Leah Sharibu's mother plans to meet with Boris Johnson to help secure her daughters release

LEAH Sharibu's mother Rebecca intends holding a meeting with British prime minister Boris Johnson over the next few days to help secure the release of her daughter as she is getting exasperated with what she described as the inaction of President Muhammadu Buhari.

In 2018, Leah was kidnapped along with several of her classmates from Dapchi in Yobe State but was not released with the others after she allegedly refused to renounce her Christian faith. Despite a concerted international campaign calling for her release, Boko Haram have kept her in captivity and in January this year, it emerged that she had given birth to a baby son.

Speaking in an interview with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, Rebecca said that President Buhari was not serious about securing the release of her daughter. She added that she was in London to seek the assistance of the British government in freeing Leah from the terrorists’ captivity.

According to Mrs Sharibu, President Buhari did not contact their family until seven months after the abduction of their daughter. She also lamented the fact that after the president contacted her and sent down three ministers to visit, she has not heard anything despite assurances then that Leah was going to be released soon.

Mrs Sharibu said: “I have come to Britain to lay my complaints as I need their help. They should help me, I will like my daughter to be freed from captivity.

 “My daughter was abducted among others by Boko Haram terrorists, it was seven months later that President Muhammadu Buhari called me. When he called me, he told me that my daughter would return, that she would not stay long.

“Two weeks later, he sent three ministers to our house and they corroborated what Mr President had told me. The ministers reiterated that Leah would be returned to me, shortly."

She added that the ministers were in her house to reassure her that her daughter would soon return but since that day, she never heard anything again from the government. Mrs Sharibu, however, commended a non-governmental organisation, Leah Foundation established in honour of her daughter, saying that, the foundation had been of great assistance to the family.

“Leah Foundation is helping us by sponsoring some girls, even my trip to London, they assisted. Recently, we were assisted by them,” she said.

Leah was among 110 schoolgirls abducted on February 19, 2018 by Boko Haram terrorists from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe State. In March 2018, the federal government announced the insurgents had returned 106 of the kidnapped schoolchildren but that Leah was not among them.

Apparently, Leah, who was 14 years old at the time she was kidnapped, was not released because she refused to convert to Islam. In January, it was reported that she delivered a baby boy for a Bioko Haram commander in Niger Republic.