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Tag: Chibok girls

  • That CNN’s video of Chibok girls

    INTERNATIONAL broadcaster, CNN, certainly wowed its global audience with the video it exclusively obtained of Nigeria’s schoolgirls that were abducted by Boko Haram terrorists on April 14, 2014 to the consternation of the entire world.

    As would be expected in any situation where one has expended resources to acquire such valuable media, the news organisation milked it for all it was worth and had the foresight to have arranged a screening for grieving parents of the abducted girls. If the footage of the distraught mothers grovelling as they pleaded for the release of the children didn’t force the hands of the government to go in search of the girls then maybe nothing will. Perhaps, that CNN’s exclusive will finally force the Nigerian authorities to seek closure in this case.

    As heart breaking as those images are, they raise questions that all those involved should provide answers to if the misery of these little girls is not to be released to mere movie prop that matters only to the point of boosting viewership and growing ratings.

    For a start, how come, as usual, none of the indigenous media houses were smart or daring enough to obtain the video? Of course the argument would be made later that they are lazy and without initiative and the enterprise needed to nail such an exclusive.

    The video was shot sometime around last Christmas from the analysis provided by CNN. How long has the network held unto the video? Why did it opt for now, the second anniversary of the abduction, before airing it? Would it have been better if the video had gone public as soon as it was obtained with relative to that timeframe? There is the fact that there are editorial processes that must be followed before the video is used but was the delay part of a deal struck with the terrorists as a condition for this ‘exclusive’ scoop?

    Protection of sources is a non-negotiable requirement of journalism. This requirement is serious enough that many journalists across the world have rather served prison terms than expose their sources while media organisations would rather bear the cost of expensive litigations than divulge sources. But what is the ethics about withholding  information that mean that 219 girls will continue to remain sex slaves with potential that some of them could get  killed in these days of final onslaught on Boko Haram? Is CNN willing to assist the Nigerian authorities by providing information that could lead to the rescue of the girls?

    A natural argument is that the CNN should not compromise ethical standards to assist Nigeria’s law enforcement.

    Does anyone recall how jail-breaking Mexican drug kingpin, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was recaptured? Guzman’s recapture was “thanks to a secret meeting with U.S. actor Sean Penn,” according to an article on Al-Jazeera America’s website. The incentive to capture El Chapo was high considering that he was at the root of the epidemic of heroin addiction in the US, so ethics or any other consideration would be out the window naturally.

    Even the ethics of healthcare workers was waived when polio vaccinators were exploited to gather information in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which eventually led to the killing of the then world most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. What then makes the fate of the Chibok Girls different that CNN won’t without prompting furnish information to assist their freedom?

    Could there be a conspiracy to allow Nigeria stew in the mess that the Chibok Girls abduction has been since it first occurred? Does anyone remember who Dr Andrew Pocock is? Dr Andrew Pocock is the former British High Commissioner to Nigeria. Yes, the one who told us when it was well past the time that the United States and the United Kingdom knew the whereabouts of about 80 of abducted Chibok girls but would not intervene. To prevent a scenario where the CNN will claim some months down the line that Nigerian authorities did not approach it for information about this video, the Army should immediately make that request now and hopefully the network would not interpret the request as harassment.

    • Agbese is a civil rights activist based in the United Kingdom.
  • UN expresses fresh concern on Chibok girls

    UN expresses fresh concern on Chibok girls

    The United Nations (UN) yesterday described the plight of the 219 Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted two years ago as a major conflict that is affecting the North-Eastern communities.

    Fatma Samoura, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, said that up to 7,000 women and girls might be living in abduction and sex slavery.

    “Humanitarian agencies are concerned that two years have passed, and still the fate of the Chibok girls and the many, many other abductees is unknown,” she said in a statement.

    The abducted girls, according to her, have suffered so much at the hands of their captors as they have been on forced recruitment, forced marriage, sexual slavery and rape, and have been used to carry bombs.

    “Between 2,000 and 7,000 women and girls are living in abduction and sex slavery,” said Jean Gough, Country Representative of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

    Women and girls, who have escaped Boko Haram are reportedly undergoing a systematic training programme to train them as bombers, according to UNICEF.

