When will the Chibok girls return?

ON April 14, the country marked the sixth anniversary of the abduction of 276 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram terrorists. Since the terrorists invaded the school hostel and abducted the girls on April 14, 2014, the nation has been ill at ease; it has been a case of the proverbial bird perched on a rope, with neither the rope nor the bird feeling any comfort. Happily, though, a total of 164 students have since returned home through various means, including escapes, rescues, prisoner swaps and ransom negotiations.

On the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the Chibok girls’ abduction, President Muhammadu Buhari, who rode to office in 2015 partly on account of his promise to secure the rescue of the girls, told their parents that he had not forgotten about them. In a statement directed at the Chibok community and the Association of the Parents of the Abducted Girls from Chibok, Buhari, whose government’s last deal with the terrorist group led to the release of 21 Chibok girls in October 2016 and 82 in May 2017, said he was working hard to make sure that the 112 girls remaining in captivity returned home alive. Quite instructively, the president noted that his administration had been hamstrung by a fracture in the leadership of the terror group, which had made negotiations a difficult task. He observed that military operations against the group had been tempered by the will to make sure the girls were rescued unharmed, assuring that the country’s security and intelligence community was making a lot of efforts using backroom channels to get the girls back to their families. He said: “We cannot go to sleep over this matter. We are optimistic that ongoing efforts will yield something positive.”

On their part, in spite of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement  commemorated the sixth anniversary of the abduction, calling for their rescue. As they could not march through the streets of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, to demand the rescue of the remaining girls and other abducted citizens, they conducted this year’s advocacy online. The group said:  “For the 112 Chibok girls, their families and community, this agonising tragedy continues in a manner that has become far too familiar. Crucially, the associated familiarity of the painful failures surrounding the Chibok girls bears a semblance of the normalisation of the abnormal. With each passing day, there appears to be an unacceptable expectation for the abduction to be relegated into oblivion, shamefully depriving those most affected the dignity, justice and closure that they each deserve.”

The qualms of the BBOG movement, as indeed those of the larger populace, are entirely justified. Over the years, the rescue of the Chibok girls has been hampered by official insincerity and poor coordination among the security agencies. It is distressing that six years after, the bulk of the Chibok girls remain in captivity. Over and again, the military has bombarded Boko Haram hideouts, but mum has been the word regarding the Chibok girls. To date, Nigerians have no information regarding the location and state of health of the young women, except the predictable piece of information that they have been turned into sex slaves. It is galling that even when it rescued some of the girls, the Federal Government either failed to obtain, or refused to act on, intelligence which could have led to the rescue of the remaining hapless captives. One corollary of this ugly situation is that with every passing day, the misery of the parents of the Chibok girls worsens, with government remembering them only during anniversaries of their children’s abduction.

Recently, the Borno State government was reported to have sent food items to parents of the girls. This, we dare say, is mere tokenism. What the parents need, first and foremost, is reunion with their children. That is the only way the government can demonstrate that it truly cares about them. To be sure, President Buhari’s statement regarding leadership tussle among Boko Haram elements indicates that  he is in possession of intelligence reports and leads that may ultimately lead to the rescue of the abducted young women. That is only natural given his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but the question remains whether he is willing to do all it takes to secure the release of the captives. To say the least, it is the duty of the government to exploit whatever cleavages currently exists between disparate Boko Haram elements to its own advantage. These terrorists are not ghosts; they are flesh and blood, and they have food, finance and weapons sources that need to be interrogated and engaged with a view to rescuing the Chibok girls. Waiting for Boko Haram factions to resolve their differences before negotiating the captives’ release is not the right thing to do.

Serious governments never joke with the rescue of citizens. They deploy every strategy in the book to ensure their rescue. The country should go beyond celebrating anniversaries of the abduction; the young women must be brought home and reunited with their parents. We call on the government to rescue the girls before the seventh anniversary of their abduction. As the BBOG movement noted, “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.” That, surely, is not what the government wants.

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