The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Chibok

  • From Chibok 276 to President Jonathan

    SIR: It is with deep sense of anger, resentment and desperation that we write you this letter. You would recall that on April 14, after an explosion rocked Nyanya a suburb of Abuja killing over 75 persons and wounding many others, some individuals in military camouflage came to Chibok Girls Secondary School with the guise of assisting us escape an imminent Boko Haram attack. Conversely, the “good Samaritans” have turned out to be dare-devil Boko Haram abductors. Twenty one horrible days after, we are helpless hostages languishing in the den of these sheep in wolf clothing. The attendant depression and hopeless experience is better imagined.

    We learnt that our abduction naturally hit you like a thunder bolt and our country knew no peace since then. But a day after, your presidential train moved to Kano where you danced away the shock in reception of Ibrahim Shekarau and other defectors to your party the PDP. How would one conscientiously reconcile your shocking disposition to our plight to what happened some hours later in Kano? If we were truly your children, would you have gone to Kano? Being in government should not make us lose our sense of decency and humanness.

    We also learnt that government postponed the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of Wednesday  April 30, to honour the younger brother of the Vice President Namadi Sambo who unfortunately lost his life in a ghastly motor accident along Lugbe Airport Road, Abuja. We pray Allah to receive the soul of the departed in al-jannah Firdaus and through this medium send our heart-felt condolences to the Vice President and his entire family. It is customary in our clime to honour the dead but should we conclude that the dead are more important that the living in Nigeria?

    At the time we were abducted, we were putting on only school uniforms. Has anyone thought of how we feed, sleep, take bath and care for ourselves as young girls?

    Boko Haram menace needs a concerted national and patriotic effort to surmount. We are hostages today; tomorrow it might be people in position of authority. If drastic steps are not taken, the nation will be consumed. The doom’s day is imminent.

    Our abduction coincided with the untimely death of more than 200 school children like us at a resort island off the nation’s southwestern coast of South Korea as a result of crew malfeasance. The Prime Minister took responsibility and threw in the towel. The crew members are currently facing the music. Who will take responsibility for all these calamities that have been befalling us as a nation?

    The world is expected to mark Children’s day on May 27. Would you like us to celebrate ours as hostages in the bush with gun trotting insurgents whose well established principle is that education is a sin and are out to stop it?

    The events that led to our abduction has offered your government the impetus to scrutinise the activities of those saddled with the responsibility of making sure that the state of emergency is implemented. How could these people have unbridled access to roads that are supposed to be manned by soldiers? We learnt that our government agencies do not even know how many of us thatare missing. Even if it is one person, a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep and go after the missing one.

    We salute the courage of our mothers in Chibok, mothers all over Nigeria who have worked, prayed and marched the cities of Nigeria to demonstrate and register their displeasure over our abduction and lack of government proactive measures for our release. Finally, we thank God for preserving us till this day and for mercifully granting 53 of us freedom and safety. Our gratitude goes to all Nigerians for standing by us and our families in this trying time. We still look forward to our freedom someday.

    • Sunday Onyemaechi Eze

    Zaria

  • Chibok: Lagos Deputy governor calls for three-day fast

    The Deputy Governor of Lagos, Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, has called on Nigerians to embark on a three-day prayer and fasting for the immediate release of the abducted female students.
    She made the call when women and other parents led by Aishat Falode demonstrating against the abduction  walked  from Allen Roundabout to her office in Alausa.
    Participants included journalists in Reproductive Health Reporting, federation of women lawyers, Femi Falana and others.

  • Chibok: Governor’s wife shun meeting with First Lady

    First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan on Sunday night  broke down and wept when she discovered that Borno Governor’s wife and other key individuals  did not turn up for a meeting she convened in Abuja over the abduction 234 secondary girls in Chibuk. 

    Her first meeting on Friday had set up a committee headed by the Borno State governor’s wife to ensure bringing some individuals to the Sunday night meeting  towards getting to the root of the abduction of the girls. 

