…As FG offers no sight for her release
BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The sole remaining hostage of the 2018 Dapchi school mass abductions, Leah Sharibu today marked her 4th month in Boko Haram captivity.
This is just as a US based Nigeria Lawyers Group decried the failure of the Nigerian Government to meet with or brief the Sharibu family on the state of their abducted daughter four months after the act, saying that the only government officials to have met the family is a visiting EU parliamentary delegation.
It further said that this is an unfortunate repeat of the failure of Nigerian government officials to meet some escaped Chibok girls until after they met a visiting US congressional delegation in June 2014.
Leah, a heroine Christian Schoolgirl, was just 14 at the time of her abduction in February 2018 but was not released alongside her Muslim classmates a month later. She has since February been held despite Federal Government’s assurances of her release.
A statement to this effect by a US NIGERIA LAW GROUP and signed by Barrister Emmanuel Ogebe said the release of the abducted schoolgirls is the solitary achievement of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration after three years.
Ogebe however noted that sadly it remains an uncompleted project just like the Chibok girls saga, adding that although the Buhari administration achieved a negotiated release of over 100 girls, another 100 Chibok girls remain unaccounted for and none has been released for over a year.
Ogebe further said; “It is troubling that an administration which rode to power on the firestorm over the Chibok abductions and is a principal beneficiary of that unfortunate saga has not deemed it fit to complete the total liberation of the girls.
“More worrisome is the fact that the government managed to, in its sole notable achievement thus far, secure the release of some of the girls. Having found the appropriate resolution mechanism it makes no sense other than state failure for the government to be unable to secure their total release or credibly explain why not.
“Similarly the Dapchi mass abduction saga resulted in the first speedy mass abduction resolution midwifed by the Department of State Security. It is disconcerting that the DSS would negotiate the release of all but one of the remaining Dapchi schoolgirls more so the sole Christian captive.
“Again there is no rational explanation why a DSS that has successfully secured the release of the Muslim girls has failed, refused or neglected to bring back Leah three months after her schoolmates.
“We remind the Federal Government that Article II in the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
“Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence,” Ogebe stated.
The US based lawyer stressed that the systematic targeting of northern Nigeria’s Christian minorities’ children for abduction and transfer to Islam fits squarely within this definition of Genocide in sub paragraph (e) above.
Accordingly, the US Nigeria Lawyers Group has given the Federal Government up till July 1, 2018 to produce Leah Sharibu, age 15, being the sole remaining hostage of the Dapchi mass abduction held for 4 months plus on account of her Christian faith and Dorcas Yakubu the youngest Chibok abductee who was abducted at age 15 and 100 others held for 4 years and forcefully converted to Islam.
The group said failing to produce the abductees, the genocidal abductions shall be escalated to the International Criminal Court for the Prosecutor’s attention.
