•Time for book author to retract publication, apologize to families

By EMMANUEL OGEBE

In a stunning development, excerpts from the memoir of a former British Prime Minister has deepened the controversy surrounding recent claims that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency rescued 30 of Nigeria’s Chibok schoolgirls.

Former British PM Dave Cameron in his memoir entitled, ‘For the Record’, said that “Iraq wasn’t the only place we would need our military to counter this extremist menace. Boko Haram in Nigeria was linked to al-Qaeda, and believed Western education and lifestyles were a sin (the meaning behind its name). It too wanted to institute a caliphate, and like ISIS it would use whatever barbaric means it thought necessary.

“In early 2014 a group of its fighters entered the government secondary school in the village of Chibok, seizing 276 teenage girls. They were taken to camps deep in the forest. The Christians among them were forced to convert to Islam. Many were sold as slaves, entering the same endless violent nightmare the Yazidi women suffered.

“As ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign spread across the world, we embedded a team of military and intelligence experts in Nigeria, and sent spy planes and Tornadoes with thermal imaging to search for the missing girls. And, amazingly, from the skies above a forest three times the size of Wales, we managed to locate some of them.

“But Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. When he eventually made a statement, it was to accuse the campaigners of politicising the tragedy. And absolutely crucially, when we offered to help rescue the girls we had located, he refused.”

More significantly, according to media reports, Cameron also said ‘the Nigerian army was unable to participate in operations the US and UK forces organised for the rescue of Chibok schoolgirls because of “politically appointed generals”.’ https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/10/jonathan-rejected-uks-offer-to-help-rescue-chibok-girls-cameron/amp/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0npFNJkSK-wlba8jTezOMuf-r0KK7GDRqN9rLBvSZHHsY70BxBVYnP05Q_aem_QAKeEdBD7O9YUHH0SjOj-Q

“We had to play the long game focusing on a much bigger training effort for the Nigerian military and intelligence forces and trying to promote more energetic leaders from the younger generation. The Archbishop of Canterbury, as an expert on Nigeria, could be particularly useful on this and I invited him to join our NSC discussion.

“Some of the girls have managed to escape over the following four years, and others have been released, but over a hundred are still missing. Once again the combination of Islamist extremism and bad governance proved fatal (emphasis added.”

This dispondent disclosure directly discredits the CIA rescue claim in the book “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA” by Liza Mundy (Crown Books, October 2023) reported by People’s Gazette “Molly Chambers, a California native who was among the new generation of women who joined the CIA after September 11, 2001, said she was sent to Maiduguri around 2017 to track down late Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau when multinational efforts intensified towards rescuing the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in 2014, according to a new book by journalist and author Liza Mundy.” https://x.com/GazetteNGR/status/1759490218929930501

The book itself said, “Her third posting was Nigeria, where in April 2014, 276 female students had been kidnapped from a Christian boarding school in Chibok by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram…Working with the British and French, they hoped to get all the girls in one fell swoop, but some had been married off to fighters and were reluctant or unable to leave their babies, at least not right away. But they did get thirty at one time.”

However several media reports have credited Borno lawyer and journalist Zanna and Salkida for their pivotal roles in facilitating the release of 21 and 82 girls in 2016 and 2017 respectively and not 30 at any point whatsoever. I am personally cognizant of them directly and via intermediaries as well as the UK-based Swiss national interlocutor.

Mr Cameron’s revelation confirms that the British and American forces were unable to rescue the girls and that rather the girls escaped and were released while some remain captive directly contradicting the CIA rescue claims of Liza Mundy’s book.

Indeed the Prime Minister stated further, “How did I feel about all this at the end of 2014? The answer is, depressed. ISIS now occupied an area larger than Britain. A similar brand of terrorism was being wrought by Boko Harem in west Africa), another ISIS affiliate in north Africa, and by al-Shabab (‘the youth) in east Africa, while related groups were springing up in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Caucasus. There seemed to be no stopping an evil ideology that seduced minds from the badlands of Syria to bedrooms in Birmingham. When I spoke about the challenge publicly I tried to remain measured and resolute. But privately did ask myself, would we ever be able to defeat this thing?”

This is far from the triumphant tone expected of one who had victoriously rescued 30 schoolgirls. It is noteworthy that PM Cameron stated that the girls remained unrescued for the “following four years” (2018) which is after the 2016-2017 period Liza Mundy claimed the CIA rescued the girls.

How are we now to believe her that the USA actually rescued 30 Chibok girls when the Leader of the UK who she claimed they worked with has declared they were unable to rescue them?

It is oddly ironic that in the minefield of western recolonization of narratives of what happened to the girls, there is a battle of claims of credit instead of a battle to reclaim the captives. We have a logical absurdity where American journalists with the top newspaper in the country based in New York published a story that American intelligence failed to rescue a single Chibok girl while an American journalist formerly of the top paper based in Washington like them also published a book both making money while claiming just the opposite – that US intelligence rescued 30 Chibok schoolgirls – despite the fact that UK’s leader published a book before theirs saying there was no rescue!

This pathetic saga makes mockery not just of western journalism or intelligence but is of grave concern for whoever cares for the safe return of the missing young woman and others like them in our world.

It is in this light we must commend the girls themselves who continue to fight for their freedom 10 years on and the Nigerian military who continue to struggle against unspeakable odds including a country, a government and a world that has been unfair to them.

We urge author Liza Mundy to retract the book and apologize to the families of the Chiboks girls for her misleading report.

•Being Chibok Special Report Part 6 by Emmanuel Ogebe, International Human Rights Lawyer, writing from Washington USA.

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