    It said that 85 per cent of the suicide attacks by women globally in 2014 occurred in Nigeria.

    Last May, it was reported that children had been used to perpetrate three-quarters of all suicide attacks in Nigeria since 2014. Many of the bombers had been brainwashed or coerced.

    As the Nigerian military recaptures territory from Boko Haram, abducted women and girls are being recovered.

    Over and above the horrific trauma of sexual violence these girls experienced during their captivity, many are now facing rejection by their families and communities because of their association with Boko Haram.

     “You are a Boko Haram wife, don’t come near us,” one girl reported being told. “Effective rehabilitation for these women and girls is vital, as they rebuild their lives,’’ the statement said.

    The UN said that children have suffered disproportionately as a result of the conflict. The Chibok abduction was not an isolated incident.

    In November 2014, 300 children were abducted from a school in Damasak, Borno, and are still missing.

    A UNICEF report, released earlier this week, said that 1.3 million children have been displaced by the conflict across the Lake Chad Basin, almost a million of whom are in Nigeria. Similarly, Human Rights Watch House reported that 1 million children have lost access to education.

    “The abducted Chibok girls have become a symbol for every girl that has gone missing at the hands of Boko Haram, and every girl who insists on practising her right to education,” said Munir Safieldin, Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria.

    The UN said more should be done by the Nigerian government and the international community to keep them safe from the horrors other women and girls have endured. Safe schools are a good start, but safe roads and safe homes are also needed, it says.

  • Chibok Girls: Group queries CNN Video

    Chibok Girls: Group queries CNN Video

    A youth group, Northern Youth Leaders Forum (NYLF), has queried the motive behind the release of the Chibok Girls video by international media network, CNN on the second anniversary of the girls’ abduction, just as it also queried the authenticity of the video.

    President of the group, Adamu Adamu told journalists in Abuja Friday that from the analysis provided by CNN, the video was shot sometimes around last December, but wondered why the network held on to the video for several months and decided to release it on the second year anniversary.

    He said as heart breaking as those images from the videos are, they raised a lot of questions.

    He said the Nigerian security agencies must probe the authenticity of the video so that it doesn’t end up as mere movie prop that matters only to the point of boosting viewership and growing ratings.

    He said, “without doubt, there are motives behind the release of the video on the anniversary of the day the girls were abducted. Every Nigerian wants the girls to be freed and united with their families, but we must probe the issues surrounding the video

    “Perhaps the intention of CNN is grow its viewership by cashing in on the sensitivity of the missing Chibok girls.”

    He said while the group appreciates Protection of sources as a non-negotiable requirement of journalism, Nigerians would be grateful if CNN is willing to assist the Nigerian authorities by providing information that could lead to the rescue of the girls.

  • Chibok girls: Senate summons NSA, other security chiefs

    Chibok girls: Senate summons NSA, other security chiefs

    THE Senate yesterday resolved to invite the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, and other security chiefs to brief it on their efforts to secure release of the Chibok school girls.

    Also yesterday, the House of Representatives urged the Federal Government, especially the military, to intensify the search and rescue of the abducted girls.

    The upper chamber, as part of its resolutions, hailed the #Bring Back Our Girls group for its doggedness in the campaign for release of the girls.

    It asked security agencies to ensure the girls’ release.

    The lawmakers arrived at these resolutions following the adoption of a motion by Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) and three others, entitled: “Abduction of Chibok school girls – two years after”.

    The motion elicited angry reactions from senators, who felt that two years was long enough for the government to have recovered the school girls.

    Melaye lamented the plight of the girls and their parents.

    He insisted that the Federal Government could not be said to have succeeded until the girls are rescued.

    “We cannot succeed as a government until those girls are released. Getting back the over-200 Chibok school girls into the society is important and a must for our security agencies.”

    Senate Minority leader Godswill Akpabio countered that Melaye and other All Progressives Congress (APC) members used the abduction  to win last year’s general election and wondered why those, who led protests against the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to rescue the girls, have suddenly kept quiet.

    Some other senators who supported the motion, asked the Federal Government to go beyond the yearly ritual of celebrating the anniversary of the abduction of the girls.

