Boko Haram: Leah Sharibu is doing fine, though I didn’t see her – says Jennifer Samuel, rescued aid worker

By Dickson S. Adama, Jos

Jennifer Ukambong Samuel, the Plateau State indigene and aid worker attached to Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), who was released to her family recently by the Boko Haram insurgents, has disclosed that the missing Dapchi schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, is doing fine in captivity.

She disclosed this on Sunday in Jos, Plateau state capital, after she was reunited with her family. Daily Trust reports that Jennifer was abducted alongside eight others in the Northeast last December. She was abducted along Borno-Monguno road enroute Jos at about 8am by the insurgents in military uniforms after stopping several other cars, profiling occupants of the cars, releasing some, shooting some others on the tarred road, for reasons unknown to her, before leading the rest of them into the bush and then transiting to the camp.

Her arrival sparked jubilation among her family members, nursing-colleagues, friends, neighbours, the government and many Plateau indigenes.

Recounting her experience in captivity, she said it was a miracle to be released and alive because others whom she met in captivity were still there.

She said she did not see Leah Sharibu, the only remaining girl in captivity of the 110 schoolgirls abducted by insurgents from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yunusari Local Government Area of Yobe State. But she said she was told by Alice, who has also being in captivity for about two years now that Leah is doing fine. When asked by our reporter whether she saw the Chibok girls, she said she didn’t.

According to her, the reason why Alice was still held back was because negotiation for her release between the insurgents and the government broke down and the insurgents felt the government was not serious. She called for prayers for those still in captivity, saying that divine intervention was needed so that God in his miraculous way should make them regain freedom.

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Boko Haram: Leah Sharibu is doing fine, though I didn’t see her – says Jennifer Samuel, rescued aid worker