 Good evening, everyone. My name's Tom Weilach from Creative Associates International. It is my distinct honor to moderate this panel tonight. And what a great film. Just fantastic. And one, what struck me as a takeaway was what Buki said toward the end of the film to Boko Haram, you have lost. We are winning. Well, it really captures the essence and spirit of the whole presentation. I'd like to start first by quickly introducing our panelists to my immediate right is Ibrahim Ahmed, as you previously introduced, as a correspondent in Voice of America, to his left, Beth Mendelson, senior executive producer of the film. Buki Sonabare from the Chabok Girls movement, Fatih Abu Bakar, photographer and star in the film, and Ogi Onoboku from USIP, senior program officer. And last, Sharif Khatib, who's the chief of party for the USAID OTI funded program in operating up in Borno, Yobay, and Atomawa, and provided a lot of the logistical and financial support from USAID to the production. So welcome, everyone. What I'd like to do is prime the pump with a few questions to our panelists. But leave most of the time available to allow questions from the audience. So with that, the three sets of questions I have are really for the producers, for participants, and for Sharif and Ogi. So first of all, to Beth and to Ibrahim, we heard that the documentary was based on 18 hours of video that had been shot by Boko Haram and was later captured by Nigerian military and turned over to Voice of America. What made you decide to take parts of this footage and incorporate it into the film to make it something different and as part of a broader effort to tell a story about citizens' efforts to counter Boko Haram? I can say that I was invited to participate in a series we did called Terror Unmasked, which took the 18 hours that Ibrahim had gotten, and we broke it into a series. And we spent months going through this 18 hours, and we put together the series early last year. And my colleague Tom Detzel and Ibrahim and I worked very closely on doing that. And as we were getting to the end of it, I thought this is really a story that the world really needs to know. I really didn't know that much about Boko Haram other than being invited to participate in the series. And as a documentary producer, you start thinking about the possibilities and the stories that you can tell. I've been hearing a lot about what was going on in the famine situation. I knew that there was a huge humanitarian problem. I was aware of, obviously, the Cheabot girls where everybody was. So I put together a treatment and approached creative associates. And Michael Zamba, we sat and had coffee one day, and I said, I got this idea, and we have this footage. What do you think about doing that? So that's kind of really how it came to be. Yes, talking about the footage, what had made Boko Haram deadly in Nigeria was this mystery around the group. Nobody knows anything about the group or the membership of the group. So they thrive on that, really. So to see Boko Haram militants openly in videos that they shot themselves, they shot the videos for their own propaganda purpose. But most of the videos we saw are videos that Boko Haram never intended for the public to see, because these were moments when they were planning, plotting attacks, talking among themselves, and doing whatever they do behind the scenes. So when we saw that and we put out the miniseries that Beth was talking about, we had over 18 million views of these videos online. And it was from that that the idea grew to do this documentary. OK, thank you. Tufati and Buki, you are both exceptionally brave for the work that you've done and is well evidenced in the film. What do you want your fellow Nigerians and the worldwide audience to take away from this film? Good evening, everyone. So it's my first time of watching the film, and I must confess that I'm really broken watching. I think seeing the devastation brought it close. Even though, yes, I go on the field and I hear people, I hear stories. Watching it actually brought it home in a different way. But what I want people to come to terms with or to know, and not just Nigerians. I think everyone here and people across the world is that Boko Haram actually worked as a havoc in North East Nigeria, particularly and Nigeria as a whole. And the havoc is beyond the fiscal destructions of schools, of hospitals, of properties. The havoc actually goes down to lives. And there are people whose lives would never mean the same, no matter how we plot strategies, no matter how much we spend. There is no amount of money that would take away what children have seen. Children will watch their parents killed. There is no amount of money we spend that would tell that woman who watched her husband being killed, that that would just go away. So I think for me, I need us to be conscious of the fact that we may never be able to restore those lives. We will try. We will do our bit. We'll build schools. We'll send them to schools. We'll build hospitals. We'll do all of those things. But those memories may never go away. So it is our responsibility that for everyone we see, not just anyone from Nigeria, but for any of these people that will come in contact with it, it touch, it hug, it smile. It reassures us that things will be better. It's actually quite important. Thank you. Party? Well, for me, I mean, living in Medugri, every day, I get to see. For me, really, having watched the documentary and living in Medugri and having seen a lot of what has happened to our community, I think what I really see every day is that resilience that the documentary has captured. You see a lot of this destruction and havoc. But the one thing that I have seen is the strength of our people. It is difficult to move on from such a reality. But every day, people are able to pick up themselves and do the most mundane things as difficult as it is. So I think the resilience is what I want our community to be remembered for. Every