Presidency confirms release of 21 Chibok girls

Twenty-one of the 219 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 have been freed by the sect, Sahara Reporters and the British Broadcasting Corperation have reported.

Video grab image created on August 14, 2016 taken from a video released on youtube purportedly by Islamist group Boko Haram showing what is claimed to be one of the groups fighters at an undisclosed location standing in front of girls allegedly kidnapped from Chibok in April 2014.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed this in a statement made available to journalists.

Shehu said the released girls were currently in the custody of the Department of State Services.

He said the Director-General of the DSS, Lawal Daura, briefed President Muhammadu Buhari of the development shortly before the President left for Germany.

The presidential aide added that Daura wanted the girls, who were very tired, to rest before he would hand them over to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

He attributed the release of the 21 girls to negotiations between the government and the Boko Haram sect brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government.

He said,

“The release of the girls, in a limited number is the outcome of negotiations between the administration and the the Boko Haram brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government. The negotiations will continue. 

“The President welcomes the release of the girls but cautioned Nigerians to be mindful of the fact that more than 30,000 fellow citizens were killed via terrorism. 

“Lawal wants the girls to have some rest, with all of them very tired coming out of the process before he hands them over to the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. 

“The President takes off shortly on a trip to Germany for a state visit. The names of the released girls follows shortly.”

This is still not the kind of news I would have wanted. How many of the 219 kidnapped Chibok girls have been returned to their families?

Culled from www.punchng.com
Photo credit: AFP

Nigerian suicide bomber gets cold feet, refuses to kill

Strapped with a booby-trapped vest and sent by the extremist Boko Haram group to kill as many people as possible, the young teenage girl tore off the explosives and fled as soon as she was out of sight of her handlers.

Her two companions, however, completed their grisly mission and walked into a crowd of hundreds at Dikwa refugee camp in northeast Nigeria and blew themselves up, killing 58 people.

Later found by local self-defense forces, the girl's tearful account is one of the first indications that at least some of the child bombers used by Boko Haram are aware that they are about to die and kill others.

"She said she was scared because she knew she would kill people. But she was also frightened of going against the instructions of the men who brought her to the camp," said Modu Awami, a self-defense fighter who helped question the girl.

She was among thousands held captive for months by the extremists, according to Algoni Lawan, a spokesman for the Ngala local government area that has many residents at the camp and who is privy to information about her interrogation by security forces.

"She confessed to our security operatives that she was worried if she went ahead and carried out the attack that she might kill her own father, who she knew was in the camp," he told the AP on Thursday.

The girl tried to persuade her companions to abandon the mission, he said, "but she said she could not convince the two others to change their minds."

Her story was corroborated when she led soldiers to the unexploded vest, Awami said Thursday, speaking by phone from the refugee camp, which holds 50,000 people who have fled Boko Haram's Islamic uprising.

The girl is in custody and has given officials information about other planned bombings that has helped them increase security at the camp, said Satomi Ahmed, chairman of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency.

Culled from www.yahoo.com/news

Thousands return to Nigerian town after Boko Haram ouster

Thousands of Nigerian refugees, who fled to neighbouring Cameroon in 2014 to escape Boko Harm militants, have returned to the liberated northeastern town of Gamboru only to find their homes and their livelihoods destroyed, residents and officials told AFP Friday.

A trader washes his hands on May 11, 2014 at Gamboru market, burned by suspected Boko Haram insurgents.

Over the past three days more than 15,000 Nigerians have crossed the 300-metre (yard) river bridge that forms the border with Cameroon, following calls by military and local leaders‎ for residents to return, an official in Gamboru said.

"More are coming in everyday," he added.

Boko Haram fighters seized Gamboru in violence-wracked Borno state in August 2014, forcing thousands to flee across the border to the town of Fotokol on the other bank of the river in northern Cameroon.

Chadian forces reclaimed Gamboru in February last year, after intense fighting that left hundreds of insurgents dead, as part of a regional military coalition put together to crush the Islamist group which has become a threat to regional security.

"We found a looted and burnt out town which is a shadow of its former self," said Abacha Mari, one of those who returned to Gamboru on Wednesday. 

