It Can Now Be Told

In 1929, an 11-year-old Fulani girl, Maimunatu Dadasare Abdullahi, was kidnapped from a village in the north-eastern part of Nigeria and handed over to a British colonial officer, who kept her as a sex slave. Eventually he abandoned her and returned to his country, and that turned her into the willing consort of yet another white man, the famous Dr. Rupert M. East, who is widely regarded as the father of contemporary Hausa literature. Their unusual union was a turning point in her life.

This book recounts, in her own words, Dadasare’s incredible story of those interesting times, especially the hurdles she scaled as a pioneer in some of the events that shaped the emerging Northern Nigeria – colonial rule, nursing, adult education, journalism and women’s empowerment.