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Jahi Chikwendiu

There is something about kidnapping and rescue missions, particularly of children, that should stir the spirit.

Ten years ago this week, in the middle of the night in northeastern Nigeria, militants of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/11/nigeria-kaduna-kidnappings-chibok-schoolchildren/ab0e68f2-f7c1-11ee-9506-c8544e5c9d86_story.html" target=_blank>raided a boarding school</a> in Chibok and kidnapped some 276 girls.

It would take about two weeks for the news of the kidnapping to penetrate international media, and only then did local Nigerian outlets take the story seriously. Boko Haram had been ravaging the northern part of Nigeria since at least 2009, kidnapping children, burning churches and villages. Boko Haram is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people while taking control of entire swaths of northeast Nigeria.

The kidnapping led to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/05/nigeria-chibok-schoolgirls-kidnapping-boko-haram/e0bcaf9a-f311-11ee-a4c9-88e569a98b58_story.html" target="_blank">#BringBackOurGirls</a>, arguably the largest Africa-centered, grass-roots social media campaign ever. A decade later, it’s worth revisiting why #BringBackOurGirls was such a watershed moment, in Nigeria and for West Africa-watchers in the United States. In a world where military power is too often confused for strength, hostage situations reveal the true nature of governments. Any government that ignores the will of its citizens as they call for peace and safety is auto-programming its eventual system crash.

That’s how Nigeria’s elite sleepwalked to disaster. For years, while Boko Haram was ravaging lesser developed northern regions, the elite in Lagos and Abuja were complacent. Oby Ezekwesili, for one, recalled being furious and perplexed at the government’s inaction. Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian  education minister and a former vice president of the World Bank’s Africa division, recalled in an interview that the kidnapping was the last straw. “I was expecting the government to say that a tragedy occurred, and this is what we’re doing,” she told me. “But [instead], silence.” On the platform formerly known as Twitter, she saw video of “parents trying to run into some forest to look for their children.<i> </i>I was furious about this.”

At a book event with famed Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, Ezekwesili and other women used the platform to call attention to the missing girls. “We said, ‘Bring Back our Daughters,’ and someone at the event tweeted that I said “Bring Back Our Girls.” The slight misquote, converted to a hashtag, “caught fire,” Ezekwesili said.

Ezekwesili’s status as part of the elite no doubt helped raise the issue and prepared her for the next step:  turning the viral hashtag into a real-world force. She and other Nigerian women began to organize daily gatherings and protests urging the government to act and bring back the kidnapped school girls. But, Ezekwesili told me, then-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration was feckless as well as silent. Nigeria’s ill-equipped army in the north was outgunned and outmaneuvered by Boko Haram. “It was humiliating to see our soldiers running away from Boko Haram.”

The humiliation of Jonathan’s administration was global. In the United States, celebrities and politicians — led by first lady Michelle Obama — circulated the hashtag. The viral campaign in turn put pressure on the White House to send more military assistance to Nigeria, even though U.S. officials had restricted arms transfers because of the army’s abuses against civilians.

The simultaneous rise of ISIS and other Islamist insurgencies in the Middle East further heightened the pressure. The brutal kidnapping of the Chibok girls stoked fears of Islamist forces taking over the Middle East, Africa and Europe. I traveled to northeastern Nigeria in 2015 and talked with Nigerian military officers who were frustrated with America for being slow to give material  support. “The Chinese come here and build roads; the Americans come here and give lectures.” I remember one of them telling me.

Inevitably, perhaps, the world’s attention moved on from Chibok, though the activism continued. Ezekwesili and other women showed up daily at the Unity Fountain in the capital, Abuja, for nearly seven years, until covid forced people inside in 2020.

At last count, Boko Haram has killed more than 350,000 people. And <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/decade-tragedy-nigerias-chibok-girls-endures-outside-spotlight-2024-04-11/?taid=6617cc1a95723a00013db9b2&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter" target=_blank>90 of these kidnapped girls, who are now women, are still in captivity.</a> “Kidnappings are now more commonplace in Nigeria,” Ezekwesili told me. So was the activism, the hashtag and the global spotlight worth nothing?

I’m not ready to say that. It is remarkable to contemplate the power that social media — especially Twitter at its best — had to generate international empathy. At least for a number of months, the world cared about poor Nigerian girls neglected, and even forgotten, by their own government.

Ezekwesili believes that the past 10 years have shown that there’s only one way things will truly change for the better. “We need a completely new political class, to replace what we have,” she said. “We need a politics of care.”

2019 George Polk Special Award

2019 Journalist of the Year, National Association of Black Journalists

2019 Harriet Beecher Stowe Freedom Writer Award

The Root 100, 2019

Essence Magazine, "Woke 100", 2019

Salute to Excellence Award for Digital Commentary, National Association of Black Journalists 2018

Say Your Word, Then Leave 

Northwestern University, BA in communication studies, minor in African Studies

Columbia University, master's in international affairs

Karen Attiah is a columnist for The Washington Post and writes a weekly newsletter. She writes on international affairs, culture and social issues. Previously, she reported from Curacao, Ghana and Nigeria. 

Karen Attiah

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Lessons of #bringbackourgirls 10 years later

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Bring Our Girls Back Protest at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC

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