day, you see strong people going on, going to school. It is a very difficult time in our community. But still, we're able to move on. I was in medical college at the time Boko Haram was wreaking havoc in the community. The leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was preaching three minutes from my house. And we were able to see all of those things unfold, right in front of us. I mean, if I'm sitting here talking as openly as I am about these things, I think people are able to rebuild. It may take years. But people will heal from these scars. And people will be able to rebuild. So for me, I think the most important thing is I want us to be remembered as people who survived a conflict, who are able to move on, are resilient, and will look back on this conflict and learn lessons and ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes. So that is what, essentially, I want people to remember. Thank you both. Let me address the last question to Ogi and Sharif. The film portrays the resilience of individual Nigerians in being resilient against the face of terrorism. What are the systemic actions or programs that the United States can do in the Northeast that we can do or that we are doing to help build that resilience on the ground? And how can outreach and messaging, like we see in this film, contribute to that? Ogi? Thank you, Tom. So as Anita mentioned in the introduction, three main interventions that USAID has in Nigeria. Sorry. Development, humanitarian, and then stability. So the NERI project works on the stability end. And as you accurately said, funded by the Office of Transition Initiatives, the projects become very big and very important in a very short space of time. And that speaks to the importance and the relevance of the OTI programming model, which is being able to adapt to a situation which is incredibly dynamic. As recent and as relevant as this film is, we've seen that Boko Haram is actually no longer the most threatening Islamic movement in the Northeast. It's now Islamic State, a program funded by OTI. Like OTI, I can adapt to that challenge. I think for me, personally, there's three reasons why an effort like this is incredibly relevant to anyone who's operating a CVE program in Northeast Nigeria. The first is, as the film accurately shows, even if the systems of government and governance worked well in Nigeria, it would be a mammoth task to create a sense of national unity in a place so large and so diverse. It's the unfortunate reality that the systems don't work. So the problem is even worse. In the face of this challenge as well, we've seen the challenge be considered domestically two ways which are not particularly helpful to finding a solution. One of them is that it's someone else's problem. It's a northern problem. It's a Muslim problem. It's a Kanuri problem. That doesn't create a sense of unity around the issue or the solution. The other way that the problem seems to be considered is militarily. And again, it can be addressed by bombing. Shakao can be killed, which we've seen not be successful three times over. I want his luck. I really do. So what the film does very well is describe accurately the problem, but most importantly, the solution is a Nigerian one. And particularly given the stories that we've seen, a solution that can be based on individual resilience, individual strength. And I'll come back to that in just a second. What a high quality media product does very well in Nigeria, particularly like this, is it crosses the internal cultural barriers that exist in the country. So instead of a Southerner regarding it as a northern problem, this appeals to the entire country. It appeals to the diaspora. And by utilizing the languages that Voice of America has in its bank to all countries in the region to help people understand that the problem can be owned and the problem can be solved. My two points very quickly. As I mentioned, Islamic State is growing. And I'm sorry. I don't mean to express too much pessimism, but there may be another one. And in the face of those systems that are not working well, there will always be two options for a population. One of them is to turn to religion. And in the north, that's a radical Islamic movement. In the south, mega churches are present. They have systems of governance. They have their own power banks. They've got enough population and enough land to be considered cities. So that people turn to religion is not an alien concept. It's not a new concept. The second opportunity for people, I think, is individual strength and individual resilience. So being able to communicate that there are people working in this way to be able to rely on that strength, to go hear communities and then connect those communities to the formal and traditional systems, again, to own and solve the problem is very important. The last thing I'd just say, the film mentioned briefly, Operation Safe Corridor, and also the work that the Neem Foundation is doing. So to communicate to everyone who is caught up in the movement, either willingly or unwillingly, because we can't, we shouldn't believe that the movement are all card and gun-carrying members. Some people have been conscripted. Some people are slaves. Some people have been rounded up simply because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. To communicate to the entire country that there is a way out if you're in the movement for whatever reason is also incredibly important. