The mass kidnapping of Chibok caused horror years ago. He is an example of what is fundamentally wrong in Nigeria.
Even 10 years after the Chibok girls were kidnapped, the situation in Nigeria has not improved Photo: Reuters/Temilade Adelaja
It was almost unimaginable and only fragmentary information that little by little reached the editorial office on the afternoon of April 15, 2014. Just the morning before, two bombs exploded at the Nyanya bus station, on the border with the capital of Nigeria, Abuja. Around 90 people were killed and 200 injured. The country's best-known terrorist group, Boko Haram (Western Education is a Sin), founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002 in the northern state of Borno, claimed responsibility for the crime.
The population of the northeast and increasingly closer to Abuja is accustomed to attacks, especially at bus stations and sometimes in schools, since 2013 at the latest. However, it seemed unlikely that 276 girls between 16 and 18 years could easily be kidnapped from the dormitories of Chibok Secondary School in Borno. This is exactly what initially gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories in the south of the giant state. For weeks, many people did not believe that the kidnappings had really happened.
They were raped, became pregnant and had to convert to Islam.
In any case, the country, in which around 50 percent of the 230 million inhabitants profess Islam or Christianity, and in which more than 250 ethnic groups coexist due to European colonial policy, is deeply divided for reasons religious and ethnic. Mutual distrust runs deep. At that time the government of Goodluck Jonathan also contributed. For weeks he ignored the attack on the school and did not speak.
But the first mass kidnapping at a Nigerian school remains a reality today. According to several NGOs, ten years later, some 90 kidnapped people have not returned to their families. Some are likely long dead. His prison was and is in the Sambisa forest, more than 500 square kilometers, to which Boko Haram had retreated.
Many parents looked into the distance with empty eyes.
Without any infrastructure, even minor illnesses can be fatal. Some of the freed women reported that they were forced to marry Boko Haram fighters. They were raped, impregnated and forced to convert to Islam. In Borno, as in all parts of the north, the vast majority profess Islam. But the majority of those kidnapped were Christian women.
For family members, this idea is pure horror. Barely two years after the kidnapping, during the first parents' meeting, many mothers and fathers looked at the sand or the distance with empty eyes and knew that with each passing day the hope for liberation diminished. However, negotiations and releases have occurred several times. In 2017, 82 schoolgirls were exchanged for five imprisoned Boko Haram members. After that, the military randomly released a few more prisoners. Few managed to escape.
The fate of the former students is quite tragic. But it is just an example of a sick State with no prospects. More than ten years ago, there were thousands of other victims in Nigeria, but they were unknown and, from the perspective of the perpetrators, “valuable.” Thanks to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, the Chibok girls quickly received global attention, all the way to the White House. The Nigerian government was put on trial for his release, which likely cost then-president Goodluck Jonathan his re-election in 2015.
The threat of terrorism remains real
However, mass kidnappings continue to this day. Under Jonathan's successor Muhammadu Buhari, who served from 2015 to 2023, and current President Bola Tinubu, the security situation in Nigeria has changed but not improved. Since 2015, security forces have managed to push back and weaken Boko Haram.
There were also briefly hopes that fighting with the Islamic State splinter group in West Africa Province (ISWAP splintered in 2016) could permanently weaken both movements. But the threat of terrorism remains real: in early March, at least 200 people were kidnapped in the Gamboru Ngala refugee camps, near the borders with Chad and Cameroon. The crime is attributed to Boko Haram.
The kidnapping business has been booming since 2020. According to Abuja-based security company Beacon Consulting, last year alone more than 4,000 people were kidnapped and almost 10,000 murdered. In early March, more than 280 students were abducted from a local public school playground in Kaduna state.
The motivation for this is no longer ideological, but economic. The naira has plummeted, inflation is just below 32 percent and, according to the World Bank, the economy will grow just 3.4 percent in 2024. The population, by contrast, is increasing by about five million each year. .
It doesn't matter who is in charge of the state.
No perspectives offered. Last year, the government canceled gasoline subsidies without compensating the poor. 104 million people live below the poverty line. Several people recently died in a fight during the distribution of free food. This also ensures, albeit to a very small extent, that young people join terrorist groups.
It does not matter if the state is headed by a Muslim from the north or a Christian from the southeast. No government has managed to improve living conditions and eliminate the breeding ground for terrorism in the long term. The Chibok case shows, like a magnifying glass, what has been going wrong in Nigeria for a long time.