The failure to rescue more than 100 Chibok schoolgirls, eight years after their abduction by Boko Haram remains an “open wound” for the Nigerian nation, said a UK-based group, IA-Foundation.

Islamic insurgents kidnapped about 270 schoolgirls from a government secondary school in Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014.

The abduction drew global outrage with influential individuals and the international community calling on the government of the day to secure the release of the girls.

Yet, eight years later, many of the girls are still in captivity after some of them were released in an exchange deal with the insurgents.

Marking the eighth year anniversary of the depressing event on Friday in Abuja, CEO of IA-Foundation, Ibironke Adeagbo, said that nothing had changed on the fate of the girls still in the custody of the abductors.

She expressed her disappointment that the girls were still being held by their abductors almost a decade after they were seized by terrorists.

“The Chibok school girls’ abduction remains an open wound begging for closure in the conscience of our nation,’’ Mrs Adeagbo stated.

Nigeria has been contending with the activists of terrorists, including the dreaded Boko Haram group, which has been locked in a bloody conflict with the Federal Government since 2009.

Boko Haram has killed more than 3,000 people in Africa’s most populous nation and displaced over three million people since it launched its deadly campaign 13 years ago.

The terrorists group has repeatedly abducted school children, especially girls in a bid to stop the girls from going to school to acquire western education.

Mrs Adeagbo described the development as worrisome, pleading with the Federal Government to take measures to stop the activities of bandits and end abductions of citizens.

She re-stated that the abduction of school children posed an unimaginable threat to the future of the country, pleading that Nigeria should seek external help to end the problem.

Mrs Adeagbo, whose group has shown unrelenting commitment to changing the human condition of less-privileged children in Nigeria said that the government must act fast to save the future of education in the country.

Records show that up to 1,436 school children and 17 teachers have been abducted in Nigeria since December 2020 with about 16 of the children losing their lives.

The federal government has however, risen to the challenge, clamping down on the terrorists and killing thousands of them over the years.

The terrorists are also active in other African countries, including Mali, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire, among others. 

(NAN)