Chibok

Chibok is a Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria, located in the south of the state. Its headquarters are in the town of Chibok. It has an area of 1,350 km² and a population of 66,105 at the 2006 census.

The town of Chibok is primarily a Christian village with a Muslim minority. Most of the village speaks the Kibaku language. The postal code of the area is 601.

On 14 November 2014 it was reported that the Islamist group Boko Haram has taken control of the town and implemented the Sharia law.

It is one of the sixteen LGAs that constitute the Borno Emirate, a traditional state located in Borno State, Nigeria.

In January 2015, the BringBackOurGirls group aired concerns over plans by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to exclude Chibok and some communities currently under the control of Boko Haram from receiving permanent voter cards (PVCs) for the 2015 Nigerian general election.

Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping

In 2014, nearly 300 mainly Christian girls were abducted from Chibok by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram, referred to by themselves as Wilāyat Gharb Ifrīqīyyah (Arabic: الولاية الإسلامية غرب أفريقيا‎, (Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP), and Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād (Arabic: جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد‎, "Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad"), is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. The group's leader is Abubakar Shekau. The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, it announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since the current insurgency started in 2009, it has killed 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million from their homes.

After its founding in 2002, Boko Haram's increasing radicalization led to a violent uprising in July 2009 in which its leader was summarily executed. Its unexpected resurgence, following a mass prison break in September 2010, was accompanied by increasingly sophisticated attacks, initially against soft targets, and progressing in 2011 to include suicide bombings of police buildings and the United Nations office in Abuja. The government's establishment of a state of emergency at the beginning of 2012, extended in the following year to cover the entire northeast of Nigeria, led to an increase in both security force abuses and militant attacks.