Eleven years after the abduction of 276 Chibok schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Borno State, Global Rights Nigeria has called on the Federal Government to intensify efforts to rescue the 91 girls still in captivity.
In a statement on Monday, marking the grim anniversary of the April 14, 2014 abductions, Executive Director Abiodun Baiyewu urged the Tinubu administration not to forget the girls but to put more effort into rescuing the remaining 91.
Abiodun Baiyewu said, “Eleven years later, at least 91 of these 276 girls remain unaccounted for. Many were forcefully married to their captors, some died, and the insecurity that had marked Northeast Nigeria has metastasized and spread across the North-West and North-Central of the country. The South-East and South-South have also not been spared.
“The Chibok girls who managed to escape or were rescued and returned to their families cannot be described as fortunate. Many now bear permanent psychological scars. Deep-rooted trauma, the children they bore in captivity, and the stigma they faced upon their return to their communities are constant reminders of the horrors they lived through and continue to live in. Their reintegration has remained an uphill battle years after their return. Apart from the stigma, they lack access to long-term psychosocial support and rehabilitation. Most of them did not complete their education and had no marketable skills.
“What has changed in the past 11 years?
The kidnapping of the Chibok girls was not an isolated incident. Since the incident in April 2014, Nigeria has recorded at least 37 incidents of mass kidnappings of students, with more than 2,138 students across the country. Despite efforts like the Safe Schools Initiative, launched in the wake of the Chibok abductions, little has changed.
In 2015, the Nigerian government, supported by international partners, pledged to invest $20 million to secure schools in Nigeria. Despite promising a more secure future for Nigerian children, it was stalled for many years. To give life to the government’s promise, ₦144.8 billion was again earmarked for the initiative in 2022.
“Again, there has been little evidence that this has translated into tangible protection for students. Parents continue to fear sending their children to schools in northern Nigeria for fear of being targeted by extremist groups. Their fears are justified.”
She further stated that “Nigeria’s schools have remained easy targets for violent extremist groups, and recent kidnappings in Kaduna, Sokoto, and Zamfara have only proven that the country’s education system remains perilously unsafe. According to a vulnerability assessment by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), 80% of Nigerian schools are still vulnerable to attacks. Only 528 schools were registered by the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre (NSSRCC), a negligible ratio of more than the 81,000 registered schools across the country.”
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