Author: The Nation

In less than six months, it will be a decade since the April 14, 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction. A one-in-a-kind book has been published by New York-based PowerHouse Books. The book, The Stolen Daughters of Chibok, which is authored by Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, with photographic illustrations by ace photojournalist Akintunde Akinleye, features interviews with 152 of the over 200 Chibok families affected and captures their lives before and after the abduction, writes United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU

Yana Galang, the mother of Rifkatu, one of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted on April 14, 2014, still cries each time she hears her daughter’s favorite song. Another thing that makes her cry is seeing the man Rifkatu was to marry. “Whenever he sees me, he bursts into tears and we cry together. He had to move on,” Yana recounts in one of the 152 interviews in the The Stolen Daughters of Chibok, a one-in-a-kind book published by New York-based powerHouse Books.

 Unlike Riftaku’s husband-to-be who has moved on, Yana is unable to move on. Every single day, she remembers her daughter and either fights back tears or allows them. Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode authors the book with photographic illustrations by ace photojournalist Akintunde Akinleye and contributions from ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah and ‘Fine Boys’ author Eghosa Imasuen. The book also has essays by Helon Habila and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, two award-winning writers who have written books on the Chibok girls. There are other interesting contributions that examine germane angles.

 The book paints Chibok in the days before, during and after the abduction. It unveils the affected families, their lives and their sorrow, tears and blood. It also shows us that the tragedy was not just about statistics; it puts faces to it; and pricks consciences. The book shows the different shades of the tragedy, such as a mother who sees her daughter so lean in her dream, a mother who craves a dance with her daughter again, a grandmother who is unable to sleep in the room she used to share with her granddaughter, a mother who feels guilty for allowing her daughter go to school, the mother who went deaf on hearing of her daughter’s abduction, the mother who now hears noises in her head and the parents who feel that their daughter’s abduction means the light of their home has been extinguished. The book shows that 57 girls escaped days after the abduction and for two years, 219 girls remained missing but in May 2016, the first of the missing students, Aisha Nkeki Ali was found by the Nigerian military. One hundred and seven more have returned home. Four were freed by Nigerian military/para-military intervention, 21 through negotiated release in October 2016, and 82 more in May 2017. Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to the book, brokered the deals. Increasingly complicated negotiations between the Nigerian Government and Boko Haram continue for the 112 girls who remain captive. Yana is not alone in her grief. Hauwa Mallum, the mother of Kuma Solomon is on the same ship. She took her daughter to school because she didn’t want her to be an illiterate like her. “That decision eventually led to the loss of my daughter. She has been kidnapped by evil men who believe that Western education is a sin,” she says. There is an interesting ring to the case of Awa Sasa, who is still in the grip of the terrorists. Her mother, Pogu Sasa, didn’t want her to go to Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, where she had dropped out after two years. Her objection to her daughter’s admission to the school wasn’t about Boko Haram threat.

 Her reason: “During my time there, there was hardly any teaching. The teachers were not teaching well. I felt that my daughter would be wasting her time by attending a school where I didn’t think she would learn much. I myself can’t speak English.” Asmathic Zara Ishaku is also still with the abductors and her mother worries who is taking care of her.

“The teachers knew about Zara’s asthma and sometimes bought her drugs. Who will take care of her now?” she wonders.

Panda Lalai, whose daughter, Kau’na. was also abducted is one of the lucky parents whose daughters have regained freedom. She was released from Boko Haram captivity in May 2017. While she was in captivity, Lalai did two things: prayed for her release and cried for her loss.

“Sometimes it starts with a prayer and ends in crying and sometimes we cry and round that out with prayer,” she recalls in the book. 

The parents of Rahila Bitrus also got lucky when in May 2017 she was also released. She was 16 when she was abducted and didn’t return home until she was 19. She loved education so much so that whenever she went to the farm with her parents, she went along with notebooks and a novel. Deborah Peter, who sold some of her goats to fund her education, is another of the set freed in May 2017, two years and 11 months after the abduction.

Read Also: Old banknotes remain legal tender indefinitely, says CBN

Also in this set is Mary Ali, the only one of 20 children to attend a formal school. “I do not believe that Boko Haram is Muslims. They are not humankind. We are Muslims,” her mother, Ngwakuma says. In his foreword to the book, Obasanjo captures the permanent nature of the pain of the abduction. “1 had suggested that Nigerians and the world needed to come to terms with the reality that these lives had been irretrievably cut short. That we would never see these young women, these girls, in the way we remembered them. That, in the years following this tragedy they would trickle out of the forest with the scars; both metaphorical and physical of their time in captivity. I was vilified for my bluntness,” the ex-President writes.

Mohammadu Sanusi II, one-time Emir of Kano, in his contribution to the book argues that the anger towards Boko Haram over the Chibok abduction should also apply to the condition of the Northern Nigerian Muslim girls.

According to Muhammed-Oyebode, nearly all 107 freed girls are enrolled in a special programme at the American University in Yola. Four of the earlier 57 escapees, who she now serves as their guardian, are attending a special programme in America. One returnee, Deborah Jafaru, Muhammed-Oyebode notes, declined a university education offer and is back in Chibok to be with the husband she married two weeks before she went to the school to resit her West African School Certificate Examinations and got kidnapped.

 Imasuen’s interview with Bukar Zannah Mustapha of the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation focuses on his role as an arbiter in the negotiations for the release of the girls. It offers poignant insights into the mediation that freed 103 girls. 

 The contributions of two psychiatrists, Femi Oyebode and Aishatu Armiya’u focus on the mental health of the girls. They contend that adjusting back to the real world after days and years in hostage can be as difficult as leaving it. Bishop Kukah’s contribution to this remarkable book ends with a plea to the girls and their families to forgive their captors so that they can enjoy the glory that comes with forgiveness. Their scars, he argues, can become trophies.