by Eze Eluchie
As news of the abduction of over 200 students from the Government Girls secondary School, Chibok, in Nigeria’s volatile northeastern Bornu State, filtered through, there was palpable shock and angst, initially across the Nigerian federation, and as the information became widespread, across the globe. Initial questions that agitated the minds of local observers in Nigeria include: 1). How was it possible for over 200 students to be taken away from school in an area supposedly under emergency rule, without the convoy (certainly, there would have been a series of vehicles/buses/trucks used to transport the abductors and their victims) that would have obviously been involved in the operation being intercepted by security operatives whose check-points dot the roads in Bornu State? 2). With the easy availability of mobile phones across Nigeria, why did none of the ‘abducted’ students or the persons in the various villages through which the convoy passed through not make contact with security agencies or make may-day calls to acquaintances elsewhere? 3). Where were the officers and men of the Nigerian Armed forces who maintain a very visible and robust presence via highly mobile road-blocks across Bornu State throughout the period when the abductions were taking place?
The initial sense of disbelieve of the news was doused and replaced with the reality that indeed a horrendous act had occurred when pictures of the burnt out school premises were made available and the School’s Principal and the Bornu State Government (governed by a member of the opposition All Progressive Congress - APC) on the one hand engaged the officers of the Nigerian Army information directorate and Federal authorities as to the authenticity of the of claims of the rescue of some of the students and the actual number of students abducted. As more facts about the abductions surfaced, and news of the abductions went viral via mainstream and online media outlets with #bringbackourgirls rallies taking place in several cities, it became crystal clear that the Chibok abductions would be a game-changer in Nigeria’s and indeed the international community’s understanding of Nigeria’s muddled up war on terror.
Some of these facts include:
1. The School earlier thought to be a girls-only school was indeed a mixed school, as it had registered both male and female students for the West African School Certificate Examinations - WASC (High School diploma) examinations.
2. Relevant agencies, particularly the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which conducts the exams for which the students had apparently been recalled to school, had advised the Bornu State Government against using the school in Chibok as the school was not deemed secured enough considering the level of insurgent activities in the area. The Bornu State Government had over-ruled this advice insisting it had adequate security arrangements for the School.
3. Soon after the abductions, the same Bornu State Government consented to the closure of the Chibok Examination center and agreed to relocate the remaining students from Chibok school to the earlier location suggested by the security and WAEC authorities – the students so transferred have continued to write their examinations without incident.
4. The Principal of the Chibok School has given two conflicting statements regarding her whereabouts on the night the ‘abductions’ took place. In one instant stating she was on the school premises and merely allowed men dressed in military uniforms to move the students away and in another claiming to have been out of town when the event occurred.
5. On the day of the abduction, no school official was supposedly present in the school as the terrorists struck. The students were all alone on the schools premises.
6. Over 80% of the names tentatively listed as abducted students are, going by their names, of the Christian faith, in a school where supposedly there was a Muslim majority and the school officials (who were conveniently away from the school on the night terror visited) were mainly Muslims.
7. Well orchestrated and planned ‘Rallies’ condemning the Federal Governments response to the abduction has been organized and held (far from the location of the events) in opposition controlled States and the Federal Capital city, Abuja, led by known opposition figures.
Seemingly innocuous, but quite vital issues which immediately emanate from the aforestated facts include:
a. Why would the Bornu State Government insist on conducting examinations in a location which was apparently unsafe, thereby exposing students to all manners of dangers?
b. Why was Bornu State Government much more interested in controverting Military and Federal Government claims when itself had no real data of either the students abducted or ‘rescued’/who escaped from their captors?
c. Does the demographic make up of the abducted students have anything to do with why the school was targeted?
d. Till date the exact number of students abducted remains unknown.
e. Boko Haram is not known to abduct male students from schools – it usually kills them off. Why were no dead bodies of male students of the Chibok School recovered at the scene?
f. Was the unusually long 2-week delay in admitting ‘responsibility’ for the abductions merely a period when the persons who actually took the students evolved sufficient strategies to transfer the students to BH?
g. The BH leader’s modus is to take pride in his conquests by displaying his captives, how come in the almost 1-hour long video recording where the terror group claimed authorship of the abduction at Chibok, none of the abducted students were shown on the video?