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Like Buki, this is actually my first time seeing the film. So I want to thank, first of all, Beth and Ibrahim for the work that you did on this and for Buki and Fatih for the work that you do. I can respond to that question from the perspective of USIP's work in Nigeria, where we are focusing on working with policymakers or trying to promote a more inclusive policy processes towards addressing the drivers of violent conflict in Nigeria. And we do this at two levels. First, by working with subnational policymakers, state governors, typically trying to move the conversation away from Abuja and bringing the conversation closer to the people. Trying to promote dialogue among the state governors. For now, these conversations have started with governors in northern Nigeria for now. Trying to see how they can promote in dialogue among the governors to try to promote more policy inclusive, more inclusive policy platforms and action that actually includes members of the community into crafting sustainable solutions to address the drivers of insecurity, to address the drivers of violent conflict in their communities. On the second level, we work with civic actors and drawing from a broad range of individuals from faith-based groups, from academia, from the business sector, individuals who are all working towards the same goals, but often working in isolation of each other, often working in silos, bringing them together to discuss the issues, bringing them together to form a more cohesive strategy to engage with these policymakers, to advocate for more inclusive policies to address the conditions in their communities. USIP's programs in Nigeria aims to bring these policymakers and civic actors together because we realize that at the end of the day, the people are at the center of this. The people understand the issues. As the documentary clearly showed us, a lot of the conflict in Nigeria starts local. It starts local when it's not properly contained. It blows up. If we can get the state governors to be able to understand what these issues are, clearly understand what these issues are, clearly understand how it impacts the communities on a daily basis, then we'll have made several steps forward towards addressing the drivers of this conflict. There are a couple of other projects that USIP implements in Nigeria, in particular one of them that really stuck out to me as I was watching the film is a program we call the Women Preventing Violent Extremism Program that is run in Plateau State and in Kaduna State, both in the middle belt regions of Nigeria. And this is really just targeting your everyday women who are faith-based leaders, who are mothers in their communities, who know their children, who understand the communities. They are the first in the communities to know and understand if their child or if a group of young men in their community or young women in their community are going down the wrong path. And these women are able to bring them together. They're able to work with security actors, in this case the local police, to try to start a dialogue, start the conversation. In many instances in USIP's work in Nigeria, all we've seen is it takes a lot of communication, it takes a lot of discussion, it's starting that dialogue process to bring the people together. And a film like this or tools like this is a very effective way to do that because these are Nigerians telling their own stories. At the end of the day, the solutions will have to come from Nigerians. At the end of the day, the Nigerians are in the center of this issue. And we've clearly seen in the film that Nigerians are a resilient set of people. So I think for me, I take a more optimistic tone when I talk about Nigeria. You have to be optimistic when you work on Nigeria. I think we've seen more positive stories. Sometimes we tend to focus a lot on the negative, but I think through our work in Nigeria, we've seen just stories from everyday lives, little successes, everyday successes, those count and tools like this in the documentary like this really brings it to life. OK. Thank you. I'm going to use the prerogative of the chair to recognize an individual under whose leadership, the USAID mission, developed the programs, including the OTI program up in the Northeast during his time in the last three or four years. And that's Mike Harvey, former mission director of USAID in Nigeria. And thank you, Mike, for all your great support for these programs. OK. I'd like to open up the floor for questions. And there are microphones on the aisle. So if you could please give time to receive a microphone and to be able to ask questions. And we'll start and wait to talk. Yes, sir? Yeah, thank you. And would you please state your name and organization? Yes. My name is Simon Ateba, I'm a journalist and the publisher of Simon Ateba News Africa. In 2015, I was arrested and detained in the accused of being a Boko Haram spy. And even though I've covered this war for a long time and I've gone to Meduguri and two places where the Boko Haram leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was killed, I've never really seen a disclose. And I think it's really a movie, movie. This is a great movie giving us the insight that no one has seen, even in Nigeria. The only thing I want, the only disappointment is that the real issue for the world wasn't really address, which is oil, and which is France, and which is Britain. And so even though there's more poverty in Northern Niger and in Northern Cameroon than there's poverty in Northern Nigeria, Boko Haram started in a place where foreign powers seem to be battling for oil. So I just wish we could state the real reason and bring the real culprit who gave weapons and who keep arming those people for three years. Thank you. I'm not sure I understand what the question is about. No, let me speak. Let me see something like that. I think what I hear you say is that the film has not highlighted what the real problem is or what the root cause is. But it's important for us to sometimes look at the objectives and the key messaging of films like this. And one thing is clear that beyond the war, beyond the bomb blasts, the guns, the killings, the extra judicial killings, and the failings of the government and all of that, there are, like Fatih said, people who are working towards rebuilding lives in those places. But most importantly, I light in the resilience of the people. Now while certain documentaries may dig deep into what the root