COVID-19 pandemic mars Chibok girls’ sixth anniversary as parents hope for miracle
It has been six years since a total of 276 schoolgirls were forcefully taken away from their dormitories at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents. 57 of the girls managed to jump from the trucks in which they were transported, and escaped. The remaining 219 were taken away by […]
The abducted Chibok schoolgirls
It has been six years since a total of 276 schoolgirls were forcefully taken away from their dormitories at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents.
57 of the girls managed to jump from the trucks in which they were transported, and escaped. The remaining 219 were taken away by the insurgents.
Over the years, a total of 107 girls have been found or released as part of a deal between the Nigerian government and the armed group.
The sleepy Chibok town, located in Nigeria’s northeast, has however continues her endless wait for the return of over one third of the schoolgirls.
At least, 112 of them are yet to return from their captivity.
The anniversary of their abduction is always marked to draw the attention of authorities to the fact that the girls were still not back yet.
Parents pray
However, the anniversary was not marked this time around following the lockdown declared by the Federal Government and most state governments as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel COVID-19 disease.
The Chairman, Chibok girls Parents Association, Mr Yakubu Nkeki, told Daily Trust that the parents held six years prayers session at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok on Tuesday (April 14, 2020) morning.
While maintaining that the parents still have hope in God that their daughters will someday return to them, he urged the government at all levels to show more political will to rescue the girls.
“We held the prayers at the school where our daughters were abducted six years ago,” he said, adding that, “it was emotional service today, all our prayers was centered toward their rescue.
“We also prayed for God to touch the federal government to expedite actions.
“The governments, both federal and state, should do more to rescue these girls. Many of the parents are dead due to uncertainty over their daughters, while several are ill and dying. We want governments to bring these girls back to their family.”
Mrs Rebecca, who didn’t reveal her surname, accused the government of not doing enough.
“I have been weeping every day even now the tears has stopped coming out. Today, it seems the government has forgotten about our plight, they are not doing anything about it.
“Last time, we heard they were willing to release some of our daughters but nothing was done about it.
“All our eyes are fixed unto God that is why we have gathered to offer prayers so that God will touch all the parties involved so that our daughters will come back home.
“We are looking up to the federal government to help bring these girls back home. They should know that six years is not six days. Please, help us take our cry to them,” she pleaded with our correspondent as tears roll down her eyes.
Another parent, Mr Pogu Yaga, who spoke in faint voice on the phone with Daily Trust, said: ” I am sick and I don’t have strength to speak.
“I can’t imagine not seeing my daughter for six years; what type of country are we in? Since yesterday, I refuse to speak to the people around me because I am in sober mood for my daughter. It is a sad moments for me.”
Pray at home in Maiduguri
The spokesman for the association, Ayuba Alanson, who live in Maiduguri, explained that due to the dreaded COVID-19 disease, they had held their prayers last Sunday for the girls and also pray for the Chadian President for his offensive operation against the Boko Haram.
He said: “I asked the parents that reside in Maiduguri to stay at home and pray for their daughters. So, there was no event organized to mark the anniversary today in Maiduguri.
“As law abiding citizens, we didn’t want people to gather since there is an order of social distancing which forbids gathering of people so as to prevent spread of COVID-19.
“So, in respect of this, we held our prayer last Sunday at Good News Church, Maiduguri where we prayed for quick return and intervention of God for our daughters that are still in captivity of Boko Haram.
“We also prayed for the Chadian President for what he has done in the last week against the insurgents.
“We pray to God that our Armed Forces will build on this to crush the insurgents once and for all, so that our children could regain their freedom. We are not going to relent until they are back. We trust God that He will help us.”
No empathy from govt- #BBOG
Dr Oby Ezekwesili, one of the conveners of the Bring Back Our Girls group (#BBOG) – a group advocating for the release of the abducted schoolgirls, said that lack of empathy of the Nigerian state is the reason the remaining 112 Chibok Girls are still in captivity.