    She was devastated that the governor’s wife  refused to show up for the meeting on Friday and Sunday night  but more interested in protesting in states. 

    The First lady at the meeting also insisted that the state government and the commissioner of education should be blamed for the abduction of the girls as they failed to act of the letter from the Minister of Education for relocation of WAEC candidate to Maiduguri or safer place. 

    WAEC and the school principal disagreed at the meeting over the number of candidate for English, Maths subjects in the school.

  • Media Chat: We’ll rescue Chibok girls – Jonathan

    Media Chat: We’ll rescue Chibok girls – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan has assured that the abducted secondary school girls in Borno State will be rescued.

    He made the promise during the presidential media chat on Sunday evening.

    He pleaded for the support of the parents and guardians of the girls in the various efforts being made to secure their release.

    “We need every information, their pictures, names and any other details that we can get to put this incident behind us. We are trying our best and appreciate the concern of Nigerians over the situation in the country” President Jonathan stated.

    He denied that the government was negotiating with Boko Haram insurgents on the release of the girls noting that there is no indication that the girls hurt so far.

  • Abducted girls: Presidency, Borno in cold war

    Abducted girls: Presidency, Borno in cold war

    •Borno govt tackles First Lady

    A cold war is brewing between the Presidency and the Borno State Government as a fallout of the April 15 invasion of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok by Boko Haram insurgents who abducted 276 students of the school in the process.

    The ‘war’ stems from misgivings by the Presidency about what it sees as the mishandling of the matter by the state government.

    It believes that the state authorities are playing politics with the girls’ abduction, a situation that prompted President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday to set up a 26-man ‘fact-finding’ panel on the raid.

    A few hours after the constitution of the panel, the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan met with some women in Abuja and gave the state government a three-day ultimatum to find the girls.

    She threatened to lead protests in Maiduguri and Abuja if the students are not found by today.

    The State Government yesterday denied the insinuation that it is playing politics with the fate of the girls.

    It accused Mrs. Jonathan of instigating people against it with her planned protests.

    The Nation gathered that several allegations were levelled at the state government at Friday’s security meeting with some military chiefs faulting the handling of the situation by the Maiduguri government.

    Some of the allegations   are: reeling out conflicting figures on the abducted girls; suspected inflation of the figures of the missing girls; refusal to publish the names and photographs of the girls; hiding information from the public that the school is the mixed type at the time of the abduction; operating school   when others were closed in the state; complicity in the abduction of the girls; sponsoring   stories that the girls have been married off to terrorists at N2,000 each; and playing politics with the abduction to avoid a declaration of total emergency in the state by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    A highly-placed source said: “The Presidency believes that the Borno State Government has been feeding the public with half-truths since the abduction thing started. You can see how the figures have been changing.

    “For instance, security agencies discovered that the Principal was in Maiduguri on the night of the abduction contrary to her narration of what happened on April 14.

    “Nigerians should ask why the state did not tell us that the school was a mixed type when the insurgents invaded it.

    “The Presidency is worried that up till now, none of the 53 girls who either escaped or not abducted, has been presented to the public by the state government for Nigerians to hear their side or experience.

    “We are also concerned that they have not released the names and photographs of the missing girls.”

    The source said the state government has also been denigrating the military.

    However, a Borno State Government official, who spoke in confidence, said the Federal Government is under immense pressure over the girls and it is looking for a scapegoat.

    The official said the Federal Government is bringing unnecessary politics into the abduction saga in order to heap the blame on Borno State.

    He said the state would be vindicated when the Presidential fact finding committee completes its work.

    The official gave a synopsis of all issues raised by the Presidency on the abduction of the girls.

    He said: “The school is established and known to be Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok as a mainly girls school but sometime last year, stakeholders of Chibok made a pressing request that a make shift arrangement be made to accommodate their male children since the school was big enough to accommodate more students.

