8 years ago
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Meet The creators of the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter Hashtag and the story so far,,
The "Bring Back Our Girls" hashtag—retweeted nearly two million times so far by Twitter users including the Vatican, the first lady and celebrities including singers Mary J. Blige and Chris Brown—wasn't created by Ms. Mosley but by Nigerian Ibrahim Musa Abdullahi, a 35-year-old attorney in the capital Abuja who adapted a chant he heard on television there.
#bringbackourgirls was first used by Ibrahim Musa Abdullahi, a 35-year-old Nigerian attorney in the capital, Abuja. Abdullahi said he first heard the chant while watching World Bank Vice President Obiageli Ezekwesili give a speech during the celebration of Port Harcourt’s year as the United Nations’ world book capital. During the speech, Ezekwesili led the crowd into a chant of “bring back our daughters.” And it was then that Abdullahi took to Twitter and formed the hashtag “bring back our girls” on April 23.
One speaker, former World Bank Vice President Obiageli Ezekwesili, took to the stage and helped lead the crowd in a chant of "Bring back our daughters."
Mr. Abdullahi had just a few hundred Twitter followers, but he is an enthusiastic tweeter. So, on April 23, he modified the slogan to "bring back our girls" and tweeted: "Yes #BringBackOurDaughters #BringBackOurGirls declared by @obyezeks and all people at Port Harcourt World Book Capital 2014."
"I don't have a daughter so I thought it would be better to make it girls," Mr. Adbullahi said in an interview from Abuja on Thursday.
It was retweeted just 95 times. But one of those came from Ms. Ezekwesili, who has more than 125,000 followers.
She quickly adopted the hashtag and urged people to use it. She tweeted: "Lend your Voice to the Cause of our Girls. Please All, use the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls to keep the momentum UNTIL they are RESCUED."
The message soon took on a life of its own.
On April 23, the British Guardian newspaper published an article that was shared more than 35,000 times on Facebook and tweeted more than 3,500 times.
The biggest boost, according to Topsy social-media analytics, came on April 30, when Mr. Brown—the performer who pleaded guilty in 2009 to assaulting his girlfriend, Rihanna, the singer—tweeted the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag.
But soon it was CNN leading the charge. The top #BringBackOurGirls tweets for four of the first five days of May were all from CNN-related accounts.
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