Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau who claimed responsibility for the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in northern Nigeria that has triggered international outrage, has threatened to sell them as “slaves”.
“I abducted your girls,” said Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Islamist group, referring to the 276 students kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok, Borno state, three weeks ago.
The comments were made in a 57-minute video obtained by AFP.
“I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married,” he said.
“I will repeat this: Western education should fold up. I abducted your girls.”
“I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, claiming his group was holding the girls as “slaves”.
“I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine,” he said elsewhere in the video.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” he said, after reports that some of the 223 girls still missing may have been sold as brides across Nigeria’s border with Chad and Cameroon for as little as $12.
Unconfirmed reports from local leaders in Chibok suggested that the girls had been taken across Nigeria’s borders with Chad and Cameroon and sold as brides for as little as two thousand naira (N2, 000)..