By EMMANUEL OGEBE

Last weekend we returned from an Easter humanitarian mission to Nigeria where we also conducted our second fact-finding investigation into the mysterious phone call from a Chibok schoolgirl abducted seven years ago today.

On the 7th anniversary, we are disclosing some of our findings:

1. Abducted Schoolgirl Halima Ali Maiyanga was indubitably the speaker on the mystery phone call of January 2021. According to family sources and neighbours, she specifically asked for them individually by name during the extended phone call.

While it is possible that a scammer who wanted to dupe the family could have researched the names, it is implausible that they would do so including names of neighbours.

We therefore conclude that it was indeed she who called.

2. Schoolgirl Halima Ali Maiyanga has not been rescued by the Nigerian army.

Further interrogation indicates that she said a lot of girls had been moved to a new location and it was at that location that she was fortunate to find someone who helped trace her father’s phone number.

We now believe that the family erroneously concluded she had escaped merely because she was able to call them.

3. Schoolgirl Halima Ali Maiyanga may not be in Nigeria.

Further investigation indicates she disclosed that the people in her new location were primarily French speaking.

4. Halima Ali Maiyanga is still semi-captive.

Although our intel has consistently indicated that Halima and her sister Maryam were treated more favourably, like other Muslim students, and married off while their Christian classmates were enslaved, the fact that she has proved unreachable on that phone line since implies her continuing captivity at the hands of the Boko Haram terrorists.

While the phone call for the first time in seven years was exciting and welcome, it unfortunately did not signal her full freedom after all but merely the limited opportunity to sneak a call.

Other information which we won’t disclose so as not to foreclose a future reprise, gives cause for muted hope.

We continue to enjoin the authorities to track the location of Halima and the other 111 missing Chibok schoolgirls and others.

•Emmanuel Ogebe is of US Nigeria Law Group Washington.

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