Girls’ return raises ransom questions
NIGERIA: Boko Haram has released most of a group of Nigerian schoolgirls taken hostage in a mass abduction a month ago, prompting widespread speculation that a ransom was paid to secure their freedom.
The 110 pupils were kidnapped from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in the northeastern town of Dapchi on February 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 to Dapchi, 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.
Residents of Dapchi said a convoy of Boko Haram gunmen returned most of the hostages. Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of information, said 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 black jihadist flags.
The Nigerian government is widely reported to have paid a ransom of €2 million 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 familiar with previous negotiations to free Boko Haram hostages said: ‘‘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.’’
One witness in Dapchi said the Boko Haram 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.’’
However, other accounts of the girls’ return suggested an element of planning with members of Nigeria’s 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,’’ he said.