‘I prefer my daughter dead than convert to Islam’

A father of one of the 276 girls in Boko Haram captivity has rejected any attempt by the federal government to do a deal with the insurgents for their release.

He also said his daughter can never convert to Islam but would prefer she died instead.

“I am not really interested in what Boko Haram’s demands are,” the unidentified father told the Telegraph of London. “My daughter is a Christian, she will never change. I would rather she died as a princess than convert to Islam.”

He expressed his opposition to a prisoner exchange deal.

“I don’t want a prisoner exchange either – our daughters are not prisoners, and they should not be exchanged for anyone. Let the government try to rescue them. If they have a prisoner exchange, that will look like the government is giving in to Boko Haram, and it will just encourage them to take more hostages. They will never stop.”

In a video released by the insurgents on Monday, about 120 of the girls were seen all wearing full-length hijab and reciting verses from the Quran.

The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, said girls, most of them Christians, had converted to Islam – he should the expression: “We have liberated them.”

He went on to say that they would  not be released until the detained members of the sect were set free by the government.

Also in the video, a timid-looking girl said: “The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path. We should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us.”

The video was condemned by parents of the kidnapped girls, with one father telling The Telegraph that he would rather his daughter lost her life than see her used in a prisoner exchange or forcibly converted to Islam.

However, the father who opposed prisoner exchange deal later soften his stand on watching the video himself.

“I have changed my mind. Anything to get my daughter back,” he was quoting as saying by the British newspaper.

Happy relative

Meanwhile, a relative of some of the Chibok girls on Monday expressed optimism after watching the Boko Haram video.

The man, who sought anonymity for security reasons, revealed that three of his cousins are among the girls taken on April 14.

“The emergence of the video gives me hope that they are still alive, but in other ways it has made me more stressed,” he told the BBC.

“I was hoping to see one or two or all of my missing relatives. I was very emotional and the tears were dropping from my eyes. I was told that some of the girls were deprived of their rights and forced to convert to another religion by force.”

He pleaded with the abductors to release them because of their innocence.

“I have no problem with what a person chooses to do, but I do have a problem if someone is converted to a religion by force,” stated the man.

“Their dresses were different from what I am used to, the voices [of girls on the video] were different and the environment was different. That is terrifying – I would never want to force someone to convert to my religion (Christianity).What I am saying is that these girls are the children of the masses.

“They do not have any say in the government; they are not the children of politicians or the children of government officials.”

He implored government to first consider diplomacy and resort to other avenues if nothing meaningful is realised in the attempt to secure their release.