Dr. Aisha Muhammed Oyebode has shared fresh insights into the events surrounding the 2014 abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, revealing that the unexpectedly high number of girls at the school left the Boko Haram insurgents uncertain about what action to take.
Speaking during an interview on the Rainbow Book Club while discussing her book, The Stolen Daughters of Chibok, Oyebode explained that many of the girls present at Government Girls Secondary School on the night of the attack were not regular students at the time. She noted that several former students had returned to the school to sit for their WAEC examinations, which significantly increased the number of girls gathered in the compound.
According to Oyebode, testimonies from some of the girls who later returned from captivity suggested that the insurgents had not planned for such a situation and became confused after discovering hundreds of students at the school.
“There was a huge number of girls and then they were confused. What should we do, should we shoot them, should we burn down the school and one of them said ‘let’s take them to Shekau, he will know what to do with them,’” she said.
She explained that the decision to take the girls to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau eventually turned the incident into one of the most shocking acts of terrorism in Nigeria’s history. The abduction of 276 girls from Chibok in Borno State drew widespread condemnation both locally and internationally and sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign…See More
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