    The lawmakers said the government should ensure the girls are rescued.

    The House also resolved to send a delegation to meet with the parents of the Chibok girls

    The resolution of the House was sequel to the adoption of the prayer of a motion by a lawmaker, Asabe Bashir (APC  Borno).

    Members of the House at plenary yesterday lamented the non- return of the Chibok girls.

    Lawmakers expressed their frustration at the inability of the government to find the girls and re-unite them with their parents.

    Nnena Elendu- Ukeje, who  chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in a poetic rendition, noted that it was the shame of a nation for its inability to resolve the riddle.

    Aishatu Dukku, who expressed concern about the girl’s safety and well being, said there was need to sustain the campaign.

    The Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, who spoke after other lawmakers, said the Federal Government should give a dateline for the rescue of the abducted girls.

    He said: “I believe that from contributions on the floor, that time has come as an institution of government, that the executive sets targets for the security forces to ensure that we do not lose the sense of urgency that this tragic incident, which has been described here as a national shame, has brought upon this country…

    “We must also commend the security forces, who are toiling day and night in an effort to bring back our girls to the embrace of their parents and loved ones.”

  • What about the Chibok girls?

    •Now is the time to move in and save the girls. But it would take strong political will

    Although Vice President Yemi Osinbajo spoke with reassuring optimism on the possibility of bringing back the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted in Borno State by Boko Haram militiamen two years ago, there is no question that it will take more than positive thinking and expression of hope to get the girls back from the Islamist terrorist group.

    The question of the fate of the victims of the outrageous kidnap that happened on April 14, 2014, inevitably came up at a high-profile forum organised by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) on the eve of the second anniversary of the unpleasant incident. Against the background of the theme “Vulnerable People in Insurgency and other conflicts in Nigeria”, Osinbajo said:  “At any security council meeting that I have attended, the President in particular has always been concerned about the question of Chibok girls in particular.”

    It is striking that National Security Adviser Maj.-Gen. Babagana Moguno, represented by the Special Adviser on Economic Intelligence (ONSA), Mr. Remi Oyewunmi, also said at the forum: “Government is also committed to locating the whereabouts of the Chibok girls with a view to rescuing them. The issue has been at the top of the agenda during national council meetings. Moreover, the security agencies have stepped up their search and rescue activities. For instance, in the last one month over 3000 hostages have been rescued by the armed forces in their counter-insurgency operations in the North East,”

    The question is: What about the Chibok girls? This question remains tragically unanswered. Out of the 276 seized students of the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok, 57 managed to escape. It is a cause for concern that 219 girls are reportedly still missing, despite an international campaign that resonated across the world, involving U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

    Lamentably, the strident demand for action, particularly political action by the political authorities, which was formulated as #BringBackOurGirls, has not yielded any significant progress in locating and returning the girls. This amounts to governmental failure.

    It is remarkable that the latest video released by Boko Haram coincided with the second anniversary of the Chibok abductions, and suggested that some of the caged girls were still alive. About 15 girls featured in the video, which is believed to have been made last December in connection with reported negotiations between the Federal Government and Boko Haram.

    A report described the video: “One by one, each girl calmly states her name and explains that she was taken from Chibok Government Secondary School. Only the occasional hesitation betrays a flicker of fear and emotion. As the two minute clip comes to an end, one of the girls, Naomi Zakaria, makes a final — apparently scripted — appeal to whoever is watching, urging the Nigerian authorities to help reunite the girls with their families.” The report added: “I am speaking on 25 December 2015, on behalf of all the Chibok girls and we are all well,” she says, stressing the word “all.” Her intonation seems to imply that the 15 teens seen in the video have been chosen to represent the group as a whole.”

    Indeed, the unresolved kidnappings call for political will and fresh creative approaches. As things stand, there is a seeming paralysis that hinders the desired action to get the girls back. In this matter, the government of the day must demonstrate that it is conscious of its institutional and moral responsibilities.

    Notwithstanding initial footdragging by the Goodluck Jonathan administration that was in power when the terrorists struck in Chibok, and the associated complications, President Muhammadu Buhari must rise to the challenge.

