Parents of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted a year ago in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok have suggested that the vice principal (academic) of the school was beforehand aware of the plot to kidnap the girls.
Some of the Chibok girls as shown in Boko Haram video (May 2014).
Some parents who spoke with Sahara reporters claim that the role of the vice principal was at least questionable, adding that their daughters were made vulnerable to Boko Haram kidnappers.
A mother of one of the abducted girls, Mariam Abubakar, stated that Vice Principal Yerima Banjiri had told the school girls that any one of them who failed to sleep in the school the night of the abduction would be expelled as a student of Government Girls Secondary School Chibok.
According to her, “A week before their abductions, Malam Yerima threatened the students not to leave for their various homes. He said that whoever went home should forget she was ever a student at the school. He told the girls that none of them should go home, that they must sleep in the school.
“However, none of the teachers’ daughters or even the daughters of the management staff was among those kidnapped. Only the children of we poor people were asked to sleep in the school. The [teachers and administrators] had kept their children in safer places before Boko Haram arrived.”
The distraught mother accused the vice president and possibly other staff of conniving with Boko Haram. “Our concern is that since the day of [the girls’] abduction, we have never set our eyes on Malam Yerima. He is on run,” Ms Abubakar said.
A father of an abducted girl also criticized what he characterized as the Federal Government’s approach of levity in dealing with the abduction. “We have lost confidence in the Nigerian government’s, reaction to our missing children. Nobody asked any questions to the teachers. In fact they are moving free in cities. Why has the government not investigated any of the teachers?” he asked.
Another parents said that they had been warned not to speak about their suspicion of the vice principal and other teachers and administrators. But several of the parents and relatives of the abducted girls said they had run out of patience after more than a year since the abductions with little or no hope of their daughters’ rescue.
After more than a year of the kidnap of the schoolgirls, the federal government has been accused of responding slowly to arrest the situation.
It was also been touted that one of the reason why President Goodluck Jonathan lost the elections was his slow response to tackle the menace of the Boko Haram insurgents.
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