Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki, one of the kidnapped Chinook girls was found by members of a vigilante group on Tuesday on the edge of a Boko Haram stronghold after fleeing during an attack on the militants’ camp. She had a four-month-old girl with her, and a man she said was her husband.
Amina who had a brief reunion with family before being flown to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital so that she and her baby had medical checks and they were expected to be flown to Abuja today for a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to her brother, Amina was 17 when she was abducted and is now 19. Amina’s brother, Maina Ali, said she had been found trying to hide from the vigilantes. He said Nkeki had been brought back to her family home for a tearful reunion with her elderly, widowed mother, Binta Ali. Onlookers said that Ali shouted “Amina! Amina!” when he saw her, and that they nearly fell over as they hugged each other.
The man who claims to be her husband, Mohammed Hayatu, whom the army suspect is a Boko Haram fighter, is being investigated, according to Sani Kukasheka Usman, an army spokesman. “It should be noted that Mohammed Hayatu is well treated in line with Operation Lafiya Dole’s rules of engagement regarding insurgents who voluntarily surrender to the military,” he said.
Given Buhari’s claim in December that Boko Haram had “technically” been defeated because they were reduced to suicide missions and controlled no territory, Nkeki’s escape raises questions about the location of her fellow kidnapping victims and the thousands of others taken by Boko Haram.
Yakub Bulus, the father of another of the Chibok girls, said that the news brought him joy and hope that his daughter would be found.
“At least one of them has been found now, hopefully she will reveal where the others are, and with God they will all be found. My hope to see my daughter again has been strengthened,” he said.
According to activists, Nkeki said the rest of the Chibok girls were in the forest except for six, apparently killed in the same attack she had tried to escape. It is unclear who launched the attack on the Boko Haram camp; the army did not claim responsibility for it.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has attributed the success recorded in the fight against Boko Haram to elimination of corruption in the armed forces.
A statement issued in Abuja yesterday by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, said Buhari made the declaration while speaking with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed El-Tayeb,
Buhari said corruption was largely responsible for the inability of the Nigerian military to quickly defeat Boko Haram.
The president said the loss of 14 local government areas to Boko Haram had greatly tarnished the reputation of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
Buhari noted, however, that with measures taken by his administration to curb corruption and provide better weaponry, logistics, training and welfare for soldiers on the frontlines, the Nigerian military had almost totally incapacitated Boko Haram as a fighting force and recovered all territories that were lost to the terrorist sect.