#BBOG is one of the few advocacy groups that is still standing and keeping the campaign going since the girls were abducted.
Dr Ezekwesili also berated the Federal Government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, over its failure to secure the release of the remaining Chibok school girls.
She stated this in a live broadcast on the social media blog, Twitter, on Tuesday to commemorate the advocacy group’s fourth Annual ChibokGirls Lecture.
Dr Ezekwesili decried that six years was too long and that there should be no more excuses or delays in the rescue of the remaining girls, including Leah Sharibu.
Oby said that President Buhari’s attitude to Chibok Girls and all other challenges the country is currently facing, including; banditry and insurgency, provides a pattern of behaviour that shows a historical test of empathy gap for the government, and total disregard for the government.
She noted that the group’s commitment in respect of the girls has not changed.
The group had earlier sent a statement to mark the occasion, stating that the abduction of the schoolgirls shows that, with each passing day, “there appears to be an unacceptable expectation for the abductions to be relegated into oblivion”.
The group also decried a persistent lack of adequate system and structures to prevent and address the underlying issues that connect the tragedy of the Chibok girls with the war against insurgency.
The group, therefore, called on the Federal Government to implement a truthful “approach that draws upon the collective capacity, resourcefulness and willpower of a Nation led by a responsible government that will address the issues raised.
“A failure to respond with the necessary urgency of purposeful efforts will undoubtedly sanction the painful cries of Nigerians – of the past, existent and to come in the future – in a true legacy of failure. Indeed, we would not have been here at all if the government had greater empathy for its people”.
‘Why Chibok schoolgirls still in captivity’
Rescuing the abducted girls from captivity was one of the campaign promises of the incumbent president during the 2015 Presidential election but five years after, over a hundred of the girls have not been reunited with their parents.
However, the Nigerian government says it is still making efforts to rescue the remaining girls in captivity.
President Buhari, on Monday April 13, 2020, said an ongoing crisis within the Boko Haram leadership, which has led to factions and breakaway groups, brought a number of unforeseen challenges to the process of negotiating with the terrorists for Chibok schoolgirls’ release.
Buhari, in a statement by his spokesman, Garba Shehu, said; “extended his good wishes to the people of Chibok as they held prayers and thanksgiving services to mark the sixth anniversary of the kidnapping of their daughters by the insurgents.”
The president said the current COVID-19 pandemic, with restrictions on movement, made it impossible for any government delegation to be with them during the event.
He said: “The armed forces of the country, who are on general operations in the entire region, continue in their hope that they would encounter these girls, as they did thousands of other hostages, rescue and bring them back home.
“The nation’s security and intelligence community, in whom a lot of hope, is reposed in rescuing the abducted girls is making a lot of efforts using backroom channels to get them back to their families. These are processes, formal and informal that involves different groups with links to the terrorists, and are very tedious and uneasy as is seen in different parts of the world.
“The issue of the Chibok girls is not a forgotten issue. We cannot go to sleep over this matter. We are optimistic that ongoing efforts will yield something positive.”
About the Chibok schoolgirls
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from the Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.
Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria who wants to institute an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria.
The group is in particular opposed to western-style modern education, which they say lures people away from following Islamic teaching as a way of life.
57 of the schoolgirls were rescued the next few months and some have described their capture in appearances at international human rights conferences.
A child born to one of the girls and believed by medical personnel to be about 20 months old also was released, according to the Nigerian president’s office.
Since then hopes were raised on various occasions that the 219 remaining girls might be released.
Newspaper reports suggested that Boko Haram was hoping to use the girls as negotiating pawns in exchange for some of their commanders in jail.
In May 2016, one of the missing girls, Amina Ali, was found. She claimed that the remaining girls were still there, but that six had died.
A further 21 girls were freed in October 2016, while another was rescued the next month. Another was found in January 2017.
82 more girls were freed in May 2017 while another one of the girls was rescued in January 2018.