Incredibly, today marks six years of the Chibok schoolgirls’ embarrassing abduction by Boko Haram jihadists from a territory then under a state of emergency. It is a grim milestone their families, Nigerians and humanity never imagined when the tragedy occurred on April 14, 2014. But here we are with its agony, lamentations and angry reflections on the failure of governance that led to it. A moment like this, therefore, calls for sobriety and soul-searching by the government, whose primary responsibility as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, is the protection of life and property.
The world was shocked when a total of 276 girls were violently seized from their school in the dead of the night, while they were preparing for the Senior West African School Certificate Examinations. Interestingly, 57 of the girls managed to escape when the trucks conveying them temporarily broke down. It was a benevolent fate, which the country did not capitalise on; a perfect storm under Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, helped by its earlier denial, tentativeness and incompetence.
However, the coming of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in 2015 offered hope, radiated in his inaugural speech: “But we cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held hostage by insurgents.” Such optimism has been raised twice since then. In October 2016, 21 of the girls were freed; and in May 2017, another batch of 82 increased the tally. It was a pleasant surprise, against the backdrop of the avowal of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau to sell the girls “in the market.” The sight of some of the freed girls carrying babies when they were hosted at Aso Rock confirmed their sexual exploitation by the jihadists.
With 104 of the girls out of the evil den, the common belief was that the release of others was imminent. For the #BringBackOurGirls” group that was in the vanguard of the campaign for their release, the hope that the regime would fulfil its pledge was renewed.
Unfortunately, that confidence has collapsed with the seeming lack of enthusiasm by the government to secure the freedom of the remaining girls. The countdown of their days in captivity that used to grace the front pages of newspapers has since disappeared. The banner of the #BringBackOurGirls is evidently flagging, partly because of police harassment of the campaigners. But resilience and inimitable communal spirit thrive on this kind of struggle. With another of the girls escaping with her child and the jihadist husband a few years ago, a total of 105 girls are still unaccounted for. The indignities they continue to bear diminish Nigerians as a people.
But all is not lost yet. In February, Shekau in a video, called for a swap of his fighters in government’s custody with the remaining girls. He said, “… the only way to have those girls back is for our men in prison to be released.” This window of opportunity should be seized with both hands to close this ugly episode in the country’s history. In the wake of the release of 82 of the girls was the allegation that the Federal Government swapped them with some Boko Haram commanders. Though the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, flatly denied it, evidence globally indicates that this practice has become an acceptable counter-insurgency strategy.
The United States has sometimes taken advantage of the option despite its advertised policy of not negotiating with terrorists. In 2015, it swapped five terror suspects for Bowe Bergdahl, a US Army Sergeant held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2009. Israel has also made such compromise deals. In 2011, it released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas. This is revealing; a country should go to any length to save a citizen’s life in danger even outside of its shores.
Critically, at issue here are the lives of 105 girls enslaved by depraved minds, some of whose parents have died from the trauma; others have succumbed to debilitating illnesses on account of the tragedy. There were local and international channels that facilitated the release of the other girls. Why were those outlets allowed to close? The situation bespeaks the government’s lack of total commitment to the cause. The 2016 and 2017 breakthroughs, according to a former senator involved in the swaps, were the outcome of a series of meetings and negotiations held in Sudan, the Swiss Embassy in Nigeria, Bern and Geneva in Switzerland. He also identified the lead negotiator as Mustapha Zanna, lawyer to the Borno State Commissioner, Buji Foi, identified as a Boko Haram member and who was killed during a confrontation between the extremists and security forces in 2010.
All channels should be reactivated immediately, new ones explored, to ensure that the remaining girls are freed. Foreign offers of assistance were made in the past, some of them dubious. It is for this reason that the government should go about it with circumspection.
Nigeria should put undue arrogance and false nationalism aside and seek maximum foreign assistance in whatever form to achieve the objective of freeing the remaining girls and crushing Boko Haram. This war cannot be fought forever. Chad’s recent routing of Boko Haram in its area of Lake Chad, in a military offensive personally led by President Idris Deby, is a lesson for the country. With renewed energy, deployment of intelligence, equipment and absence of compromises, this rogue army can be wiped out. But while this macabre drama lasts, it presents a “sober reality check for all of us” a former US Assistant Secretary of State, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, once said.
