Questions raised after Boko Haram militants release kidnapped girls
Boko Haram yesterday released most of a group of schoolgirls taken hostage in a mass abduction a month ago, prompting widespread speculation that a ransom had been paid to secure their freedom. The 110 pupils were kidnapped from the north-eastern town of Dapchi on Feb 19, in a case with echoes of the 2014 Chibok school abduction that sparked the global #bringbackourgirls social media campaign.
The return of the militants, unopposed by Nigerian defence forces, to drop off the schoolgirls yesterday, raised concerns that a cash deal had been struck between the government and the terrorists.
Early yesterday morning, residents of Dapchi said that a convoy of Boko Haram gunmen returned to the town and delivered most of the hostages.
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of information, later said that 91 of the 110 girls had been accounted for.
The girls’ arrival brought grateful crowds on to the streets of the remote farming town, some of whom even cheered the masked militants as they drove through town waving their black Islamic jihadist flags.
Bashir Manzo, who heads a parents’ support group in Dapchi, said that the girls were returned in nine vehicles, which dropped them outside the school at about 8am (7am GMT).
“These girls were not accompanied by any security personnel. Their abductors brought them, dropped them outside the school and left, without talking to anyone,” he said.
News of the release prompted rejoicing across Nigeria, despite widespread speculation that a ransom was paid for the girls’ freedom.
The Nigerian government is widely reported to have paid £2million in ransom cash for the release of 82 of the 276 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls last year. Five Boko Haram prisoners were also freed as part of that exchange.
One local source, who was familiar with previous negotiations to free Boko Haram hostages, told The Daily Telegraph: “If these are the Dapchi girls, I think we can assume that a hell of a lot of money has been paid.”
He added that with elections due next year, President Muhammadu Buhari was under increasing pressure to get the girls back. “The only way to do that is by paying money. Since they were kidnapped last month, I’m not sure there would have been time to free prisoners as well, which takes longer.”
Residents of Dapchi, who had posted a billboard of 110 passport photos of the missing girls outside their school, said they initially fled yesterday morning when they heard reports that a Boko Haram force was heading into town.
Instead, the gunmen arrived without firing a shot and dropped the girls off from a convoy of vehicles, some at the school itself, others by the roadside. One witness in Dapchi said that the fighters told residents they had returned the girls “out of pity.” They also claimed that the gunmen had warned them “don’t ever put your daughters in school again”.
Boko Haram’s name translates roughly as “Western education is forbidden”.
However, other accounts of the girls’ return suggested an element of planning with members of Nigerian security services. Jonathan Gopep, a correspondent with Nigeria’s Channels Television, who was in town to cover a solidarity meeting between the parents of the kidnapped Dapchi girls and those from Chibok, said: “Thee parents of the abducted girls told me they were expecting the arrival of the abducted children. We were then told to wait on the outskirts of town by local security men. Then we saw a motorcade going in and we heard wild
jubilation within town. They didn’t want the press men to know actually who brought the girls in, or how they were brought in.
“We did eventually speak to a small group of five or six of the girls – they said that they hadn’t been mistreated or hurt.”
While Daphci erupted into celebrations, the freeing of the girls has proved to be a difficult moment for members of the visiting contingent from Chibok, who next month will have spent four years without 100 of their children who were kidnapped and are still unaccounted for.
“This is incredible news, and fortuitous at a time when the Chibok parents are visiting the Dapchi parents,” said Aisha Muhammedoyebode, head of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, which sponsored the Chibok parents’ trip to Dapchi.
“However, it puts on us an even greater responsibility to ensure that all of the remaining Chibok girls are returned. Nearly four years in captivity is an outrage.”
Nigerian officials said the girls would be transferred into the custody of the state security service, who would take them to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for debriefing about their ordeal.
There were unconfirmed reports that five had died during the initial abduction, possibly as a result of suffocation after being packed, en masse, into overcrowded Boko Haram trucks.
The return of the girls is a boost for President Buhari, whose security forces were facing heavy criticism for having failed to prevent the abduction in the first place.
Critics, though, expressed surprise that the gunmen had apparently been able to roll into town without being challenged yet again.
Some said the military had withdrawn from the town a few hours before, suggesting that some kind of pre-arranged deal was in place.
“The question now is, how were the girls returned without the security men apprehending the captors,” wrote one Twitter user.
“Was any ransom paid for their freedom? Is this a scam?”