ABUJA – Aisha Musa Maina digs through an old bag looking for memories of her daughter Hauwa, one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped five years ago by Boko Haram jihadists in northeastern Nigeria.
Their plight moved the world and became a key election issue for President Muhammadu Buhari who was elected a year later on the promise of defeating Boko Haram and returning the girls safe and sound. In a propaganda video broadcast by Boko Haram in January 2018, 14 women claiming to be Chibok girls, three of whom held babies, warned their families they would not be coming home.
"We aren't losing hope but we are appealing to the government to invest more effort to bring back our girls and reunite us," he added. Now, the girls' plight takes its place alongside the many other tragedies in this country of 190 million plagued by crime and conflict.