"More than nine-tenths of the buildings in the town have been damaged by fire while ‎the rest have been washed away by the rains," he added. 

"Everything was looted and the streets are barely recognisable." 

- 'Nobody found anything ' -

Gamboru has been repeatedly targeted in the Boko Haram insurrection which has cost the lives of 17,000 people in Nigeria and made over 2.5 million homeless since 2009.

Although Boko Haram were forced out of Gamboru 11 months ago, the refugees say they are only now beginning to feel confident enough to return because the Nigerian army has sent a large contingent to the town.

The return of the refugees is being coordinated by Cameroonian soldiers‎ and local officials in Gamboru, the returning residents said.

The Nigerian refugees and their belongings wer‎e screened at the Cameroonian side of the bridge by soldiers using sniffer dogs to detect explosives before they were allowed cross back into Nigeria, where officials were ready to welcome them and provided them with the necessary papers for their return.

Returning residents scoured their empty homes in the vain hope of finding any personal ‎effects neglected by Boko Haram.

"Nobody found anything in their homes which have been looted and burnt," said ‎returnee Ibrahim Wanzan.

The destruction that they found came as no surprise. Some of the refugees had already visited Gamboru under the protection of Chadian soldiers in February 2015 and described it then as a"ghost town".

A key source of the locals' livelihood, the market, has also been destroyed. It formerly attracted traders from neighbouring Chad and Cameroon‎.

"Our main problem is food and how to rebuild our homes," Wanzan said.

The returned residents have been living on the food they brought from Fotokol and desperately hope to receive aid from the Nigerian government before supplies run out, Mari said.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA‎) plans to send aid to Gamboru in coming days.

"We are aware of the return of thousands of Gamboru residents from Cameroon and we are ‎working to send relief items to them in the next few days," a NEMA official told AFP.

Culled from news.yahoo.com
Photo Credit: AFP Photo

Nigeria launches new investigation of 2014 kidnap of Chibok girls

Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a new investigation into the kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in April 2014 from the town of Chibok, the presidency said on Thursday.

A statement said a panel would be announced soon by the National Security Advisor. The decision comes after parents of the girls and the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement marched to the presidential villa to demand a meeting with Buhari earlier on Thursday.

"I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind," Buhari was quoted as saying in the statement after meeting some of the marchers. 

"Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard."

On April 14, Boko Haram militants raided a school while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks. Around 50 escaped shortly afterwards.

There was a global outcry and threats by Boko Haram to sell the girls. Former president Goodluck Jonathan was heavily criticised for his slow reaction and Jonathan's wife at first said she doubted the kidnapping had actually happened.

After nearly a month, Jonathan set up a fact-finding committee that went to Chibok to establish whether the abduction happened and how many girls were missing.

Culled from www.reuters.com

Boko Haram kill seven in suicide attack, raid in Borno

Seven people were killed in a suicide and raid attack by Boko Haram members on Izgeki village in Borno state on Tuesday January 5th.

A resident of the state identified as Ishaku who spoke with AFP about the attacks which is the first in 2016, said

"I received information from my relatives who fled the attack... that some Boko Haram gunmen on bicycles attacked Izgeki across the river from Izghe on Tuesday morning where they killed two people.

The attack forced villagers to cross the river into Izghe. The gunmen pursued them. One of them who had a suicide belt on him blew himself up near the market, killing five people".

In a related development, members of the sect group also attacked Nchiha village near Chibok on Tuesday at about 10pm.

Ayuba Chibok, an elder in the town said

"Luckily no-one was hurt but they (Boko Haram gunmen) looted food and burnt a large part of the village".

Former Nigerian defense minister Bello Haliru Mohammed charged with money laundering

According to BBC news, former Nigerian defence minister Bello Haliru Mohammed has been charged with money laundering.

He is accused along with his son, Bello Abba Mohammed, of diverting $1.5m (£1m) that was meant to buy arms for soldiers fighting Islamist Boko Haram militants.

Bello Haliru Mohammed served as defence minister from 2011 to 2012.

