INCREDIBLE as it may sound, the captive of the terrorists, Citizen Leah Sharibu, The Guardian’s 2018 ‘Person of the Year’ the newspaper’s editorial board aptly as “A goddess of resistance” is still in captivity of the wicked! She has spent agonising eight years in the wilderness of the scoundrels despite a series of promises by Nigeria’s leaders.
That is why before anyone would ask this weekend, what is happening in Iran, Israel and indeed the Middle East, let’s spare a thought about a Middle Belt Citizen her nation has forgotten because of too much politics of denial of reality of travail of Christians in Nigeria. That is why this column has to brush aside all other matters arising from local and international scenes to prick the conscience of the nation again.
Yes, It is important to lament the national greed that has refused to collapse. It is important to ask whether there would be a World War IV. It isn’t a bad idea to write about why it is s0 easy to steal public funds here. Just as it is pertinent too to comment on why our boisterous leadership has failed to fund the police while they give the armed forces a great deal of our national budget. But I consider it a bad idea for our leaders at all levels, all the political parties, the Adamawa state government too and the civil society organisations including the media to forget Leah Sharibu in the wilderness of life like that. Yes, ‘the goddess of resistance’ clocked eight years in captivity on February 19, this year.
How many articles will one write before the National Security Adviser’s Office will remove this reproach and albatross from the neck of the federal government? During the Buhari administration, one of the remarkable features between the media and the security and intelligence community was creation of quarterly briefing at the National Intelligence Agency’s office. All the heads of the security and intelligence agencies were always in attendance of the very useful creation of the Special Adviser and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu. Yours sincerely never failed to ask for updates on the challenge and implications of keeping the Dapchi school girl in the forest of the terrorists. There were many unfulfilled promises, in this regard.
It is unfortunate that we will still ask some of the questions we have always asked in February when the sad story have always cropped up again like a sore thumb: When will several promises made on the release of Leah Sharibu be fulfilled? Where is Leah Sharibu? Is she alive? It is unfortunate that the answers to these questions continue to blow in the wind. There was a glimmer of hope then that she would be released before the 2019 elections. But the Buhari administration failed the family of Leah who hails from Adamawa State. She was only in school in Dapchi, Yobe State where her father, a police officer was posted then.
In October 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari consoled Leah’s family and assured her parents that the Federal Government would do its utmost for the safety and security of their daughter. Then, the president was quoted as telling Mrs Sharibu: “I convey my emotion, the strong commitment of my administration and the solidarity of all Nigerians to you and your family as we will do our best to bring your daughter home in peace and safety.”
Despite the president’s assurance to Rebecca Sharibu, mother of Leah, the Dapchi secondary schoolgirl kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists, the Leah Sharibu albatross still hangs on the neck of government as the hapless girl is still nowhere to be found. Aid workers and other escapees from the gulag have always assured that Leah is alive and has given birth to two children in the valley of the wicked.
As our leaders at all levels are gearing up for the 2027 politicking, it is quite significant to remind them that the nation is still waiting for freedom for Citizen Leah Sharibu, the only Dapchi schoolgirl and Christian who is still being held captive because of her faith. Some aid workers had always raised concern about her safety but the federal government hasn’t given any updates on the long-standing negotiation to set her free. Why has the negotiation been too difficult and inconclusive? We feel it is expedient to remind the president that people’s anxiety is beginning to turn to fear of the unknown.
And the implication as we have always noted in different opinion on the ticklish issue, is that, “when hope is deferred, it makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” according to an ancient word.
There was once a relevant reference to a similar tragedy in the polity, which involved another Citizen Zainab Aliyu, a Muslim girl who was arrested and detained in Saudi Arabia for alleged drug trafficking and whose release was secured through the intervention of the Federal Government. She reportedly arrived in the country before the elections while families and well-wishers marked the 16th birthday of Leah Sharibu, (still held in captivity) with several activities in Abuja, Jos and Lagos. As we noted before here, this is not a good contrasting story in nation building at this time.
It is worth-remembering that while 104 of her colleagues were released on March 21, 2018, five of the hapless girls died in captivity. Although, the Minister of Information and Culture then Alhaji Lai Mohammed announced at the time that the 104 girls’ release was unconditional, the refusal of the terrorists group to release Leah since 2018, on the condition that she converts to Islam, questions this view and buttresses some perception that the federal government’s negotiations through a back-channel led to the release of the girls.
So, it is indeed becoming inexcusable that the Federal Government has not been able to negotiate Leah’s release for eight years. This may account for the resentments by various individuals and groups within and outside Nigeria; and aptly captured in my earlier question: “Mr. President, where is Leah Sharibu?”
