“I want To Marry You, I Want  To Keep You,  I want You To Change Your Religion” – Train Terrorist Commander To 21-Year Old

By Adesina Soyooye

Miss Azurfa Lois John, the 21-year old student of the Kaduna State University, a victim of the Abuja-Kaduna bound Train attack, has finally admitted that one of the Terrorist Commanders, asked her to marry him.

Her claim when she spoke to Journalists on Tuesday in Kaduna, runs contrary to what Professor Usman Yusuf, Secretary to the seven-man team put together by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Leo Irabor, to get the hostages released told the public.

Professor Yusuf had quoted both Miss John and the Terrorist Commander, when he granted an interview to the Hausa Service of the Voice of America, as saying that no such marriage proposal ever took place as neither Miss John nor the Terrorist Commander spoke to each other during the victims’ over six months ordeal.

Detained self-appointed negotiator between the families of the victims and the terrorists, Tukur Mamu, Publisher of the Desert Herald and Media Consultant to controversial Islamic Scholar, Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, first raised the alarm that the Commander had concluded plans to marry Miss John, an alarm Professor Yusuf dismissed as a complete lie in his VOA interview.

Admitting the proposal, Miss John said she simply said No to the Commander, and was not harassed at all over her refusal to marry him.

She said: “Yes, it’s true that one of the Terrorist Commanders picked and proposed to marry me, but it was just an offer, and I rejected it. Once you reject them, they don’t force people.”

She, also, revealed that she was not the only one the terrorist Commanders proposed to and that it was left for one to say yes or no.

Her words: ” I was not the only one the terrorists offered to marry. They would just ask you: ‘I want to marry you, I want to keep you, and I want you to change your religion and convert to my religion’. So, it is left for you to either agree or reject.”

On how they were released, she said: ” The news of our leaving the camp came unexpectedly. The terrorists came and asked us to start parking our things. The preparation took a week until the final day when they then asked us to move and they handed us over to the Presidential Committee.”