The two men have pleaded not guilty.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in May, set up an investigation into the procurement of weapons for the military, which found that phantom contracts worth $2bn had been awarded.

Last month, former national security adviser Sambu Dasuki was arrested and charged with 19 counts of fraud, money laundering and criminal breach of trust in connection to the case.

Mr Dasuki, who oversaw the fight against Boko Haram while Goodluck Jonathan was president, denied the charges.

Bello Haliru Mohammed served as Mr Jonathan's defence minister from 2011 to 2012 and still holds a senior position in the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP).

He appeared at the Abuja High Court on Tuesday in a wheelchair and was transferred to a hospital when the case was adjourned, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said.
His son was remanded in prison until a bail hearing on Thursday.

Boko Haram has killed thousands in north-eastern Nigeria in its six-year campaign to create an Islamic state.

Soldiers had complained that despite the military's huge budget, they were ill-equipped to fight.
Culled from www.bbc.om/news

Military Recaptures Chibok From Boko Haram

The authorities of the Nigerian military have said that the Special Forces have liberated the town of Chibok in Borno State from the control of Boko Haram.

It was stated that the troops had secured the town and had restored normalcy to the area.

Some insurgents, who were fleeing from the military offensive in the Mubi axis of Adamawa State, had moved into Chibok to take control of the embattled town on Thursday night.

The insurgents had earlier abducted over 200 girls, who were sitting for the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, on April 14, 2014.

However, the military authorities said in an unsigned statement posted on the official website of the Nigerian military, www.defenceinfo.mil.ng, that troops had retaken the town since Saturday.

It was stated that the troops carrying out a mop-up operation were in pursuit of fleeing insurgents.

The statement said, “The terrorists who attacked Chibok town early yesterday (Saturday) have been effectively flushed out of the area.

“The subsequent mopping up operation is still ongoing, as troops continue the pursuit of fleeing terrorists and arrest of the wounded.

“Meanwhile, normalcy has been restored and the town is now secured. Further details will follow later please.”

Also, the Director, Army Public Relations, Brig. Gen. Olajide Laleye, in a telephone conversation with one of our correspondents on Sunday, confirmed that the troops had liberated Chibok by 6.30pm on Saturday.
Culled from The Punch www.punchng.com

Boko Haram Seizes Chibok, Hometown of Kidnapped Schoolgirls

Boko Haram has seized the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok, from where 276 girls were kidnapped more than six months ago and which the government vowed to secure after the mass abduction.

The April 14 kidnapping in the impoverished town in southern Borno state brought unprecedented global attention to the armed Islamist group's brutal five-year uprising.

A screengrab taken on October 2, 2014 from a video released by the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram shows the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau.

"Chibok was taken by Boko Haram. They are in control," said Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose daughter and niece are among the hostages being held.

Mark and the senator for southern Borno, Ali Ndume, said the militants attacked at about 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Thursday, destroying communications masts and forcing residents to flee.

Ndume said that he had received calls from fleeing residents about the attack that the town "was now under their (Boko Haram) control".

"There is no telephone service now in Chibok, which is why it took time before the reports reached me," he added.
Culled from Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com
Photo Credit: AFP

Pray for Chibok Girls’ Release, 2015 Elections - President Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan has called on all intending Christian Pilgrims to pray for a peaceful, successful conduct of the 2015 election and the safe return of the abducted Chibok girls.

Jonathan, who was represented by the President of the Senate, David Mark, made the call on Saturday in Abuja at the inauguration of the 2014 Christian Pilgrimage.

President Goodluck Jonathan.

The occasion coincided with the transportation of the first batch of 250 Christian pilgrims from the Federal Capital Territory who would be visiting Israel, Greece and Rome.

He said Christians should not forget that the main essence of pilgrimage was to pray and be spiritually reborn in order to live better lives and to affect the lives of the people around them positively.

He said, “Do not forget the significance of pilgrimage, we need a rebirth and this rebirth must first begin with us for true transformation.

“Let us all pray for the safe release of the Chibok girls and let us also pray for the peaceful conduct of the 2015 general elections.”

The president expressed optimism that the truce reached between the government and Boko Haram would truly lead to lasting peace in the country.

