Kidnapped schoolgirl won’t convert to Islam
Boko Haram militants release other girls, but 15-year-old Christian remains captive
ABUJA, Nigeria – Leah Sharibu likes biology and hanging out with friends, and she wants to be a doctor. The 15year-old who was among a group of schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram group last month is the only one still held by the militants — because she refused to convert to Islam.
“My daughter is alive, but they wouldn’t release her because she is a Christian,” her father, Nathan, said Monday.
“They told her they would release her if she converted, but she said she will never become a Muslim. I am very sad, but I am also overjoyed because my daughter did not denounce Christ.”
Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girls Feb. 19 when the militants raided the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi and held them hostage. Most were released last week. The girls were dropped off in the middle of the night under an agreement with the government that included withdrawing Nigerian soldiers. Five girls died during the assault, the released schoolgirls said.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is under fire for saying for months that Boko Haram had been defeated. He said he would redouble the government’s efforts to bring back the missing teen. “Leah Sharibu will not be abandoned,” he said.
Boko Haram loosely translates “Western education is forbidden.”
Olapade Agoro, chairman of an opposition party, the National Action Council, threatened to take Buhari to the International Criminal Court in The as Hague, Netherlands, if the government doesn’t secure Leah’s release. He said the government’s negotiations favored Muslims, and Leah was the only Christian student abducted.
“President Buhari should engage his negotiating machinery to get Leah released unconditionally … since it is obvious that the federal government negotiated to get the other Dapchi students released,” Agoro said.
He offered to switch places with the girl. “It is unfortunate that Leah is being subjected to further physical and psychological trauma because she insisted on holding on to her religious faith,” Agoro said. “It has now become a crime to be a Christian in Nigeria.”
Four years ago, nearly 300 girls were taken from their school in nearby Chibok, sparking the worldwide #BringBackOurGirls campaign that attracted celebrities and first lady Michele Obama to speak out.
Although most of those schoolgirls have rejoined their families, 113 are still missing. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign planned to sue the government for more information about the Chibook girls and over the Dapchi kidnapping.
Leah’s mother, Rebecca Sharibu, cried as she talked about her daughter.
“My heart was broken when I searched through the released girls and could not set my eyes on my dear daughter, Leah,” she said last week.
“What her schoolmates told me was that my daughter was told she must recite the Kalima Shahada (the Islamic profession of faith). And she said she does not know how to recite it, that she was not brought up as a Muslim,” her mother said later in a phone interview.
“She had already boarded alongside others who were ready to come home. They said my daughter would only be brought back home the day she knows how to recite Kalima Shahada,” Rebecca Sharibu said.
Her parents described Leah, the elder of two children, as a happy child who loves bright colors, reading and chemistry. She likes to help with chores.
“If Leah were home, she and her little brother would attend to everything in this home. She would not let me do anything,” her mother said.
She wants answers, as well as her daughter back.
“Since we were told that the negotiation was done for all the schoolgirls, why did the government accept that only my daughter be left behind when others were freed and even brought home?” she asked.
“If they (government officials) negotiated as if they loved all the girls as their own, then they should do everything to help release my own girl.”
Bhatti reported from Berlin.
“I am very sad, but I am also overjoyed because my daughter did not denounce Christ.” Nathan Sharibu Father of girl kidnapped by Islamic militants