One of the 57 Chibok girls, Lydia Pogu who escaped Boko Haram attacks at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in 2014, has just bagged a Master’s Degree in Human Services Administration from the Southeastern University, United States of America.
This is coming a year after she bagged a Bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies with Minors in Political Science from the same university.
Joy Bishara –her cousin had also bagged a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from SEU the same year. In Pogu’s speech which she presented on behalf of the graduating class of 2022, she said she never thought she would have an opportunity return to school after the threats issued to her by members of the murderous Boko Haram militants who declared education as sin.
According to Pogu, it is still like a dream to her, holding her MSc certificate in her hands.
In a video posted on her Facebook page, Pogu said, “After the warning from Boko Haram that they didn’t want any girl to go to school because, according to them, it was ‘haram’, I began to live in fear. I thought all my dreams had changed, but God had a different plan for me.
“Boko Haram told us that school is a taboo for women and warned us that if we go back to school, they will come for us. Because of what happened and what Boko Haram told us, I got so scared to go back to school again. I told my parents that I would rather stay with them at home and suffer than go back to school again. I thought all my dreams had changed, but God had a different plan for me.”
She recounted that while she was in the truck of the insurgents on the night of April 14, eight years ago, a voice told her to jump off the truck, and she did.
In 2014, on the night of April 14, several girls from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, were kidnapped by a terrorist group called Boko Haram.