    “The stakeholders request was because their sons, who were schooling in other parts of the state that turned out to be unsafe, were idle at home .

    “And because Chibok was very safe, the parents demanded that rather than sitting at home, their sons be allowed to also be in that school. The Governor reluctantly accepted that a temporary structure be put in place while he preferred that where necessary a new school be built for the boys while the girls be allowed in their school given the fact that the school was established mainly as a female school with all its policies and programs designed as such.”

    The source said that the state’s Ministry of education identified schools that were considered safe and students from other schools were secretly collapsed   so they could take their exams.

    Government felt that if the students did not sit for the exam, they would end up losing one year.

    The decision was thus taken but without the public knowing so that terrorists might not go after them.

    Continuing, the source said:”The GGSS Chibok was considered one of the safest schools; it was opened like some others in Uba, Askira, Maiduguri, Biu, Gwoza and some others. In that school, attacked in Chibok, students from schools in Izge, Warabe, Lassa and Ashiga-Shiya were all collapsed in one place and they were quietly writing their exams until that unfortunate attack of Tuesday, 14th of April, 2014.

    “One other thing that should be said is that, initially, the Governor had insisted that all the final year students be moved to schools in Maiduguri and Biu but stakeholders from some of the areas, particularly in Chibok and Uba protested.

    “The Governor had several meetings with the community members of Chibok including traditional rulers, parents, the chairman of the council, the member of the state assembly representing Chibok and opinion leaders, they insisted that their children be allowed to remain in Chibok was actually safe.

    “At a point they asked the Governor what would happen if their children were attacked in Maiduguri or Biu, it was at that point he acceded to their request. The truth is that the collapse of students from other schools in Chibok as was done in other parts of the State was a major reason there is a mix up in the number of missing girls.

    “The Government found itself at a difficult situation. This is probably why the Governor was not saying much about the school. One interesting thing is that the Boko Haram only targeted the girls’ hostel which was a permanent structure there and that is why only girls were abducted. The boys stay in a make shift hostel because the Government plans to relocate them, even on the school sign post, what is written there is Government Girls Secondary School.”

    The source added that after that attack, students of the school in Chibok were collapsed in another school in Uba which already had other students from Askira.

    “Then on the issue of WAEC telling the First Lady that 530 persons registered for the exam, amongst them 180 males and 189 now at Uba . First, there was never a time the Borno State Government announced that 234 girls were abducted.

    “The Governor personally announced 129 and all the media reported it, it was after he visited the school that it was discovered that parents registered over 200 missing.”

    The official faulted the argument that the Borno Government could have staged the abduction to show that the emergency has failed with a view to making a case for ending the state of emergency.

    “The Borno State Government shoulders 90 percent of funding the military activities including paying rewards for intelligence which the military collects.

    “There is simply no way the Federal Government will succeed in shifting blame to the State Government which seems to be the plan here. The FG is under immense pressure and they are looking for a scapegoat.

    “The Police Commissioner and the State Director of SS in Borno State did a joint press conference after their investigation and they pointed to the fact as was reported on Friday that students were collapsed in some schools for the purpose of exams. They even said over 276 students were actually missing based on their own investigation.

    “We heard that the First Lady is trying to incite people to protest against the State Government and that is rather too childish and unnecessary since a fact finding committee has been set up unless if she is saying that the committee’s report is ready before the committee’s inauguration on Tuesday.”

    On the issue of the State Government ýrefusal to publish names and photos of the schoolgirls, the official said “The government has no lawful mandate of making such publication to declare anyone missing; only the police have that lawful mandate, perhaps the military also since we are still under a state of emergency.”

    “Also, there are elements of religion and family background in a data that when you expose you complicate things for the girls. We just didn’t want to act stupidly and illegally otherwise we have the names and pictures. But as I speak with you, the Police and the SSS have the data of the missing girls, they are professionals, they can decide what to do.”