He assured Nigerians that insecurity would not derail the Transformation Agenda from actualising its purpose, stressing that God himself was taking the lead in the fight against insecurity.

Jonathan urged Christians not to view the pilgrimage as an avenue for doing business but should maintain a clean sheet without absconding as it had been recorded over the last few years.

Culled from The Punch www.punchng.com

Bitrus - The Chibok Girl Freed by Boko Haram Pregnant

The abducted “Chibok girl” released on Wednesday is “pregnant and mentally ill,” the National Chairman of Chibok Community Development Association, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, has told TheCable.

Earlier on Thursday, the police revealed that the 20-year-old girl was abandoned by suspected terrorists at Mubi in Adamawa State, from where she was picked up. It also confirmed that she was one of the female pupils of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, abducted in April by Boko Haram.

Chibok Girls Abducted By Boko Haram.

However, Bitrus said it was still uncertain if the girl was from Chibok because her name did not correspond with any of the names in the records of the girls that were captured by Boko Haram on April 14.

“I was speaking Kibaku to her, but she did not respond; she was incoherent. She may be having mental issues as a result of trauma,” he said.

Bitrus added that preliminary tests – still not definitive – indicated that the girl is pregnant.

He added,

“When she was picked up, she was taken to a clinic, not a standard hospital, and tests were carried out on her.

“From the tests, it was said she is pregnant, but that is still in the speculative domain because a qualified medical doctor has not confirmed that she is pregnant.

“However, we are still trying to establish if really she is from Chibok, because from our sources, the last name of the released girl does not tally with the surname of the person bearing the first name of the released girl captured in our records and whose father is a carpenter at Chibok. So, we are still trying to work out every detail.”

Culled from The Punch www.punchng.com 

Boko Haram to Release 219 Chibok Girls in Swap Deal

After much persuasion, Boko Haram has agreed to release the abducted 219 Chibok girls if the Federal Government will simultaneously set free its 18 key commanders.

The Nation reports that the two parties have asked their representatives to go back to their leaders on the new swap deal proposal.

Boko Haram to Release 219 Chibok Girls in Swap Deal.

Prior to the latest agreement at the talks in Abuja, which was witnessed by some officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Boko Haram had insisted on a piecemeal release of the girls, with priority given to 30 married Christians among them. The Federal Government also offered to release six of the 18 sect leaders in detention.

The two sides maintained a parallel stand until they met again in Abuja at a session facilitated by the President, Civil Rights Congress (CRC),  Comrade Shehu Sani. The sect said if the government attempted to secure the girls by force, it might lead to fatalities. At the meeting, Boko Haram also maintained that it had the capacity to “engage the Federal Government for 45 years”. It said the outcome of the talks would determine the end of the insurgency.

Some of those at the talks gave insights into the new dimension to the moves to free the Chibok girls, who were abducted from their hostel on April 15. It was gathered that the session was attended by ICRC officials.

One of those who attended  said:

The sect shifted its position and agreed to release all the girls instead of 30 Christian married girls it had promised. But Boko Haram said it does not trust the government going by previous experience. If the government had respected previous talks, the Chibok girls were initially meant to be off the hook during the Eid-el Fitr festival. Again about two weeks ago, a delegation was already in Maiduguri until the swap deal was bungled.
Some security agents only advised on the release of six out of the 18 leaders of the sect. They rated the rest 12 as dangerous. When the insurgents found out, they backtracked and demanded the release of the 18 leaders. The development paved the way for the latest talks in Abuja which involved the ICRC. By the new arrangement, ICRC will pick up the girls and simultaneously hand over the detained 18 leaders to Boko Haram. The government also said it would not free the detained leaders of Boko Haram until all the girls were released.

Asked what was eventually agreed upon, another source at the session said:

“We generally agreed that all the parties should go back to their leaders on the agreement reached. The government said no to piecemeal release of the girls and Boko Haram claimed that it will not have any business with the government until all the 18 leaders of the sect are freed. After the Eid-el-Kabir festival, the two parties will meet again on the terms to finalise the agreement or part ways.
Before the meeting rose, Boko Haram representatives warned against the use of force to liberate the girls. It also made it clear that it had the “capacity to take on the Federal Government for the next 45 years.”

