Children’s Day: What’s the Update on Chibok Girls?

Every May 27, we celebrate Children’s Day in Nigeria with bright colours, songs, and laughter echoing across schools and public squares. It’s a day meant to honour the potential and promise of every Nigerian child. 

But behind the cheerful noise, there’s a haunting silence, one that echoes from the hills of Chibok, where 276 girls were stolen from their school one April night in 2014.

This year marks more than a decade since that abduction. Over 90 of those girls are still unaccounted for. Some were forcibly married to their captors. Others returned with children they never asked for. 

Many have remained lost, not just to their families, but to a country that once chanted “Bring Back Our Girls” with one voice.

So what does Children’s Day mean when so many of our children remain forgotten?

The girls who never got to grow

The Chibok girls were teenagers with dreams, some wanted to become nurses, others teachers, others writers. Their kidnapping didn’t just interrupt their education; it snatched away their girlhood. Survivors have spoken about the physical and emotional torture they endured. 

Even those who escaped or were rescued still carry scars, some visible, some buried deep.

They returned to a world that had moved on. Many communities struggled to fully reintegrate them. Some were met with suspicion or isolation. Others found that their families had changed in their absence, or that they were now mothers, expected to smile and rebuild like nothing happened.

It is a Nation’s broken promise

In the weeks after the abduction, Nigeria and the world rose in outrage. Hashtags trended. Protests filled the streets. International leaders pledged support. But as the years dragged on, attention faded. 

Political leaders shifted focus. Only the families remained consistent, waiting, hoping, praying.

The truth is, we’ve failed the Chibok girls. Not just by letting them be taken, but by allowing their story to grow cold in our national memory. Each year we celebrate Children’s Day without acknowledging them, we rewrite history with silence.

What Children’s day should remind us

Children’s Day should be more than a feel-good moment. It should challenge us to ask: Are all Nigerian children truly safe? Are they being educated, protected, loved?

The Chibok story is not an isolated incident. Hundreds of other children have been abducted from schools in Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna. Some are rescued, but many are not. In parts of Nigeria, going to school has become a dangerous act of courage.

So today, while we celebrate, let us also remember.

Let us remember the girls who never came home.
Let us remember the families still waiting.
Let us remember the futures that were taken and the promises still unfulfilled.

And above all, let us remember that until every child is safe, we have no right to celebrate fully.

This Children’s Day, the balloons and songs are not enough. Not without justice. Not without remembrance. Not without a commitment to do better.