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.