At this juncture, it is pertinent to state that even if only one student was abducted, a heinous crime, exacerbated by threats to sell such captives off as slaves, has been committed. It is however critical in unraveling the issue of the Chibok abductions and the several terrorist attacks linked with the group which has also claimed the abductions, that international community begins to take a closer and more critical look at the enigma known as Boko Haram.
Despite its various terrorist attacks in Nigeria, inclusive of the bombings of the United Nations Headquarter building in Abuja where over 10 United Nations Workers were killed, the Headquarters complex of the Nigeria Police Force in Abuja, several Churches across northern Nigeria resulting in hundreds of deaths, the kidnapping and beheading of several peoples (Nigerian and foreigners) amongst a plethora of other vile acts, a vociferous well funded lobbying mechanism most incredulously continued to exist in Washington DC, London, and other capitals of Western countries which effectively campaigned against the categorization of BH as a terrorist organization. Those lobbying for the non-categorization of BH as a terrorist organization, amongst whom are a former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, had argued that the terror outfit was a ‘popular’ response to social and political issues in Nigeria@#. Thankfully, the United States Government, and its allies, finally saw through the insincerity of such lobbyists and finally declared BH a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December 2013.
To portray the complexity of tackling terror in the Nigerian environment, the reaction of one of the main opposition political parties, the All Progressive Congress (APC) to the decision by Nigeria's central government to officially proscribe BH is quite instructive. Despite global revulsion over the Chibok abductions, the Nigerian socio-political terrain was stunned when in response to the said proscription of BH, Mr. Lai Mohammed issued a scathing Press Release warning the government about the unconstitutionality of such abrogation.
In understanding the BH phenomenon, it should be clarified that extremists Islamists have at various times in Nigeria’s post-civil war past, unleashed bouts of sporadic violence against non-Muslims over specific issues – such as when some were opposed to the hosting of the Miss World beauty pageant in Abuja and when some other extremists went on rampage over what they perceived was the desecration of the Islamic holy book by non-believers. The present sustained attacks aimed at the exorcising an Islamist enclave from the Nigeria federation where the Shari’a legal system would be the order of the state, championed by BH, primarily originated in response to the perceived loss of political power by some elements in northern Nigeria who were opposed to the emergence of a non-northern Muslim as President of Nigeria following the demise of former President Umar Yar’Adua in 2010.
From its onset, albeit by the unfortunate death of Umar Yar’Adua (a northern Muslim), his predecessor in office, the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan (a southern Christian) has been dogged by threats from elements who felt that President Jonathan's emergence ‘scuttled’ a fragile power balance in Nigeria. Some leading politicians had pointblank threatened to render Nigeria ungovernable for President Jonathan – a threat that coincided with a dramatic rise in BH terror activities. Could some of our politicians in an effort to score political points have resorted to deploying terror tactics as a political tool? Have our politicians politicized terror? Or is it a case of BH terrorizing our political terrain? The various characters who enabled BH to flourish at its inception and who have severally admitted aiding its emergence, such as former Governor of Bornu State amongst many others, appear to have inadvertently sired a gigantean octopus which has outgrown their control, and as is expected, now threaten not only the very characters who created the behemoth, but also innocent bystanders and, by virtue of BH’s increasing links with international extremist Islamic terror groups such as Al Shabab and Al Qeida in the Islamic Maghreb, the entire civilized world.
Indeed, the leader of BH has acknowledged responsibility for the abductions. International offers, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom, of assistance to bring the abducted students back home is most welcome – the world will for once be in a proper position to adequately assess Nigeria’s ‘home-grown’ terror problems. It was quite unfair, in the first instance, considering global efforts at tackling international terrorism in other climes where it occurs, to have left the task of confronting what has grown to be an increasingly vibrant part of transnational terrorism to only one country. Exhaustive investigations must however be conducted after the students have been rescued to determine if the abductions were real and not merely undertaken to achieve political scores and that the unfortunate students ‘handed over’, by those who were originally supposed to be their guardians and school/State authorities, to terrorists.
The Chibok abductions will indeed, for Nigeria’s war on terror, be a game-changer!
Picture: Venue of the abductions - Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok.
