I want my daughter back alive with or without baby – Father of abducted school girl

Nathan Sharibu, father of abducted Dapchi school girl, Leah, has said he wants his daughter back alive with or without a baby.

Sharibu spoke in reaction to news making the round that Leah had been converted to Islam and married off to a Boko Haram Commander who impregnated her leading to the birth of a child few weeks ago.

A journalist with access to Boko Haram, Ahmad Sakilda, had revealed that Leah had become a mother.

He said, “Why, I wonder, do we pretend that leaving Leah behind won’t result in pregnancy?

“Since the terror group announced condemning her to slavery, is there any step or collective focus on preventing similar occurrences? She’s a mother, but I don’t know about the gender of the baby,” he tweeted.

Leah was abducted alongside 109 other girls from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Busari Local Government Area of Yobe State on February 19, 2018.

While most of the girls were released, Leah was denied freedom after refusing to renounce her Christian faith for Islam.

She has been in the custody of the terror group despite repeated pledges by President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian government to ensure her freedom.

Sharibu told Channels Television that his “primary concern is to see his daughter return alive and will, therefore, not give any credence to any rumours.”

Also reacting, the Chairman of the Northern Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Yakubu Pam, has debunked claims that Leah had denied her faith.

Pam, in a statement, said Leah remained a good and worthy ambassador of Jesus Christ that is being persecuted on account of her faith by the Boko Haram insurgents.

He said if anything has happened to her in the last two years it must have been by brute force by her captors.

He said the situation Leah found herself is not what anyone could wish to be in.

The clergyman urged the federal government to intensify efforts to rescue Leah and reunite her with her family with or without a baby.

Describing the unconfirmed news that Leah had been delivered of a baby boy as shocking, Pam asked the security agents to investigate it with a view to ascertaining what actually happened.

He particularly urged President Muhammadu Buhari to authenticate the source of the story and also do all within his power to negotiate the release of the school girl.

Pam also admonished northern parents and religious leaders to being up their children and followers in the fear of the Lord so as to avoid making them a nuisance to the society.