Two female suicide bombers killed at least 22 worshippers in an attack during dawn prayers Wednesday on a mosque on the outskirts of the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, officials said from the birthplace of Boko Haram.

One bomber blew up inside the mosque and the second waited outside to detonate as survivors tried to escape, said coordinator Abba Aji of the civilian self-defense Vigilante Group.

At least 18 people were wounded and evacuated to the hospital, said army spokesman Col. Sani Usman.

More Details to come.

Three underaged teenage girls, who were abducted in Bauchi State and forcefully converted to Islam have finally been rescued by men of the Nigeria Police Force.

The three girls are Blessing Gopep, 13, Linda Christopher and  Progress Jacob, 13.

According to the Prison Inmate Development Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, the girls were handed over to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 12, Bauchi, Mr. Tunde Ogunsakin, on Tuesday, by the Shari’ah Commission in the state.

SUNDAY PUNCH who engineered the release of Bayelsa State-based Ese Oruru has also been at the forefront of the release of the girls kidnapped in Bauchi.

The Commissioner of Police, Bauchi State Police Command, Mr. Baba Tijjani, confirmed the release of the girls in an interview with The PUNCH on Tuesday.

Tijjani stated, “The girls have been released. They were not held by the Bauchi State Shari’ah Commission; they volunteered to become Muslims on their own and reported themselves to the Da’awah & Islamic Education Department, which took them to the Bauchi State Shari’ah Commission.

“Now, they have been produced. Progress Jacob and Linda Christopher have been released to their parents while Blessing Gopep’s parents have been told to come tomorrow (Wednesday) and they will go home with their daughter.”

When asked if the case would be treated as a criminal case and the culprits prosecuted, the police commissioner said, “We just released the girls to their parents. The investigations are still ongoing and we will come out with the details after the investigations.”

The Executive Director, PIDI, Mr. Mbami Sabka, who also confirmed the rescue to The PUNCH on the telephone on Tuesday, said he was glad that effort to rescue the girls was not wasted.

Sabka said, “I am extremely grateful to PUNCH newspapers for their help. We hope that other perpetrators would learn from this. We, as an NGO, won’t stop at this; we will continue the fight for the release of child brides. An end must be put to this illegal act.

“The police have asked the Shari’ah Commission to bring the abductors involved because the girls didn’t walk to the commission by themselves; someone brought them.”

PIDI had written letters to the state Commissioner of Police and the National Human Rights Commission but got no response before taking the cases to Amnesty International.

A 69 year old herbalist, Chief Simon Odo, who married an 18 year old girl, Chidinma, as his 57th wife last November has said that he would not marry again, having had a fair taste of women in his life.

Chidinma was married from Okutu, in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. Odo, also known variously as Onuwa, King Solomon of Africa or King of Satan was however married to 68 women but some of them had earlier died.

However, Odo spoke in an interview with the South East Voice at his palatial home at Aji, Enugu Ezike in Igboeze North Local Government Area of Enugu State.

Emeka, first son, Franca, one of the wives and Onuwa Onuwa who was armed with an Onward note book where names of his wives and over 200 children were listed according to their dates of birth said that his first son, Emeka was born on December 15, 1969.

“I was born in 1947 on the day they had an eclipse of the sun and the moon. There was darkness in the afternoon on the day I was born.

I was the only son of my parents. “I was baptised as a Christian in the Catholic Church and I even became a mass servant under Rev Father Desmond McGlade. I however became a herbalist because of circumstances beyond my control. As I said, I was the only son of my parents but because some of his relations wanted to take over his landed property, they poisoned me. I contracted tuberculosis and had to be treated for years

At a point, I was even unable to walk for about five years because I became lame. “I ran to Ondo State in the South West, where I trained to become a herbalist at the age of 15, before returning to the village. I married 15 wives when my father was alive and the situation prolonged his life. He died in 1992 at the ripe old age of over 90 years.

My first son has seven children and four grandchildren.

“Any of my children who chooses to become a Christian is free to do so, provided he/she must become a Catholic. I don’t like the Pentecostal churches.”

The new bride, Chidinma On feeding of his large family, Onuwa said,

“People think that I feed many of them but this is not true. Most of my children are grown up. The boys among them usually marry and go to their own houses just like the girls who marry and follow their husbands to their places.” However, my wives cook food for the whole family in turns. For example, if it is the turn of Ada or Omada to cook, she would invite five of her colleagues to assist her in cooking. One woman cooks for everybody in the house at a time but my other wives would always assist such a person.”

Asked if any of his sons has taken after him as a herbalist, he said,

“I will not encourage them to do so. I don’t want my sons to take after me because some of them will do bad things with my medicine. As a herbalist, I have never killed anybody or thought of evil against anybody but I do not trust that my children would be upright like me. That is why I will not encourage them to inherit my medicine but I may bequeath them to some of my younger children, not the old, greedy ones.”

Meanwhile, it was learnt that although Onuwa abhorred seeing his children attend churches other than the Catholic church, seven of them were ordained pastors at the Lord’s Chosen Church.

Hitherto, some of them attended Catholic and Anglican churches while many of them took after their father in his business. However, the ordination of the pastors brought about a radical Christian awakening in the extra-large family of Chief Odo.

In the past four years, there had been a simmering misunderstanding between the pastors and their father regarding his herbal practice.

The pastors were said to be mounting heavy pressure on him to repent and turn to Jesus, a demand the herbalist spurned. Odo, said to have lost one of his wives last February, had arranged for the burial programme, which his pastor’s sons rejected and rather organized a prayer programme for her burial, triggering confusion in the family.