  • Chibok girls: Senate summons NSA, other security chiefs

    Chibok girls: Senate summons NSA, other security chiefs

    The Senate Thursday resolved to invite the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno and other security chiefs to brief it on their efforts to secure the release of the Chibok school girls.

    The upper chamber also commended the Bring Back Our Girls group for their doggedness in the campaign for the release of the Chibok girls.

    It asked security agencies to do everything humanly possible to ensure that release of the girls.

    The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion by Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) and three others entitled “Abduction of Chibok school girls-two years after.”

    The motion elicited angry reactions from Senators who felt that two years was long enough for the government to have recovered the school girls.

    Senator Melaye lamented the plight of the girls and their parents.

    He insisted that the Federal Government cannot be said to have succeeded until the girls are rescued.

    He said: “We cannot succeed as a government until those girls are released. Getting back the over 200 Chibok school girls into the society is important and a must for our security agencies.

    “The abduction of over 200 girls by Boko Haram has wrongly affected us as a people as could be seen in the international condemnation of the government’s slow reaction to this unprecedented outrage committed against Nigerian womanhood. Never before has such criminal viciousness been perpetrated on Nigerian womanhood.”

    Melaye noted that Thursday “makes it 730 days, 17520 hours and 1,051 minutes that our Chibok school girls have been under captivity. It will be recalled the night of 14-15 April, 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, the responsibility for the abduction was claimed by Boko Haram. Luckily, 57 of the school girls managed to escape making 219 still missing.”

    He said that outside propaganda videos created by the Islamist militant group, none of the girls has been seen and the families of the missing girls have been traumatized because of their daughters.

    Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, in his contribution said that Melaye and some other members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) used the abduction of the Chibok school girls to win last year’s general elections.

    Akpabio wondered why those who led protests against the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to rescue the girls have suddenly kept mum.

    He said, “I remember in 2014, Dino Melaye used to wear T-shirt and he led the protest to ensure that the abducted school girls were released.

    “He was always at the National Fountain to lead a protest against the government. He eventually cashed in on it and won election to the Senate. Other people in APC also did the same thing.”

    Former President Jonathan came under local and international attack over the way and manner the government handled the issue of the abducted school girls.

    Jonathan was accused of playing politics with the rescue of the girls.

    At last year’s general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari who was the presidential candidate of APC, promised to rescue the girls two months into his government.

    The government has insisted that it does not know the whereabouts of the girls and when they will be rescued.

    Some other Senators, who also supported the motion, asked the federal government to go beyond the yearly ritual of celebrating the anniversary of the abduction of the girls.

    The lawmakers said the government should explore every available avenue to ensure that the girls are rescued.

     

  • Chibok girls: Activists urge FG to prioritise rescue operation

    Chibok girls: Activists urge FG to prioritise rescue operation

    Two female rights activist groups on Thursday expressed concern over the slow pace of the Federal Government’s efforts in finding and rescuing the missing Chibok girls.

    The groups – Women Arise for Change Initiative and Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre – raised their concern in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

    They spoke in commemoration of two years in captivity of the Chibok girls.

    They urged the government to fulfill its constitutional role of protecting the lives and property of its citizens.

    NAN recalls that on April 14, 2014, over 200 female students were said to have been kidnapped from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

    The Boko Haram terrorist organisation claimed responsibility for their kidnap.

    The incident has continued to attract local and international concerns and condemnation, with calls for intensified action for their rescue.

    Dr Joe Okei- Odumakin, the President, Women Arise for Change Initiative, said that the commemoration of the abduction of the school girls should inspire action on the part of the government to rescue the girls.

    “The two-year remembrance of their callous abduction by the Boko Haram sect should strengthen our resolve as individuals and as a nation, to continue to demand for their rescue.

    “The delay by the Nigerian government to rescue the abducted Chibok school girls is embarrassing and pathetic.

    “This seeming failure has not only led to an unimaginable trauma on their parents and relatives, it has also led to the death of some of these parents who had waited endlessly to see their children return but never did.”

    Okei-Odumakin, however, commended the efforts of the Nigerian Military in the fight against insurgency in the North-East.

