Like Chibok, Like Dapchi, Like Jangebe: Will The Girls Left Behind Ever Be Free?

On Friday, February 26, 2021, some 317 schoolgirls were kidnapped from the Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe in Zamfara. The news came while emotions were still running high about the release of 42 schoolboys, staff and their family members that were earlier abducted in Kagara, Niger state.

 

The update of the Jangbebe school girls remained the top story in Nigerian dailies just like the previous mass abduction till their release in the early hours of Tuesday.

 

READ ALSO: Boko Haram: Residential Houses, Govt. Buildings Set Ablaze In Dapchi

 

However, the Jangebe kidnap-and-release modus operandi is unlike the last two mass abduction that happened at Kankara, Zamfara in December 2020 and the 42 people kidnapped in Kagara, Niger State in February 2021 where the dominant gender is male.  

 

In Kankara, more than 300 boys were reported kidnapped, and 344 were released. No one was reported left behind. In Kagara, on February 17, 2021, 27 schoolboys, three staffers and 12 of the staffers' family members -- altogether 42 -- were abducted. All 42 of them were released 10 days later.    

 

But the release of the Jangbebe schoolgirls was not that straight forward. It followed a similar pattern with the April 2014 abduction of schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State and the February 2018 abduction of the Dapchi schoolgirls in Yobe state. In both cases, a balance is left with the hostage-takers yet to be released to date. 

 

READ ALSO: Zamfara Abducted Schoolgirls Freed -Governor Matawalle

 

Kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria

 

 

Data Source adapted from Dataphyte

 

The many promises of the government to secure the release of the schoolgirls since 2015 have proven empty.

 

During one of his campaign for the presidential election in 2015,  Muhammadu Buhari said: “We cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held hostage by insurgents”. The schoolgirls are still in captivity.

 

Also, during the Army Day celebration in 2018 held at Moguno, one of the Army bases in Borno State, the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari promised Nigerians and the international community that the missing Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu, the only girl yet to be released among the Dapchi abductees, will be released.

 

READ ALSO: Kankara Abduction: Released Schoolboys Recounts Their Ordeals

 

“I want to use this opportunity to reassure the world, Nigerians and the families of the remaining kidnapped Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu of the Dapchi Schoolgirls that this administration will not relent in our effort to see that they are all released,” Buhari had promised.

 

On February 19, it was exactly three years since Leah Sharibu was forcefully taken away by terrorists. By April, It will be seven years since the 112 yet-to-be-released girls from Chibok have been in captivity. Now, we have 10 Jangebe schoolgirls withheld from the 317 kidnapped school girls joining the 113 already missing ones.

 

Is there still hope that these girls will come back?