I will return to sambisa forest after my release-bokoharam commander for jailed 60 years

The Federal High Court in Wawa Cantonment, Kainji, Niger State, on Tuesday sentenced a commander of the Boko Haram terrorist group, Abba Umar, to 60 years imprisonment for various acts of terrorism.

The court also sentenced 32-year-old Mohammed Hussaini, a Chadian brought up in Talwari Village, Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State, to 20 years imprisonment for participating in various Boko Haram attacks in Maiduguri and Damaturu and for also professing to be a member of the sect.


Umar and Hussaini were among the over 40 members of the sect convicted on Tuesday by the four courts sitting in Wawa Cantonment to fast-track the cases of over 1,000 terror suspects held in the detention facility in the barracks.
22-year-old Boko Haram commander jailed 60 years for terrorism

The prosecution withdrew the case against Obidah after realising that he was merely 12 years old as of the time he was said to have committed the alleged offence of running errands for Boko Haram members in the Sambisa Forest.

The proceedings in the four courts which resumed on Monday were observed by the Nigerian Bar Association and the National Human Rights Commission.


The 22-year-old Umar, was not remorseful throughout the proceedings on Tuesday.

He confirmed during the proceedings that he would return to Sambisa Forest to continue the terrorist acts if he was released.

He had been in detention since 2014 after his failed suicide mission to a school in Gombe that year.


Two of the five counts preferred against him attracted a death penalty but the judge said he decided to impose lesser sentences after taking into consideration the age of the convict and the fact that he must have been exposed to “excessive and consistent religious indoctrination” which made him to be easily pliable.

The judge added, “For count 3, I sentence him to 60 years imprisonment.

“I would have been more merciful but rather was dissuaded by the convict’s insistence that he would return back to terrorrist activities which constitute danger to the society and for which he was apprehended.”

Umar was 18 when he was arrested after his failed suicide mission to the Gombe Secondary School Pilot, Gombe, Gombe State, in 2014.


His attempts to detonate the Improvised Explosive Devices loaded on a Sienna car which he accidentally drove against the wall of the school failed.