WO caught up with Helon Habila, Professor of Literature at George Mason University,  USA, Caine Prize winner and former Vanguard editor whose book,  The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria published in 2016, continues to make waves around the world.

It has been six years since the infamous heist of the Chibok girls. They are all but forgotten. Is there any need at this point to try and get the world’s attention?

There will always be a need to get the world’s attention. You have to realize that this is not a one-off thing—terrorism is still with us, slavery is still with us, sex trafficking is still with us.

The specific situation of the Chibok may be a bit of old news, but the underlying conditions and injustices that made it possible are still here. Until we overcome that we will still continue to invoke the name of the Chibok Girls.

READ ALSO: We have not forgotten Chibok girls – Buhari

Their name will become a symbol, a metaphor, for similar injustices around the world.

And of course some of them are still unaccounted for. Plus, the perpetrators are still out there.

You were in North Eastern Nigeria to research your book, ‘The Chibok Girls…’. Did you find out anything you didn’t know about the region prior to this?

Not really. I was born in the region and I grew up there. Of course there were places I had never been to prior to the research, but I knew about the region generally and culturally.

It is always an eye opener to travel even within your own state—I saw anew the poverty and insecurity and illiteracy that were the underlying conditions that gave birth to the rise of Boko Haram.

These conditions are still there and until they are addressed the problem will never go away. We have two Nigerias: there’s the forgotten Nigeria where people struggle to eat, where school is a luxury, where there are no hospitals and people die from the simplest of ailments, where people still don’t have access to roads and other amenities; then there is the other Nigeria where all these things are taken for granted.

Despite the massive amount of attention drawn to the incidence by the #bringbackourgirls campaign and an incredible amount of effort, over a hundred girls are still missing. Why do you think this is so?

I am not of the exact figure, but you have to blame the Nigerian government for its failure to act quickly and decisively. Jonathan failed to respond adequately, turning the whole thing into politics.

Buhari came in, started well, but then he seemed to have lost all interest. Under his watch actually more girls were abducted, though most of them were returned, Leah Sharibu is still unaccounted for.

Our best efforts are always undermined by corruption and plain inefficiency. As a result lives will continue to be lost.

Not just the lives of the Chibok girls, but lives of everyday Nigerians who are being kidnapped or simply gunned down as they go about their daily activities. The government is either unable, or has simply lost the will to fight insecurity in the country.

This year, the presidency has acknowledged the ‘anniversary’ yet has essentially pushed it to the back burner in the face of COVID-19. Was this necessary?

I guess the whole world was blindsided by Covid-19, but that shouldn’t be a reason for for forgetting about the girls.

The last time the government did anything about the girls was back in 2017 when 87 girls were released. So they can’t really blame Covid-19 for the failure in negotiations.

READ ALSO: Why no government delegation at 6th-yr anniversary of Chibok Girls abduction ― Buhari

Women and girls in North Eastern Nigeria have slept with one eye open since the snatching of the Chibok girls, what has the greater power to change this in the long term: education of infrastructure?

Education is number one. Everything else is secondary. People flock to the Islamist’s ideology because they don’t know any better.

Without education there are fewer opportunities and where there are no opportunities people will take whatever they can get to survive, even if it means following outlier philosophies like Boko Haram’s.

Also, no democracy can ever work without education, and at its root the rise of Boko Haram has to do with the failure of democracy. People felt marginalized and without options, while the politicians lived ostentatious life styles on ill-gotten wealth, and so it was easy to convince them that their enemy is democracy and government and any form of western progressive idea.

The education of the girl child is especially important because an educated mother means an educated family.

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