that night until the following day. We neither ate food nor drank water throughout the movements across the forests. We finally reached our destination and stayed there until ₦6 million was paid as ransom for the five of us only,” Lubabatu told HumAngle.

Two days after they arrived at the camp, Kachalla Falando summoned five women among the captives from Gana and asked who among them was Lubabatu. They claimed she had escaped in the forest.

He nodded in dismay, unaware that the woman he sought was among them.

“I was the youngest among the captives. Falando walked toward me and whispered, ‘I love you.’ My chest and heart beat excessively. He asked the rest of the women to go back to the tents. I asked him to fear God and let me go with the rest,” Lubabatu said.

Falando ordered his gang to chain her. She spent three days in chains, exposed to sunshine, and only given a cup of water twice every day.

“I tried to understand why they wanted me abducted, specifically as a wife to the family of the Gana District Head. The only explanation I could arrive at was that Falando is an ambitious terrorist, driven by a desire to expand his territorial influence over communities he labelled as non-compliant,” Lubabatu said. 

HumAngle learnt from locals that Gana, unlike neighbouring Gando and Baruba, was among the few villages in Bukuyum LGA whose leaders had refused to submit to the terrorists’ impunity, including the sexual abuse of women.

Lubabatu remained in captivity for two months and ten days until a ₦6 million ransom was paid. 

She confirmed to HumAngle that neither Falando nor his gang realised that she was in their custody. “None of the women that we were abducted together disclosed my identity to the terrorists, despite the intimidation, abuse and violent actions against almost every one of us,” Lubabatu said.

Falando is a notorious kingpin in Nigeria’s North West. Locals familiar with his group estimate its strength at about 200 fighters. Beyond terrorising communities, they extort from them, sometimes under the guise of peace. On several occasions, Falando has compelled rural populations to pool resources for so-called “ransom-for-peace” agreements. But these deals rarely last. In Adabka, a farming settlement in Zamfara, residents raised and paid ₦20 million in the hope of buying safety. Three years later, Falando’s gang struck again, abducting and killing residents and security operatives.

The shadow Falando casts stretches across communities like Gana, where Lubabatu was seized. The village had long been under siege. Residents say the first major attack was recorded six years ago, when armed groups began their incursions into the community, which has led to assaults that have battered families.

Since she returned, fear and trauma have become Lubabatu’s worst nightmare. “The sounds of guns knocking on my ears are always my greatest fear. Anytime I hear the reverberation of gun sounds, I get tensed,” she said. “We look like wanderers, always on the move, so restless. My son is no longer in school because we are paupers and cannot afford to sponsor his education.”

Her voice carried both exhaustion and resolve. What she wanted, she said, was simple: safety, food for her family, and financial support to rebuild their lives. But until the government breaks the grip of men like Falando, residents, especially women like Lubabatu, will remain trapped by fear, their lives suspended between survival and despair.