It has been a decade since the tragic night when darkness descended upon the Nigerian village of Chibok.
On April 14, 2014, extremist militants raided the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno state, kidnapping nearly 300 girls as they prepared for science exams.
Campaigners and those impacted by the event gathered in Lagos on Sunday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the abduction, urging for the release of the approximately 100 girls who remain in captivity.
The Chibok kidnapping marked a grim milestone as the first major school abduction in Nigeria.
Today, survivors like Grace Dauda and Rebecca Mallum share their tales of resilience amidst the trauma. Dauda, who endured three years in captivity, recounts the challenges of recovery, including multiple surgeries to address injuries sustained during her ordeal. Despite the hardships, she found solace in education and seized the opportunity to study in America following her fourth surgery.
Since then, over 1,500 students have been abducted, as armed groups increasingly see them as a lucrative means to fund other criminal activities and assert control over villages in the mineral-rich yet poorly policed northwestern region of the country.
Unlike the Islamic extremists behind the Chibok abduction, the criminal gangs terrorizing villages in northwestern Nigeria consist mostly of former herdsmen engaged in conflicts with farming communities. These groups operate without a centralized leadership structure, often driven by economic motives and aided by arms smuggled through Nigeria’s porous borders.
Some analysts view school kidnappings as a symptom of Nigeria’s escalating security crisis.
Despite the passage of ten years since the Chibok kidnappings, security vulnerabilities persist in many schools. A recent survey by the United Nations children’s agency’s Nigeria office found that only 43% of minimum safety standards, such as perimeter fencing and guards, are met in over 6,000 surveyed schools.
