The storming by suspected Boko Haram elements of Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State last Monday was a very big setback in the war against terrorism and a big hole in official claims that the terrorists had been defeated and are only being mopped up. Also inexplicable has been the confusing information served to the public by different officials, leading to the very embarrassing claim that the abducted girls had been rescued, which turned out to be false.
That Boko Haram could strike a girls’ school and cart away over a hundred schoolgirls nearly four years after the Chibok tragedy raises many troubling questions. Since 2015 the Buhari regime has engaged in intensive secret negotiations, assisted by international NGOs and the Swiss Government, that resulted in freedom for several dozen Chibok girls in two batches. Even though the government never disclosed the exact terms of the deal to free the girls, there are indications that some terrorist commanders were freed and money was paid in exchange.
Cruel, ruthless, unscrupulous and amoral that Boko Haram is, government and the security agencies would or should have known that it was only a matter of time before the terrorists try to restock their store of abducted schoolgirls as bargaining chip to extract more money and other concessions from government. In the Chibok girls, Boko Haram held its biggest psychological trump card against this country. More than one hundred of the Chibok girls are yet to return home; we do not know for sure how many of them survived the ordeal after nearly four years. It is not for nothing that, painful though it is, some governments never pay ransom to terrorists because they would simply grab more hostages.
It is difficult to understand why the girls school at Dapchi was operating almost without any security, save for one or two elderly gatemen. The terrorists just drove in, fired a few shots and carted away so many hostages. Even less difficult to comprehend was the confusing official information that followed. At first Nigerians were told that no one died, no injuries were sustained and no one was abducted. That all the students and teachers fled into the bush and the terrorists were only after food supplies. Though many students later turned up at their parents’ houses, it became clear that over a hundred were missing.
Yobe State Government said on Wednesday that the Army had rescued the girls, only to say the next day that had been misinformed. For President Buhari, this is the defining challenge of his tenure. It is a make or break event. Since Boko Haram is no longer as invincible as it once was, with no Sambisa, Alagarno or Lake Chad sanctuaries, with the Army and Air force much better equipped than they were a few years ago and with the northern Yobe terrain being vast but open, we expect the Dapchi girls to be liberated quickly from their captors. No other explanation is tenable.
