NATHANIEL SHAIBU writes about the continued stay in captivity of the remaining 89 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, despite promises by successive governments
It has been 10 years since 276 schoolgirls of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, a community in Borno State, were abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group on April 14, 2014.
Perhaps, one could say that April 14 will also be remembered by the affected families of the girls, aged between 16 and 18 at that time, as a tragic day they never saw coming.
In government and politics, it arguably represents one of the lowest points of the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan, and former governor of Borno State, Senator Kashim Shettima (now Vice President), who were both in office at the time of the abduction.
But for parents and guardians who still hold out hope for the return of their children and wards, it is another year to not only relive the horror of that fateful night in April 2014 but also a day to ponder and wonder about the horrors their children have faced every day since then, in the last decade.
The abduction has become and still is, a symbol of the vulnerability of schoolchildren in areas affected by insurgency.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed the abduction, hashtags like #BringBackOurGirls became a rallying cry for the girls’ safe return, with the wife of former US President at the time, Michelle Obama, joining the campaign.
During his presidential campaign in 2015, former President Muhammadu Buhari, who was then the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, while addressing a town hall meeting in Abuja in March of the same year, promised to rescue the girls, noting that his administration would immediately roll out plans to end insurgency in the country if elected.
“As a father, I feel the pain of the victims of insurgency, kidnapping, and violence. Under my watch, no force, external or internal, will occupy even an inch of Nigerian soil. I will give it all it takes to ensure that our girls kidnapped from Chibok are rescued and reintegrated with their families,” he said.
Buhari went on to set up a five-man committee in January 2016, headed by then National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, to investigate the abductions of the schoolgirls, after a meeting with the BringBackOurGirls campaign group. However, despite its efforts, the government failed to secure the release of all the girls before leaving office in May 2023.
According to a status report by the BringBackOurGirls campaign group in October 2022, of the 276 kidnap girls, 57 escaped captivity after jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported, 107 of them were released, 16 were rescued by the military, and 96 of them remained missing.
In a statement in 2023, the group faulted Buhari’s failure to rescue the remaining girls and demanded the rescue of the remaining girls before the expiration of his tenure.
In the time since the Chibok girls’ abduction in 2014, “more than 1,680 schoolchildren have been kidnapped in Nigeria,” according to a report by Save the Children Nigeria in August 2023.
“In addition to the abductions, over 180 schoolchildren were killed and nearly 90 injured in 70 attacks between April 2014 and December 2022, with an estimated 60 school staff kidnapped and 14 killed. Twenty-five school buildings were reportedly destroyed during that period,” the report added.
Unfortunately, again, under the succeeding administration of President Bola Tinubu, which is now nearing its first year in office, there have been no notable actions taken to negotiate the release of the victims.
To make matters worse, the administration suffered a mass school abduction only last month, when more than 280 pupils and teachers at the Government Secondary School and LEA Primary School, Kuriga 1, in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, were abducted.
Yet parents of the abducted Chibok schoolchildren continue to seek government intervention to help rescue their children.
Parents, community laments neglect by govt
On Thursday, April 11, 2024 parents of the 89 remaining abducted girls wrote the wife of the President, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, in a letter titled, “A Plea for Justice and Remembering the Chibok Girls – A Letter to Her Excellency Mrs Remi Tinubu,” lamenting the weight of remembering the girls in the past decade.
The letter, signed by Yana Galang and Mallam Zanna, on behalf of the Chibok Parents Association, read in part, “For us, the pain remains raw, and the wounds refuse to heal. We are haunted by the memories of that night when our girls were taken from us, and every day we pray for their safe return.
“We have not lost hope, Your Excellency. We have not given up on our daughters, and we will continue to fight for their freedom until they are brought back to us.”
The leader of the Chibok Parents Association, Mr Yakubu Nkeki, painted a sad picture of the state of the affected parents, 48 of whom he said died from health complications, including hypertension, because of the trauma of losing their children.
“Some were able to at least adjust to the situation, and others were unable to, and looked so traumatised. And you know, for someone who is traumatised, many things will come in.
“Due to this incident on April 14, 2014, as I am speaking with you, we lost almost 48 parents, both male and female, due to hypertension, ulcers, and other things; you know when things are not in order, it is easy to be susceptible to some of the minor sickness,” he said.
Nkeki also told our correspondent that the parents would gather on Sunday (today) at the school where the tragedy began, to commemorate the abduction of their daughters and to ask for the government’s intervention to rescue the remaining 89.
