BY now, Nigerians must be quite exasperated with the failure of the Nigerian state to return Leah Sharibu to her parents. Sharibu was the 14-year-old girl from Dapchi, Yobe State who, along with 109 other girls, was abducted from the Government Girls Science Technical College, Dapchi, four years ago. The girls were taken to an unknown destination but returned to Dapchi following negotiations between the authorities and the abductors— except Sharibu, who was retained in custody for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. February 18 marked the fourth anniversary of the teenager’s abduction. It is a painful reality that her parents have not set eyes on their daughter for so long.
To cut the cord of a 14-year-old child’s natural love for her parents and her parents’ immeasurable love and care for her is unspeakable and unnatural. It is unbelievable that the Nigerian establishment actually expects some kind of unholy alliance or stunned silence from the rest of the citizenry who are supposed to carry on as if all is well. Indeed, such dastardly experiences as Sharibu’s actually define the pitiful state of Nigerian nationhood. Has the government simply forgotten about Sharibu? Will the country just take that experience in its stride? If a rope is only as strong as its weakest link, how strong is the country if a vulnerable young girl can be routinely abducted from school and kept under false imprisonment in the bid to appease the depraved lust of some terrorists for years? Is Boko Haram too strong for the Nigerian state to tame?
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For how much longer would the Nigerian state buckle at its knees, so scared of Boko Haram’s snarls that it cannot simply bust its defence lines and bring Leah Sharibu back home to her long-suffering parents and relatives? It is shameful that Nigeria tolerated and indeed allowed the excesses of Boko Haram to linger to such an extent that it could suspend Leah Sharibu’s legitimate aspirations for four years. On current evidence, the Nigerian state cannot tell of her whereabouts with a reasonable degree of certainty. Neither can it say whether she is still alive or dead. This is really a miserable showing for any state worthy of its name because the general belief is that a child’s death, bad as it is, is to be preferred to a loss that defies tracing. Nigerians must be tired of the endless excuses being offered by the government following its poor showing in this case. It is such a marked contrast to the successful rescue operation which the United States embarked upon on account of its citizen who was similarly circumstanced on Nigerian soil a while ago.
President Muhammadu Buhari rightly expressed outrage when a five-year-old girl, Hanifa Abubakar, recently died in Kano State under the watch of her teacher and abductor. But there seems to be no outrage or sense of urgency over Leah Sharibu, who has been with her abductors for four terrible years. What efforts has this government made to rescue her from her abductors? The attitude in official circles seems to be that with time, Nigerians will forget all about the hapless young lady. This isn’t good optics. The government must not forget about Leah Sharibu. She must not be abandoned to her fate. Had the government been alive to its responsibilities, she would not have been abducted and traumatised in the first place. That being the case, it is unconscionable and irresponsible not to do everything within the power of the Nigerian state to rescue her from captivity and make her family shed tears of joy. We hope she will soon be rescued and reunited with her family.
and then