(LifeSiteNews) — A Nigerian state government is reportedly supportive of Jihadists’ marriage to girls they kidnapped and converted to Islam.
In 2014, 276 schoolgirls, mostly Christian, were captured from a secondary school in the city of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria, by the jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram. Many of the girls have since been released after government negotiations, and some have escaped their captors.
However, 82 girls remain captive in Boko Haram hideouts in the Sambisa Forest, and 20 girls who were released into the custody of the Borno state government remain married to their captors. The couples are being housed in Borno’s capital, the city of Maiduguri, in housing provided by the state’s governor, Babagana Umaru Zulum, apparently under the condition that the militants undergo a “deradicalization” government program first.
Sources believe that the Borno state government’s tacit endorsement of the marriages is part of an effort to appease the Muslim militants and to “stabilize” the region, which has been plagued by violence committed by Boko Haram especially since 2014. The government has also launched “Operation Safe Corridor” to “rehabilitate and reintegrate” so-called “repentant” terrorists to serve this goal.
Rev. Ali Dikwa, the Director General Centre for Justice on Religious and Ethnicity in Nigeria, recently told the Nigerian newspaper Daybreak that the Borno state government is “taking instructions from the so-call repentant Boko-Haram and ISWAP terrorists groups,” and believes it is “one of the reasons the state refused to release” 20 rescued Chibok school girls — and their children, fathered by the jihadists — to their parents.
This accusation accords with those recently made by criminologist Emeka Umeagbalassi, director of the Catholic–inspired NGO the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law. Emeka recently told Crux Now that the Nigerian military has become “a branch of a government jihad, a state jihad.” He cited frequent kidnappings by Jihadists despite pervasive military roadblocks, noting it is sometimes “strongly suspected that those kidnappers grease the palms of the military after any successful operation.”
While the extent of government cooperation with Jihadist terrorists such as Boko Haram fighters remains unclear, reports have emerged that at least some of the young women who were kidnapped 10 years ago have willingly embraced their marriage to their Muslim captors.
One of the women, Aisha Graema, told the BBC that she would not have left the Boko Haram hideout if she could not remain with the jihadist she married two years after she was kidnapped from school in Chibok.
“I first came out of the forest and then he followed me. There in the bush, we had no relatives, no brother, no sister, that is why we decided to come out,” she shared.
“He finished deradicalisation before we were allowed to stay together. The government welcomed us well, gave us food, shelter, everything.”
Another abducted girl, Mary Dauda, said she would not have been able to escape the jihadist forest camp without her husband.
“We had agreed that he would join me afterwards and present himself to the governor for rehabilitation,” said Dauda, who is now 27 years old.
Surrendered Boko Haram militants as well as their long-term captives are taken to rehabilitation camps for weeks under “Operation Safe Corridor,” after which they are reintegrated into society. The program has been sharply denounced for insufficiently chastising murderers while neglecting reparation to victims.
Zuwaira Gambo, Borno state commissioner for women affairs and social development who has been assigned to oversee the welfare of the 20 most recently freed young women, says they have freely embraced a life with their Muslim captors.
“They are the ones that insisted that without their husbands they will not stay in Maiduguri,” Gambo told the BBC. “I asked them, ‘How can you want to stay with this man who destroyed your life?’ and they told me, ‘You will not understand.'”
The young ladies’ decisions have deeply distressed many of their parents, as has the government’s apparent complicity in the marriages, which some have accused of being forced.
Mr. Yama Bullum is among the number of Chibok parents who are “disturbed by what seems to be the Nigerian government’s approval” of these marriages, according to the BBC.
“I am not happy with what the governor did. The girls managed to come out of the forest and the governor married them off again. Her mother is very angry,” Bullum said.
Other parents have expressed dismay over the women’s continued practice of Islam.
“Some people in Chibok are saying: ‘How is it possible after the rescue of the girls they are still remaining in the Muslim faith?'” Yakubu Nkeki, chairman of the Chibok parents’ association, told the BBC.
Leah Sharibu, one of the abducted schoolgirls, reportedly rejected the jihadists’ attempts to convert her to Islam and is demanding to be returned to her parents. Activist and Borno Christian Rev. Kallamu Musa Ali Dikwa told Daybreak that government officials “refused to bring Leah Sharibu out to the public as a rescued person when they noticed that ‘she will not agree to stay in their custody like the other 17 rescued Chibok school girls.’”
Daybreak shared a report that the Borno state government has in fact employed Muslim clerics to “brainwas(h)” the girls with “radical Islamic teachings” that have convinced them not to return to their parents.
“They were made to believe that since they have accepted Islam as their religion, they now have new parents in Islam i.e. the Borno State Muslim political leaders,” Rev. Dikwa said.
Bullum’s daughter has become estranged from her family after her own Muslim “re-education.” She declined to comment to the BBC about the situation, except to say that “her relationship with her parents is no one else’s business and how happy she is that her kidnapping led to her finding the ‘true religion,’” the news outlet reported.
“She doesn’t want to have anything to do with us at all,” said her father, who BBC correspondent Adaobi Nwaubani described as “clearly distressed.”
Violence against Christians by Jihadist militants remains a huge problem in Nigeria. Last week, over 70 Christians were killed and 20 Catholic medical students were kidnapped in Benue state alone, according to Crux Now.
A primary perpetrator of the violence is the terrorist group Boko Haram, which means “Western Education is forbidden.” They aim to overthrow the current Nigerian government and replace it with their own, based on Islamic law.