Dapchi girls’ abduction

Last week, over 100 girls from the Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state were again abducted by members of the Boko Haram terrorist organisation.  Media reports have it that the terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, invaded Dapchi unleashing terror on residents before making for the college where they stole food items and kidnapped the girls.  This is coming exactly four years after the terrorist sect invaded and murdered scores of male students of the Government Secondary School, Buni Yadi, still in Yobe state.

The Dapchi abduction mirrors that of Chibok, Borno state, also over four years ago where over 276 girls were kidnapped from their school by the terrorists. While some of the girls managed to escape their captors, 100 or so of them have only recently been freed in exchange for Boko Haram militants, in negotiations brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Currently, over 100 of the abducted girls are still being held in captivity despite repeated promises by the government to secure their release.

Sadly, like it happened in Chibok, the security operatives stationed in the town were said to have left the area shortly before the terrorists invaded the school and made away with the girls.  Instead of providing explanations as to how the terrorists, whom the government and the army claimed to have defeated, were able to drive unchallenged for tens or even hundreds of kilometres with hilux and big trucks to abduct innocent schoolgirls and then vanish, the state government and the leadership of the army were more preoccupied with feeding Nigerians false information. First, they insisted that no girl was missing only for them to later claim that the Nigerian military had rescued over 50 of the abducted schoolgirls. The state government was however forced to retract that statement the next day clarifying that no rescue has been made. Then came the unhelpful comments by the minister of information, Lai Mohammed, alleging that the terrorists carried out the attack to embarrass the Buhari administration. He basically sought to cast the president as the real victim of the attack rather than the abducted girls and their helpless parents and relatives.

We are still in shock that the government could allow this to happen. It was well aware of the tactics of the terrorists and could not claim to be caught off-guard by the Dapchi abduction like the Jonathan government claimed with the Chibok abduction. The fall-out from the Chibok kidnapping and the unusual focus on young girls and women by the terrorist sect, the government should never have left schools (especially girls’ schools) unsecured and unguarded. Besides, the government must explain how a defeated sect could carry out such a high profile abduction driving across hundreds of kilometres to abduct and disappear with the schoolgirls without any trace? The government, of all people, should have known that after paying huge sums of money in ransoms to secure the release of some of the Chibok girls and university lecturers and policewomen kidnapped by the sect, the sect will naturally be seeking to kidnap more girls to bolster their revenues.    

We urge the government to greatly improve its security strategy to be able to prevent such needless embarrassments in the future. Besides, it needs to overhaul its information management mechanism to avoid the many claims and counter claims emanating from its agencies with regards to a particular event. This only leads to confusion.

The government must also ensure that it prioritises the immediate rescue of the abducted girls and not let the issue drag on for too long like that of the Chibok girls.

Finally, we urge the government to make a stronger commitment to not just containing the sect, but obliterating them entirely. The penchant by the government to declare victory at every turn while the sect continues to grow stronger does not inspire confidence that the government is capable of tackling the sect.