Endless waiting: 10 years after, 89 abducted Chibok Schoolgirls still in captivity

10 years of agony, anxiety as 89 abducted Chibok school schoolgirls yet to be released

Chibok girls not forgotten, says Buhari

On the night of April 14, 2014, heavily armed men in their numbers invaded a government girls secondary school in Borno state.

These armed men who were identified as Boko Haram terrorist group reportedly laid siege with these innocent school girls for over two hours, doing all sorts of unprintable things at them.

However, at the end of their unholy act, 276 of these schoolgirls  mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram from the said Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.

WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that before the abduction, the school had been closed for four weeks due to worsening security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.

It was also learnt that 57 of the schoolgirls escaped from abduction as they were said to have jumped from the trucks on which they were being transported, and others have been rescued by the Nigerian Armed Forces on various occasions.

Before the abduction of these Chibok school girls on April 14, 2024, there has been pockets of abductions and killings of school children in the country especially at the North East zone.

For instance on 6 July 2013, armed men from Boko Haram attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo, Yobe State, killing at least 42 people. Most of those killed were students, with some staff members among the dead.

Again on 29 September 2013, armed men from Boko Haram gained access to the male hostel in the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Yobe State, killing forty-four students and teachers.

With these reported killings in the area, the Islamic terrorists group continued to incite fear and trepidation among school children and teachers in the zone with a view to abolishing schooling in the zone.

WITHIN NIGERIA findings showed that Boko Haram’s attacks intensified in 2014 with reported and repeated killings in the area.

Shortly before the Chibok Schoolgirls saga, in February, 2014,  the group has reportedly killed more than 100 Christian men in the villages of Doron Baga and Izghe. That same month, 59 boys were killed in the Federal Government College attack in northeastern Nigeria.

In March, the group reportedly attacked the Giwa military barracks, freeing captured militants. The Chibok abduction occurred on the same day as a bombing attack in Abuja in which at least 88 people died. The road leading to Chibok is frequently targeted due to the fact that there is little or no government protection for commuters for the village.

#bringbackourgirls campaign group against the abduction

Investigations revealed that Boko Haram was blamed for nearly 4,000 deaths in 2014 even as training they received from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was said to have helped the terrorists group to intensify its attacks during the period under review.

Needless to say that the Chibok schoolgirls abduction drew a lot of international concern and condemnation as the Federal government was said to be at loss on what to do to rescue these kidnapped schoolgirls.

At the other hand, like many of such incidents that have happened, political coloration and interpretation was given to the abduction as many saw it as a political propaganda to trash the administration of the then President Goodluck Jonathan who was seeking for re-election less than a year.

Till date, political analysts have continued to believe that the defeat of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the 2015 presidential election was as a result of the then Federal Government alleged slow response in rescue of these abducted Chibok school girls.

It was said that Chibok schoolgirls was orchestrated and formulated to to bring down the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Ten years after the abduction, 89 out of 276 of these abducted Chibok schoolgirls are yet to be rescued by the government despite all the promises by both the incumbent and past administration at the Federal and state levels.

Reactions of Nigerians

The abduction of the Chibok school girls by the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists group raised security concern across schools in the Northern region of Nigeria where these terrorists group usually perpetrated their attacks.

However, with this ugly incident on our hands and government’s alleged lackadaisical attitude towards the whole situation, parents of the abducted school girls and other well meaning Nigerians took to the streets in protests, demanding immediate government action towards their release.

Parents and others took to social media to complain about the government’s perceived slow and inadequate response. The news caused international outrage against Boko Haram and the Nigerian government.

On 30 April and 1 May, protests demanding greater government action were held in several Nigerian cities. However, most parents were afraid of speaking publicly for fear their daughters would be targeted for reprisal.

On 3 and 4 May, protests were held in major Western cities including Los Angeles and London.

As the protest in the social media continues, usage of the hashtag came from individuals attempting to raise awareness of the kidnapping.

One  Ibrahim M Abdullahi, a lawyer in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, started the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls in a tweet posted in April 2014 after listening to the former Federal Minister of Education Oby Ezekwesili speak on the kidnappings at an event at Port Harcourt.

