Saleem Ibrahim, a student of Department of Biochemistry in the University of Maiduguri, has inflicted a grevios wound on one Hauwa Abatcha Ngala for refusing his love advances.
According to Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency expert in the Lake Chad region, it was alleged that Saleem had tried for some time to force Hauwa to love him, but not quite convinced by his advances, Hauwa was said to have searched her mind for any speck of love she could have for him, but couldn’t find any.
The report added that Hauwa reportedly convinced herself, and all along tried to convince Saleem Ibrahim that she nursed no feelings or emotions for him in the name of love.
Consequently, she reportedly did her best to break free from all his pranks and mischief against her in his effort at creating a speck of love for him in her heart and therefore parted ways with him respectfully.
The more she tried to free herself from his increasingly enmeshing pranks in the name of efforts at persuading her to love him, the more dangerous and threatening his dispositions got towards her.
Hauwa maintained that she had no love for Saleem, and there was no way she could eke out even the minutest degree of it for him in her innocent and exceptionally sincere heart.
Her emotional feelings against him reportedly sharply contrasted and fiercely clashed with his alleged persistent threat of inflicting severe pains on her, even killing her, if she refused to love him.
He reportedly told her point-blank that she either love him or she suffer the most-gruesome consequences.
“I can even kill you, and nothing will happen,” Saleem reportedly warned her.
This situation plunged Hauwa into severe emotional anguish. She languished under the increasing weight of this anguish up to Monday, February 26, 2024.
On that fateful Monday, around 8:30pm, Saleem Ibrahim violently physically assaulted Hauwa Abatcha Ngala, hitting her hard twice with a club until she fainted, for her refusal to love him. The club had cracked her head to the point of profuse bleeding.
Instead of making any possible effort to save her life, out of the love he feigned having for her, he fled, leaving her to the mercy of her relatives, who saved her life by getting her a first aid.
Having seen her alive, the relatives reported the incident to the police on the night of the same day. The police took her to the hospital and she was given emergency help.
Consequently, that night, the JTF civilian volunteers arrested Saleem Ibrahim and handed him over to the Police at the Gomari Division Office.
However, on Friday, March 1, 2024, which was three days after the incident and his arrest, the police allegedly released Saleem on the intervention of some politicians, without taking any action expressive of the law taking its due course on him.
Immediately Saleem was released by the police, he went on his Facebook messenger to send Hauwa a private message mocking her, saying “I’m not the type that makes empty threats, anything I decide to do I will do it and nothing will happen. I swear with Allah, it is only the poor you can mess with and go scot free but not a person from an influential background like Saleem. It is only the poor that don’t possess worldly things that you can succeed to win a case with. If you mess up and succeed with others, I swear with Almighty God you will never succeed because we have the Money, the Security Agencies, Politicians, and Government Officials on our side. But you can only boast of telling your brother. I dire you to continue the case and let’s see who has the monopoly of influence.”
The relatives, frustrated by the action of the police, again lodged another complaint at the Borno State Police Command Headquarters in Maiduguri, on Saturday March 2, 2024, especially as he had allegedly threatened to kill her and nothing would happen because he is a son of influential people, which infuriated them.
Saleem was consequently re-arrested and kept in police custody for a week, but allegedly released again as the family were told by the police that the Borno State Secretary to the Government, Hon. Bukar Tijjani has ordered for his release and subsequent dismissal of the case without any action taken against him for inflicting serious physical and emotional pain on the victim.
All of a sudden, Hauwa’s relatives came across Saleem roaming the streets of Maiduguri as free as every other law-abiding citizen, instead of freezing in police custody preparatory to prosecution before a court of law.
Unrelenting, deeply aggrieved Hauwa’s family filed a fresh complaint at the Borno State Police Commissioner’s Office, (CP Yusuf Lawan) on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, demanding justice in the case.
Consequently, the police again arrested Saleem Ibrahim. This time, the police invited the victim and took her report. From there, the police compiled a report on the case and forwarded it to the Borno State Ministry of Justice.
However, to this moment, no one has contacted the victim or her family, even after Saleem has allegedly confessed to committing the crime and his threat to kill her.
Jummai Mshelia, the Borno Coordinator of the National Human Right Commission (NHRC), condemned the senseless attack on the victim and demanded that the suspect should be charged to court to serve as a deterrence to other perpetrators.
She said: “We at human right, immediately the incident happened, the commission file a formal complaints to the Commisioner of Police who ordered the immediate arrest of the suspect. We commend the police for the quick response.
“We are told that the case has been written to the Ministry of Justice Department of Public Prosecution for their advice. While we awaits the response of the department, we want to assured the general public that the case would follow up the case untill justice is served.”
She advised the public to report such incident to the National Human Rights Commission or any other security agency to stamp out crimes in the society.