The issue of abductions in Nigeria has now reached a point of grave concern. Barely a day now passes by without a breaking news story of people or children being abducted by rebel groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP).
One would have thought when 276 Chibok girls were kidnapped from their school premises by Boko Haram in 2014, that would be the last of something like that ever happening again but that has not been the case.
This year in February, 317 girls from the Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara State faced the same fate as the Chibok girls, the fate of being a girl in a school and the fate of not having enough security personnel.
These are some of the reported incidents although they are numerous other abductions that have not made their way into the mainstream media or caught the attention of the Federal Government (FG).
Even worse, these abductions are now not only limited to Nigeria but have since moved to other countries such as Cameroon, Chad and Mali.
Nevertheless, this article will focus on Nigeria since it is the country most prone to these abductions as this is where these rebel groups were formulated.
To get a better understanding of what is happening in Nigeria and how to avert these abductions I contacted Rotnen Lepgak, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the Centre for Children in Crisis which is based in Nigeria.
“These abductions happen on a weekly and daily basis so there is no day that you will not hear about abductions of either school children, residents, workers, contractors and there is no month that goes by without hearing of at least 10 abductions so the abductions are rampant. However, they don’t occur throughout the entire States per se but 70 to 80 percent of the States have experienced some form of abductions. But if you look at it critically, these abductions occur in the north-easterly, north-west, north-central, south-west and the south-east but predominantly the States of the north-east such as Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna, Kano, Niger and Jigawa. But recently where these abductions are increasing are Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto, they are now rampant in these States so I would say out of the 36 States in Nigeria, the abductions take place in over 25 States, which is almost the whole of the country,” said Lepgak.
With over 25 States now being abduction hotspots, I wanted to understand why this is happening and who is behind the abductions. Lepgak explained,
“The people that are behind these abductions are the Boko Haram with the elements of ISWAP and other terrorist organisations. They abduct people and students to get ransom so as to procure more weapons. And the reason why mostly schools are targeted is because Boko Haram wants to instill fear in parents from preventing their children from enrolling into schools because the literal meaning of Boko Haram is western education is prohibited, so that is why they abduct students, because if children do not go to school they will not know their rights and they can be indoctrinated by doctrines that are not far reaching that will not help an individual grow. And the female gender is the one that is mostly targeted. It started back in 2014 when the Chibok girls were abducted and that is now the trend.”
In addition, Lepgak gave the government very little credit when it comes to combating these rebel groups and abating the abductions. Nevertheless, he came out with some pointers that the government can use to avert the crisis.
“The Federal Government has tried to ensure that the fight against these abductions is put into consideration by deploying the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Air Force into the rebel camps and there has been some form of success. However, in my view, the political will to fight these guys is not there because, if the government is ready, these guys can be cleared within a week so the government is playing politics with the people’s lives.
“However, the best way to stop these abductions is for the Federal Government to strengthen the security architecture in communities, especially in schools, because most of these schools especially government schools are not properly secure. Because some of them do not even have security parameters or security personnel […] and sometimes even if you see a security personnel in some schools, the only weapon in hand will be a baton. So how can that security person fight a legion of demons with sophisticated weapons? That is impossible! So the government needs to secure most of these schools by erecting a parameter fence, equipping these schools with enough security personnel – at least five per school – and beefing up security forces in communities which are a hotspot of these abductions.
“In addition, the government should not play politics with people’s lives. When they are told there are attacks or imminent attacks on communities they should act, not these monotonous and rhetoric press releases and adage that they send, “we are in shock or we are saddened” No! We are tired of that. We are tired of paying ransom, we are tired of burying young people,” said Lepgak.
The onus is now upon the FG led by President Muhammadu Buhari to lynch off these rebel groups and making sure these abductions are done and dusted.
Image credit: Suleiman.bako1982
