ICIR
IN what appears like an admission of failure by his administration to rescue the remaining ‘Chibok Girls’ from insurgents’ captivity, President Muhammadu Buhari has thrown the gauntlet at the incoming administration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, to rescue the schoolchildren and others that terrorists abducted under his government.
Feting Nigerian children on Saturday for the Children’s Day commemorated in the country on May 27, Buhari said that his own administration spent eight years attempting to rescue all the children abducted during the administrations of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan and others before him.
In a message on his Twitter handle, the president said, “We must not lose hope, and our faith should be rekindled in the ability of government to safeguard the future of our lives and children.
“In eight years, we have focused on children, negotiating and fighting for the release of many that were taken captive, and painstakingly building intelligence on the whereabouts of others.
“Some have been released; more will come, by God’s grace, as the next administration continues on the same noble path.”
As at the time of filing this report, 93 of the 276 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in 2014 during the Jonathan era were still with their captors.
Thirty-seven of the girls’ parents had died.
The ICIR reported earlier today how the Buhari administration recorded 300 per cent more school children abductions than Jonathan’s.
Schoolchildren abducted under President Buhari, who won the 2015 presidential poll mainly because he promised to reverse the nation’s security misfortunes, included the 110 abducted in Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State.
Among the Dapchi schoolchildren is Leah Sharibu, a Christian her abductors held on to because she refused to renounce her faith.
- As of February 2021, nearly 900 schoolchildren had been abducted under Buhari alone, less than six years into his government. More had been abducted, and a few remain with their captors.
When campaigning for the presidency in 2015, Buhari had said, “I have had the opportunity to serve my country in the military up to the highest level, as a major-general and as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In the course of my service, I defended the territorial integrity of Nigeria, and if called upon to do so again, I shall rise to the occasion.
“As a father, I feel the pain of the victims of insurgency, kidnapping and violence. Under my watch, no force, external or internal, will occupy even an inch of Nigerian soil. I will give it all it takes to ensure that our girls kidnapped from Chibok are rescued and reintegrated with their families,” Buhari said.
The ICIR reports that the President did not keep his word.
Judging from Nigerians’ reactions to his administration’s handling of the nation’s security, most citizens believe the nation experienced unprecedented insecurity under his watch.
On Thursday, May 25, The ICIR reported a civil society organisation, Global Rights saying that between 2019 and 2022, Nigeria witnessed a surge in violence, resulting in the tragic loss of thousands of lives and the abduction of countless individuals.
“At least, 20,431 civilians and security personnel have been killed, and 12,944 people have been abducted during this period,” the organisation said.
Different parts of Nigeria, including Plateau and Benue states (in the North-Central), Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto states (in the North-West), and Imo, Enugu, Anambra and Ebonyi (in the South-East) have been killing fields, where thousands of Nigerians have died from insecurity-related causes under Buhari administration.
In Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Lagos states, ritualists, fraudsters and other criminals have had field days.
Cultists have been on the rampage in the South-South, as the North-East begins to recover from the horrors of a decade of rampage by terrorists.
For the first time in the nation’s history, the South-West experienced waves of herdsmen and insurgents’ attacks, under Buhari.\
In June 2022, attackers descended on worshippers at the St Francis’ Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, shot sporadically at worshippers and reportedly detonated a bomb, killing about 40 worshippers.
The ICIR reported how killings escalated a few days before the end of the president’s tenure in the North-Central. Large-scale killings by non-state actors have been recorded in Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue states in the past weeks.
A report published by The ICIR on May 21 detailed key security issues and killings under the President.
