Dapchi Girls Without Leah Sharibu

February 19 marked exactly one year that Miss Leah Sharibu and other 109 school girls were abducted from Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, by Boko Haram insurgents.
While four of the school girls were said to have died in captivity, the rest were returned to Dapchi by the kidnappers themselves on March 21, last year, following what the Federal Government described as a series of “behind-the-scene discussions”. But Leah, the only Christian in their midst, was not that lucky. She is being held back by her captors.
Leah’s sin. She refused to renounce her Christian faith.
Despite public outcry from both local and international advocacy groups seeking her release, the 15-year old school girl is still in the captivity of the brutal terror group.
More worrisome is the Federal Government’s silence on Leah since October 3, last year when President Muhammadu Buhari had a telephone conversation with Leah’s mother, assuring her that his administration would do everything within its powers to bring Leah back home safely. Since then, no tangible efforts have been made by the Federal Government to free Leah from her abductors.
The disturbing silence by the Federal Government may have given rise to speculations making the rounds about Leah’s possible death, which the government has, however, described as “fake news”.
Tongues have, indeed, been wagging about the government’s recent taciturnity on Leah’s fate, with many questions popping up. Is Leah truly dead? Is the Federal Government helpless about her situation? Or is it that the government’s rescue mission has been eclipsed or dwarfed by the 2019 general election fever?
Whatever it is, one fact remains incontestable. The Federal Government has been languid in recent times over Leah’s release.
It is sad that the story of Leah and the remaining 112 Chibok school girls, that are still in Boko Haram captivity since five years ago, is becoming a metaphor of a government’s failure to protect its citizenry. It is even more regrettable that these teenagers are allowed to mourn their woes privately even when it is obvious that their misfortune was caused by government’s ineptitude arising from security lapses. It is difficult to hazard a guess as to the trauma they are passing through in the hands of their captors, just as we can only imagine their parents’ nightmares.
However hard we try to rationalise the Chibok and Dapchi abductions, they are both a blur and blight on our collective existence as a nation. And until we secure the safe release of Leah and her Chibok peers, their continuous captivity will continue to be a moral burden not only to the government, but to all Nigerian citizens with good conscience.
It is against this backdrop that we urge the Federal Government to do all that is necessary to rescue Leah and other captives from Boko Haram’s den. We cannot afford to give up on these innocent school girls. Their rescue is a bounden duty of the Nigerian State, and the government must not be lackadaisical about it.
We say this because the continuous captivity of Leah and others is a national embarrassment; and as long as they remain in the den of terrorists, unrescued, so will the reputation of the Nigerian State continue to wane among the comity of nations.
Now that the presidential election, which may have distracted the Federal Government in the past few months, is over, it is imperative for President Buhari to walk his talk by deploring all the necessary resources to get Leah and others out of captivity.
We commend all advocacy groups, both at local and international levels, that have been in the vanguard of calling for the rescue and release of these school girls. We, however, urge them to intensify their advocacy and put pressure on the Nigerian authorities towards ensuring safe release of Leah and others.
Their safe release is the only medicine that can heal the wounds of their parents and relatives who are being traumatised by their abduction.