Dear God in heaven, please help all the surviving Chibok girls and others held by Boko Haram find their ways safely back home. Remove government and military bragging rights from their freedom. This should be the prayer of every authentic human after last week. Believe me, their plight has proved that not everyone with hair on their head is human after all. Our handling of their misfortune further reminds us of how far we are from the rest of humanity in dealing with crisis as a nation.
Let’s be frank, anyone who has ever missed their way even for an hour in the urban jungle we call cities know how harrowing the experience could be. But here we are, talking about over 200 girls abducted by terrorists and held against their will for over two years. It is now confirmed that at least six of the poor girls have died in the hands of their captors in circumstances that would be revealed only to the BBC.
It doesn’t matter that some animals think the entire Chibok saga was stage-managed for political goals. They believe that the recovery of one, then a second one in quick succession within two days of a general strike reconfirms their sick theory. This kind of conspiracy theory confirms that in the era of ethno-sectional politics, some people are happy to replace their brains with faecal matter just to be different. The shame is that we have to share the same cage with them in God’s zoo.
Our consolation lies in the asininity of the intellectual nitwits we have installed to govern us at all levels. So, it was the bloody civilian JTF that found Amina, not the army? What does it matter – a sizzy like me runs from a poisonous serpent while his wife takes care of it, at least the family sleeps in peace, not hyperventilating over where or when the long thing would strike. It is acts of gallant tact like this that justifies Sai Baba’s decision to integrate Civilian JTF into the mainstream army. Hitherto hunters of rats are proving to be more tactical than uniformed politicians.
Don’t get me wrong; if you were American in 2013 when three girls were rescued from Ariel Castro in Tremont, near Cleveland, Ohio you would be thanking God for Naija. Castro kept the girls bound for ten years until one escaped and broke the jinx. Stupid Americans rejoiced that their community is safer from one psychotic instead of generating democrat-republican or north-south conspiracy theories. The government in power did not rush to exhibit the rescued girls on television. They were not flown to the White House for an Obama photo-op. The silly Americans kept the identity and relocation of the girls away from public glare and protected their traumatized citizens from ridicule till tomorrow. They detailed psychiatrists and psychologists to work on their trauma while respecting the rights of their family to privacy. Whatever happened to prime time slot on CNN!
In Austria, Joseph Fritzl entombed his own daughter for 24 years in a basement and sired seven children with her before he was discovered. Again stupid Austrians refused to parade the poor victim as an object of display before the press.
Compare that to the ‘rescue’ of Naija’s Amina. Within minutes of her freedom, her picture and that of her daughter were splashed all over social and mainstream media. Government publicists were falling over each other to put their names on a piece of history. Our highly paid presidential spokesman, joyfully put a phone through to the national broadcaster – (yes the BBC) to tell the world that the girl was meeting with her dapper governor, Kashim Shettima from where she would be flown on a blind date with our president. This is how tactical Naija manages information and security in 2016 and beyond.
Whether by accident, coincidence incident, this was a great moment to politic on a monumental tragedy as APC latches on its arch rival, Digbolugi Fayose. Labour had nearly brought down government’s – single mantra of fighting corruption which was being called to question by British media. For over two years, Amina’s life, her educational dream and her honour was violated by a terror group and we bungle her unique moment to reunite with sanity. There she was before the media carrying a baby that would be a lifelong reminder of her sad odyssey; looking gaunt, obviously confused and fatigued. In America and Austria, nobody would have made her a pawn in the political chess game. But what do they know in Vienna or Washington DC.
On Thursday, another Chibok girl was ‘rescued’, and our military and government officials were masturbating all over global media advertising their prowess and announcing their next move with gusto. If Americans had employed this tactic, Osama bin Ladin would have relocated far from Abbottabad! This is why, you couldn’t blame those animals of a different specie who see this whole saga as a choreographed publicity stunt to save APC government from an anniversary of ‘nothing to declare’, except the blame game. This is why being a Naija is such a special privilege.