Chibok girls: Seven years after

THE seventh anniversary of the abduction of female students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, has put the government’s response to the spate of kidnappings in the country under scrutiny. On the night of April 14, 2014, 276 female students of the school were kidnapped by members of the Islamic terror group, Boko Haram. While 57 of the students were said to have escaped from their kidnappers, a few others were rescued by the military. The terrorists also struck again after the Chibok episode, and one of the girls kidnapped was Leah Sharibu, whose case received international attention on account of allegations that her continued captivity was as a result of her refusal to renounce Christianity. A couple of months ago, it was alleged that Sharibu had given birth to a second child in captivity.

The Chibok case is only a miniature of the kidnapping ring that Nigeria has effectively become. Indeed, the girls who still remain in captivity mirror only a tiny percentage of those who have been kidnapped in Nigeria ever since. In virtually all the states of Nigeria, terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and barefaced violence have been unleashed on innocent citizens, making insecurity the most potent of the challenges that the country is battling with. In 2015 alone, Amnesty International estimated that about 2,000 women and girls had fallen victim of abduction by Islamic terrorist groups in the country. The situation has grown from bad to worse.

Given the current state of affairs, it may be right to conclude that the case of the remaining Chibok girls, who are in captivity seven years after their abduction, is a symbol of the government’s lax disposition to security of life and property. While the insurgents were reportedly using the kidnapped girls as cannon-fodder and negotiating pawns with the government, the latter’s inaction on the issue has also become public concern. However, the presidency has occasionally claimed that it is still in the process of getting the girls released. According to the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Garba Shehu, the government has not given up on their rescue. Shehu said: “The presidency gives assurance that the release of the remaining Chibok girls is still a work in progress. No one is giving up hope here. Efforts to secure their release through various channels and activities of the security and intelligence agencies remain on course.”

While the presidency claims that it is making progress in the bid to rescue the girls, what is available to Nigerians and the world belies this. According to one of the released girls who painted a gory picture of developments while she was in captivity, the stillness of activity in the last seven years shows that the government has given up on the rescue of the girls. She wrote: “Mr President, our ministers, our senators, our governors, please we are pleading, don’t we have a right to life? Don’t we have the right to education? Why are others still in captivity?” This appears to capture the mood of the generality of Nigerians on the fate of the abducted students.

Even if the government has been making efforts to rescue the abducted girls, it is obvious that it has stayed too long on the same spot. While the government should step up efforts at rescuing the Chibok girls, it should also exert all the powers at its disposal in ensuring that life becomes livable again for Nigerians. At the moment, the country is a kidnapping dungeon and life is miserable, nasty, brutish and short. Commuting from one part of the country to the other has become a very risky exercise. To the generality of Nigerians, life has become grossly uncertain.

Verbalising efforts to rescue the remaining Chibok girls just won’t cut it. The Muhammadu Buhari administration needs to achieve concrete results. The girls must be reunited with their families.

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