causes are, and we can have that debate, I go to these communities and I hear them sometimes. And one thing is clear that there is huge marginalization that has contributed to this issue. There are deeper issues that we can look at in terms of oil and all of that. But let's not forget that this Boko Haram issue, and when you drill it down to ideological issues, is fuelled by the fact that poverty is at the very basis. And it built up from there. Yes, at that international level, we can have all of that conversation. But when you speak to a local person, they may not really understand it from that context of oil. I wanted to address this as well. It's an hour film. We could have made a two-hour film about it. And what you really need to do, it's a very difficult situation when you have to figure out what goes on the cutting floor and what doesn't. And we really wanted to put together a comprehensive look at what Nigeria was and to bring in these characters to have Buki and Fati here. And while I have the honor of sitting next to them, I had a file, this big, of people that we wanted to talk to that we thought would be interesting for the film. And I can tell you, not many people want to go on camera or as brave as these women or have so much heart that they wanted to go forward and do it and speak about how they feel about their country. And I think the majesty of what they've done and what they're going to bring to their country by being active participants in a film like this will do so much more for the country than I think a lot has been done in the past with telling the story of all the other issues that we've dealt with. So I just wanted to say that I'd like to acknowledge what they are really doing and to thank them. Thank you very much. I would like to speak on the issue of Boko Haram funding and their sources of arm. When we started talking about this film, one of the issues we had wanted to touch was this issue of why Boko Haram is getting their money from. Why are they getting the arms from? As Beth has said, it's extremely difficult to get somebody to talk about these issues, especially the issues of funding and the issue of why Boko Haram is getting their arms. We all have these stories that they were getting arms from Libya. They were getting money from this and that. The only person we got who wanted to go on camera but we had to block his face was the one who wanted to talk about how Boko Haram is extorting fishermen around the lectured area. And that's the Boko Haram faction that is allied with ISIS, which is in the area of the lectured basin. He was the only person who actually wanted to talk reluctantly about Boko Haram's sources of money. So we had wanted to touch on that, but it was just virtually impossible to put that story together. OK. Yes, please. Hi. My name's Lisa, and I work at Peace Corps, but I'm not here in an official capacity. And watching this a second time, I just I can't emphasize how amazed I am by this publication. Like, I'm just so amazed by the work that you all have produced. Beth, Ibrahim, Buki, Fatih, all of you, I just I can't applaud your work enough. And this is such an important movie for we as Nigerians, for we as Americans, for we as global citizens in general. And I just want to thank you again. So my question is, just to reiterate what was said in the movie, I forget who said it, but he asked what the Nigerian government specifically is doing to heal what they've, the part that they've played in contributing to the insurgency as a whole. So I was just wondering, I don't know if anyone has an answer to the question, because I do think it's a valid comment. The Nigerian government has contributed in some ways, and I must appreciate the US government as well in their intervention. So yeah, that's my question. I can address that. If I may correct you, not the Nigerians done a little bit, and the US has done the most. It's sort of the inverse. The Nigerian, in my presentation, I'm sorry if I mispresented the situation of that there's no solution locally. There is. So you saw it touched on the Operation Safe Corridor. That's been a huge push, particularly in places where local and traditional justice prevails. One, to address the massive question, that there needs to be a DDR process was a very long, long period of effort. And then how the process happens. So the first batch of demobilized fighters are coming through the process now. In addition to that, that's the federal system. There's processes happening at the state. There's a rehabilitation center in Borno, which just took in 700 women. Our project is directly supporting them, both the deradicalization and the reintegration part once they finish their derad portion. And outside of the formal system, communities do this. We've consulted extensively with communities who affected by this. There's an interesting contradiction in how they talk about the situation. Part A, they'll say, foreigners came in to create the problem, if only we'd identified them sooner. But they'll also say they attacked in the dark because actually it was my neighbor's son and he didn't want to be seen. So there is actually an awareness that the problem is locally owned. There is a willingness not just to wipe the problem away but actually to fundamentally solve it. So I find it persistently interesting that there is a publicly appropriate answer which is they should be killed or destroyed but actually a personally acceptable one which is we can fix this, we can take them back. I wanted to touch on this subject because it's something that I feel that the Nigerian government as we know has its issues, it's a very chaotic government and it's not really a government that we as indigenous sometimes rely on. But one thing I've seen from 2000 from when President Buhari was sworn in was the difference in the military that we were used to. And the Nigerian military has played an integral part in ensuring that Boko Haram is tackled. And everywhere you go, there's