On 14 April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 275 girls from the government secondary school in the Christian-dominated town of Chibok, Borno State.
43 girls escaped, some during the attack at the school and others during the journey to a camp in the Sambisa forest, where the captive girls were initially kept.
Criticism of the Government
One year on, the 232 girls taken that night from Chibok remain in rebel custody. It is not clear where they are being held. The first of the babies born to the girls since their captivity arrived in mid-February this year. Four girls who managed to escape after their arrival at the Boko Haram camp reported that they were raped on an almost daily basis. They said that those who did not cooperate with the rebels faced severe punishment. Some other girls, who were captured before the Chibok girls and who managed to escape after varying times in captivity, said some girls were killed because they would not renounce their Christian faith.
The Nigerian Government has been under harsh criticism for its handling of the crisis. Critics say it has not done enough to secure the girls’ release or to support their families.
Australian negotiator
On 3 May 2014, an Australian, Dr Stephen Davis, arrived in Nigeria ‘for the specific and only purpose of securing the release of the Chibok girls’.
Although Davis enjoyed logistical support from the Nigerian presidency, he received no payment for his negotiations for the release of the girls and was never formally contracted.
He negotiated behind the scenes for the release of the girls and, although he secured an agreement for the release of about 60, the exchange was compromised.
Davis learned that the majority of the girls were not held in Nigeria, but in camps in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. A small group was confirmed to be in Nigeria, ready to be handed over. In the end, four girls managed to escape.
Vested interests
Davis said he came close to brokering a release three other times, only to have each handover ruined at the last moment. He became aware that powerful figures with ‘vested interests’ were sabotaging his efforts to reach a deal. ‘While I was making efforts to secure the release of the girls, I realised that if I got 30 or 40 girls out, the political backers of the group would have the militants kidnap another 60 to replace them and a further 100 villagers would likely die in the process.’
Presidential election
Davis implicated various officials as funding Boko Haram for political gains. ‘The sponsors of Boko Haram clearly want to show that a Christian President cannot overcome the current insecurity caused by Muslim extremists’, he said.
Davis recently received a message from one of his contacts in Boko Haram, which read: ‘Moving a large number of girls across the border from Nigeria into Niger.’ When Davis asked why, the source replied: ‘The contract is almost over.’ Davis understood the statement to mean that, after the Nigerian presidential election at the end of March, the contract to hold the girls would expire.
Media responsibility
Davis also said that the media play into the hands of the terrorists by redistributing videos captured during raids, and he called for a campaign to ensure social media platforms and news media do not host or distribute Boko Haram propaganda. At the same time, Davis said that the worldwide church must make more noise about it. ‘People in the north of Nigeria face unbelievable hardship… These Christians feel abandoned by their brothers and sisters and the rest of the world. They are asking, “Why aren’t we hearing from them? Why aren’t they trying to help us? Why aren’t they trying to stop this?” When word seeps through that congregations in the West are praying for the situation of Christians under attack in Nigeria’s northeast, they weep to know they are being held up in prayer.’
Muhammadu Buhari (72), a Sunni Muslim, defeated Goodluck Jonathan in the March general election by about two million votes. He will be sworn in as president on 29 May 2015. Buhari’s election campaign was fiercely anti-corruption. The question is: will the girls now be released?