Jonathan: Couldn’t rescue the whole abducted school girls

It was then used by a group of Nigerian activists protesting about the government’s slow response to the kidnapping to tag tweets as they marched down a highway in protest.

By May 2014,the hashtag began to trend globally on Twitter as a form of hashtag activism and the story spread rapidly internationally, becoming for a time Twitter’s most tweeted hashtag.

However, by 11 May it had attracted 2.3 million tweets and by 2016 it had been retweeted 6.1 million times. Spearheaded by the former Education Minister, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, an official Twitter account for the movement was then set up, with a group of 20–30 people involved in its organization.

Oby Ezekwesili and Aisha Yesufu have both been described as co-founders or co-conveners of the movement. A $300,000 cash reward was initially offered by the movement to anyone who could help locate or rescue the girls from their kidnappers.

As the days went by, vigils and protests were held around the world to mark 100 days since the kidnapping. Participating countries included Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Togo, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Portugal. Daily rallies by Bring Back Our Girls demonstrators at the Unity Fountain in Abuja were continuing to at least 5 January 2015, despite efforts by the police to shut down such protests. To mark a year since Boko Haram kidnapped the girls, on 13 April 2015 hundreds of protesters wearing red tape across their lips walked silently through the capital Abuja. Security forces are known to have detained protestors and dispersed crowds with armed police and water cannon.

Needles to state that for the better part of five years of the abduction incident, Chibok community became the most visited, reported and talked about by both local and international media owing to the abduction incident.

Rescue efforts by the government

WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that Within five years of the abduction, only  a total of 107 girls have been found or released as part of a deal between the Nigerian government and the armed group.

“They [the government] are not talking about our girls anymore. They are acting as if they are happy about what happened to us,” Enock Mark, whose two daughters are still missing, told journalists during the five years anniversary of the incident.

“We have lost hope in the government helping us. They have not shown any serious interest in ensuring that our daughters are found. It looks like it was done intentionally. They don’t care about us anymore,” he said.

“We won’t give up. Even in a hundred years, we will keep believing that our daughters will return home. Until we all die, we won’t stop believing that our daughters will come back.”

For instance on June 22, 2022, Nigerian troops announced that they have found two abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

The two women each carried babies on their laps as they were presented by the military on that Tuesday, eight years after the ugly incident.

Buhari: Failed to rescue all the abducted school girls

Major-General Christopher Musa, the then military commander of troops in the region, told reporters the girls were found on June 12 and 14 in two different locations by troops.

“We are very lucky to have been able to recover two of the Chibok girls,” Musa said.

Borno state government re-assures parents of the abducted school girls

Borno State Government has disclosed that it has partnered with security agencies to rescue the remaining 89 Chibok girls after ten years in captivity.

While assuring the parents of the abductees during a press conference at NUJ Press Centre in Maiduguri on Saturday, the Commissioner for Information and Internal Security, Prof. Usman Tar, said with the combined efforts of security forces, intelligence agencies, and community support, all abducted Chibok girls will be safely returned.

According Prof. Tar, the state government will not rest on its oath until the last of the innocent Chibok girls are back home with their families.

He  further gave explanation that recently 16 Chibok girls were rescued by the security men and have already been rehabilitated by the state Government now they are attending the 2nd Chance School where they learn skills in various vocations that will provide them with sustainable livelihoods, while their kids are also placed in nursery schools.

In his words, “on this auspicious occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the abduction of Chibok Girls, the state government wishes to inform the public that we shall continue to struggle to salvage our abducted girls on behalf of the parents and relatives of the Chibok girls who are still in captivity.

“The Borno State Government is committed to rescuing and reuniting the remaining Chibok girls and reuniting them with their families. We understand the pain and anguish that the families of those still in captivity are going through, this is our sorrow.

“So far, out of the 276 abducted Chibok Girls,187 have been rescued and reunited with their families. Most of the rescued girls have, over the years, been enrolled in different schools or graduated under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs. A number of the girls have been enrolled in local and foreign scholarships or empowerment programmes.

“Many have since been reunited with their immediate families and are continuing to receive psychosocial support to reconcile them with normal life and four of them have voluntarily decided to return to their parents”.

 

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