BY USMAN MOHAMMED, AUGUST 24, 2023 | 01:20 PM
After about ten years of captivity, Mary Nkeki got her freedom from Boko Haram captivity. She was one of the Chibok School Girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.
But despite what she must have gone through while in their custody, Nkeki now wants to be reunited with her husband, who she married at Sambisa Forest.
Her first husband was killed in a military operation at a time she could not remember now. She had two kids with him, who are now also dead.
Following that, she married Adam, her present husband.
During the difficult times at the forest, she said Adam assisted her, as far as to the point of saving her life.
There was no enough food. No access to basic healthcare. There was just nothing to have a decent living. Adam, supposedly one of her captives, was the only one offering to support and care about her condition.
Even though she was forced to marry him, she said seeing his kindness, it was not too hard for her to accept to spend the rest of her life with him.
However, marrying him was not the end of her suffering.
Increasing military raids and factional crisis made life difficult in Sambisa, this time including her husband. Supplies were not forthcoming; there is constant fear of airstrikes and military bombardments.
This forced them to flee and surrender to troops of 81 Task Force Battalion in Dikwa Local Government Area, joining over a hundred thousand who left before them.
She was taken separately with her husband, who would have to undergo profiling before his hand-over to the government for de-radicalization or other necessary actions.
But her primary concern now is to be allowed to stay with her husband.
'I am still married, and I want to be reunited with my husband,' she said.
'He was a Boko Haram member before but he ‘repented’ now and we escaped together through Dikwa before the military rescued us.
'We were separated at Dikwa town after I told the military I am a Chibok school girl. I was airlifted by the military helicopter from the town to Maiduguri; that was how I lost contact with my husband,' she added.
Mary also said she is not interested in school again.
Her reason?
‘I am afraid, I may be abducted again,’ the visibly traumatized lady said.
'I have forgotten everything I learned from school because we were held in captivity for nine years, and I don't want to go back to school because I'm afraid of being abducted again.'
Mary Nkeki was presented to the press on Monday by Major General Gold Chibuzi, the theatre commander of Operation Hadin Kai.
She is the sixteenth recently rescued by the troops.
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