Chibok: The Man Who Returned With Ruth Pogu Is Not Her Husband

By Reuben Buhari

It was night and the female students of Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok, Borno State had retired for the night on 14th April 2014.

Suddenly, Boko Haram terrorists invaded and violently abducted 276 girls from the school. Parents were thrown into unimaginable anguish.

Innocent girls, mostly 15 – 18 years found themselves among heartless extremists without regard to the sanctity of life, decency or morality. Some escaped, some died and the number dropped to about 112.

Then on 8th August, 2021 news broke that Ruth Pogu Ngladar, one of the abducted girls and her ‘husband’ had surrendered to the security men.

Good news, but far from the issue.

What’s the issue you ask? That appellation ‘husband’ that some have conveniently used for the man who surrendered with her. Amazingly, most do not even see the incongruousness of that appellation within the accepted norms of civility.

This man with others abducted these girls, took them away from their parents, school, and society, and forced them to another life different from theirs.

He took her as his wife without her consent or her parents, and for seven years kept her as a prisoner and a sex booty from the spoils of war. Then surfaced two days ago and some are calling him her husband.

 

How?

Calculate the number of violations and you would have a good idea of the number of legal charges that are hanging on his head.

How Nigeria’s mode of justice cuddles such characters under the stupefying justification of ‘repentant’ terrorists tells why safe space keeps contracting to the detriment of us all, especially the victims.

Great that they came back, but to be qualified to be called her husband, let him go back to Chibok, sprawl before Ruth’s parents and formally ask for her hand in marriage.

If Ruth agrees, good, if she doesn’t, even better. But that man isn’t her husband under all the civilised matrimonial institutions that I know.

Let her go back and pick the pieces of her life and let the man go back and stand before the laws of the land. The nonsense approved in Sambisa by terrorists shouldn’t be condoned by decent humans in a sane environment!”

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