Nigeria’s First Lady, Remi Tinubu, has stated that some of the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in 2014 allegedly declined rescue after developing emotional ties with their captors
Speaking during a recent visit to the United States, as reported by The Free Press, Mrs Tinubu said authorities initially continued efforts to secure the release of the remaining girls but later discovered that several were unwilling to return.
“Even those girls kidnapped during Chibok, they are still trying to rescue them, until they learned recently that most of them fell in love with their abductors, so that’s quite difficult. You know, they refuse to come back.”
According to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 91 of the 276 girls taken from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, remain in captivity.
Mrs Tinubu, who attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the U.S., said part of her mission was to address what she described as “recent hype on social media that there is Christian genocide.”
The abduction occurred in April 2014 when Boko Haram stormed the school, seizing 276 students in what became one of Nigeria’s most high-profile mass kidnappings. Over the years, about 189 of the girls have regained freedom, either through military operations or by escaping from captivity.
When approached for clarification, the Nigerian Army said it could not immediately verify the First Lady’s remarks. The Army spokesperson, Onyechi Anele, responded, “How do I confirm this now?” and said she would check and revert, but later did not respond to follow-up calls.
In 2025, the National Coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, Major-General Adamu Laka, said the federal government and security agencies had not abandoned efforts to secure the remaining captives.
“We have not given up hope on them; some of them were married to some of the insurgents. Some have come out. But let our focus not only on the Chibok girls because there are others that have been kidnapped,” he said while addressing journalists.
The Chibok abduction remains a defining moment in Nigeria’s fight against insurgency, more than a decade after the girls were taken.
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