In Nigeria, one of the abducted Dapchi schoolgirls, who is still in captivity, Leah Sharibu, has pleaded to President Muhammadu Buhari to facilitate her rescue. The development came months after the Nigerian government dismissed an insinuation that it had abandoned negotiations for the rescue of the lone Christian girl abducted by the Boko Haram terrorists. The government admitted, however, that efforts to secure Leah’s release by the insurgents had been tortuous and complicated.
The poor teenager has been in Boko Haram captivity since last February, when she and 111 other girls were abducted from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. When others were released following the government’s negotiation with the abductors, Leah was denied freedom for allegedly refusing to denounce her Christian faith.
Last May, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, while fielding questions from reporters over the fate of the schoolgirl, described negotiation with insurgents all over the world as always a tortuous exercise because it is usually handled indirectly.
He assured that the government had not given up the effort to secure Leah’s release. Lai Mohamed and Lawal Daura, the former Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), had declared that the release of Leah and the remaining Chibok girls was part of a wider ceasefire talks which the Buhari administration was holding with the insurgents.
Yet the same government denied that it had paid any ransom for the release of the school girls. It will be recalled that some foreign media which had been keeping tab on the issue reported that the federal government paid huge amount to Boko Haram leaders to secure the release of the Dapchi school girls. The Nigerian authorities have continued to deny the insinuation.