never that emphasis on the efforts that the Nigerian government has made because President Buhari, he ensured that we had the kind of military that we needed. We did not get that at the time of the previous government. It was people in the military who did not know the terrain. Now we have a chief of army staff that is from Burnos State and all the top positions went to people who know the terrain, who know how to deal with the community, who come in and identify what is wrong with the community because they're from there and they understand it. So for me, Nigerian government has played its part from two years ago, we wouldn't have been able to walk around in Meduguri. You can't even say the word Boko Haram, but now you're openly in conferences and in seminars talking about the issues. We have dialogue sessions in Meduguri. People are able to go on with their lives. So I think that we have to applaud the Nigerian government. We have to applaud the Nigerian military. As far as I'm concerned, from someone coming from Burno, 50% of the work has been done by the Nigerian government. Let me add to that by saying that in the effort to solve this problem, there's the military action, the military side, and there are non-military actions that needs to be taken. And what Fatih has done well is to acknowledge the fact that a lot of military actions have been done and as a result, people can move freely. I recall the first time I was going to Chibok in 2015, we could not go through Burno, we could not go through Meduguri. We had to always go through Yola. And that takes longer hours and best understands that especially during the filming. So there's a lot of military action that has been done. Salah was celebrated the last time and there was no bomb blast and that was a huge deal. But there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially in terms of the non-military actions that needs to be taken in terms of, for instance, education. We need schools to be rebuilt in those places. Efforts are being done at quite a slow pace, but of course you would understand that you can build schools in regions where there is Boko Haram. So what the government has done through the Nigerian military is to ensure that there's a lot of quelling of Boko Haram activities so that any rebuilding of schools of activities can of course be based on the secured environment. But there's still a lot of work in terms of education, in terms of building schools, in terms of infrastructure. A lot of those roads are still not as good. So there's work around that to balance the successes we are having in terms of the military action with non-military efforts that needs to be taken. I could just use my words. I want to point out something that between 2013 and 2014, Boko Haram was holding more than 90% of the local government areas in Borno State. Now they're not holding any of the local governments in the state. But it's still a problem to move within the state other than areas like Medugri or areas west of Medugri, because I recall that we were able to go to Burma, which is the second largest city in Borno State. We went there, there was nobody there. There was only the military, and you have to go under military escort. Same thing with the Masak, which is Borno's third largest city. There was not a single soul in that. We met one old woman. She was the only one in the whole city. There was nobody. So it's very difficult for people to go back. Even though the military has captured those towns and cities in Borno State, it's still not safe for people to go, because Boko Haram is in the rural areas, and they just spring up and ambush people, which they still do. Even during the filming, you were concerned. You were concerned when you were one of the farmers. Exactly. When we were doing the farmer's story, we met some fishermen there who were warning us that just across the tree line from there, there are Boko Haram militants on trees with guns. They wanted to go there and fish, because there's a big lake there, but they chased them away. So they were less than two miles away from where we were shooting. But luckily, we had military escort at the time. Like we said, and we were able to interview the farmer and leave the place without anything happening. But like we also see with Aisha, when we were trying to get Aisha, initially, we were supposed to meet with her in Gombe, her hometown, but they were in the forest at the time. So we had to go into an active Boko Haram territory at the time. It was really dangerous. Just as we were getting there, they were coming out of the forest with three fighters. They apprehended that they saw. It's still very dangerous for people to go on, maybe dangerous for them, too. Because just a month after we left, the commander of the hunters who was leading Aisha's group was killed by Boko Haram himself. OK, thank you. If I could. Yes. I just wanted to come up briefly to your question very briefly. I think for us that over time, as we've seen the conflict evolve, the Boko Haram insurgency evolve in Nigeria, there's a growing acknowledgement by government officials that they're not immune from this, that this is a crisis that affects everyone. I always recall the story that the Sultan of Sokoto told us in one of our meetings with him when he said, you know, when he leaves his building in Sokoto, when he leaves the palace in Sokoto, there are always a group of young men there who are waiting to either scratch his car or throw stones at him. So government officials and elites, for lack of a better word, are beginning to realize that this is an issue. This is a crisis that concerns everyone in Nigeria and that everyone has to come together to find a solution. At least for us on our part, what we've started seeing with some of the governors that we work with is that growing acknowledgement that a lot of these crises start local. You may have Boko Haram in the Northeast, but if you take a look across Nigeria today, I don't think there is any