Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili is an economic policy expert, an advocate for transparency, accountability, good governance and human capital development, a humanitarian and an activist. She is a former vice president for the World Bank, co-founder and founding director of Transparency International, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and has served twice as federal Minister in Nigeria. She is also the founder of #FixPolitics Initiative, a research-based citizen-led initiative, the School of Politics Policy and Governance (SPPG), and Human Capital Africa.
Chibok is a Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria, located in the southern part of the state. It has its headquarters in the town of Chibok.
Yvonne Ndege is an international journalist, and media and communications professional. She started her career at the British Broadcasting Corporation, as a graduate trainee in London, United Kingdom.
Zain Ejiofor Asher is a British news anchor at CNN International, based in New York City. She currently co-anchors the network's primetime, global news show One World with Zain and Bianna airing weekdays at 12pm ET with Bianna Golodryga. Her memoir Where The Children Take Us was published by HarperCollins in April 2022.
Ramaa Devi Mosley is an American filmmaker, director, and writer based in Los Angeles. She began directing commercials, music videos, and documentaries at the age of 16. She is also an activist, known for raising national and international awareness about the importance of education of girls globally. She has supported the victims of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in Nigeria by using social media to raise global awareness.
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group called Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.
Hadiza Bala Usman is a Nigerian politician who served as managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority from 2016 to 2021. She previously served as the chief of staff to the governor of Kaduna State from 2015 to 2016. She was appointed special adviser on policy coordination to President Bola Tinubu in June 2023 together with Hannatu Musawa.
Chikaodinaka Sandra Oduah is a Nigerian-American journalist, poet and cultural entrepreneur who has worked as a television news producer, correspondent, writer and photographer. She is the founder of Zikora Media & Arts, which operates as a media production company and a cultural institution. Oduah was formerly a correspondent for VICE News. Known for her unique human-focused ethnographic reporting style with an anthropological approach, she was awarded a CNN Multichoice African Journalist Award in 2016. Upon the abduction of 276 schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria, she was the first international journalist to visit and spend extensive time in the remote community of Chibok. Her thorough and exclusive coverage of the mass kidnapping won her the Trust Women "Journalist of The Year Award" from the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2014. Oduah's reporting explores culture, history, conflict, human rights, and development to capture the complexities, hopes and everyday realities of Africans and people of African descent.
Vladimir Duthiers is an American television journalist who has been a correspondent for CBS News since 2014 following five years at CNN. He was a member of the CNN team that won two Emmy Awards for its coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and he won a Peabody Award for his coverage from Nigeria of the kidnapping of the schoolgirls by Boko Haram.
Amina Ali Nkeki is a Nigerian former hostage of Boko Haram. She was one of 276 female students the group kidnapped from Chibok in 2014. After 57 of the girls escaped in the first few months, the remaining 219 were held for several years. Of this larger group, Ali was the first freed. She was found on 17 May 2016 by Civilian Joint Task Force along with a four-month-old child and an alleged Boko Haram member, Mohammed Hayatu, who described himself as her husband. All three were severely malnourished.
Tosin "OloriSuperGal" Ajibade is a Nigerian known for her lifestyle and entertainment website, OloriSuperGal.com and recently her personal website, TosinAjibade.com. She is also the organizer of the New Media Conference that is held annually in Nigeria.
Operation Turus is the code name of the British military operation to assist Nigeria during the Boko Haram insurgency. It was launched in April 2014 by Prime Minister David Cameron in response to the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping which saw over a hundred schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, a jihadist terrorist organisation in northeastern Nigeria. Initial efforts were focused on the search for the missing schoolgirls, with the UK deploying military specialists, satellite imagery and reconnaissance aircraft from the Royal Air Force. According to a source quoted in The Observer, the UK successfully located the missing schoolgirls and offered to rescue them but this offer was rejected by the Nigerian government which considered it a national issue. Most of the schoolgirls remain missing.
On February 19, 2018, at 5:30 pm, 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years old were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls' Science and Technical College (GGSTC). Dapchi is located in Bulabulin, Bursari Local Government area of Yobe State, in the northeast part of Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria deployed the Nigerian Air Force and other security agencies to search for the missing schoolgirls and to hopefully enable their return. The governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, blamed Nigerian Army soldiers for having removed a military checkpoint from the town. Dapchi lies approximately 275 km northwest of Chibok, where over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.
Joel Kachi Benson is a Nigerian documentary filmmaker and virtual reality content creator. In 2019, he produced Daughters of Chibok, a virtual reality film on the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping. He is the Creative Director of virtual reality film studios VR360 Stories in Lagos, Nigeria.
Daughters of Chibok is an 11-minute Nigerian short film. The virtual reality documentary tells the story of Yana Galang, whose daughter, Rifkatu, was among the 276 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014 from their school dormitory in Chibok, northeast Nigeria. The film was made to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping.
Yemi Adamolekun is executive director of Enough is Enough. She campaigns for better governance in Nigeria and is also a senior associate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She participates in political discussions and was awarded a Global Citizen Prize in 2022.
Slavery has existed in various forms throughout the history of Nigeria, notably during the Atlantic slave trade and Trans-Saharan trade. Slavery is now illegal internationally and in Nigeria. However, legality is often overlooked with different pre-existing cultural traditions, which view certain actions differently. In Nigeria, certain traditions and religious practices have led to "the inevitable overlap between cultural, traditional, and religious practices as well as national legislation in many African states" which has had the power to exert extra-legal control over many lives resulting in modern-day slavery. The most common forms of modern slavery in Nigeria are human trafficking and child labor. Because modern slavery is difficult to recognize, it has been difficult to combat this practice despite international and national efforts.
Girl is a 2019 novel by Irish author Edna O'Brien. The book's plot is inspired by the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in Nigeria, and is narrated by a fictional victim, Maryam.
The Zamfara kidnapping was the abduction of 279 female students aged between 10 and 17 during a raid by armed bandits on 26 February 2021. The kidnapping occurred at the Government Girls Science Secondary School, a boarding school in Jangebe, in Zamfara State, Nigeria. All hostages were released by the bandits on 2 March 2021, though claims vary as to the negotiation methods used by the Nigerian government in order to facilitate their release.
Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode is a Nigerian lawyer, entrepreneur, author, activist and philanthropist. She is currently the Group chief executive officer of Asset Management Group Limited and the chief executive officer of Murtala Muhammed Foundation.
