Nigerians blow hot, condemn Leah Sharibu’s news of giving birth

By Sam Eyoboka

Prompt to the broken news that teen Christian female captive of Boko Haram, Leah Sharibu, who is spending her 708th day in captivity today has given birth to a baby boy for one of her captors.

Leah Sharibu and President Buhari

Leah Sharibu, a Christian schoolgirl aged 14 at the time of her capture, is the only remaining Dapchi schoolgirl still held hostage.

On February 19, 2018 at 5:30 pm, 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi located in Bulabulin, Yunusari Local Government area of Yobe State, in the northeast part of Nigeria.

The governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, blamed Nigerian Army soldiers for having removed a military checkpoint from the town. Dapchi lies approximately 275 kilometres (170 miles) North West of Chibok, where over 276 schoolgirls, mostly Christians, were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.

The governor complained about the withdrawal of army troops from Dapchi allegedly just hours before the abduction, without informing either the local police or the state government in advance.

Initially the army remained silent regarding the complaint. Days later the army made seemingly contradictory claims attempting to explain its withdrawal. 

The army claimed that it had withdrawn its forces from the town due to the absence of evidence of any Boko Haram activity in the general vicinity, and that at the time, it had formally handed over Dapchi’s security to the police prior to its withdrawal.

In an army intelligence document obtained by the Sahara Reporters group dated February 6, 2018 an army general expressed concern regarding a possible imminent Boko Haram attack in adjacent Damaturu, 60 miles away, thus calling into question the army’s earlier assertion that it had good reason to believe that Boko Haram had left the general vicinity.

The Yobe State police commissioner strongly denied the army’s claim that his department had been formally informed by the army of the army’s withdrawal, and no proof of any such police notification was provided by the army.

One month after the episode Boko Haram released more than 100 of the schoolgirls it abducted, returning them to their parents in Dapchi.

Waving the black-and-white flag used by the Islamic State and wearing balaclavas, military fatigues and ammunition belts, members of the group released most of the girls they had abducted in Dapchi early on Wednesday morning.

The only Christian girl among the Dapchi schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram was not freed along with her school mates because she refused to renounce her faith. 

Leah Sharibu refused to accept Islam, resisting the entreaties of her classmates to pretend to do so, her parents learned from snatched conversation with her friends.

Christians including the father of the abducted Dapchi schoolgirl, Nathan Sharibu expressed anger over the news making the rounds that his daughter has given birth to a baby and has been married off to a commander of the Boko Haram terrorist group.

In a phone conversation with our correspondent late Saturday night on the news of the 16-year old girl’s forced marriage and eventual delivery, Mr. Sharibu who was unaware of the story prior to that moment, said he would rather not make any comment on the issue.

“I have not heard that and I don’t want to hear any such news”, he told Sunday Vanguard angrily, maintaining that his primary concern is to see his daughter return alive and will, therefore, not give any credence to any rumours.

Other reactions include:

•Leah’s update story may be breaking news to Sahara news and the Daily Trust but it’s not to some of us working on this issue as many of you know. I got an inside briefing since end of November 2019 and December 2019 regarding Leah, the pregnancy and forced conversion to Islam, etc.

Then more updates came in last week. We have managed this information for the protection of her parents but the press will always be the press. There is more that neither Sahara nor Daily Trust may not know but I will continue to keep such confidential for the same protection of her parents.

Please let’s pray for Leah’s parents. Let’s also keep praying for Leah herself who needs every emotional, psychological and physical support at this hour. Thanks.

•The Revd Gideon Para-Mallam

Last week alone, Andimi, CAN Chair 

Michika, was beheaded. Same week University Student Ropvil was executed. He is from the same place as the two Plateau aid workers executed a couple of months ago. Also last week, Killer Fulani Herdsmen massacred 13 people in their community.

Then add Leah’s news of childbirth from rape in captivity now amongst others. Fifty years after Biafra, Nigeria is again at war except we don’t know it. The number of people killed in Nigeria this year already is more than those killed in the missile conflict between US and Iran that almost launched World War Three including collateral casualties of the bombed airplane!

Nigeria remains the third most terrorized country in the world despite claims of the defeat of Boko Haram. There are no more terror groups, real or imagined, in Nigeria today than before President Buhari was sworn in.

We just pray that Nigerians do not wake up one day to hear that Nigeria has surrendered to Boko Haram.

•Emmanuel Ogebe

US Nigeria Law Group

I simply don’t believe that the child who refused to convert to Islam and allowed 104 of her schoolmates leave her in the camp of the jihadists saying she cannot live with herself if she renounces Christ; that this child has now been islamised. She may have been raped but she is not islamised. Certainly not voluntarily.

Her presence in the camp of the enemies is the presence of the Lord in their midst, and because she is there, some of those islamists will get saved, and the Lord shall judge the rest.

Shalom. Shalom. Let there be peace: Habakuk 3:17-19.

•Akaraiwe Ajovi Ikeazor

Amen, the judgement of God will descend mightily on them, amen.

Leah is definitely not islamised, wrong use of word.

•govframo@gmail.com

The blood of the slaineds and the captives will rest upon the head of all who WILLINGLY and DELIBERATELY voted for Buhari and APC in 2015 and 2019.

•Femi Adebayo.