region of Nigeria that is immune from this. There is some form of local conflict in one way or the other happening across Nigeria. So we have state governors who are trying to find ways to set up some sort of agencies or commissions to look into this. Just today, the Kaduna state government launched its own state peace building commission. And I think this is where citizens will have to start holding these government officials accountable. And we've started seeing this. The 2015 elections is really a testimony of that, that citizens stood up and said, you know, we can't. We can't do this anymore. And we're seeing this trend increasing. We're seeing things happening. And I think it's both the supply and the demand side from the government and civic actors too, as well, that we have to work together to bring the solution to this. Question from the overflow room. I think this question is probably on the minds of everyone in this room as well. What do you believe can be done or should be done in order to bring home the more than 100 Chibok girls who are still held in captivity? So 106 girls are back. So quickly, 276 girls were abducted. 57 escaped within one month. So far, we've had 106 come back. Four of them escaped on their own. And the remaining were actually returned by way of negotiation. So when we look at the results in terms of the enormity of results that can be achieved per time, it is through the negotiation option. So in terms of what can be done, we had 86 girls. First 21 girls were negotiated for and they came back. 86 were also negotiated for and came back. And that was the celebration that, coincidentally, Beth was actually around at that time when we were actually celebrating that. So what we have seen is that negotiation as an option seems to help us achieve larger reports. I was with the vice president on April 12th or 13th this year, just a day or two before the commemoration of the third year anniversary. And I actually also asked this question. What he said is that efforts have been made to negotiate for the remaining girls to be brought back. The challenge, however, is that because we now have two factions of Boko Orem. There is the Shekau faction. The Shekau that is yet to be killed. Shekau is still alive. So there is the Shekau faction. And there is the Albanawi faction. So Albanawi is a new leader. Albanawi and Shekau, there's debate as to who is more vicious. But the second faction, the Albanawi faction, as most of the girls that are remaining. I won't say categorically, but for some of the information that we got, less than 10 of the girls are with Shekau faction. Some of them, as we were told, are refusing to come back. Some are being held by the faction. But the other group, the vice president, told me that it's moving difficult because they are unwilling to negotiate. They are unwilling to discuss. However, they are putting all effort in place to ensure that the remaining girls are also got back the same way other girls have been got back. So that's what we're still waiting that this effort may amount to results very soon. Okay, thank you. Don't forget that the Chibok girls are not the only girls who are kidnapped by Boko Orem. They have kidnapped thousands of girls and men and boys. When we were in Burma, there was a girl from Adamao State who escaped from a Boko Orem camp. She trekked in the forest for three days before she got there. She said she was abducted and married to a Boko Orem militant. And she stayed there for two years in the forest. But she was able to escape that day and we were able to see and talk to her. But there are other girls, like in the Masak, there was a school, 500 girls who were abducted by Boko Orem from that particular school. Nobody is talking about them. Nobody knows what happened to them or what is going on with them. They're still with Boko Orem. More than 500 school girls. All abducted at one time. And we used the Chibok story to get into the film because we knew that that's what the world really knew about women and about Nigeria. So we started with that and that's how we came to bring Buki into the film with her activism with them. But as we were doing the research, as Ibrahim was saying, it was hundreds and boys, young boys who are conscripted to join the military, the one boy that you see with that desperate look on his face who had to join the military and all the other people that we spoke to and the research when we found all these boys that also had the same fate as some of these girls. So it's a terrible situation. Okay, we have about 10 minutes left and I know there are a lot of hands being raised so I would like to get as many questions asked as possible so if the respondents can please keep answers short and we'll try to get more questions in. Yes, sir. Great, thank you. My name is Emmanuel Ogebe and I'm with the US-Nigeria Law Group. I wanted to ask, this month is four years since the US finally designated Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. It took us three years to get them to acknowledge that. So now with your film, what is the next call to action? What else needs to be done? This year, Boko Haram has become the terror group that has committed the most suicide bombings in the world. So this is a continuing problem. As hopeful as this is and encouraging as it is, what is the next call to action following your film? Thank you. I would like to take that. I can start unless Beth wants to go ahead. Want me to take that? You know, the call to action is something we've been talking about a lot. Like what was this film going to do? Why did we make this film? What was the reason that we made this? And it's because we want people like you to be here, to be talking about the situation, to understand the situation, to get involved, to wanna read more about what Buki's doing, about what Fatih's doing, to listen to the stories of the Ayeshas. These are two representatives of many other incredible stories in Nigeria. And I think people need to understand