Responding to a question on whether the sect will end the Boko Haram insurgency or not, another source said:

“The delegation from Boko Haram said the outcome of the latest round of talks will determine whether they should ceasefire or not.”

Culled from The Nation www.thenationonlineng.net 

BREAKING NEWS: Ongoing Attack in ‘Kautikari’ a Village Near ‘Chibok ‘

Report has it that an attack is currently ongoing in Kautikari village, seven kilometres away from Chibok town in the southern part of Borno state.

Residents are said to have made distress call to journalists and security operatives in Maiduguri calling for urgent help.

According to reports from Premium Times, a text message sent by a resident at about 9:30 a.m. reads;

“Massive attack on Kautikari now. All security agencies should be notified, and call for divine help now.” 

While an official of Department of Security Service (DSS) confirmed the attack to the newspaper.

“Yes, we also received the report, I believe action is being taken about now…but no one has been able to ascertain the nature or magnitude of the attack for now”, said the security source.

The extremist Boko Haram sect has continued to attack villages in Borno and neighbouring states, killing defenceless civilians.

Photos: See the Faces and Names of Some of the Kidnapped Chibok Girls

Here are the faces and names of some of the school girls kidnapped on April 14th in the Chibok community in Borno state by Boko Haram men. Photos released by ThisDay Newspaper.

UN Special Envoy for Global Education, and former UK Prime Minister, who was in Nigeria this week shares his experience. Find the article he wrote about the Chibok girls below;

I was shown these pictures after visiting Nigeria this week. I met the leader of the community council in Chibok, the town from which the girls were abducted.

Slowly and with tears in his eyes, he flicked through a file in which he had recorded the names and photographs of the girls.

Not even the police and Army have managed to compile such detail he has amassed from talking to the parents of the kidnapped teenagers.

The file has 185 pages one for every girl. Each page has a photograph, and beside each passport-sized picture some stark facts the girl’s name, her school grade and the date of abduction. For the other 19 abducted girls, he has yet to locate photographs. He will.

The community leader and the girls’ families have given permission for their names and photographs to be put into the public domain so the world is reminded of the missing girls. He is being helped to publicize this by Arise TV chief Nduka Obaigbena.

There is also a file on the 53 girls who escaped by running for their lives from their Boko Haram kidnappers.

I have spoken to three who fled. All want to be doctors and work as medical helpers in their communities. But for now, their lives are on hold.

They are unable to finish their exams, unable to find a safe place to study near home and are still in fear of another attack from Boko Haram. They have lost a year of their schooling and they are traumatized by the kidnapping of their friends.

For a teenage girl, eight weeks in captivity could have life-time consequences and for their families it is torture. The idea that your daughter should go to school one day and never return is every parent’s nightmare. Not to know whether they have been molested, trafficked or are even alive is a living hell.

These girls were abducted for the sole reason that their captors believe that girls have no right to an education.

Yet this civil rights struggle is being fought out, brutally and for most of the time shamefully unobserved.

On one side, terrorists, murderers, rapists and cowards, hell-bent on acts of depravity. On the other, defiant, relentless, brave-beyond-comprehension young girl-heroes and boy-heroes desperately fighting for a future but, sadly, in a world largely oblivious to their plight.

In Britain and in the United States, we do find out. We do learn about abuse and horror from across the globe and we do react. But it’s often too late, and then, inevitably, it’s always too little. We should not fail young people, but it seems like we always do.

But we can’t forget. We owe them. We can’t give up because they won’t have given up.

FCT Commissioner of Police Bans #BringBackOurGirls Protest in Abuja

Federal Capital Territory Abuja Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu has banned all forms of the #BringBackOurGirls protest in Abuja.

FCT Commissioner of Police, Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the ban was issued today June 2nd by the Former Rivers State Commissioner of Police. Various groups have had demonstrations in Abuja in the last few weeks over the missing Chibok girls who were abducted on April 14th.

Is this really the way forward? God bless Nigeria! #BringBackOurGirls.

