Miriam Abaya ’17, Law & Public Policy Fellow
In April 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped from a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria by Boko Haram. The kidnapping sparked the global social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls. Today, 163 girls have either escaped or been released, leaving 113 unaccounted for. Nigerian parents have pled and protested, demanding that the Nigerian government do more to find their daughters. Four years later, on February 19, 2018, Boko Haram insurgents kidnapped 110 girls in Dapchi, adding to the number of missing girls and heartbroken parents.
At the time of the Chibok kidnapping, Nigeria was preparing for the 2015 presidential elections. President Goodluck Jonathan waited two weeks before he addressed the attack and refused international help in rescuing the girls. Then-candidate Muhammadu Buhari used the Boko Haram insurgency and President Jonathan’s failures as one of his talking points, promising to counter Boko Haram if he were elected president. Specifically, he promised to address the capacity of law enforcement and establish a “Serious Crime Squad” to combat insurgencies, kidnappings, armed robbery, and many other security concerns throughout the country. It was these promises, among others, that led the Nigerian people to elect Buhari in 2015. Buhari’s election represented the first peaceful transfer of power in Nigeria’s history, and a new era of hope for the security and unity of the country.
Given Buhari’s criticism of Jonathan’s lack of action in response to the Chibok kidnapping and his role in the release of some of the kidnapped girls, one would think that he had evaluated the weaknesses in the military’s ability to respond to such attacks. One would think that his government would ensure the protection of boarding schools in the North, particularly girls’ schools. One would think that Buhari would have followed through on his promise to create a special unit to combat kidnappings and other security threats in the country. But it would appear the Nigerian government has learned nothing.
The Nigerian government had a weak response to the Dapchi kidnapping from the beginning. The government wrongly reported that some of the kidnapped girls had been rescued, when that was not, in fact, the case. It is worth noting that Buhari, unlike Jonathan during the Chibok kidnapping, immediately issued a statement calling the kidnapping a “national disaster” and stating that the government would dispatch a fact-finding delegation, troops, and surveillance aircraft find and rescue the girls.
However, this attack could not have been entirely unforeseen. The girls were taken from the all-girls Technical College in Yobe state, a clear target for an insurgency whose platform includes the elimination of western education, particularly for girls. Yobe borders Borno state, the launching point of Boko Haram militants. Despite this, the military withdrew soldiers from key checkpoints in Dapchi last month, leaving the school and girls vulnerable to an attack.
In the face of this current crisis, the Nigerian government is responding as best as it can to find the kidnapped girls. However, the government must self-reflect and evaluate its emergency response mechanisms. The military must develop a strategy to determine which locations are most vulnerable and need protection, particularly when there are women and children at risk. Most of all, the government must, rather than claiming Boko Haram’s defeat, admit that Boko Haram is still very much a threat to the safety and security of the Nigerian people. Until the government takes Boko Haram more seriously and acts accordingly, Nigerian families will continue to suffer loss.