In the quiet stillness of Jadam village, where children should be free to play without fear, a darkness descended on an otherwise ordinary September afternoon that would shatter one family’s world and ignite a quest for justice that continues to this day.
It was September 10, 2025, when four-year-old Amina Abubakar’s innocent errand became the stuff of nightmares. A young man named Kabiru, just twenty years old, called out to the little girl. His request seemed simple enough—bring him an MP3 player from inside his room. Trusting as children do, Amina obliged.
But what happened next would steal something from this child that can never be returned.
In the shadow of that room, Kabiru followed the toddler. What transpired in those terrible moments defies comprehension—he removed her clothing, violated her tiny body with his fingers, and then laid his full weight upon her in an act of unspeakable brutality. When Amina’s cries pierced the afternoon air, he didn’t stop. He simply silenced her with threats, warning that she must never tell her mother what happened here.
But a mother’s intuition is not so easily quieted.
When little Amina arrived home, her tears told a story her young voice could not. Her mother, Habiba Isah, knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. “Kabiru removed my underwear,” the child finally whispered. With trembling hands, Habiba removed her daughter’s clothing and found what no mother should ever have to see—her baby girl’s private parts stained with blood.
The call to Amina’s father, Abubakar, who was traveling at the time, unleashed a chain of events that would take this family through the labyrinthine corridors of Nigeria’s justice system. From the dusty police station in Jadam village to the examining rooms of multiple hospitals, one question haunted them: Would they find justice?
The first medical examination left her father unsatisfied, his paternal instinct demanding certainty. A second examination at the main hospital in Jakusko confirmed the unthinkable—sexual abuse had occurred. Then came another blow: the alleged revelation that Kabiru was HIV positive. Little Amina was started on a course of preventive medication, her family praying that if she completed the treatment faithfully, the virus would not take hold in her small body.
But this story was far from over.
The case wound its way to the Criminal Investigation Department in Damaturu, where officials ordered yet another round of tests. At the Family Support hospital, Kabiru underwent testing—the result showed no HIV. Suspicious, they sought confirmation at General Hospital, where once again, the tests came back negative. A small mercy in an ocean of pain, yet the trauma of those weeks of uncertainty had already carved its wound into this family’s heart.
Finally, the case arrived at Magistrate Court 1 in Damaturu, where a constellation of support emerged around this little girl. The Commissioner of Women Affairs lent her voice to the cause. Lawyers from FIDA—the International Federation of Women Lawyers—stepped forward to ensure that for once, the system would work for a child who had been failed so terribly.
In a courtroom hushed with anticipation on the 18th, Kabiru did what few perpetrators do—he confessed. The words fell from his lips, an admission of guilt that offered some measure of validation to a family desperate for acknowledgment of their daughter’s suffering.
Now the community waits, breath held, for the next hearing on the 3rd. Behind bars until that day, the accused sits in custody while a four-year-old girl tries to piece together what remains of her innocence.
In Jadam village, life continues its ancient rhythms—the sun rises, the crops grow, children play. But for one little girl and her family, time has fractured into before and after. Before September 10th, when trust came easily and monsters only lived in stories. After September 10th, when they learned that sometimes the most dangerous monsters wear ordinary faces and live just next door.
The next chapter of this story waits to be written on that courtroom date in Damaturu, where a child’s cry for justice will finally be heard.
