'Why Chibok Girls Became Boko Haram's Lame Duck'

Fresh Facts have emerged on how parents and elders of Chibok, a town in Borno State, appealed to authorities not to relocate students of Government Girls Secondary School, (GGSS) Chibok where over 200 girls were abducted about three weeks ago.

Pointblanknews.com gathered that even though GGSS Chibok  was a girls's school, a large number of boys had been transferred to the school to write their Senior School Certificate (SSCE) examinations. None of the boys was abducted.

At the time of the attack, GGSS Chibok was one of the very few schools in session in Borno  State..

A senior government official told Pointblanknews.com  that prominent persons from Chobk piled pressure on Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima not to relocate students of the school.

The elders, according to the official, told Governor Shettima that Chibok was safer than Maiduguri and Biu, cities the governor had planned to send the students.

The elders were said to have warned the governor of the challenges relocating the student might pose to education officials of the state government.

Chibok elders, continued the source, pressed a request that makeshift  accommodation be provided their male children since the school was big enough to take more  students.

This request to expand GGSS Chibok,explained the source, was due to the closure oif several schools in other parts of the state considered unsafe.

He narrated; “Some two months ago, there was this fear that schools were going to be attacked, indeed, one was attacked in Konduga.

“After what happened in Yobe, the governor ordered all schools be closed. However, a decision was reached that an arrangement be made for all final year students to write their WAEC and NECO exams.

“The State ministry of education identified schools that were considered safe and students from other schools were secretly collapsed in safe schools so they could take their exams. The decision had to be made since the students had spent six years and loosing opportunities for WAEC and NECO exams could mean they would wait for another year before graduating. In some of the safe schools, final year students of up to four, five schools were moved to one centre,” the official offered.

He continued, “The government made a decision not to make this public so that insurgents do not go after the schools and attack them, therefore the decision was a guarded secret that even some government officials didn't know about it.

“GGSS Chibok was considered one of the safest schools, it was opened like some others in Uba, Askira, Maiduguri, Biu, Gworza and some other towns. Students from schools in Izge, Warabe,Lassa and Ashiga-Shiya were sent to one place and they were quietly writing their exams until that unfortunate attack of Tuesday, 14th of April, 2014″, the source disclosed.

According to the official, the Boko Haram only targeted the girls' hostel, a permanent structure”, stressing that the boys lived in makeshift hostels.

The source concluded that the committee set up by President Goodluck Jonathan on GGSS Chibok would vindicate  Bonro State government.