that you can make a difference, you can get involved, you can contribute. And I think we're trying to, I think we're probably as an organization trying to figure out what we do next. We've got a whole social media page. We want people to become engaged in that. But we're looking to you to help us to figure out what those next steps are gonna be. And I think we're really working that through. Well, I think the most important issue, like she said, is the awareness because there are some parts in Nigeria, especially the southern Nigeria way, they don't even acknowledge that this is a problem. You go to places like Lagos, Patakot, people don't even want to believe that Boko Haram exists. They think it's just a problem that we have in the North and they say you're just killing yourselves. So people don't even acknowledge it and then how do you go from there? So I think documentaries like this are a start. People become aware of the problem without footage like this. I'm from Buenos Aires. I've never seen footage like this before. So I think it's a reality check for everyone. We have to remove ourselves from our bubble, especially in Nigeria. People have to see these things before they can be that change that we constantly talk about. I'll add on to that. It's quite... The reason this is a novel documentary is quite hard to find this information. Even in Nigeria, the discussion is not being had. So I agree with my colleagues, absolutely. One, start the discussion. Two, recognize how the threat is evolving. Islamic State is working in a very different way from Boko Haram has been working. And three, recognize that they're not praying on entire systems, they're praying on individuals. So how to secure communities and individuals from how they're being prayed upon? Please permit me. The world moves in the direction of the media. There was a time that the old world was actually talking about the Chibok girls. There was a time the old world was actually talking about the crisis in Nigeria. But what has happened to the media across the world? CNN, BBC, everyone, what has happened to VOA? Why did we shift away from the story? Why did we move away? So if we can get the world to galvanize back, bring back our girls, carrying that thing was not the coolest thing to do at the time. It wasn't about registering your humanity by carrying that placard. It is about the fact that girls were abducted and we keep using the Chibok girls as an entry point to a larger conversation. The conversation around the fact that thousands have been abducted, Boko Haram still exists there. So how can we ensure? And I think that's the tax back to us to bring this back on the front burner. Because so long as we have it back on the front burner, our governments in Nigeria and across the world will see it as an important issue that needs to be tackled. But if the media moves away from it, our hearts and minds move away from it. So we need to get it back there. Thank you. Yes, right here. Mark, is there a microphone, please? I want to know if there's any plans for distribution or if we can tell people where else they could see it. Yes, good question. Yeah, we're looking, we're gonna have, you saw the hatch tags on the film and we'll have that on our website. We're also gonna be doing more screenings. We're gonna be doing one in London at Chatham House, Council on Foreign Relations and we're looking at Netflix potentially or Amazon. We have a satellite distribution. Our language service is a voice of America, at least 15 of the language services are reversing the whole documentary and taking the lifts from the film of the profiles and they're all gonna be distributed. So that's the initial phase and I think we've got plans beyond that but we are looking for big distribution plans for this. The whole documentary is going to be available online at VONIs.com from the 8th of November. Okay. So look for it then. Okay. Yes, sir. It's a wonderful presentation here, wonderful movie, I fell sad and was crying watching it. I grew up in Northern Nigeria many years ago, as a child. I'm very familiar with the Islamic rules and regulations and I said, Christian, Sharia law was there and Christian laws were there and everything was okay. I wonder how calm there hasn't been a discussion about religion, the effect of religion, how the Hawthorne started, which led to some governors seeking for those who are willing to establish a real law as a law of the land that led to giving them such impetus. What are the Nigerian leaders doing? They were both Christians and Muslims to make sure that once these areas are captured again, that people can be educated to make sure they understand that even in the Koran, it doesn't allow such behavior. I think if you don't correct that, no matter what you do, there will still be those factions around trying to reestablish their own version of the Sharia law. Okay, thank you. I can add something. So our projects, you saw Father Atta speaking about disengagement, he works with Bishop Kuka, the Bishop of Sokoto. He's working very closely with, we are supporting both Bishop Kuka and the Sharia of Borno to work together. Again, the moral imperative not only for disengagement, but also to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I will say something on this. It's very interesting. There were some Boko Haram militants who were captured at one time. And one security officer in Meduguru was asking them, you're fighting for Islam? And the guy said, yeah, I'm fighting for Islam. And he asked him to recite a chapter from the Koran, which is Fatiha, which is the chapter that every Muslim reads every day when they pray. And the guy couldn't even read it. This is what Muslim children from like three, four years all learn by heart. It's a very short chapter in the Koran and everybody read it whenever you pray. So he was asked to recite it and he couldn't. He was like, why would he be fighting for something that you didn't even know? So it's kind of, this kind