- Leah Sharibu: A mother’s emotive Christmas message
When will my daughter come back? This was the question that the one minute 25 seconds video released by Leah Sharibu’s mother, Rebecca Sharibu, seemed to be asking even if it was made to look like a Christmas message.
In the video released to The Punch on Wednesday through the Leah Foundation, Mrs Sharibu pleaded with her daughter’s abductors to pity the family and set her free. “We are always praying for you wherever you are that God will bring you back. We are pleading with the government to put in more effort so that Leah will be released.
“We are wishing you a Merry Christmas wherever you are. We are not happy that you are not with us this Christmas and we pray God set you free and bring you back to us.
We are pleading with those who are holding you captive to please pity us and release you. We are in great pain, thank you,” the mother said in the video.
Leah was abducted by Boko Haram terrorists alongside 109 other pupils of Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, by Boko Haram insurgents on February 19, 2018. Five of the girls died in the process of abducting them. However, 104 of the pupils were freed in March 2018.
Leah’s parents were disappointed when they discovered their daughter was not among those freed. The terrorists are holding on to her because she wouldn’t renounce her Christian faith to adopt Islam.
We empathise with Leah’s mum, dad and other relatives. It’s really traumatic celebrating the second Christmas since their child’s abduction, without her. Indeed, we can understand Leah’s mother’s plight in sending the Christmas message to her. It is her own way of bringing the issue back to national or even global focus.
Although the Federal Government claims to be doing everything humanly possible to secure her release unhurt, the fact is; to the extent that every object looks like a nail to a carpenter, nothing other than Leah’s parents’ reunion with their daughter would convince them that the government has not put the issue behind it.
Even the military said as recently as last week that they were being cautious in rescuing her and others because they did not want any mistake that would put their lives in jeopardy.
We agree with the military that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Not even Leah’s parents, despite being anxious to see her again, would want to be confronted with her corpse or news of her death.
However, it is imperative for governments, state and federal, to further secure schools, particularly in the northeast where Boko Haram has done a lot of damage. The funds generated for the purpose, locally and internationally should be well utilised in this direction.
School girls had been kidnapped in Chibok; they had been kidnapped in Dapchi. There should not be excuse for any recurrence because that would mean the country has not learnt much from the earlier abductions.
We want the government to intensify efforts in bringing back home these hapless abductees who are only victims of circumstances because they contributed nothing to what has kept them in the hands of complete strangers who have no discernible mission beyond inflicting pains on fellow human beings.
We are not only concerned about Leah’s return home alive, we want the other school girls and other Boko Haram captives who are still alive reunited with their relatives. The longer it takes to get them back home dims the hope that they will ever return alive.
