It’s been over eight months since a tragedy struck the small town of Chibok in Borno State and brought the sleepy town in Northeastern Nigeria out of obscurity. The town was relatively quiet till the night the insurgent group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 secondary school girls from their hostel on April 14.The incident woke the town up and caught the attention of the world for the bad reasons. Some of the girls later escaped, leaving 219 others in captivity.
In a video interview with New York-based Human Rights Watch, one of the victims said she was forcibly married to one of the insurgents who raped her every night during her four weeks in captivity.
“He soon began to threaten me with a knife to have sex with him and when I refused, he brought out his gun, warning that he would kill me if I shouted,” she said.
“Then he began to rape me every night … I had never had sex before; it was very painful and I cried bitterly because I was bleeding afterwards.”
Also, a 17-year-old girl recalled her confrontation with a Boko Haram commander, who wanted to marry her off. She said that when she told the insurgent that she was too young for marriage, he shocked her by pointing his gun at his five-year-old daughter and said, “If she got married last year and is just waiting till puberty for its consummation, how can you at your age be too young to marry?”
There have been too many sad tales of how children are being killed or maltreated in the country, particularly as a result of political or ethno-religious crises.
President Goodluck Jonathan while addressing the United Nations Security Council in September 2014, said, “over 13,000 people have been killed, whole communities razed and hundreds of persons kidnapped” by insurgents in Nigeria’s Northeast zone.
Findings by Saturday PUNCH show that women and children make up the majority of those that have been kidnapped by the group.
Findings also show that state security agents have largely been ineffective in providing safety for this class of people.
Timeline of violence against Nigerian children
One of the group’s major targets have been schools as the name ‘Boko Haram’ which is translated as ‘Western education is forbidden’ suggests.In one of its first deadly attacks on children, the group killed four children in a bomb blast at Damboa town, Maiduguri, Borno State on June 16, 2011.
The group soon showed its aversion to education when on February 21, 2012, pupils of Gomari Costain Primary School in Maiduguri got to school and found that it had been destroyed.
The following day, Abba Ganaram Primary School, also in Maiduguri, was set ablaze.
Boko Haram claimed responsibility for both actions.
Earlier on January 10, 2012, the group had attacked a police station in Birniwa, Jigawa State, killing a teenage girl and wounding a police officer.
A week later, the group had struck in Damaturu, Yobe State, killing eight persons including five police officers and a teenage girl.
At least 29 students and one teacher of Mamudo Government Secondary Schoool, Yobe State, were killed on July 6, 2013 when a group suspected to be Boko Haram, attacked the school dormitories with guns and explosives.
The gunmen reportedly stormed the premises of the school around 3am, setting fire to parts of the complex.
A 15-year-old student, Musa Hassan, who survived the attack, said he woke up from sleep to find one of the assailants pointing a gun at him. A shot went off and took four of his fingers by the time he managed to put his hands up in defence. It was his preferred hand for writing.
Hassan also said that the assailants were armed with kegs of fuel, which they used to burn part of the school.
“They also burned the children alive,” he added.
A farmer in the community, Malam Abdullahi, found two of his sons with gunshot wounds. His 10-year-old son had been shot in the back while his 12-year-old brother had been shot in the chest. Both of them didn’t survive.
“That’s it, I’m taking my other boys out of school,” he said of his other children attending another local school.
“It’s not safe. The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers.”
Yobe is one of the three northern states in which President Goodluck Jonathan had imposed a state of emergency in a bid to curb insurgency in the area. The other states are Adamawa and Borno.
On September 29, 2013, an attack by insurgents at the campus of the College of Agriculture, Gujba in Yobe State left about 40 students dead and more than 150 injured.
Another attack by insurgents at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, also in Yobe, on February 25, 2014 left at least 29 students dead. The assailants threw explosives into dormitories and sprayed the rooms with gunfire.
Eyewitness account said some of the students were slaughtered by the terrorists who slit their throats while they were trying to escape through the windows.
The school’s structures were reportedly burnt to the ground during the attack.
On March 6, 2014, less than a month after the abduction of over 200 girls at Chibok, eight more girls were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram gunmen.
In a videotape, the leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to sell the kidnapped girls into slavery and referred to them as his war booty.
On May, 26, 2014, the Nigerian Army announced that its security forces had located the kidnapped girls, but ruled out a forceful attempt to rescue them for fear of getting them killed in the mission.
In the same week, it was reported that a civilian militia in the Baale region of Northeastern Nigeria found two of the kidnapped girls raped, half-dead, and tied to a tree. Villagers said the Boko Haram group had killed four other disobedient ones and buried them.
On Wednesday, April 9, 2014, scores of students travelling to write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in Borno State were reportedly killed by the Boko Haram sect.
A security source said the insurgents laid ambush for the students who were on their way to Biu from Maiduguri to write the examination which was slated for Saturday April 12, 2014.
It was learnt that the candidates were in eight vehicles when they ran into the ambush. It was, however, not clear whether the insurgents got all occupants of the vehicles or not.
The source also added that the insurgents attacked a Teachers College in Dikwa, killed seven people and burnt down the school library and administrative block.
Also on November 10, 2014, a teenage suicide bomber killed 47 schoolchildren and three teachers on the assembly ground of the Government Comprehensive School in Potiskum, Yobe.
At least 98 other students and teachers were seriously injured in the attack.
It was learnt that the teenage bomber beat the school’s security and joined the students and teachers who were about to have their prayer before detonating explosives strewn to his body at about 7.45am.
An eyewitness who did not want his name in print said that the body parts of “about 50 persons, including three teachers, that died from the attack were scattered on the assembly ground.”