It would be recalled that during the third quarter of 2018, this same Christian girl, Leah, had in a clear audio message begged President Buhari Muhammadu Buhari to come to her rescue. However, the government said the clip would be verified to be sure that it was Leah’s voice. There was no update on authenticity of the voice before Buhari left office on May 29, 2023.
This ugly reality is a monumental embarrassment, because the ‘‘child’’ Leah had even cried out to her ‘‘father’’ of the nation to rescue her. Nigeria’s leader should note again that the story of Leah Sharibu’s capture and her continued detention by Boko Haram insurgents as a result of her refusal to renounce her faith is legendary. That defiance echoes a bright message of love, selflessness, courage and hope to our nation. The Leah The Guardian calls, ‘‘goddess of resistance’’ to terror, is now the number one soldier on the frontline in defence of Nigeria’s now fragile unity, peace and progress. She is a true heroine.
The word of Nigeria’s leader on Leah and the remaining Chibok girls should be his bond. This is a challenge to President Bola Ahmed tinubu who has unfortunately inherited the albatross. It will be recalled that part of Buhari’s campaign promise on which he won election in 2015 was that he would work for return of the Chibok school girls. The remaining 113 Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu are still in Boko Haram’s custody. They are still our missing daughters.
So, it is another time to appeal to our leader to please use the doggedness with which they handled the case of Zainab Aliyu’s release for Leah Sharibu. This is one of the ways, Nigeria’s leader can show Nigerian citizens that he is a ‘‘father’’ to all; who has value for human lives and can go to any length to save lives.
As we once noted, rescue efforts of help from foreign powers can be requested when necessary. The Nigerian state should stop being territorial. If it requires expertise from other countries, there should not be pride and vanity displayed over that. To the parents, friends and relatives of Leah, who have been in agony and waiting for the return of their child, we renew our appeal that you continue to keep hope alive.
In a preface to The Guardian’s tribute to “the goddess of resistance” on the first day of the year 2019, here is a fitting excerpt: “In this very dark chapter of Nigeria’s history, however, one person has chosen to write a bright message of love, selflessness, courage and hope to her compatriots. The story of Leah Sharibu’s capture and her continued detention by the Boko Haram insurgents in the north east of Nigeria as a result of her defiance of compromise and refusal to renounce her faith is the stuff of legend…Still in captivity till date, despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s acceptance of our charge to do everything to free her, she has since become the symbol of Nigeria’s refusal to give in to agents of darkness, hell-bent on dividing the country and appropriating a section of the nation’s territory unto themselves.
By her principled stand, the battle for the soul of Nigeria has become one between a young girl with a heart and a garrison of devils with no souls. Leah remains missing but she has not missed her way. In the face of terror, she found a true guide in her heart and is now the number one soldier on the frontline in defence of Nigeria’s integrity, values and aspirations to unity, peace and progress. She turned down personal liberty and chose to put her life on the line so that the whole of Nigeria may fulfill the promise of freedom and prosperity…”
To find life, we must live it purposefully. To live it purposefully, we must find ideals to live by. Leah is teaching the nation that one could suffer, even die, by having the courage of his or her convictions but that there is a fate much worse: non-fidelity to any ideals.
Indeed, her story teaches her beleaguered nation that even in these seemingly dark, uncertain hours, there is still enough light of courage and character by which to find our way home.
With Leah Sharibu’s conduct, a compelling case has now been made for the Nigerian woman, courageous and resilient in all of life’s battles, as the lodestar a nation can only ignore to its own peril.
A case has also been made for a review of Nigeria’s educational content to now include educating in morals and in conscience.
More than all the bombs and bullets trained on the terrorists, Leah’s strength has exposed the weakness of her captors and dealt them the kind of defeat that years of armed combat have not inflicted.
Her defiance has thrown up the Boko Haram insurgents for who they are: lily-livered rogues who have neither ideological nor tenable religious convictions. Worse still, they lack the courage to admit such emptiness and are shorn of the willingness to learn that which they do not understand.
It has taken an innocent girl’s defiance to show that lacking in any allegiance to the dictates of all religions, especially peace, which human creation embodies, the terrorists’ value for humanity is defined only by the guns they carry, the scum in the space between their ears and the mayhem they inflict on innocent people. Leah Sharibu’s fate today is not enviable. Hers is a hard place no one wants to be in. But she is in a high place, in the hearts of humanity, in the best chapters of history today and in the future. She is a true heroine.
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sunday. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.