A United Nations report has revealed that the Nigerian government paid huge sums in ransom to secure the release of the over 100 school girls kidnapped on February 19 by the Boko Haram terrorist group from Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State.
One hundred and ten girls aged between 11 and 19 were snatched from the school, but on March 21, the federal government announced that Boko Haram had retuned 106 of the girls, insisting that it paid no ransom for their safe return.
But in the “Twenty-second report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities,” which was submitted to the UN Security Council released July 27, 2018 but monitored thursday, the world body said a “large ransom” was paid by the Nigerian government to obtain release of the Dapchi schoolgirls.
The report said, “In Nigeria, 111 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi were kidnapped on 18 February 2018 and released by ISWAP on 21 March 2018 in exchange for a large ransom payment.”
It frowned on the payment of ransoms to terrorists, saying it fuels terrorism.
According to the report signed by Coordinator of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Edmund Fitton-Brown, and Chair of the Security Council Committee, Kairat Umarov, “Boko Haram (QDe.138) and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have had a similar impact in their areas of control, including the Lake Chad basin.
“The predominance in the region of the cash economy, without controls, is conducive to terrorist groups funded by extortion, charitable donations, smuggling, remittances and kidnapping.”
The UN Security Council had last week expressed concern about the security and humanitarian catastrophe caused by Boko Haram and other armed groups in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. It said in a presidential statement, “The Security Council strongly condemns all terrorist attacks carried out in the region, including those perpetrated by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Daesh).
“These attacks have caused large-scale and devastating losses, have had a devastating humanitarian impact including through the displacement of a large number of civilians in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, and represent a threat to the stability and peace of West and Central Africa.
“The Council notes with particular concern the continuing use by Boko Haram of women and girls as suicide bombers, which has created an atmosphere of suspicion towards them and made them targets of harassment and stigmatisation in affected communities, and of arbitrary arrests by security forces.
“The Council emphasises the need for affected States to counterterrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including by addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, in accordance with obligations under international law, in particular international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law.”