    “We must also specially appreciate the efforts of our military who are working day and night in the region.

    “We need to encourage them to do more in ensuring the safe release of the girls,’’ Okei-Odumakin said.

  • Tearful parents watch new Chibok girls’ video

    Tearful parents watch new Chibok girls’ video

    Three mothers of schoolgirls abducted from Chibok, Borno State two years ago shed tears as they identified their daughters in a video released by Boko Haram.

    About 15 girls featured in the video on Tuesday in Maiduguri, the state capital.

    The girls were filmed saying they were being treated well but wanted to go home and be with their families.

    Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok on April 14, 2014, with 57 students managing to escape but 219 still missing despite a global campaign #bringbackourgirls involving celebrities and U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.

    Mothers Rifkatu Ayuba and Mary Ishaya said they recognised their daughters, Saratu and Hauwa, in the video, while a third mother, Yana Galang, identified five of the missing girls.

    “The girls were looking very, very well,” Galang said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation after viewing the video at a screening organised in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

    The three mothers were invited to the viewing by the chairman of Chibok Local Government Area, Bana Lawan, who confirmed that he paid their travel costs to Maiduguri.

    During the screening Ayuba screamed: “My Saratu!” and wailed, reaching out to a laptop screen, the closest she had been to her child now 17, in two years.

    Saratu Ayuba is one of 15 girls seen in the recording shown to some of the families for the first time at an emotional meeting this week. Wearing a purple abaya, with a patterned brown scarf covering her hair, Saratu stares directly into the camera.

    “I felt like removing her from the screen,” Ayuba told CNN, desperate to pluck Saratu from the mysterious location where she is being held and bring her home. “If I could, I would have removed her from the screen.”

    The video is believed to have been made last December as part of negotiations between the government and Boko Haram.

    It was released by someone keen to give the girls’ parents hope that some of their daughters are still alive, and to motivate the government to help release them.

    The girls, their hair covered and wearing long, flowing robes, line up against a dirty yellow wall. They show no obvious signs of maltreatment.

    As the camera focuses in on each of them, a man behind the camera fires off questions: “What’s your name? Was that your name at school? Where were you taken from?”

    One by one, each girl calmly states her name and explains that she was taken from Chibok Government Secondary School. Only the occasional hesitation betrays a flicker of fear and emotion.

    As the two minute clip comes to an end, one of the girls, Naomi Zakaria, makes a final — apparently scripted — appeal to whoever is watching, urging the Nigerian authorities to help reunite the girls with their families.

    “I am speaking on 25 December 2015, on behalf of all the Chibok girls and we are all well,” she says, stressing the word “all.” Her intonation seems to imply that the 15 teens seen in the video have been chosen to represent the group as a whole.

    The date given by Naomi matches information embedded in the video, suggesting it was filmed on Christmas Day, though whether that’s true or whether the day was picked deliberately is unknown.

    Most of the 276 girls taken from Chibok on April 14, 2014 were Christian. They are believed to have been forced to convert to Islam by their terrorist captors.

    Their kidnapping — and a lack of progress in tracking down and returning the girls — sparked mass protests in Nigeria and across the world, with luminaries including Michelle Obama and Malala Yousafzai joining the social media campaign to #BringBackOurGirls

    Classmate’s escape

    The Federal Government said it has a copy of the “proof of life” video, and that it is in negotiations with those who supplied it to secure the girls’ release, but says it remains unable to confirm or reject the recording’s authenticity.

    Minister of Information Lai Mohammed, said there were concerns that the girls did not appear to have changed sufficiently, that they are not as different as one might expect, given the two years that have elapsed since their disappearance.

    CNN spoke to a classmate of the girls seen in the footage, who confirmed the identity of several of her friends.

    The soft-spoken teen was supposed to be at the school that Sunday night to sit exams along with the other girls, but made a last minute decision to go home, from where she could hear the school being attacked.

    “We ran into the bush and stayed there for a month,” she says.

    Watching the video, she becomes emotional, exclaiming ‘Oh my God!’ as she recognizes a close friend, points out another who was in the same hostel as her, and identifies one of the school’s prefects, a leader in her class.

