The resistance began three months after the young women were taken out of their schoolroom by Islamic militants and hidden in the depths of a forest. It would end in direct confrontation and disobedience, and an unlikely victory that saved their lives.
But when the extremists of Boko Haram drove them through the woods to camps beyond the reach of any rescue, freedom was years away.
The story of the extraordinary courage of the women held by Islamic extremists in northeastern Nigeria for up to three years has never been told, despite the huge global attention focused on their abduction in April 2014.
The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was tweeted by Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian, the pope and others, in one of the most prominent examples of online activism ever. It has brought the involvement of some of the most powerful states in the world, the shipment of hundreds of troops and billions of dollars of military hardware to West Africa.
But now a book, due to be published early next month, will reveal the reality of life to the more than 200 women of the school in Chibok, who were held hostage in one of the most notorious kidnappings of recent decades.
“We wanted to tell the story of how these women survived, but also the story of why it took so long to free them in spite of, or perhaps because of, the social media campaign,” said Joe Parkinson, a co-author of Bring our girls back, based on hundreds of interviews with the students, family members, former militants, officials, spies and other people involved in their ordeal.
Among the students was Naomi Adamu. Her defiance began when the extremists told the students to exchange their school uniforms for a black, flowing, all-encompassing garment. The 24-year-old kept up with her blocked blue dress, and then she started keeping a diary.
The notebooks she eventually brought out of the woods provided much of the raw material for the book.
Adamu wrote on the days when it was safe, after compulsory lessons about the Koran and about precious rations from the forest.
The small act of rebellion gave her strength. When her Boko Haram babysitters told her she would be killed if she did not repent, marry a fighter and give birth to his children, she refused and was beaten with a rifle butt. Her prisoners did not carry out their deadly threat, and she or the others who refused ‘marriage’ were also not subjected to sexual abuse. But they were condemned as ‘slaves’ to retroactive labor.
By mid-2015, as Boko Haram is now retreating, Adamu and her closest friends begin to lose their fear of the extremists. Inspired by her example, the other hostages also started fighting back, at the risk of being tied up with sticks and wire.
‘I became the leader of our girls, because I was the oldest among them and I was the most stubborn. Boko Haram wanted me to repent as an example because they knew the other girls were listening to me – they beat and bullied me and threatened to kill me, but I told them even though heaven and earth would come together come, I will not marry, ”Adamu told the writers.
Soon some of the hostages were openly subordinate, refused orders and struck repeatedly. They quietly began to sing hymns when their guards’ attention was distracted. Then the song got louder.
A small group of the most challenging students were separated. Adamu, their leader, has been called “the main unbeliever” by angry Boko Haram leaders.
‘When they realized we were not wearing hijab like the other girls, they hit us and said they would cut off our head. They let us wear the hijab and pray, but together we decided to cancel the ceremony. We said Christian prayers and told each other the story of Job, ”Adamu said.
Once again, the students were told that they would be killed if they did not submit and repent. The small group of rebels refused.
“At one point we saw so many corpses, that we were no longer afraid to die,” she told the authors.
When Boko Haram tried to starve others to obedience, Adamu helped organize a secret supply of rice to resist. The tactic worked, and more and more students began to deny the faith they were saying just out of fear.
But outside the forest, efforts to save the students flagged.
“Twitter has caused outrage … but not the real way to free someone,” Parkinson said. Nigeria’s quarrelsome spy agencies have canceled a series of early deals, which would probably free all the girls. The president himself suspected that the kidnapping was a hoax, instituted by political rivals. Important informants near Boko Haram have been arrested by Nigeria’s army. A British spy plane searching for the women crashed on its way to the country. Mutual mistrust and poor relations with the Nigerians hampered the work of the 38 strong “interdisciplinary aid team” deployed by the US. An airstrike on Boko Haram’s headquarters killed ten of the girls and injured 30 or more, mutilating some for life.
But Adamu was determined to resist. “I was strong in part because I was angry. “I was angry that we were abducted before the grading,” she said. ‘And I was angry when thirty girls converted to Islam and married … I felt that some were not fighting hard enough. This divided the group and weakened our intention. “People accepted that they would not go home,” said Adamu.
Time has run out. The students were close to starvation, their rations were cut every time. However, there was hope. Boko Haram has been weaker than it has been since its revival in 2009, and increasingly broken, with factions divided over what to do with their world-famous hostages.
A small team of Nigerian volunteers led by a diplomat from a little-known division of Switzerland’s Foreign Ministry, the Department of Human Security, worked on an agreement to free the students. In October 2016, a first group of 21 students was released in exchange for a handful of senior militants Boko Haram. Then, seven months later, there were still 82. But at least 40 died in the forest. Dozens are still there.
Adamu, defiant to the end, tied her secret diaries to her body to carry them to freedom as she walked through the woods. As they drove away, she and the others chanted a Chibok song: “Today is a happy day.”
Parkinson, a reporter in Africa with the Wall Street Journal, said that the story of the students raised an important question about dealing with extremists.
‘The small team that finally responded to the global demand to rescue the Chibok girls worked in secret for one of the world’s most discreet governments and smallest states. Its success is not based on the pronouncement of its moral judgment, but on its suspension. “They tried to reason with Boko Haram instead of exposing it,” he said.
Adamu lives in Northern Nigeria with the ambition of having his own family and starting a kind of business. But she is still not safe. Since the Chibok students were abducted, Boko Haram has abducted more than 10,000 boys as child fighters, as well as a similar number of girls and women who have been used to make ransom demands on their families or have been forced into marriage.
“Our biggest problem is that Chibok is now in danger again … If nothing changes, it will only take a short time until one of us is kidnapped again,” she said.