15082018 - FIRST LADY OTHERS SHINE AT VANGUARD AWARDS

SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 15, 2018, PAGE 21
FOUR YEARS ON
We are free and in school, our friends are Boko
Haram slaves — Ntakai, Chibok girl number 169
By Dionee Searcy. Photographs by
Adam Ferguson
The list had more than 200 names.
Martha James. Grace Paul. Rebecca Joseph.
Mary Ali. Ruth Kolo. And so many others.
It took Nigerian officials agonizing weeks
to publish the names of all the students Boko
Haram kidnapped from a boarding school
in the village of Chibok four years ago, on the
night of April 14. Once they did, the numbers
were staggering.
The list quickly circulated
among the grieving parents
searching for their daughters,
some setting out on motorbikes
to confront the Islamist militants
who had stormed the school,
loaded the girls into trucks and
hauled them away at gunpoint.
Soldiers used the list, too, as
they combed the countryside for
the missing students, marching
through the forest, dispatching
jets and enlisting the help of
foreign militaries.
Negotiators checked the
names as they bartered with
militants for the girls’ release.
And the list became an
inspiration for protesters
hundreds of miles away in Abuja,
the nation’s capital, who kept
marching for the girls’ return,
day after day.
“As I began to read each name,
my resolve strengthened,” said
Oby Ezekwesili, a former
education minister who led
protests. “They were not just
statistics. These were real human
beings.”
Far away in America, France, South Korea
and elsewhere, public figures and celebrities
joined the cause.
Bring back our girls, they all demanded.
For years, the teenagers remained missing,
changing from girls into women, lost to a band
of extremists known for beating, raping and
enslaving its captives.
And then, many of their names were joyfully
crossed off the list.
“I’m ‘back,’ as they
say,” said Hauwa
Ntakai, one of the
Chibok students.
Nearly four years after
I’m happy,” said Ms.
Ntakai, who was No.
169 on the list. Now,
she is a 20-year-old
student who rises at
dawn for Saturday
yoga class and argues
about the benefits and
dangers of social
media during debate
night at the university.
“But I’m thinking
about my sisters who
are still in the back,” in
Boko Haram’s
clutches, she said
they were abducted and
dragged off to a forest
hide-out, more than 100
of the students from
Chibok now live on a
pristine university
campus four hours from
their homes here in
north-eastern Nigeria,
their days filled with
math and English
classes, karaoke and
selfies, and movie nights
with popcorn.
The government
negotiated for the release
of many of the Chibok
students, who were set
free in groups over the
last year and a half. A few
others were found
roaming the countryside,
having escaped their
captors.
But more than 100 of
their former classmates are still missing, held
by Boko Haram. About a dozen are thought
to be dead.
“I’m happy,” said Ms. Ntakai, who was No.
169 on the list. Now, she is a 20-year-old student
who rises at dawn for Saturday yoga class and
argues about the benefits and dangers of social
media during debate night at the university.
“But I’m thinking about my sisters who are
still in the back,” in Boko Haram’s clutches,
she said.
Lucky ones
Nigeria is in its ninth year of war with Boko
Haram, a group that has killed and kidnapped
thousands of civilians across northern Nigeria.
In many respects, the Chibok students, as
extraordinary as their plight has been, were
just another set of its victims. Many of the young
women now consider themselves the lucky
ones.
Weeks before the Chibok kidnapping, a
group of young boys were burned alive in their
own school, a tragedy that failed to resonate
around the world in the same way as the mass
abduction of the schoolgirls.
The vast majority of Boko Haram’s victims
will remain anonymous and unaccounted for,
their names never broadcast across the globe.
Many of their families will never even know
what happened to them. The crimes
committed against them occur in remote
areas, far from the reach of cellphone networks,
and often while the world’s attention is
elsewhere.
But the Chibok girls had names. Saratu
Ayuba. Ruth Amos. Comfort Habila. Esther
Usman.
And from a few weeks after they were taken
— when Boko Haram broadcast images of its
somber-looking captives, covered from head
to toe in long, dark gowns — they had faces.
Teenage students from a village school
suddenly became the unwitting
representatives of all the dead and missing
victims of a crisis that has upended a poor,
remote corner of the globe.
They became the daughters of Nigeria, and
more broadly daughters of the whole world,
embraced and fretted over as though they
belonged to everyone.
“When the Chibok abduction happened, it
was the articulation of this whole saga,” said
Saudatu Mahdi, a co-founder of the Bring
Back Our Girls movement. “They became a
rallying point.”
But the freed students from Chibok also bear
the heavy burden of the celebrity that led to
their release.
They are fortunate enough to attend a private
university that educates the children of
Nigerian politicians, businesspeople and
other members of the elite.
But security restrictions on the Chibok
students are especially tight. They are not
allowed to leave campus without an escort.
They can’t have visitors without special
permission. And though some of the women
gave birth during their captivity, their children
are not allowed to stay with them at the
university. Administrators say that would
distract from their studies.
In fact, the young women have rarely seen
their families since they were freed from Boko
Haram. The longest period they have spent
with their parents, siblings and other relatives
since their abduction in 2014 was over
Christmas break last year, when they went
home for a couple of weeks. Other than that,
they have been under close supervision by
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