    While she considers herself one of the “lucky ones,” the teenager says she still has nightmares about the experience.

    “If I hear something on the news about them, it makes me have bad dreams and I cry,” she said.

    Galang looked and looked, but her daughter Rifqata was not among the captives shown in the video.

    “We have seen enough,” she says eventually. “We know that the girls are alive and they are hidden. We are not worried. Our daughters look well.

    “We have heard a lot of stories before but this video confirms that they are alive. The government should negotiate with Boko Haram.”

    “I didn’t see my daughter but I now have more hope that she is alive,” she told CNNand her friends. “You can see what is yours on the screen but you can’t get it. All we want is our daughters.”

  • Chibok girls, two years on

    Anniversaries are important dates celebrated to mark significant events. Couples celebrate their wedding anniversaries. Children mark the death anniversaries of their parents. Monarchs celebrate their coronation anniversaries. Companies, schools and related businesses celebrate the anniversaries of their formation. First birthday anniversary; a company’s 10th anniversary; a school’s 25th anniversary; 50th and 100th birthday anniversaries are, in most cases, marked with fanfare because we consider them as special.

    But, there are some anniversaries that we recoil from celebrating because we do not wish to remember them. We want to forget such events and, if possible, we wish that they never happened. Anniversaries that evoke bitter memories are no anniversaries, but we still remember the events that happened on those dates to see what can be done to ease our pains.

    Two years ago, we were hit by a thunderbolt when over 200 pupils of Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) in Chibok, Borno State, were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents in the wee hours of April 14. Since their abduction, many theories have been propounded about their whereabouts. As at today, we cannot say categorically where these girls are. The fact is, as President Muhammadu Buhari said in his maiden media chat, there is no intelligence report on where the girls are being kept. This has provided some unscrupulous people an opportunity to defraud the government.

    Knowing that the government is desirous of bringing back the girls, no matter what it takes, they have been coming up with tales about where the girls are and promising to get them released if the price is right. The Jonathan administration fell prey to such confidence tricksters, who have also tried to play a fast one on the Buhari administration. The Chibok girls’ abduction remains a slap on our face. As the girls mark two years in captivity, chances of their being rescued are getting slimmer by the day. Nothing will gladden the hearts of  Nigerians more than these girls being rescued intact. But the truth is that may not be possible.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo said some weeks ago that the girls may not be rescued intact, many wanted him skinned alive. As a former president, Obasanjo must know what he was saying. He may be privy to certain information that we do not have. Obasanjo would not have spoken that way if he was not in the known of certain things. We should not crucify him for what he said. What we should do is to see how these girls can be brought back no matter what it takes. Boko Haram must not be allowed to win this war; otherwise we will be doomed.

    It may not be possible to rescue the girls intact because we cannot say for sure if Boko Haram is still keeping all of them together. The insurgents knew why they kidnapped the girls and they will stop at nothing to ensure that they remain in the sect’s custody. The insurgents may not be as daft as we think. They know that as long as these girls are with them, they have a bargaining power. This is what they have capitalised on in the past two years to swindle the government. If that is the price we have to pay to rescue the girls, why not? But are the insurgents ready to let the girls go after they get what they want?

    In the past 24 months, the group has been playing on our collective intelligence over these girls’ matter. Today, it is that they are in Sambisa; tomorrow, it is that they have been moved to God knows where. Where really are the girls? This is the game being played by the insurgents to throw investigators off their trail. The latest talk in town now is of the phone calls being made to some of the girls’ parents from their daughters’ lines. The parents were said to have missed the calls, but on seeing that they were from their daughters’ lines, they called back. And what did the receivers tell them? Some were told that the girls were now in Ondo and Cameroon. Others were told not to call the numbers again or they will be killed.

    Are we sure that those calls emanated from Boko Haram? Were they not prank calls just to set the girls’ parents’ blood on the rise again? Boko Haram knows that it is another anniversary of the girls’ kidnap and that there could be no better time than now to make such calls apparently to raise the hope of their release. Having studied the situation critically, I do not think that Boko Haram is going to release the girls just like that. It is painful though, but that is the truth. Let’s face it if Boko Haram ever wanted to release these girls, it would have done so since. Boko Haram was not ready yesterday; is not ready today and will not be ready tomorrow to release these girls.We have to force it to do what it does not want to do.

