‘He’s my only child’ – mother of Boko Haram militant struggles without her son

More than a year after she was taken from Boko Haram by the Nigerian army, Falta still has mixed feelings about her freedom.

While she does not miss life in the Sambisa forest – a vast former game reserve in northeast Nigeria and the jihadists’ final stronghold – Falta is worried about her son, Mamman Nur, who is believed to be one of Boko Haram’s leading commanders....


Nur was the suspected mastermind behind a suicide bomb on U.N. headquarters in the capital Abuja in August 2011 that killed 23 people. Nigeria’s state security service has offered a $160,000 bounty for information leading to his capture.

The question of whether Boko Haram still has a base in the Sambisa is disputed, with President Muhammadu Buhari last month saying their last enclave in the forest was captured, before a man purporting to be the militants’ leader denied the claim.

Falta, a frail grandmother who describes herself as an “old woman”, recalled how her son insisted that his entire family move to the Sambisa for their safety following clashes between Boko Haram and the army in their hometown of Banki.

With no-one else to look after her, Falta said she had no choice but to go with her son, his three wives and his children to the base from which the militant group has waged a bloody seven-year campaign to create an Islamic state in the northeast.

“He is my only remaining child … his father died when he was a child,” said Falta, who had been a farmer in Banki.

Despite her doubts, life in the Sambisa was comfortable for Falta. Vans arrived regularly with food and clothes, a hospital staffed with doctors and nurses tended to the ill, and Falta had her own room in a house she shared with her son and his wives.


“I was happy to have my grandchildren around me,” she said.