Saving Leah Sharibu

AS I  write this, it will be about two years that 15- year-old Nigerian school girl – Leah Sharibu – was abducted with her mates at Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. She was among the 110 girls that Boko Haram insurgents forcefully took away only for them to release the others but for Leah.

The terrorist group claimed that the Christian girl refused to renounce her faith, hence the reason they are holding on to her after the Nigerian government must have paid a huge ransom on the girls.

Then few weeks ago, the online news media were awash with the latest on her. That Leah just put to bed a baby after she was married off according to Muslim rites to a Boko Haram commander. Though, the veracity of the story is still largely vague since no picture or video has been released, it is enough to remind us that a fragile teenage girl is still under the control of a terrorist group whose hunger for blood and carnage is out of this world.

It is easy to hazard a guess as to what must have happened and happening to Leah; a sheep in the midst of jackals. An innocent school girl among angry and perverted blood suckers whose pastime is to feast on vulnerable girls, women and children. I can say for a certainty that this poor girl has been forced into marriage with an adult war monger, repeatedly raped, and made to carry a child before child bearing age. Leah has suffered untold psychological, mental and physical abuse that will forever be with her and capable of maiming her for life. Two years in the hands of Boko Haram will be like a lifetime in hell. No human deserves that kind of hellish treatment.

Leah has become a metaphor for insecurity in Nigeria and the Nigerian government must know that until Leah is back and out of Boko Haram enclave, the world will continue to talk about the killings, carnage and abductions in hush and loud voices. It will continue to talk about insecurity, maiming and kidnapping. It will continue to talk about the failure of the ruling party APC and the government of President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), whose main campaign goal was to put an end to Boko Haram and insecurity.

Some weeks ago, a video emerged of the execution of Ropvil Daciya Dalep, a student of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State. He was kidnapped on January 9, 2020 on the Damaturu-Maiduguri Highway while returning to school. Dalep was kidnapped with other students and their fate is not known yet. No one knows when their murder tapes will surface on the internet.

Similarly, the execution tape of the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Rev. Lawan Andimi, also surfaced thereafter before their ransom of N50 million could come.

In the midst of the carnage, Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai,  few weeks ago, described the Boko Haram attacks as the kicks of a dying horse. Gen Buratai by this statement simply confirmed my fears that this insurgency is still very much with us and it saddens me that in five years of PMB government, Nigerians are still dying in the hands of terrorists.

The herdsmen and farmers are still clashing and killing themselves, communities are being massacred in communal clashes and kidnappers are still on the prowl.

Most importantly, ‘Saving Leah Sharibu’ should be the new slogan of the Nigerian Army and  by extension the Nigerian government. Bringing her home should be the number one priority of this government and no stone must be left unturned.  We owe it to her as a people and a country to bring her home. Anything short would be tantamount to failure of this government.

• By Kemi Asemota, Lagos.