of ideology, it's not about teaching them the normal way between the Islamic scholars or the Croatian scholars interacting between themselves. There was an Imam, one of the highest Islamic scholars in Meduguru, whom we interviewed when we did the mini series. And he was talking about Boko Haram and immediately we published that mini series. Boko Haram took out his video from that clip, put it in their own propaganda video and started threatening him, calling him like, oh, this guy's a small Muslim. He didn't know anything. That was a guy who has more than 2,000 children studying in his school in Meduguru. He's one of the biggest Islamic scholars in Meduguru. But they took it out and they were kind of making fun of him that he didn't know anything about Islam. So the kind of ideology that Boko Haram and their leaders are espousing is somewhat something so strange to Nigeria, I would say. Because it has never happened like that. We have never seen anything like that in Nigeria before. All right, we have time, it's 8.30, be with you now or so we have time for one more question and I'm probably, yes ma'am. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Tanya Marshall and I have a comment and a quick question. Thank you so much for bringing your details, your passion, your commitment and your consistency for bringing that part of Africa, which is a beautiful continent. But to also let us know there's a lot of things that are broken and it's gonna take a lot of work and commitment to fix. My question is for you Buki and also for you Miss Meadowson, Beth Meadowson. Buki, I saw your passion and your commitment there was nonstop, five years from now. And thank God, 106, I think, a girl's return but there's still more out there and they're all unique stories. In five years, where do you see it going and what would be your commitment then? And Miss Beth, what would be the name of the next documentary to show us where we were and where we at? Ha ha ha. In five years, in five years I expect that the number of the girls that we can account for would have been brought back. And I use that carefully because the reality is we cannot have all of the remaining 113 girls come back. For some of the girls that have returned, they've come with information as to how some of the girls have died, whether through child baths or through airstrikes or other forms. So that reality is there. We have an idea of the figure that have died that would not be accounted for. But in five years' time I expect, and I'm not saying that that space of five years, close to five years, bring them back. I'm saying that as soon as possible. But the most important thing that I look forward to is the rebuilding of their lives. How do we turn them to be our own Malalas? How do we make them, you know, we write a story that Boko Haram has actually delivered to them. And that's for me, that's what I look forward to. But most importantly, and that ties to the last question, is in five years I look forward to Ibono State and to a lot of those communities in the Northeast where education becomes so grounded that people will not be easily swayed by some misgrants who misinterpret extremely Islamic injunctions and use it to get people to carry guns. So I look forward to education being so rooted that people would not be easily swayed by those misinformation. Can I add something? And I always hear the emphasis on the Chibok girls and the number 110, I don't know if it's 100, but the issue is we have an unquantifiable number of women who have been abducted. And I think this forum brings into our awareness the issue that is the Chibok girls. But every day for me, when I go out to photograph, I see girls that have undergone the same kind of terror, but they are not a topic. So five years from now, I would like to say that you include the other girls that have been abducted who don't have the attention of the media in the therapy and in the educational system that we speak of. So we are emphasizing the Chibok girls, but that is another form of discrimination against other girls who have been abducted but don't have the attention. So I think five years from now, the plan should be all inclusive, all abducted girls. You can revisit everything. That is my opinion, but then. I hope in five years I'll continue making films that are as significant as I think this one has been and that I will be as passionate about and as enriched by because I have to say that this has been an enormously difficult film by virtue of the fact it's difficult getting anything out of Nigeria, finding the footage. Anything you do there is difficult, but to have somebody like Ibrahim and to have the incredible people who I've gotten to know and to work with and the perseverance of the team who I worked with, it wasn't just Ibrahim and Tom and I, it was a whole team of people, Carol, our editor, Yale, Roger, the beautiful music, everybody who's Nathan, the right, the words, describe all these people came together. For hours we would sit in a room and think about this and how we would really make this film work. We had disparate ideas. We had Jacob Zen who would give us an incredible education about Nigeria. We had the influence of so many people coming together to work with us and the process of making this film, the education, and I had a vision. I really did have a vision about this wanting to make a difference and finding people that could do that. So I'm grateful because it seems like we've been able to do it, but it was really a collective vision and I hope I can continue doing it because I'm incredibly lucky to do this kind of work. Thank you. I think the passion amongst the panel members here is just fantastic. It comes out in the film. It comes out in what they've said. I want to thank them for their tremendous contribution and their teamwork for pulling this together. I thank them for their participation tonight, traveling over here, and I thank the audience for being here. Congratulations, everyone. Thank you.