We Know Where Chibok Girls are - The Chief of Defence Staff

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, in Abuja, on Monday, said the military now knows where the abducted schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, are,  adding that the military will not use force in the rescue operation.

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh.

Badeh disclosed this while speaking to members of the Citizen Initiative for Security Awareness (CISA), a non-government organisation, who were on solidarity campaign to the Defence Headquarters.

“The good news for the parents of the girls is that we now know where they are, but we cannot tell you, we cannot come and tell you the secret. Just leave us alone, we are working to get the girls back.
“I can tell  you our military can do it, but where they are held, can we go with force? Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing. We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back. So we are working, the president has empowered us to do the work,” he said.

Badeh said the fight against insurgency was quite different from full scale war, adding that “if we are fighting an external war, they would have been begging us to withdraw.”

According to the CDS, the Nigerian military had proved its worth in the civil war in Liberia and Sierra-Leone, lamenting that in the North-East, the military was fighting its fellow brothers.

ChibokGirls: Nigerian Children old Prayer Session Today

Children across the country have been admonished to rise up in prayer and fasting today for the safe release of the abducted Chibok girls by the Nigeria Kids Pray (NKP).

A statement signed by the Coordinator of the group, Pastor Kayode Jacobs, in Abuja, “urged all children from age of four to 16 to miss their breakfast on Monday, 26 and Wednesday, 28, May 2014. This is to enable us pray in one accord for divine intervention and provoke God to immediate action".

“Where it is possible, children in public and Christian schools should have joint prayers by 12 noon when they are supposed to break the fast.”

Cited incident from the Bible, the statement said the prayer became imperative “since the adult have monetized and politicised the challenge for pecuniary gains and political popularity.”

According to the group, “it has now come to over one month that our sisters have been taken captives by the Boko Haram, a wicked sect that claims it is fighting for Islam.

“We have waited enough; we understand it would not be an easy operation by the military to rescue them since force cannot be applied if all must be rescued.

“We urge the security forces not to concentrate only on the forest but also on estates and large private compound not leaving out the government house.

“instead of demonstration against government which is in a way of an encouragement to the terrorist, those who are genuinely concerned should rather mobilise all Nigerians to unite against the terrorist just as American did in the September 11 terror experience.”
Culled from Vanguard News www.vanguardngr.com

Oscar Winner Anne Hathaway Joins Protest Over Kidnapped Chibok Girls

Actress Anne Hathaway attended a rally in Los Angeles on Thursday to call for the release of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

The teenagers were snatched from a school in northern Nigeria last month (April 14) during a night raid by members of the Boko Haram extremist group, who want to deny them a Western education.

The Oscar Winner Anne Hathaway Protesting.

Oscar winner Hathaway and her husband Adam Schulman became the latest celebrities to back the cause, taking to the streets of Los Angeles in a Bring Back Our Girls rally to demand urgent action over the scandal.

 She came and surprised us and her voice was louder than everybody else. They were yelling at all the cars (passing by)!

Hathaway even used a megaphone to lead the crowd in chants to support the cause.

Documentary filmmaker Ramaa Mosley, who attended the rally, tells Entertainment Tonight, "She came and surprised us and her voice was louder than everybody else. They were yelling at all the cars (passing by)!" Hathaway is just one of many stars to show their support for the BringBackOurGirls campaign, which was first launched on Twitter.com.

Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Jada Pinkett Smith, Amy Poehler, Reese Witherspoon, Cara Delevingne, Anthony Kiedis, Alicia Keys, and Ellen DeGeneres are all backing the drive to pressure the Nigerian government to step in and rescue the missing girls.

Nollywood Superstar Actress Condemns Abduction of Chibok School Girls

The 2005 Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Genevieve Nnaji in an exclusive interview on Friday night, condemns the Chibok school girls’ abduction.

Iconic Nollywood Actress Genevieve Nnaji.

Geneveive Nnaji who has been raising awareness on the #BringBackOurGirls campaign insisted that she won’t stop until the missing girls are found.

"Everyone is involved. We are all mothers, we are all humans and these are young girls who have been taken into captivity and we just felt that as some of us have bigger faces and more recognised as celebrities and having a large fan base, we thought it’s our responsibility to help shed light and bring the fight to the forefront and stop this inhumane act."

