The Federal Government has restated its commitment to securing the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls and Leah Sharibu, assuring Nigerians that efforts to bring them home are ongoing despite the passage of time.
Speaking on Tuesday during a multi-agency meeting on anti-kidnapping in Abuja, the National Coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Major General Adamu Laka, said the government has not abandoned the victims of terrorism.
A total of 276 girls were abducted by Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014. Eleven years on, 87 girls are still believed to be in captivity. Similarly, Leah Sharibu, one of 110 girls abducted by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) from their school in Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19, 2018, remains in captivity. Leah, the only Christian among them, was reportedly held back for refusing to renounce her faith.
Major General Laka noted that the rescue of previously freed Chibok girls occurred gradually through a mix of negotiations and military operations.
“Since when they were kidnapped, those who were rescued were not just rescued one time. It was a gradual process,” he said. “We haven’t given up hope on them… Let our focus not only be on the Chibok girls. There are other kidnapped aid workers and citizens we’ve also been working to rescue.”
He stressed that a lack of media coverage does not equate to a lack of government action or concern. “We are still on it. Our prayer is that the whole 87 or 80-plus that are left will be rescued by God’s grace,” he said.
The meeting, held in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, also provided updates on the Multi-Agency Anti-Kidnap Fusion Cell, which was established under the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, on December 19, 2024.
According to Laka, the centre now functions as a central hub for intelligence sharing and coordination, aiding law enforcement and military response to kidnapping incidents nationwide. To strengthen response capacity at the subnational level, anti-kidnap liaison officers from the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Services have been deployed across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
“The primary purpose of the programme is to close the gap between national-level coordination and state-level response,” Laka said, adding that real-time intelligence and local knowledge are now feeding directly into national counter-kidnapping efforts.
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