    We have to fight to get the girls back. By fighting, I mean we have to flush Boko Haram out of Sambisa, if that is still its operational headquarters. With ties to  the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram may have changed base with money and materials from the global terror group to which it pledged allegiance last year. From what we have seen so far, it has also changed tactic, with the way it is using some of the girls as suicide bombers. One of the girls who escaped from its den told the Cable News Network (CNN) that some of them volunteered to be suicide bombers with the hope of escaping. Fati(not her real name), according to the CNN, painted a picture of life in Boko Haram camp.

    Fati said they were abused and tortured. The girls, she said, had no choice than to do the bidding of their captors in order to save their lives. So, the girls opted to be suicide bombers, hoping to see soldiers that they may run to during the deadly mission to facilitate their escape. Just like their parents and their compatriots, the girls do not like the life they are being forced to live now. They look up to us to rescue them, but so far, we have failed them. When these girls were abducted in 2014, we never thought that two years down the line we will still be struggling to get them back.

    Like Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, I strongly believe that these girls will be back, but we will have to fight Boko Haram to bring them back.

  • Chibok girls and history

    SIR: Two years ago today,   April 14, 2014, an otherwise ordinary day, mindless insurgents posing as Nigerian soldiers abducted more than 200 secondary school girls preparing for final year examinations.

    In Nigeria you need to carry some weight to get personal and family security. Without this security, you can be abducted wholesale as was the case of the Chibok girls. And you can wait for weeks for a government response entailing only a speech delivered with arrogance and disrespect by personages whose duty it is to protect you.

    People who do not carry any weight become helpless victims. Criticism directed against government personnel during emergencies for their failure to respond effectively to such events, as they had sworn to do by oath, are haughtily dismissed by government cronies and flag wavers.

    Why should we look at history only from a romantic perspective and question the abduction because our own children were not amongst the abducted and are from another geographical divide? Were we even moved to compassion for the ashen-faced parents being interviewed on television? Was the abduction only another news item for viewers to analyse and dissect?

    The paroxysm of international embarrassment wouldn’t have happened if Nigerians from all ethnic divides had risen with one voice to condemn the attitude of the government and to pressure the government to speedily pursue the abductors and find our girls for humanity’s sake.

    It was not a time to settle ethnic scores. Where were our Nigerian women – both in and out of government – to rally the cause of the girls like Corazon Aquino did in the Philippines? This was, and is not, a matter only for the BBOG group.

    The Chibok girls’ abduction has shown clearly that our lives aren’t secure in this country. We run from Scylla only to end up in the hands of Charybdis. This is scary.

    Who will pay for the damage, the lapse in security, the waste of time, embarrassment and trauma undergone by the parents and the abductees? Many have died we are told due to stress; their tender hearts couldn’t cope with the anxiety and have caved in.

    Imagine what poor Nigerians in the same situation with nobody to protect them, would be going through right now in the hands of unscrupulous villains. How can citizens work with the government to help rid society of crime, if citizens can’t count on the Nigerian state to watch their backs?

    The Sisyphean attitude of the government goes on unabated. Our intelligence strategies seem to be guided by fits and starts. The study of the pattern of crimes, what necessitates them, how to work with communities of people healthily to end them is taken for granted and this fact is shameful and painful. Why can’t we heed the warning of Franklin D. Roosevelt given in 1937 that “the nation that destroys its soul destroys itself”?

    While our poor Chibok girls are hurting, some married off for nickels, converted against their wish, routinely raped, some dead, others drugged and used as suicide bombers against their will, some Nigerians with a mercantile streak have found voice in advocacy to make money from international donors by shouting for their release but never for the sake of those poor girls.

    While they hurt, we conduct our lives as normal but we can’t wish them away however hard we try because according to Samuel Butler (poet and satirist),”to die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead”

    The Chiboks girls will forever be in our hearts and can’t die.

     

    • Simon Abah,

    Port  Harcourt, Rivers State.