Orafiri Koko

A Trail of Broken Promises: How the Nigerian Government failed the Chibok Girls

Started Apr. 26, 2022

Abstract or project description

In April 2014, the Nigerian terrorist group, Boko Haram kidnapped 279 girls from Chibok in Borno state. In the wake of this attack, efforts to unite these girls with their families gained traction all over the world with the hashtag “BringBackOurGirls”, unifying the world for this common cause. Prior research on the topic mainly discusses the role of Twitter and Instagram in aiding the movement's popularity, however, this article aims at taking this discussion further by examining the reasons why in spite of the movement’s global popularity, almost 100 Chibok girls are still missing today. This paper’s goal is to highlight areas of government shortcomings in dealing with terrorist attacks and open up new discussions on the Nigerian government’s role in responding to attacks of this manner. It will mostly analyze primary sources such as newspaper articles and diary entries, however the literature on social movement success will be reviewed as well. Thus, this article argues that despite the movement’s global traction, nationalistic ideologies and the respective political agendas of presidents Jonathan and Buhari curbed the movement’s goal of liberating all the Chibok girls.