Latest Chibok girl escape comes 8 years after abduction by Boko Haram
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Mary Ngoshe’s escape from terrorists on 15 June is a reminder to the world that 108 other girls are still held captive by Boko Haram, the Islamist jihadists who abducted them from Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Chibok on 14 April 2014.
Troops of the 26 Task Force Brigade of the Nigerian Army found Mary with her baby after she slipped away from the den of the terrorists who captured a total 276 students from the school in Borno State eight years ago.
About 50 of the girls escaped and another 100 were later rescued, some of them found with babies. But many others are not yet accounted for.
In his reaction to the latest escape, US Nigeria Law Group (USNLG) Managing Partner Emmanuel Ogebe – a human rights lawyer based in Washington, who is also Special Counsel, Justice for Jos Project (USA) – insisted there cannot be rest until the remaining 108 girls and other captives are rescued.
Ogebe issued a statement which reminded Abuja as well as human rights activists and the wider world of the several other abductions before and after Chibok, citing recent cases in which victims are still being held in the forests.
Three priests were abducted last weekend alone and train kidnap victims are in the third month of captivity, he said.
Below is Ogebe’s full statement. Subheadings are added to facilitate concentration and comprehension.
World’s longest running mass abductions
Another abducted Chibok school girl has just been found, less than 10 months after the escapes of fellow captive Chibok schoolmates Ruth Ngladra and Saratu Musa from terrorists last year.
Nigeria’s military reportedly found a Mary Ngoshe.
However, community leaders tell us her name is Naomi Dauda Yahi from Askira Uba local government in Borno State and confirm she is one of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
It is clearly a tribute to the triumph of the indomitable human spirit that Mary desired freedom and ultimately got it.
This repudiates the propaganda of the last Boko Haram video featuring the Chibok girls which claimed that they were no longer interested in returning to “the land of infidels”.
I have communicated the news to the United States congresswomen who travelled to Nigeria in 2014 and have actively advocated for the girls, and to some of the Chibok girls in the US.
It is disheartening that while we’re laboring with these old cases, fresh abductions are still occurring, making Nigeria the school mass kidnapping capital of the world.
This week, an Anglican bishop, a Catholic priest and members of a Pentecostal church in central and southern Nigeria were abducted in a one-month spree of weekly clergy abductions.
The combined effect of Boko Haram’s and the Fulani militia terrorism has maintained Nigeria as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world.
On the same Pentecost Day that over 50 worshippers in St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State were massacred, victims report that Fulani bandits aided by a Nigerian Air Force helicopter killed 32 people and destroyed an ECWA Church in Kajuru, Southern Kaduna.
Last Sunday, they also killed scores in Edumoga in Benue State in a different conflict theater from the terror-plagued North East. In one week alone, over 120 innocent civilians were slaughtered in the North West, North Central, and South West of Nigeria.
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Kaduna govt demolishes chapel
It is outrageous that during a week in which several churches were attacked by Fulani militia, the government of Kaduna State also demolished a chapel construction site on the campus of a state university – the government now perpetrating similar terroristic acts on citizens.
Sadly, in the same pattern of secrecy, witnesses say their phones were confiscated by the government so they couldn’t record the church site destruction by the state government.
The Kaduna State government is urged to promptly address this atrocity and the refusal to allow the rebuilding of chapels at the Ahmadu Bellow University (ABU), a federal university, which Muslim rioters destroyed 11 years ago.
History of escapes
The most remarkable story of escape is that of Sola, arguably the world’s longest sex slave, who escaped after over 22 years’ captivity in the forest.
She reunited with her daughter who is now married and has children of her own. Sola left behind a grown son and daughter with the Islamist bandits.
Her longevity in captivity is similar to the story of Guo Gangtang’s reunion with his son in China abducted 24 years ago.
It was also reported that captive teenager Leah Sharibu and two of her schoolmates who were abducted from school in Dapchi in 2018 similarly escaped from the terror camp. Unfortunately, they ran into Fulani herdsmen who returned them to the terrorists after three days.
Leah’s two Muslim classmates were ultimately released with the others but she remains a captive to date – four years later – for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. She has two kids in captivity.
Mother and son surprised to see each other alive
Only last year, after 14 years, a teenager returned to his mum Rose – both pleasantly surprised to find each other alive. He was seven years old when Rose put him in a drum that fateful day… She put in a child and got back a young man.
Rose has been featured in three books. Two by former US Presidential Adviser Johnnie Moore – Martyrs Oath and Next Jihad. And in Justice Under the Shadow of the Almighty – autobiography of a distinguished jurist Justice JO Ogebe https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Under-Shadow-Almighty-Life Sojourn/dp/B0875RS6NR
(I think you might like Justice Under the Shadow of the Almighty: My life – Sojourn to the Nigerian Supreme Court by James Ogebe. Start reading it for free: https://a.co/aS9mT7r ).
It was an epic turn to a gut-wrenching tragedy. It is one of the finest redemptive moments in human rights work… this is an incredible testimony of hope and heroism.
As I said then, “This should be an inspiration to Leah’s relatives, the Chibok girls’ families and many others on the power of the resurrection.”
Amina in first sighting
The first report of a sighting of a CHIBOK girl carrying ammunition for Boko Haram during an attack in Chibok was seven months after their 2014 abduction.
The girl communicated with a villager in the local Kibaku language and gave her a message for her mom named “Binta”.
After verifying that there was indeed a widowed Chibok parent named Binta, the message was relayed to her about the captive who identified as her daughter.
One year and six months later, that captive schoolgirl escaped with her baby and returned to her mum in May 2016.
On the day of her escape, our database identified her accurately as Amina Ali who had sneaked a message to her mum during the November 2014 attack on Chibok.
(The details of this remarkable incident are available in The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria by Helon Habila, associate professor of creative writing at George Mason University, USA).
This was the first major escape of a Chibok girl two years after the abduction. Naomi’s is the latest – eight years and two months after.
Unfortunately, Mary’s father died two weeks ago and will miss the reunion with his daughter. There are now 108 schoolgirls still missing.
