Female Boko Haram member who have surrendered their arms and ammunition to the federal government and denounced the acts of terrorism and banditry now find it difficult to get spouses.
According to Arewa Punch, the former Boko Haram insurgents now find it difficult to marry as the law-abiding men in the society avoid them like a plague.
It was gathered that the situation had become a serious concern to the various community leaders.
According to the aforementioned publication, official records put the total number of surrendered insurgents and their families at 162,000, but no such records show the number of spinsters, divorcees, or widows among them.
Some leaders of the communities complained that their men are scared of venturing into any form of romance with the surrendered female insurgents, even though some of the ladies had been expressing their secret desire for suitors to marry or remarry them.
“These ladies desperately want to marry or remarry, but men seem scared of them, as no suitors approach them with such proposal.
“I have not compiled the number of such ladies, but they send messages to us as community leaders over the matter,” a ward head at Old Maiduguri, Modu Grema Wakil
Wakil continued: “Our fear is that if these women and girls do not get the men to marry, they may be tempted to renege on their repentance vow from terror activities and return to the bush.
“But when they get suitors and marry or remarry in the law-abiding society, other girls and women still in the bush could be encouraged to surrender and come back home.”
Asked if the problem was a matter of societal stigma, the community leader assured: “No. I don’t think so because the societal stigma against them is waning.”
He stressed, “but we are severely pained by the fact that suitors are scared of marrying them, because most people still don’t believe they have genuinely repented, and, therefore, they may slaughter their husbands and flee back to the bush.”
Wakil called on the Borno State government to create a database of such repenting female insurgents to persuade suitors to approach them and organise marriages.
Further expressing his fears, he maintained: “The inability to marry or remarry at home may tempt them to renege on their repentance.”
Responding, the Borno State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Zuwaira Gambo, said that, “It is a welcome development that they are expressing their desire to marry or remarry, because it will help to stabilise them in the law-abiding society.”
She said the state government would collaborate with the Allamin Foundation, a Maiduguri-based NGO, to create the required database for that purpose.
