Abduction of School Girls in Chibok-Nigeria

The mass abduction and the failure to find the girls three weeks after have sparked national outrage with protests in major cities in Nigeria, and across the world with the campaign #BringBackOurGirls, among others. While women and men are protesting and calling on the release of our dear sisters, and daughters, it saddens my heart when my mind ponders on whether our protests or cries are touching the abductors at all.

For some years now, my country has been facing attacks from this Islamist Terrorist group called Boko Haram. On the 14th of April, the Insurgent at 11:45pm, went to a secondary school where the senior students were writing their final exams and asked them to get into some trucks saying they were here to rescue them and the girls jumped into the trucks without hesitation, but when they took off, some of the girls sensed danger and jumped from the trucks, this was how they escaped. Since then a lot of questions have been rising. Where are our Girls? What exactly do these abductors want? What is the Government doing to rescue them? The leader of the Boko Haram Islamist

Terrorist group yesterday in a video released said he will sell the girls, he went on to say he is following the command of his Allah and that Allah have asked him to abduct girls as spoils of war and marry them of as wives or slaves. His reasons for abducting the girls is that he had earlier warned all girls not to go to school, he said he hates education and that Boko haram is against Western Education, Boko haram is all about forbidding western education. It is quite unfortunate that while we are here trying so hard and finding means and ways to educate and empower women and girls, some groups of barbaric humans are trying to drag us backwards. Can we progress in life without adequate education? Can the world be a better place when we have a lot of uneducated people? Don’t women and girls have the right to be educated? Education is very important for human development and we insist that men, women and children must go to school and be educated. One wonders why the terrorist group is against western education but yet, uses the western technology, if they do not want education, why do they learn how to use the internet to pass across their messages and demands?

Whatever it is these terrorist groups are fighting for, and no matter their grievances, there is no justification for kidnapping teenage school girls, it is inhuman and barbaric.

I join my voice with the voices of the parents of the girls, the World Pulse community and every well-meaning human being out there who is saddened with these ugly incidences to ask Boko Haram to release our girls! Women and girls must not be used for negotiations in times of conflicts. We pray for peace and Unity in Nigeria.