He added, “We heard a loud bang and since then, the area was cordoned off but ambulances were seen going into the school to pick corpses and take the injured to the hospital.
“Both members of staff and students who were not hurt wept profusely as they struggled to rush the wounded to the hospital.”
The state government and the Force Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu, however, put the number of the students and teachers that died at 35 and 47, respectively.
Ojukwu confirmed that the bomber wore the school’s uniform and mingled with the students before detonating “some improvised explosive devices.”
He said, “The male suicide bomber was dressed as a student and he was able to enter the school and join the students on the assembly ground where he detonated the IEDs on him. The blast killed 47 students and teachers and injured 98 others. We have secured other schools around the area and investigation has commenced.”
He explained that the bodies of the dead victims were deposited at the General Hospital mortuary close to the school.
Government promises
The state Governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, who said the attack had left him heartbroken, closed all public schools in the town pending improved security situation.
The governor, in a statement made available by his spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, said, “This (Monday) morning, our state woke up to a very sad and heart-breaking news of a bomb attack on our young students at the Government Comprehensive School, Potiskum in which no fewer than 35 students were killed and many more injured.
“The governor has noted that this is the fifth time in a little over one year when schools in Yobe State were attacked and students killed.
“He deeply regrets that all of these dastardly attacks took place under a climate of emergency rule declared in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states by President Jonathan.
“In theory, the emergency rule declaration was a signal that more vigorous steps would be taken to protect lives and property in the affected states and restore peace and security. Unfortunately, these have not been fully the case. Instead of forcing insurgents and criminals to flee, the insurgents are forcing innocent people to flee and making life miserable for everyone.
“The governor also insists that it was not just enough for the Federal Government to condemn the almost daily rounds of violence. He believes urgent action must be taken right now to restore fast waning public confidence by doing whatever it takes to stop the escalating violence.”
Jonathan, in a statement made available to journalists by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, however, promised that no matter how long it would take, his administration would ensure that all those responsible for the killings were brought to justice.
The statement read in part, “The President condemns the dastardly murder of the students on their school’s assembly ground as they prepared to begin another week of study in pursuit of a better life for themselves and their families.
“The President similarly assures all Nigerians that in spite of seeming setbacks, his administration remains fully committed to winning the war against insurgency and terrorism.”
But in spite of government’s promises to end the killings and bring those responsible to book, an explosion caused by a female suicide rocked the Federal College of Education Library in Kotangora, Niger State, two days later, killing two students and leaving several students injured.
The female bomber was one of those killed in the incident.
A student of the school, Naomi Gana, said, “I am still in shock because after I finished my exams, I sat under the tree waiting for my friend when the bomb exploded. I saw the bomber, she wore hijab. I saw her running towards the library and before she got to the entrance, the bomb went off. The other girl was just unlucky because she is a student who was just walking by when the bomb exploded.”
‘More training’
The Managing Director of Apex Eagle-Eye Security Limited, Lagos, John Enweliku, said the nation has failed to protect its children, blaming part of the problem of insecurity on inadequate training and insufficient police officers in the country.
The security expert said Nigeria currently has a police officer to citizen ratio of about 1 to 2023, suggesting a ratio of one police officer to 500 citizens.
He said, “The ratio of police to individuals is too low. A situation where we have about 84,000 police men to guard 170 million Nigerians is too inadequate. The police need to do massive recruitment to balance the gap and it is an effective way by which government can curb insecurity in the North East.
Enweliku also called for more training in counter-terrorism measures for the country’s security agencies, saying that government and schools need to collaborate to provide security for schoolchildren.
He said, “The state government and the ministry of education should involve community policing in the school system because the number of armed policemen is very few. The private school system is doing better because they lock their gates and don’t allow people they don’t know to come into the school.
“The public schools also need tight security checks within their premises. That is a way to prevent suicide bombers gaining access to the schools. The security will be at the gate and anyone coming close to the gate will be challenged. They should not depend on the regular police because they are too few to be well-distributed round the country.”
Meanwhile, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Mashudat Bello-Mojeed, has described the harm befalling children and youths of the country as a serious trend that could set the nation backward.
She said, “Some of the kidnapped girls will be used as spies or suicide bombers. They are vulnerable. And when they are being threatened, they will have to carry it (suicide attack) out. They could be used as child soldiers too and taught to kill.
“They could be taught that there is no future for them and that means no future for the nation and by the time we keep on having the cycle of events, we will have many psychiatric conditions, the common ones like depression and anxiety. We could have problems with how we function in the society too.”
Bello-Mojeed said the kidnapped girls could come up with myriads of psychological problems that include being traumatised and pushed to violence.
“For the kidnapped children, it’s a gradual impact from one stage to the other. Some of them could start having fearful thoughts that something bad could happen, poor sleep and bad dreams. Even by the time they are out of it (captivity), they could start to have flashbacks as if they are reliving the experience. Their hearts could start beating and they could start sweating. If they were kidnapped at school, they start to feel fearful about anything that has to do with school or examination.
“Some would be angry with the society, family and could take to violence. They could find it difficult to relate with others in the society again, or trust others again.
“It’s also a serious psychological trauma for their parents. It’s like killing them while they are still alive. Some of them might not sleep well and have other medical conditions like high blood pressure, depression, anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder.
“We value children a lot in this environment and see children as our future, so they feel there is no future for them and so some of them might even commit suicide. They may see no reason to live. And there is stigma attached to it. The mark of shame on the family, people would have known what happened to them, many of the children are being raped or impregnated. Nobody wants to associate with the family, so some will feel that rather than face the shame, they would rather die.”
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