Kauna Bitrus, one of the Chibok girls that escaped from Boko Haram after kidnap has narrated how she and other girls have been exploited by a Nigerian human rights activist in the United States of America.
The young Kauna and other girls, who were awarded full scholarships and sanctuary at Christian academies in rural America, have explained their travails in the hands of their supposed ‘benefactor’ in the last four years.
Kauna and the girls narrated their American ordeal and how they were trapped again to the Wall Street Journal.
Escaping from Boko Haram
In 2014, Kauna had jumped out of a moving truck heading toward the Sambisa forest hideout of Boko Haram, in a desperate move to avoid the fate of the more than 200 other schoolgirls abducted from Chibok, Borno State.
She alongside other escapees had been welcomed by the Nigerian government and enrolled into a private Institution, the American University of Nigeria until Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian human-rights lawyer, showed up to take their custody.
The journey to America
Ogebe, who allegedly claims he is an authority on what he termed a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria, had helped shape U.S. policy toward Africa’s most populous country, the Wall Street Journal reported.
With this ‘power,’ Ogebe arrived Nigeria and in a hurry, made demands of the school’s administrators to release the Chibok girls in the school’s custody.
According to the report, Ogebe was accompanied by parents and pieces of paper demanding the school gives him four Chibok survivors, which include Kauna Bitrus, for weekend meetings in Abuja.
After much pressure, administrators of the American University of Nigeria reluctantly agreed to Ogebe’s demand and released the girls. The girls never returned as they found their way to America.
Kauna and nine others were flown to Virginia alongside Ogebe where they were meant to study at the Mountain Mission School, a boarding school in Appalachia.
Human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe is in the centre of alleged exploitation of Chibok girls escapees in US.
Ogebe’s charms on prominent US dignitaries
Ogebe’s calmly narrated accounts of Boko Haram murders of Christians – he rarely mentioned the sect’s more numerous killings of Muslims – won him friendships with powerful contacts.
Some of the powerful Americans that fell for Ogebe’s ability to use the right words to get attention and what he wants are Republican Congressmen, Jason Chaffetz, Chris Smith and Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, a Miami Democrat.
Jacob Zenn, a widely-cited Boko Haram expert said Ogebe frames himself as the best personality to talk to when Nigeria’s insurgency is concerned.
“He frames himself as a go-to-guy to talk about the insurgency. He knows the trigger words to say that will get attention to his issues in Washington,” Zenn told WSJ.
In America, the girls were split into two
After landing on the American soil,, the students split up into two groups, both sent to Christian boarding schools in rural America: the Canyonville Christian Academy, Oregon, school run by Doug Wead, the former White House adviser; and Virginia’s Mountain Mission.
Months after their arrival in the United States, Ogebe and Wead would repeatedly clash, accusing each other of using the young women for personal and political gain.
WSJ reported that Wead says the students evaded one tyrant in Nigeria only to fall into the hands of another in the U.S.
“This is a tale of girls being passed from Muslim predators in Africa to Christian predators in America,” he said.
Wead was further quoted as saying he never pressed the young women to tell their story but did tell them people would lose interest if they didn’t shop their story to filmmakers soon.
The group Kauna belonged to studied in Virginia, returning to high school for the first time since the night of their escape. They shared dorms with around 20 other students.
And Ogebe’s alleged exploitation of the girls began in America
After a few days Ogebe reportedly drove Kauna and a