When asked to react to criticisms that the authorities in Nigeria are slow in reacting to the abduction, she said,

“I think it would be unfair to say our government was slow to react because no one knew whether they reacted or not.”

One of the Chibok Girls Who Escaped Captors Says She’s Scared to Return to School

One of the teenagers who escaped from Islamic extremists who abducted more than 300 schoolgirls says the kidnapping was “too terrifying for words,” and she is now scared to go back to school.

Sarah Lawan, a 19-year-old science student, spoke out Sunday as Nigerians prayed for the safety of the 276 students still held captive. Their prayers were joined by Pope Francis.

Chibok Girls.

Using the trending #BringBackOurGirls, the Roman Catholic leader tweeted:

“Let us all join in prayer for the immediate release of the schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria.”

Lawan told The Associated Press that more of the girls could have escaped but that they were frightened by their captors’ threats to shoot them.

She spoke in the local Hausa language in a phone interview from Chibok, her home and the site of the mass abduction in northeast Nigeria. The failure to rescue those who remain captive four weeks later has attracted mounting national and international outrage. Last week, Nigeria was forced to accept international help in the search, after ignoring offers for weeks.

More experts are expected in Nigeria to help in the search, including U.S. hostage negotiators and others from Britain, France, China and Spain.

“I am pained that my other colleagues could not summon the courage to run away with me,” Lawan said. “Now I cry each time I come across their parents and see how they weep when they see me.”

Police say 53 students have escaped. Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram terrorist network is threatening to sell those who remain in captivity into slavery.

In churches across the nation, Nigerians prayed for the girls, whose plight has brought together ordinary people in a year that had seen growing dissension between Muslims and Christians, disagreements exacerbated by the increasingly deadly attacks of the Boko Haram terrorist network. Africa’s most populous nation of 170 million has almost equal numbers of Christians and Muslims.

The Rev. Stephen Omale prayed at a church in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, for God to visit a change of heart of the girls’ abductors.

“Wherever they are, God will bring them out in his own mercy, he will see that they are brought out safely, without harm and also that this act will bring an end to all those who are perpetrating these acts,” he told congregants.

The Nigerian capital in the centre of the country that last month suffered two bomb blasts claimed by Boko Haram that killed about 100 people and wounded more than 200.

Britain, Nigeria’s former colonizer, has said it hopes to help not just in rescuing the girls but in the wider conflict to halt the 5-year-old Islamic uprising in which thousands of Muslims and Christians have been killed and some 750,000 people driven from their homes.

A Nigerian security expert warned meanwhile that the militants may have laid land mines to discourage any pursuit, and said strategists may be considering starving them out.

“They may have laid land mines, one cannot rule that out,” formed Nigerian Air Force Commodore Darlington Abdullah said on Sky TV. And “even as they go along abducting children, they are also going after food, grabbing food,” Abdullah said, suggesting that starvation might force the extremists to abandon the girls.

Also Sunday, a leading Nigerian rights group demanded the U.N. Security Council impose sanctions on Boko Haram, saying expressions of concern and condemnation are not enough.

“The future of these missing schoolgirls hangs in a balance. The council should not leave them to fend for themselves,” executive director Adetokunbo Mumuni of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project said in a statement.

He said targeted sanctions would send a strong message.

The United States already has designated Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization, as has the European Union, making it illegal to contribute to the group. And Washington last year put a $7 million ransom on the head of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who said in a video last week that he will sell the girls into slavery.

There also have been reports that some of the girls have been forced into marriage with their abductors, who paid a nominal bride price of $12, and that some have been carried across borders into Cameroon and Chad.

Lawan said other girls who escaped later have told her that the abductors spoke of their plans to marry them.

She said the thought of going back to school terrifies her — either the burned out ruins of Chibok Government Girls Secondary School or any other school.

“I am really scared to go back there; but I have no option if I am asked to go because I need to finish my final year exams which were stopped half way through,” she said.

Culled from The Globe and Mail www.theglobeandmail.com