Nigeria: Leah Sharibu On My Mind

By Mazi Ohuabunwa

I was feeling low last week and began wandering what was weighing me down. Yes my mother, Madam Mathilda Nwannediya Ohuabunwa, who recently finished her race on the Earth will be laid to rest this week’s Friday, 6th of April 2018 in my home town- Arochukwu in Abia State. So it was natural to feel that was my problem. But I shook that thinking away because since our mother got called back to The Lord, my siblings and I had maintained an attitude of gratitude. After what our mother went through to raise 12 children (seven boys from her womb and five other children from the womb of her mate) and lived to the ripe age of 90, we felt God had done so well for her and for us. And having come to that conclusion, we have remained upbeat as we prepared for her interment.

*Leah Sharibu

Later, it dawned on me that my mood was caused by the pain that I have had in my heart even before we heard of the dramatic release of the girls abducted by Boko Haram from the Science & Technical Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe State. Actually the pain started on February 19, when the men of Boko Haram marched unchallenged to abduct our school girls the same way, they abducted the Chibok girls in 2014. One would have expected that my pain would ease with the news of the release of 104 or 105 or 106 of the girls (as the total number has kept changing from 110 to 112 to 113).

Nigeria: Dapchi Rescue And The Nemesis Of Propaganda

By Israel A. Ebije

Let me congratulate parents of abducted Dapchi secondary school girls recently returned after weeks of adoption. I must congratulate security operatives on their consistent absence when the girls were taken and retuned. Let me also congratulate the federal government on successful hostage negotiation, where millions in alien currencies was allegedly paid and ‘just’ a few Boko Haram militants released in exchange. 

I will not forgive myself if I fail to congratulate those in government allegedly involved in hostage on the ransom racketeering for a booming business venture. Let me also congratulate those who have been able to convince Nigerians that the abduction was staged for publicity stunt ahead of 2019 presidential election. Let me, however, condole with the losers, those whose kids died for “money and politics”. My heartfelt sympathy also goes to Leah Sharibu who is held as slave for her religious belief. Let me indeed sympathize with those who have turned the unfortunate development into a religious and ethnic fight.

Dapchi Abduction, Height Of Inglorious, Pathological Deceit And Hoax

Press Release

“The latest drama of the Dapchi school girls release is the height of serial and inglorious, pathological deceit and hoax. In their bid to make unfounded and unthinkable comparisons (with the regime of Gooduck Jonathan) President Buhari and his hegemonic Fulani cabal become antithetic as they are contradictory.

“Apparently, in a hurried orchestra to display their high dexterity of quick response to the manipulated abduction (as against the snail speed approach of the then Jonathan’s regime) the ‘good plan’ was marred by poor execution. Over one hundred girls appearing in new and neat dresses with their big bags of different makes.

“The thought-provoking questions are: Did all the girls dress for a religious or social outing shortly before their abduction? Were they allowed to bring their new clothes on abduction or were they taken to a boutique for their fine ‘uniforms’ before they were brought back?

The Dapchi ‘Abduction’ Scam: Where Is Leah Sharibu?

By Femi Fani-Kayode

I am happy that the abducted Dapchi schools girls are all back home but I am deeply troubled by the fact that one of them was left behind and by the assertion that five of them died whilst in captivity. The day the truth comes out about what really happened to the Chibok and Dapchi girls and those that were behind these two scams, Nigerians will be shocked and they will spit on the graves of Buhari and his collaborators.

Meanwhile I saw the pictures and watched the video of Dapchi residents cheering on and waving at Boko Haram insurgents as they dropped off the "missing" girls. It was clear to me that they regarded the terrorists as heroes and I was compelled to ask myself the following question, "Are we really one country?"

Dapchi Abduction: Scam Of No Equal Dimension, War Crime Against Humanity – PDP

Text of Press Conference of the Peoples Democratic Party, on the Return of the Abducted Dapchi School Girls Presented by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Today, March 21, 2018. 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) condemns the All Progressives Congress (APC) and certain officials in the Presidency for staging the abduction of the schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, for political purposes.

Our Party considers this act as wicked, callous and tormenting to use innocent schoolgirls as pawns in an ignoble script that was designed to hoodwink Nigerians and orchestrate a great rescue and security prowess of a conquering general, all to push a 2019 reelection bid, is an unpardonable gamble with human lives.

Nigeria: Is Dapchi A State Conspiracy?

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is a robust measure of how much the President Muhammadu Buhari government has lost credibility that the abduction of 110 pupils of Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, has spawned conspiracy theories. Racked by unfulfilled promises, fervent backers of the Buhari government who were ready to vouchsafe the eternal integrity of the president no longer accept that his position can be trusted. They strive to ferret out what could be the real motive for the action or inaction of the Buhari government.

To be sure, we should not dismiss the purveyors of these conspiracy theories as sadists who inscrutably derive fulfillment from the suffering of others. As fellow citizens, they share the pain of the families of the abductees and the nation. They are not unaware of the agony parents are subjected to when a child they have sent to school to learn is abducted. They understand the gnawing anxiety of parents over the current condition of the abductees, whether they are alive or dead and whether they would see them again. Their worry is not unfounded. Still fresh in their memories are the ordeals of the Chibok abductees and those of their parents. For a long time, nothing was heard about them. Even after the rescue of some of them, others cannot be accounted for as they have died or the Boko Haram leaders have made good their threat to sell them off as sex slaves.