Community tells government, allow freed Chibok girls to reunite with their families

The Borno State Government has been urged by the Kibaku community, Kibaku Area Development Association to permit the reunion of the Chibok schoolgirls who have been saved from Boko Haram with their relatives.

During a news conference on Sunday at the Unity Fountain in Abuja to mark the tenth anniversary of the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction in April 2014, the community made the demand.

The extremist organization Boko Haram abducted 276 female students, predominantly Christian, from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on the evening of April 14. The pupils ranged in age from 16 to 18.

Chibok inhabitants stated that a few hours prior to the invasion, they saw convoys of armed insurgents heading toward the town and got phone calls from nearby villages alerting them to the impending attack.

According to reports, the terrorists came into the school while posing as Nigerian Armed Forces personnel and wearing military camouflage.

An advocacy group called Bring Back Our Girls was established to raise awareness and work with the families and Chibok community to demand government action regarding the girls, following the development that sparked outcry against the former president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration on a national and global level.

During the roughly five hours of the raid, homes in Chibok were also set on fire.

The school had closed for four weeks prior to the attack because of worsening security, but the girls were there to take their final exams, Physics.

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Ten years later, 89 of the girls’ whereabouts are still unknown, although several have reclaimed their freedom.

Following the incident, a few schoolgirls managed to flee by jumping off the vehicles they were being transported in, while others were saved multiple times by the Nigerian Armed Forces.

The Kibaku Area Development Association reports that some of the rescued have been held by the authorities of Borno State and have not yet been reunited with their family.

The National President of the Kibaku community, often known as Chibok, Dauda Iliya, denounced what he called the girls’ release from the Borno State Government’s “second captivity” during a press conference on Sunday in Abuja.

“We demand the urgent release of the rescued girls in the custody of the Borno State government to their families and not to anybody, nor the terrorists, the so-called repentant terrorists that were in the first place their abductors.

“The girls’ consent and that of their parents and guardians were not sought before they were abducted. As such, what is the basis to seek their consent before they are allowed to be returned to their parents? We demand that we are availed all the rescued daughters at home and in school, for any organisation or group that wants to support them.

“There should be no restrictions. Borno State does not hold any monopoly over them. What we understand today is that these girls are held a second time in captivity, this time, by the government.” he said.

The association also requested that goverment at all levels should ensure that the remaining girls are rescued in order to put an end to the disaster.

Iliya further threatened legal action against the Borno State Government for mentioning marriages between the terrorists and the released girls, accusing them of being “obnoxious marriages” between the returnee girls and “the so-called repentant terrorists.”

“On this occasion of the 10th-year commemoration of the abduction of our daughters, we strongly challenge governments at all levels, federal, state and local, to work towards bringing closure, one way or the other, to this fiasco. To do nothing in the past decade is completely unacceptable. “We demand a formal rebuttal and apology to all the families and the community at large, for the illegal cohabitation, encouraged by the Borno State Government, by calling the terrorists their husbands, and the failures to do so may result in legal action against the Borno State Government and all its officials, who have used this insulting and demeaning terminology to describe a very ugly and painful situation 10 years too long, too painful to bear,” he stated.

Prof. Usman Tar, the Borno State Commissioner of Information and Internal Security, stated he had already talked on Saturday regarding the Chibok girls issue and was not willing to comment on the matter again when reached on Sunday.

According to OpaPost, the commissioner declared in a press release on Saturday that 187 of the kidnapped girls had been found and returned to their families.

He stated that, “We also wish to use this occasion to take stock of the rescued girls and provide an update on how the girls are coming to terms with adjusting to normal life after captivity, and efforts of the Borno State Government to sustain the momentum on the rescue of the remaining girls.

“So far, out of the 276 abducted Chibok Girls,187 have been rescued and reunited with their families. Most of the rescued girls have, over the years, been enrolled in different schools or graduated under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs. A number of the girls have been enrolled into local and foreign scholarships or empowerment programmes. Many have since been reunited with their immediate families and are continuing to receive psychosocial support to reconcile them with normal life.

“Furthermore, 16 recently rescued girls are being rehabilitated by the Borno State Government and attending the 2nd Chance School where they learn skills in various vocations that will provide them with sustainable livelihoods, while their kids are also placed in nursery schools. Four rescued girls have voluntarily decided to return to their parents.

“We remain hopeful and determined that, with the combined efforts of our security forces, intelligence agencies, and community support, all abducted persons will be safely returned.”

Parents bemoan

One of the parents, Mrs. Rebecca Samuel, whose first daughter, Grace, is one of the girls who are still missing, informed our correspondent that she would be content to receive her daughter back, no matter what circumstances were involved.

“As a mother, all I ask is that they return my daughter to me, no matter how or where she goes. She is my blood, therefore I will welcome her in any manner that she chooses to arrive,” she remarked.