  • All for the Chibok girls

    All for the Chibok girls

    Across the globe there is growing concern over the fate of the 276 schoolgirls snatched from their hostels in the dead of night in Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014. This weekend in Washington DC, pictured here, New York and Philadelphia, hundreds of protesters called on the Nigerian government and the international community to rescue the kidnapped children.

  • The real terror of Chibok

    The real terror of Chibok

    Today, world attention is riveted on Nigeria for all the wrong reasons. As you read this 276 girls snatched by Boko Haram insurgents from their dormitory beds in a government secondary school in Chibok, Borno State remain in captivity.

    Their kidnapping has triggered a string of protests from women and civil society groups across the country. It has produced the usual promises of deliverance from President Goodluck Jonathan. The military high command have weighed in with assurances that they were doing everything to set the captives free.

    But neither the demonstrators’ outrage nor the threadbare platitudes of government officials have brought the prospect of freedom any closer for the unfortunate girls.

    Reports say three of the girls may have died, while some others are in very poor health. No one really knows what is happening to the rest. Once upon a time we would have been stunned by reports of 20 people killed in a single terror attack. These days not even the killing of hundreds causes us or our leaders to pause in shock.

    That is why the Chibok kidnapping represents something of a watershed in Nigeria’s dark hour. It has galvanised the country in ways that huge body counts and gory pictures have failed to do. This is no longer about North or South, Muslim or Christian – it is about a shared humanity. Imagine if one of these hapless teenagers was your daughter?

    Chibok is a sad chapter, but it is also a metaphor about present day Nigeria. For starters, it speaks about a country where confusion reigns. For close to two weeks we have been working with the assumption that 234 girls were missing. Now, Borno State Police Commissioner, Tanko Lawan, says well over 300 were actually spirited away on the night of April 14, 2014. Of that number 53 managed to escape – leaving as many as 276 in captivity.

    In the early days after the abduction, the picture of confusion was best captured by the fiasco that saw the military claiming that the bulk of the girls had been rescued. They were forced to retract after the principal of the school attacked by the insurgents spoke up.

    The ordeal of the Chibok girls underlines the embarrassing helplessness of a country the size of Nigeria. So far, everything that has been thrown at the insurgents militarily has only had limited effect. In the days and weeks after President Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, a bombing campaign that targeted the militants’ camps in the Sambisa forest seemed to have broken their spine. Now we know better.

    Even the prospect of a special operation to rescue the girls cannot proceed for fear that they have been converted into human shields by their captors in anticipation of an attempt to free them militarily.

    As recent as two years ago administration officials were still arguing at the US State Department that Boko Haram was a Nigerian phenomenon that could be brought to heel using local solutions. Increasingly there is talk of getting foreign assistance to secure the release of the girls. This would suggest that the administration is finally admitting it lacks that capacity to prosecute this special fight.

    We are coming to that realisation five years after it became evident that we had a serious problem on our hands. In that time we could have built our capacity to fight the terrorists more effectively. Rather than do that we were seduced by the delusion that we could sweet talk a maniacal band of killers who had made it clear over and again they had no interest in talking to a government they regarded as illegitimate.

    Even if the limited Boko Haram of 2009 had not transformed into today’s full-blown insurgency, we had sufficient warnings that because of her endowments, her strategy place in Africa and the world, Nigeria would become a prime target for jihadi groups that were already active in the Maghreb.

    That should have informed a change in our defence and security planning and expenditure. There is no evidence to show a shift from the conventional. At a time when terrorists are using cells of a few people to inflict massive damage on cities and communities, we are still stuck in the thinking that just driving tanks into the Sambisa will be enough to solve the problem.

    For me the real worry is whether the nightmare will end in Chibok. Once terrorists conceive of some evil, they will seek ways to actualise it. They have shown that their preferred targets are vulnerable places like Chibok and Nyanya. Just thinking of other potential Chiboks is terrifying. What is our contingency plan?