“Even though 138 of them have been released, we are still looking for 89, and even if it was only one that remained in captivity, it counts for us. So, we are begging the government that we need these girls to be free from captivity,” he added.
Meanwhile, among events to commemorate the abduction of the girls on Sunday (today) are a virtual event by the BringBackOurGirls campaign group and sponsored by the African Fellowship of the Riverside Church, as well as a simultaneous press conference by Kada (The Chibok Nation) at the Unity Fountain in Abuja and the LASWA Ferry Terminal in Ikoyi, Lagos, at 4 pm.
The spokesperson for the Chibok Community, Dr Allen Manasseh, who spoke with our correspondent in a phone interview, said the lack of feedback from the government was worsening the pain of the parents in the community.
“As a community, and as parents, you do not have anyone to go to, to ask direct questions and get responses. These are people; the majority of them are unschooled, peasant farmers, staying in hard-to-reach areas. And year in, year out, all you get is maybe when it gets to April, the government will now send some low-level officials to go to Chibok with some small change and food, and then say the government is doing everything to rescue the girls back, and then after 25 to 30 minutes, they are off in their SUVs, disappearing from the scene, you won’t hear from them again until after another one year.
“That is not leadership, that is not governance, that is not care, that is not rehabilitation. What is supposed to be done is, that there should be a constant movement of updates from the government to the parents saying, ‘This is what we are doing, this is what we are hopeful for’.
“If there is any engagement, even if it is the death of any child, it is okay to communicate with the parents that ‘in the process of rescue, or over time, so and so a person is dead, so parents please take it to heart and pray for the repose of the soul of your daughter,’ instead of endlessly waiting,” he said.
“Ten years is unimaginable. That one day you are waiting, 24 hours you are waiting, one week, one month, one year. And I can tell you that some parents have never heard directly from the powers that be that this is what we are doing, unless maybe what they read on the pages of the newspaper, or when it is April 14 and then somebody talks to them.
“Who is the high-level politician or high-level political leader who has visited Chibok to ask how the community is doing? At least to give the people hope that yes, the government cares,” Allen noted.
He further stated that the parents had been waiting endlessly for closure in the last decade and needed psychosocial support while stating that the Tinubu-led government needed to do more for the parents of the remaining girls in captivity.
Amnesty International knocks FG
On his part, the Country Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Mr Isa Sanusi, expressed disappointment with the Nigerian government over its failure to rescue the remaining girls in the 10 years since they were abducted, adding that the government had failed to learn any lessons from the incident.
“Amnesty International is disappointed that the Nigerian government could not secure the release of the girls on time, because they have been in custody since 2014. So, we are still calling on the Nigerian authorities to do everything possible, everything within the ambit of the law, to make sure that the remaining 89 girls are released.
“That incident should have served as the last instance where something like this happens because we expected the authorities to learn how it happened, why it happened, and why the militants were successful in carrying out that abduction. Unfortunately, after that, about 17 high-profile abductions took place in schools and other places, and this is very unfortunate, and it shows that the Nigerian authorities have not learnt any lesson whatsoever from what happened.
“And the fact that in 10 years, the government could not secure the release of all the girls is another shocking thing. So, we are calling on the Nigerian authorities to make sure that all the girls are securely reunited with their families, and also to make sure that an investigation is carried out to look at what security lapses caused all these abductions from 2014 to date,” he said.
Similarly, a security analyst and Managing Director of Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited, Dr Kabir Adamu, said the continued stay of the remaining girls in captivity showed failure on the part of humanity.
“So far, at least three different administrations have steered governance in Nigeria between 2014 and 2024. The GEJ administration, when the abduction occurred; the PMB administration and the current Bola Ahmed Tinubu government.
“It is a consensus that the GEJ administration mishandled the issue. As for the PMB government, it used a combination of ransom payment and security forces operation to get over a hundred of them out.
“The PBAT administration has repeated severally that it won’t pay ransom to get kidnapped victims out. We are aware that opportunities have emerged for Chibok victims and Leah Sharibu of the Dapchi incident to be released, but some officials in the PBAT government mishandled the situation for lack of professionalism,” Adamu said.
He, however, expressed hope that with the right political will, the girls would be rescued.
“Hope remains that with the right political will and better professionalism by officials, the girls and Leah Sharibu will be out,” he added.
