Still on the Chibok girls -By Adewale Kupoluyi

It was a relief to see President Muhammadu Buhari meeting with the 21 Chibok girls alongside their families at the State House, Abuja, recently. The girls were part of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls that were held captive since April 2014 by members of the Boko Haram terrorists. According to the government, the girls were released after successful negotiations involving the sect, the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the Nigerian and Swiss governments.

For many people, the Federal Government and the various parties that facilitated this intervention deserve high commendation for restoring the hopes of the families of the girls and several people from all over the world that are touched by the unfortunate experience. While a combination of local and foreign pressures was being mounted for the release of the innocent girls, other pessimism kept flying about as to why it would be an impossibility to get the girls back home. A former President once raised a similar false alarm, saying the nation should learn to forget those girls, insisting that they were not coming back while other extreme opinions suggest that the girls may have either been turned into suicide bombers or married off to the terrorists!

However, beyond the release of the 21 schoolgirls, a number of other key issues have arisen that should be given the necessary attention. To begin with, there is the need to find the remaining girls, whose fate still remains unknown and be liberated without further delay, hoping that they are still alive and traceable. The government should deploy the same tact, resources and energy to rescue others. There is the tendency to be reveling with the euphoria of the present success at the detriment of the others. Secondly, there is the need to monitor with more caution, the kind of information that would be shared to the public following the release of the girls.

Because of the high security nature of the case, unnecessary publicity should be avoided for now to avoid jeopardising subsequent efforts. We should remember that all is not over until the remaining girls are found and rescued hale and hearty. Thirdly is the issue of giving adequate rehabilitation to the rescued girls, going by the nation’s not-too-encouraging records of rehabilitating victims of emergencies and natural disasters. This time round, the rehabilitation should be thorough and sustained.

Another point to take seriously is the imperative of putting in place the necessary mechanism to solicit and manage the relief items meant for the upkeep of the girls. Donated materials to the victims should not be diverted by those entrusted with the task of managing the items. Government should ensure that any man-made bureaucratic vacuum that could make the donated relief materials to get into private hands should be prevented. It is common knowledge that victims of such circumstances like the Internally Displaced Persons in the North-East remain under terrible and pitiable living conditions because of the inability of the beneficiaries to access donated materials.

Such a perilous situation has been blamed for one of the reasons why many victims of such incidents often run way from such camps to eke out a living and in the process fall into the hands of human traffickers, ritualists and kidnappers, akin to moving from frying pan to fire. Reports from past rescued victims have not been very encouraging. It is also not new that victims of kidnapped and forced marriages usually opt to go back to their former abodes having been made to adapt to their strange lifestyles. That is also a good reason why there should be thorough rehabilitation.

In addition to the existing arrangement, the government should include reputable groups such as the civil society, the media and the Nigerian Medical Association in supervising the rehabilitation process and the management of the relief items by giving the entire process more transparency, openness and accountability. The essence is to truly make the rescued girls to come out of the trauma they are most likely to have suffered while in captivity, such as rape, forced marriage and labour, sexual exploitation, torture, brutality and forced imprisonment. The girls should be accorded generous and specialised forms of restorative intervention, assistance and support.

More importantly and as promised by the government, the girls should be allowed to continue the pursuit of their education that was truncated with their abduction in 2014. Though it may not be surprising to know that the girls could have been averse to going back to school, because of the likelihood of indoctrination by the terrorist.

Apart from the non-challant attitude to education that could be displayed, a very close observation should be given to the girls, who might have been indoctrinated with deviant and false beliefs that promote violence, disregard for human lives, penchant for hostilities and disobedience to civil authorities. They should not be allowed to become handy tools for the terrorists whenever they are reintegrated into their communities. The government should not be in a hurry to fully send them back without the necessary observation and monitoring.

The authorities should have it at the back of their minds that the girls, before they were abducted, were young, presumably innocent and susceptible to vices and nefarious activities of their captors. Over the past few months, the girls could have been brainwashed by the terrorists and may, therefore, find it difficult or strange for them to adapt to a normal life that could be at variance with what obtains in the captors’ abode, where they are believed to have been kept in the last two years. Hence, the government should not underrate the girls under any guise. That is why they should be given close monitoring.

Finally, it may not be out of place to assume that the terrorists may network to prevent the girls from opening up to the authorities. This has happened in the past to arrested criminal suspects. This could be to ensure that the girls are unable to disclose vital information to security agencies on what they saw, what they heard and what they did during their captivity. No one knows. They should be placed on security surveillance. And as previously mentioned, sustained efforts should be deployed at ensuring that the remaining girls are found and rescued alive. Nigerians would certainly be happier when all the missing girls are found.

Kupoluyi wrote in from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, via adewalekupoluyi@yahoo.co.uk