    The abduction drama should not stop us from thinking about preventing a repeat. The territory over which the terrorists operate is wide and hard to police. How do we guarantee that similarly vulnerable schools are not visited with such terror again?

    Posting solitary military guards to watch over the institutions is a non-starter because they can be easily overwhelmed by the terrorists who operate in large numbers. We don’t have enough soldiers in the Nigerian Army to post platoons to protect every secondary school in the North East. In any event what sort of learning environment would that be with soldiers all around?

    The key is to take out the terrorists before they can organise and launch their operations using better intelligence and technology. The repeat bombing of Nyanya, Abuja less than two weeks after an earlier attack that killed close to 100 people is confirmation that for as long as the perpetrators walk free these crimes will continue.

    Nigeria needs help with intelligence and know-how. For all of the size of our conventional military we still don’t have the capacity and expertise to contain the terrorist campaign being waged by Boko Haram. We need help and must swallow our pride to get it.

    It may even mean signing a pact with the United States to allow its drones to target these terrorists. The advanced intelligence assets that such an arrangement would provide will enable us strike hard at the killers where we can’t presently reach. Sure, the drone policy has its flaws and has taken out many innocents; still it has proven its potency from Yemen, to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    Such drastic steps need to be taken on the military front while we are thrashing around for more permanent solutions. But let there be no doubt that the help we need now is from countries with proven experience and success in containing terrorists.

  • Chibok: First lady gives ultimatum on rescue of girls

    Chibok: First lady gives ultimatum on rescue of girls

    The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan has blamed of the abduction of 234 secondary school girls while writing exams in Chibok, Borno State on the state government.

    She made the accusation on Friday night during a meeting on the incident  with wives of state governors, women opinion leaders, leaders of key women organizations and relevant women stakeholders at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    The First lady said the state government should be held responsible for the missing girls after the Head of WAEC National Office, Mr. Charles Eguridu revealed at the meeting that the Ministry of Education in the state refused to move all WASCE candidates in the state to Maiduguri as demanded in a letter written in March by the Minister of Education to the Ministry.

    The state government reportedly replied that it had adequate security in school.

    Worried by the revelation, she gave the state government three-day ultimatum to not only tell Nigerians the whereabouts of the girls but ensure the release of the girls who were abducted on the 15th of April, 2014.

    If the girls are not found in the next three days, she threatened to lead women groups and mothers on protest march to Borno state, the National Assembly and to the President.

    According to her, she had been dealing with the issue secretly since the news of the abduction broke out but has now decided to come to the open.

    Failure on the mission, she said, is not acceptable to her.

    She said: “By Sunday, we must have our children. If not, we will march to Borno and ask the governor to give us our children. We will march to National Assembly to see the Senate President and will also match to see the President,”

    “Within three days, something will happen. We will get to the root of the matter. I don’t come out and go back empty. I have come out and something must happen.

    “We will not fold our hands and see our children kidnapped our husbands, sons, daughters also being killed. We should be more concerned. We will form a committee to call on appropriate persons to come and answer questions. They must answer us. If they say they will answer us, then they should go and bring our children.

    “The demonstration will take place at their doorsteps. When they don’t answer us, we can then approach our neighbours, the President, Senate President and others to help us.”

    “I have been dealing with this secretly but you have taken me to the market square. There is no more hiding.” She declared

    Noting that state governors are the chief security officers of their states, she said that they must be ready to take the heat for any act of insecurity in their domain.

    Recalling when her husband was the Bayelsa State governor, she said that former President Olusegun Obasanjo could call her husband in the middle of the night over any news of kidnapping in the state.

    She said: “Governors are the security officers of their states. During Obasanjo’s time, anytime an oyinbo is kidnapped in Bayelsa state, he would call the governor (Jonathan) at 2am and give him 24 hours to produce the kidnapped person.”

