Article written by Femi Fani-Kayode
In the early hours of the morning of April 14th
2014 276 girls were abducted from their school as
they slept. They all came from a predominantly
Christian town in northern Nigeria called Chibok.
They were all between the ages of 15 and 18. They
were eager to get a good education and to make
something of their lives. 90 per cent of them were
Christians who believed passionately that their
God would always protect them and make a way
for them in the predominantly Muslim Borno state
where they resided in north-eastern Nigeria.
They left home on the morning of April 13th
confidently, eagerly and happily and went to school
to do an exam. The Federal Government of Nigeria,
headed by a Christian President by the name of Mr.
Goodluck Jonathan, had earlier reminded the local
authorities that the school had been closed for a
considerable period of time for security reasons and
warned that it should not be re-opened for the exams
to take place at Chibok because of the activities of the
deadly islamist terrorist sect known as Boko Haram
in that area. However the Muslim Governor of Borno
state, Mr. Kashim Shettima, ignored these warnings
and assured the Federal Government that he would
provide the necessary security. He also assured the
parents of the safety of the young girls.
He said that he would open the school specifically for
the purpose of the exams and he encouraged the
girls to not only come and do those exams but also
to spend one night at the school after finishing them.
Convinced by his assurances and moved by his
conviction and confidence, the parents of the girls
allowed their wards to proceed to the school for the
exam and they encouraged them to spend the night
there. The curious twist to the tale is the fact that a
few of the girls that went to take that exam were the
children of those that taught at the school yet after
the exams were concluded not one of them stayed in
the school or opted to spend the night.
It was almost as if they had a premonition of what
was going to happen or, perhaps, someone on the
inside had warned them about the horrors that lay
ahead. The Governor of the state did not honor his
word to provide security at the school. As a matter of
fact as the girls prepared to sleep that night not one
adult was in the school premises to watch over them
apart from an old man who was the school
gatekeeper and who slept at the gate. No teacher,
supervisor or school official stayed with them that
night and neither did the school matron, headmaster
or principal.
Not one person in authority was with them let alone
an armed man or woman to protect them from the
obvious dangers. They were on their own. Worse still
there was no electricity that night and no lights were
on because there was no power flowing from the
national grid and neither was the school generator
working. The girls were not only on their own but
they were also in total and complete darkness.
They
said their prayers, sang a few hymns, asked for God's
protection and went to bed. Then, at approximately
3.00 a.m. in the morning, Boko Haram stormed the
premises. The girls were subjected to the most
unspeakable forms of abuse: they were raped,
brutalised, traumatised and finally they were
abducted.
The terrorists not only took the girls but they also
ransacked the school, stole all the food in the
premises, burnt a number of school buildings and
made away with whatever they could lay their hands
on. They bundled the 276 young girls into their
lorries and sped in the dead of the night into the
deadly clutches and dark groves of their hideout- the
notorious Sambisa Forest. A few days later the
leader of Boko Haram, Mr. Ibrahim Shekau, released
a video of himself telling the world about his
intention to convert the girls to Islam, sell them into
slavery ''in markets'' and marry them off in foreign
lands.
He said that Islam permitted him to do so. He also
said that he would never release them. He claimed
that they had become slaves of Boko Haram and that
they would remain slaves forever. Two weeks later a
video was released of some girls covered in Muslim
shawls and garb reciting the Koran. It was clear that
Mr. Shekau had kept his word. These girls had been
forcefully converted to Islam and they were now
slaves.
Thankfully 55 of them managed to escape whilst they
were being abducted from the school on their way to
Sambisa forest. They did so by jumping off the
moving lorries that their captors had herded them
into. Two more escaped a few days after arriving in
Sambisa forest. They have since recounted some of
the horrors that they were subjected to and that they
faced whilst in captivity.
This includes multiple rapes on a daily basis from
several men, group sex, beatings, killings, torture,
enslavement, maimings and forced renunciations of
their christian faith and conversion to Islam. Clearly
the 219 girls that are still in captivity are literally in
hell. Stories are told of how some of them have been
sold off ''in marriage'' to wealthy Arabs in north
Africa and the Middle East and how others have
become sex slaves in bordering African nations like
Chad, the Sudan and Niger Republic. Up till today the
Nigerian Federal Government has no idea where they
actually are and have not been able to rescue any of
them.
A world-wide ''Bring Back Our Girls'' campaign has
been launched and this has created more awareness
about their horrendous plight and kept hope alive for
their safe return. However when a former President
of Nigeria, Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, said that the
world would soon have to come to terms with the
fact that ''we may never see those girls again'' and
that ''by now some of them will be dead whilst others
will be pregnant'' it did not give much cause for hope
or cheer. Perhaps the utter despair that Mr.
Obasanjo's words reflected added to the anxiety,
trauma and heartache that resulted in the sudden
deaths of no less than 7 of the parents of the
abducted girls.
The truth is that the girls are not just the victims of
the most vicious Islamist terrorist organisation on
the African continent today, an organisation whose
sheer cruelty and barbarity is at par with that of ISIL,
but they are also the victims of an uncaring and
insensitive ruling political elite in Nigeria who would
prefer that the whole matter is just swept under the
carpet and forgotten simply because they do not
have the capability, the guts or the political will to
take on Boko Haram in any meaningful way and
rescue the girls.
The reality, as unpleasant as it may sound, is as
follows. When the question is asked ''where are our
girls?'', the answer is that they are somewhere in hell,
hoping and praying that the Nigerian authorities and
the international community never forgets them and
manages to muster the resolve, know-how and
courage to rescue them. We owe them that much:
after all they are our children.
Yet all hope is not lost. On 25th September 2014 one
of the girls was released by Boko Haram. Sadly she
was not only pregnant but she had also lost her mind
as a consequence of the trauma that she had
suffered from her ordeal. The good news is that she
is at least alive and safely back home with her family
where she belongs. This gives us hope for the others.
May God bring home our girls and may we never
forget them.
