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Essay: Nigeria – We must not stop calling and praying for Leah Sharibu’s freedom

Leah Sharibu1

With her 18th birthday marked by campaigners last week, ELLIS HEASLEY, of UK-based religious freedom advocacy CSW, looks at the case of Nigerian woman Leah Sharibu, kidnapped in February, 2018, from her school…

Last Friday – 14th May – was Nigerian Christian teenager Leah Sharibu’s 18th birthday. It should have been a day of celebration with family and friends, a day of joy to mark her official passage into adulthood, but for Leah this was not possible. Instead, she spent her birthday in the same way as she has done for the past three years: in the captivity of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Leah was one of 110 schoolgirls abducted by ISWAP – an offshoot of the notorious Boko Haram terrorist group – from their school in Dapchi, Yobe State, in February, 2018. Five of her classmates lost their lives in transit, but on 19th March, 2018, just over a month after their abduction, the government negotiated the release of the remaining girls and they were put into trucks to be returned to their families.

Leah Sharibu1

 

UK Leah Sharibu protest

Top – Leah Sharibu; Below – protesters outside the Nigerian High Commission in the UK, February 2021. PICTURES: Supplied.

 

“In the years since her abduction, CSW has remained committed to consistent prayer and advocacy for Leah’s release. Protests have been held outside the Nigerian High Commission in London on multiple occasions, including in February, 2020, to mark the second anniversary of her kidnapping.”

Leah was not among them, however. As the sole Christian in her group, the terrorists had demanded that she renounce her faith and convert in exchange for her freedom. In a show of inspirational bravery and faith, Leah, who was just 14 at the time, refused.

Although the Nigerian Government, including President Muhammadu Buhari himself, have repeatedly promised to do everything in their power to secure her release, Leah has remained an ISWAP captive ever since. Several months after her abduction, ISWAP declared that Leah would be their “slave for life”, along with Christian nurse Alice Ngaddah, who was abducted in March 2018 with two female Muslim colleagues, who were later executed for alleged apostasy.

In the years since her abduction, CSW has remained committed to consistent prayer and advocacy for Leah’s release. Protests have been held outside the Nigerian High Commission in London on multiple occasions, including in February 2020 to mark the second anniversary of her kidnapping. 

There, we were joined by Leah’s mother Rebecca, who told those gathered: “We don’t know where Leah is, we don’t know the condition or the situation that Leah is in…I’m pleading with [the UK] Government and with our Nigerian Government, with President Buhari…to fulfil his promises that he has made to me personally, that he is going to rescue Leah and ensure that she is released, and not just Leah, all the others in captivity.”

It is from these words, and Leah’s own powerful faith and bravery, that we must draw inspiration as we remain unbowed in the pursuit of Leah’s immediate release. There is an urgent need to hold the Nigerian Government to account for its failures to negotiate her freedom, amid a wider inadequate handling of the ongoing security crisis in the country.



Many others like Leah also remain in captivity, held by one of the two factions of Boko Haram. These include an estimated 112 of the 276 Chibok girls who were infamously abducted in April, 2014. Elsewhere in the country, armed groups primarily comprising individuals of Fulani ethnicity are also responsible for widespread abductions for ransom, as well as extensive killings and the looting of villages. Often attacks take place in areas where there is a high security presence, and yet the authorities appear to make little effort to prevent these abductions, or to hold perpetrators to account. 

It is essential that we continue to pray for Leah, all those held captive like her, and the wider security situation in Nigeria. While COVID restrictions prevented CSW from organising an in-person protest to mark her 18th birthday, we instead held a global prayer event like no other, which consisted of a global wave of prayer starting in South-East Asia and finishing in Latin America, via the UK, the US and Nigeria.

The event also saw the release of a song written especially for Leah by Nigerian Gospel singer Panam Percy Paul, which is aptly-titled Heroes of Faith. The chorus reads:

Heroes of faith. The scar from the battle is their greatest title, not silver or gold.
Heroes of Faith. Their greatest reward is the cross and the word, not riches untold.
When all is said and done, their light keeps shining on.

Leading on from this initiative, over the next month CSW aims to encourage 10,000 people to pledge to pray for Leah and other heroes of faith. You can sign up to do this here.

Ellis Heasley is public affairs officer at UK-based religious freedom advocacy CSW.

 

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