Today, June 19, 2018, heroine Christian Schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, the sole remaining hostage of the 2018 Dapchi school mass abductions, marked her 4th month in Boko Haram captivity. Leah was just 14 at the time of her abduction in February 2018 but was not released alongside her Muslim classmates a month later. She has been held now for 120 days despite Federal Government’s assurances of her release.
The release of the abducted schoolgirls is the solitary achievement of this administration after three years but sadly it remains an uncompleted project just like the Chibok girls saga. Although the Buhari administration achieved a negotiated release of over 100 girls, another 100 Chibok girls remain unaccounted for and none has been released for over a year.
It is troubling that an administration which rode to power on the firestorm over the Chibok abductions and is a principal beneficiary of that unfortunate saga has not deemed it fit to complete the total liberation of the girls. More worrisome is the fact that the government managed to, in its sole notable achievement thus far, secure the release of some of the girls. Having found the appropriate resolution mechanism it makes no sense other than state failure for the government to be unable to secure their total release or credibly explain why not.
Similarly the Dapchi mass abduction saga resulted in the first speedy mass abduction resolution midwifed by the Department of State Security. It is disconcerting that the DSS would negotiate the release of all but one of the remaining Dapchi schoolgirls more so the sole Christian captive. Again there is no rational explanation why a DSS that has successfully secured the release of the Muslim girls has failed, refused or neglected to bring back Leah three months after her schoolmates.
We remind the Federal Government that
“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence. The systematic targeting of northern Nigeria’s Christian minorities’ children for abduction and transfer to Islam fits squarely within this definition of Genocide in sub paragraph (e) above.
Based on the above, we hereby give notice to the Federal Government to produce:
*Leah Sharibu, age 15, the sole remaining hostage of the Dapchi mass abduction held for 4 months plus on account of her Christian faith and
*Dorcas Yakubu the youngest Chibok abductee who was abducted at age 15 and 100 others held for 4 years and forcefully converted to Islam by July 1st 2018 failing which these genocidal abductions shall be escalated to the International Criminal Court for the Prosecutor’s attention.
We wish to decry the failure of the Nigerian Government to meet with or brief the Sharibu family on the state of their abducted daughter four months after the fact. Indeed the only government officials to have met the family is a visiting EU parliamentary delegation.
This is an unfortunate repeat of the failure of Nigerian government officials to meet some escaped Chibok girls until after they met a visiting US congressional delegation in June 2014.
Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq.
US NIGERIA LAW GROUP