    “We now know who to ask for our children. We don’t need to embark on demonstrations from state to state,” she said.

    The meeting at the First Lady Conference room, which was adjourned till 4pm on Saturday, also summoned some individuals the First Lady believed would assist in unraveling the circumstances leading to the girls’ abduction and their whereabouts.

    Those summoned include the Borno State Commissioner of Police, the state Commissioner for Education, the chairman of the local government, the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Chibok, the wife of the village head, the school principal and the school gateman.

    Also invited are at least two teachers from the school, the chairman and secretary of the school’s Parents Teachers Association, two house parents, two parents of missing children, and two parents whose children had returned home.

    She also constituted a committee to ensure that those she summoned attend the Sunday meeting.

    According to her, the committee to be chaired by the wife of Borno State governor, who was absent at the meeting, has wife of the Senator and member of the House of Representatives from the affected constituency in the state, wife of the Minister from Borno State and wife of the Chairman of the affected local government area as members.

  • Rescue these innocent girls with wisdom

    Rescue these innocent girls with wisdom

    THIS is an important message to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and I will want him to urgently attend to it.

    He should find ways of rescuing the kidnapped students of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, without wasting time.

    In embarking on the rescue mission, the security operatives must apply wisdom. This is a mission that also requires prayer. It is a delicate matter, and there is no room for mistakes.

    These girls are innocent. They did not commit crimes. They did not ignite the social and political hate in the country. They are just starting life. They are entitled to freedom.

    President Jonathan, please act urgently and wisely too. The Almighty will be with you at this critical hour.

    Chika Nnorom,

  • Chibok: Sabo, Falana, 24 others on Jonathan’s rescue committee

    Towards unraveling the circumstances surrounding the reported abduction of 234 secondary school girls in Chibok, Borno State, Brig. General Ibrahim A. Sabo (Rtd.)has been named as the Chairman of a fact finding Presidential Committee set up by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Other members of the committee are Barrister Femi Falana, SAN, Hajia Hawa Ibrahim, and Hajia Fatima Kwaku.

    This is contained in a statement issued last night by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim.
    According to him, the Committee will be inaugurated at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday, 6th May, 2014 by 12 noon.

    The statement reads: “As part of efforts to ensure successful rescue of the abducted female students of Government Secondary School CHIBOK, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, has approved the constitution of a Presidential Committee on the rescue efforts for the missing female students.”

    “The Committees whose work shall be largely fact findings is charged with the following terms of reference:”

    “To liaise with the Borno State Government and establish the circumstances leading to the School remaining open for boarding students when other schools were closed;”

    “To liaise with relevant authorities and the parents of the missing girls to establish the actual number and identities of the girls abducted;”

    “To interface with the Security Services and Borno State Government to ascertain how many of the missing girls have returned;”

    “To mobilise the surrounding communities and the general public on citizen support for a rescue strategy and operation;”

    “To articulate a framework for a multi-stakeholder action for the rescue of the missing girls;”

    The committe is also expected to advise the Government on any matter incidental to the terms of reference.

    Other members of the committee include 2 representatives of National Council of Women
    Societies (NCWS), 2 representatives of the All one whom shall be a female
    Nigeria Conference of
    Principals of Secondary
    Schools (ANCOPSS), 2 representatives of the National Parents Teachers Association.

    Also in the committee are 2 representatives of the Nigeria Police, 2 representatives of the State Security Service, 2 representatives of the Nigerian Army, 2 representatives of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), 1 Representative of the Federal Ministry of Information (who shall be the Committees’
    Spokesperson).

    The committee also have one Representative of the Federal Ministry of Justice, 3 Representatives of Borno State Government (two of whom, preferably, shall be women), 1 Representative of the United Nations, 1 Representative of ECOWA (who shall be a woman) and Permanent Secretary (Special Services Office) OSGF will serve as Secretary of the committee.