Indoctrinated Chibok Girls, By Oseni Obaro

When news of abduction of over 200 girls writing WASSCE exams in their school by men suspected to be Boko Haram broke, well-meaning Nigerians, families and friends of the abducted girls never envisaged that the rescue of their loved and little ones would take more than a month.
Nigerians who had thought that the girls would either be released or rescued within days had to swallow their ‘pills’, as it took the Federal Government, which controls the federal security agencies and whose authority it is to issue a word of command to such agencies on time, more than two (2) weeks to come to terms with the reality and authenticity of the abduction. Most Nigerians are of the opinion that a prompt and timely rescue effort would have brought back our girls, days after their abduction.

The girls have now spent more than 80 days in captivity, and yet, little or nothing has been heard or known about their well being, their whereabouts and hopes of them being released or rescued.
Instead of doing something concrete about this national embarrassment which has generated global outcry and exposed the lacuna in our national security system, they have resorted to playing politics with it. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have accused the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and its leaders of trying to score political points with the unfortunate incidence, and vice-versa. The embarrassing war of words between the Federal and the Borno State governments cannot go unmentioned, as time continues to tick away while the innocent girls spend longer time in company of their abductors.
The prolonged abduction of the over 200 Chibok girls could dramatically alter and change their perspective and orientation. One of the videos released by their captors showed that the girls have already learned to recite some verses of the Quran. The longer the girls are kept by their abductors, the higher the potential of their being hypnotized and brainwashed into accepting and imbibing radicalism and terrorism. This means that the innocent girls who were abducted over two months ago may no longer be innocent after all. They are young girls in their teens with open and vulnerable minds.
The President has finally issued the word of command directing the military and other security agencies to search and rescue of the girls. One important thing, however, that everyone directly or indirectly involved in the rescue effort understands is, that the Chibok girls who would come out of captivity would not be the same girls that went into captivity. They might already be indoctrinated by Boko Haram.
Therefore, extreme caution should be taken as we patiently await the return of our girls from captivity. The services of psychiatrist, psychologist, guardian counselors and religious leaders should be put on standby to begin work immediately these girls are returned. Everything the Boko Haram have taught, indoctrinated and brainwashed them into believing and accepting has to be neutralized and desensitized as a matter of urgency.
Failure to do this will not only be counter-productive to Nigeria’s fight against terrorism and Boko Haram; this could mean we would have brought a female version of Boko Haram into our midst and the mothers of the next generation of terrorists would be living among us, especially with the recent arrest of about three alleged female Boko Haram members.