By Beevan Magoni
I was going about my work as a vendor, preparing citations for the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN), when suddenly I heard the announcement:
“The next awardee is receiving the Esther Order of Merit… She is the mother of the missing Dapchi girl, Leah Sharibu.”
The room fell silent. A wave of tension swept over everyone.
This was not an ordinary name.
This was Leah, the teenage Christian girl who refused to renounce her Christian faith after being kidnapped by Boko Haram.
This wasn’t IPOB fighting for secession in the South-East.
This wasn’t some group of yahoo boys.
This wasn’t everyday kidnapping.
This was Boko Haram. Men who kill without mercy.
They told her “Just say La ilaha illallah and we will free you with your schoolmates.”
She answered, “I will not.”
They begged, threatened, terrorized, “We’ll let you return to your mother. To your father. Your brothers and sisters. Your entire community will rejoice. Just denounce Jesus.”
She whispered back, “I will not denounce Jesus.”
They raised the stakes “We rape. We torture. We kill. We are Boko Haram. We will marry you off. We will pass you around.”
And right there, in their camp, a teenage girl began to sing, “I love Jesus… He’s my friend… I’ll never leave Him.”
The camp roared, “Allahu akbar!”
Their leader stepped forward and declared, “Release the other girls. Leave her behind.”
And so Leah stayed… alone.
One commander after another came forward to claim her.
She was still just 14.
A girl with dreams the dreams of being a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a broadcaster were shattered in a moment.
She bore her first child.
Then the second.
Her “husband,” a terrorist commander, was eventually killed.
Leah became a widow in the most tragic way a child can.
She was sold again. Another commander. Another child.
And then the updates stopped.
Silence.
A disappearance.
Back at the ceremony, as her mother’s name was read, I flipped through my folder and realized her name had been deliberately omitted for security reasons. Yet she had been called forward. The air was thick with emotion.
The presenter said “We give this award not because we accept what happened to her daughter, but because we are proud that she raised a child who has become a global icon. The world honours the daughter she brought into this world.”
And this was more than an award.
It was the launch of a new fund. A scholarship initiative for 1,000 children in IDP camps across Northern Nigeria. From secondary school to tertiary education. The goal? That ten years from now, those same children return and rebuild the communities destroyed by terror.
Former President Jonathan built Almajiri schools.
Where are they today?
You had a chance to take millions of children off the streets. Children who could have become doctors, lawyers, pilots, leaders. But they were left to roam. To beg. To be used, abused, and exploited, even by paedophiles.
Think about it: You are educated. Did you really believe a child born, weened, and abandoned on the streets could never be recruited for jihad?
You left them to rot. And now their anger, trauma, and pain are turning into fire. Today it is “the infidels.” Tomorrow it is you. Or your child. Or your community. We are all becoming victims.
But guess what? In 20 years’ time, the orphans will be wiser, and no counsel of Ahithophel shall prevail!
@Beevan Magoni
