Stephanie Busari delivered the commencement address at the American University of Nigeria's 17th convocation on Saturday, where 261 students received degrees. Among them were 12 survivors of the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls abduction by Boko Haram. The girls were part of the 276 students taken from Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State. Some escaped, while others were released in batches over the years.
AUN President DeWayne Frazier called the graduation of the 12 women "a sacred moment of triumph over fear, resilience over trauma, and hope over everything that once tried to silence their future." He said, "For many years, our cry was 'Bring Back Our Girls', but today, we send our 'girls' forward." The university re-enrolled some of the former abductees, while others were sent to the United States for education.
Busari, who obtained a proof-of-life video of the Chibok girls in 2016, recalled meeting some of them at the Presidential Villa in Abuja in 2017. "At the time, we did not know if the work would make any difference. We did it because the alternative was silence, and silence felt like complicity," she said. She told the graduates that continuing their education was an act of defiance. "You kept making the decision to continue when stopping would have been easier," she said.
Addressing the 12 Chibok survivors, Busari said their degrees proved that efforts to erase their futures had failed. "You were taken from your hostel in the middle of the night by people who believed your education was a threat worth eliminating," she said. "Now you are here, with degrees in your hands and your lives ahead of you, in a moment that was specifically designed never to happen." She urged the class to carry their resilience into the future. "I once believed the power was only in telling the story. Now I believe the greater power is in living it forward."
DeWayne Frazier celebrates sending the Chibok girls forward while the state they returned to remains unchanged for most survivors still without degrees or support. The 12 who graduated at AUN are a fraction of the 276 taken, and their success does not erase the fact that many others were denied the same opportunity. Stephanie Busari's presence as a speaker underscores how far the story has travelled while the reality for most abductees remains rooted in silence and neglect. Their degrees are personal victories, but they do not amount to national redemption.
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