Feature: One year on, abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria still a tale of "mystery"

Exactly one year after they were abducted from their dormitories, 219 schoolgirls of Chibok Town in Nigeria's restive northeastern state of Borno are yet to be found - - dead or alive.

Still a tale of mystery, the incident that happened on April 14 last year shocked the world. A total of 276 teenage girls, in their school dormitories, were abducted by Boko Haram.

Fifty-seven managed to escape soon afterwards but the rest 219 girls have not been seen since last May when a video showed about 100 of them in Muslim dress and reciting verses of the Koran.

The slow, lackadaisical approach toward rescuing them has continued to cause unending controversies in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Nigeria's military has previously said it knows where the girls are but ruled out a rescue operation as too dangerous.

While some people believed their abduction was a political hatchet job to underscore the efforts of government to put an end to the security challenges Nigeria is currently grappling with, many others are of the opinion that the kidnapping, though a brainchild of Boko Haram, was actually a reflection of government's slow response toward ending the ugly trend of terrorism.

Whichever is the case, families of the 219 missing girls may continue to live in despair, unending sorrows and tears for more days to come.

The globally-recognized "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign, launched as a unified force to voice support for the release of the girls has done little or nothing to help bring back the abductees.

At a point, the dust it raised had settled, the noise had ceased to be, a pin-drop silence had rented the air because the search for the girls was overshadowed by other issues of national interest, developments that were not less monumental to the country's growth.

Worse still is the thought that the girls may never be found, as Boko Haram, the terror group which claims to have abducted them on that fateful night, has further claimed to have sold them off or given them out in marriage.

On Monday, one day before the one-year anniversary of the abduction of the school girls, the "Bring Back Our Girls" movement, headed by Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian official and former veepee of the World Bank in Africa, took to the streets as usual, to protest against Boko Haram.

Holding signs and banners that boldly read "Bring Back Our Girls", the protesters marched through the Nigerian capital Abuja, urging their government and the international community to take action to rescue the girls from their captors.

"We kept counting the dates and now it is one year and our girls are not back," said Ezekwesili, the protest organizer.

Describing the abduction of the school girls as a crime that has rightly caused outrage both in Nigeria and across the world, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria's president-elect, said it might be difficult to rescue the missing girls now.

"Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them. But I say to every parent, family member and friend of the children that my government will do everything in its power to bring them home," he said, adding, "I want to assure all, and particularly the parents, that when my new administration takes office at the end of May, we will do everything we can to defeat Boko Haram".

The Nigerian leader-in-waiting urged the citizens to remain steadfast with hope that the abducted school girls might join their families soon. "Let us use this anniversary to remind each other that the attack on Chibok was an attack on the dreams and aspirations of our young people. We stand united in our pledge to resist terror in Nigeria -- not just through military means but also through the power of opportunity and the hope of a better future for all," Buhari, who will take office on May 29, said.

It is no-brainer that parents and other relations of the 219 schoolgirls are still grieving, like a lingering tiresome bad dream that refuses to fade away, over the dusk attack of that fateful day. Not even the government's plan to reconstruct the razed Chibok school, through the Safe Schools Initiative Program, could assuage the pain and grief of the people in the last one year of the mindless abduction, Ba'ana Lawan, leader of the Chibok district of Borno State, told Xinhua in an interview.

He said losing promising schoolgirls, all preparing for their graduate examinations, to rampaging insurgents, was an incident the community never anticipated.

"Chibok community is still grieving over the missing children. The people here (in Chibok) are still grieving and will continue to be in grief until the girls are found and rescued," he added.

Esther Mutali, whose daughter, identified as Dorcas Yaqub, was among the kidnapped girls and still in Boko Haram's custody, said the event has brought more grief and sorrows to her life. Expressing hope that the girls might return someday, she said, till then, things may never be the same for her family.

As it is now, the hope that the girls would be rescued one day appears to be the only oil that keeps the parents' lamps burning.

Kashim Shettima, governor of the northeastern Borno State where the girls were abducted, blamed the central government -- which oversees security in the states -- for not putting up a good fight to rescue the teenagers.

He told Xinhua in an interview: "Vital hours were actually lost soon after the attack. Hours that might have paid off if the search for the girls was vigorously done within that time frame. For about two or three days the girls were at the bank of a river and some of the commanders were said to have gone into the hinterlands of Sambisa (a notorious Boko Haram camp) to get directives from their masters."

While the Bring Back Our Girls movement has launched various events to commemorate one year of the girls' unfortunate abduction, another group, BAOBAB for Women's Rights, also, on Tuesday, organized a commemorative program in Chibok Town, to impress on the authorities to intensify the rescue mission for the captives.

Borno State coordinator of the BAOBAB Women's Rights group Hauwa Biu called on the authorities to provide adequate security measures in all schools and colleges in the state.

Noting the longer it takes to rescue the missing girls, the greater the danger they will be exposed to, the rights group leader further urged the government to make adequate plans to cater for the needs and address the psychological trauma of their parents. Endi