It came as a shock for its scale and novelty, not for the probability of its occurrence; because, with the parlous security situation, it was a tragedy waiting only to happen; and when it did finally come, it was as horrendous a national tragedy as any could get.
More than two hundred and fifty girls were kidnapped from their dormitories by gunmen of Boko Haram as they slept. For them, it had been a lonely ordeal. The Federal government was not there for them when they were abducted; for, they were on their own, without security guards or early warning system in an area prone to insurgents’ attack. The Federal government was not there for them as they were transported several kilometres in a territory that was supposed to be under emergency rule. They came face-to-face with the failure of their nation—a nation unable to guarantee security of life and property even in its schools, a country reeling under the fuzziness of a leadership unable to do its job of leading, complicit in, or unconcerned with, what is happening to the most vulnerable of its citizenry—young, junior female students at the prime of youth.
Nobody did anything to prevent the attack; nobody did anything to stop it as it played itself out; and nobody followed it up with the determined promptness the exigency of the situation demanded as these innocent girls lost the most precious possession of all—their freedom. And that is even before they lost their dignity and honour—and ours. For, no Nigerian—and not just those in schools—could have pretended that he or she didn’t feel less safe or less violated as a result of that April 14 abduction.
More people had been killed before, and, on balance, many more had been abducted before, though not as many at any one time and not girls, this vulnerable, exploitable group that stood the risk of being damaged forever by the experience. That was it could be said that the abduction robbed this nation of what innocence a nation of the guilty could boast. We lost our innocence and with it our capacity to be shocked or to be able to accurately gauge the depth and the laceration of the mortal wound inflicted on our psyche.
We are a people who have been numbed into insensibility by the morbid exploits of Boko Haram—the pile and stench of dead bodies, the pillage, the destruction and the scorched landscape in the wake of its unchecked comings and goings, the failure of government to come to the aid of traumatised victims, the sleepless nights and distressing anticipation by everyone, but more especially by those in the theatre of events. And just as we are numbed into this insensibility, we are confronted by our collection of ineffective national institutions that have woefully failed in their oversight functions—unable or unwilling to halt the abuse, misuse and misapplication of state power by an executive it had failed to call to order.
But far more damaging than all this are the two stubborn facts that violate our essence as responsible human beings—one, that this is being done in the name of religion; and, two, that the callousness of government may be for a reason other than mere incompetence, which, even if it is just stops at that, will still have been inexcusable.
And no one has captured the nature or meaning of this callousness better than the elders of the North East Forum for Unity and Development. Reading an address during a visit to President Goodluck Jonathan, its chairman, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Madakin Fika, said, “The abduction of the over 230 Chibok school girls and the way this dastardly, appalling act is being handled with callousness and disdain by some highly placed officials of the Federal Government, the ruling party and even the wife of the president is a matter of surprise and worry to the generality of Nigerians.”
Though stuff, no doubt; but for the government it was business as usual. Even when people were blown to pieces in Nyanya, these people had no time to mourn but found time to dance; and since this was only an abduction, why—it is not serious enough for anything extraordinary or unusual. For the government, the girls were a mere statistic. And it was only when domestic pressure combined with international pressure that the president felt compelled to do something about it.
He gave the marching orders to his service chiefs only on May 2, a whole 18 days after the abduction. And at that time, he sounded presidential and commander-in-chiefly: “Wherever the girls are in the world, we will get them back, apprehend and punish the culprits.” But instead of starting war games as would be expected of him, he formed a fact-finding committee, “in view of the inconsistent and contradictory information available to the government on the girls’ abduction…” But, as Jibrin Ibrahim said in his Daily Trust column May 5, setting up a fact-finding committee at this time “is proof that they had been doing nothing previously.”
But doing nothing is better than the blame and denial game they have resorted to today. Addressing what she called a stakeholders meeting in the Presidential Villa in Abuja may 5, the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan gave reasons why she didn’t believe in any missing-girls story. “So, my sisters, you can see that within them; they know what they are doing. With what is happening now, will you believe that any children got missing?” she asked. “So, we, Nigerian women, are saying that no child is missing in Borno State. If any child is missing, let the governor go and look for them. There is nothing we can do again.” But the First Lady was merely reinforcing Kema Chikwe, the women’s leader of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, who had, in disbelief, asked to be shown the eye witness to the abduction. The two women didn’t seem to believe that any girls were abducted in Chibok.
But then Dame forgot that he didn’t believe this—and she shed tears! But, certainly, those things which the Dame wiped off her eyes with that ready-at-hand handkerchief were not tears, since she couldn’t have felt any pain or surge of pity or of empathy for girls she said had not been abducted.
It was left to a former minister to throw in the ugliest twist to the sordid abduction saga. Former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode engaged in pseudo-ecclesiastical arithmetic. As government incompetence started to become clearer and the opinion of the people on the tragedy began to converge, the explanations that are sure to divide people’s ranks began to be made. In a bid to perpetuate division and divisiveness, Fani-Kayode said he had counted the abduction casualty and he found that 90 per cent of the girls abducted were Christian. Instead of seeing the cup half full, he saw it as half empty. Instead of seeing this as evidence that there is no discrimination against Christians in Borno as far as education is concerned, Fani-Kayode saw this as evidence of some sinister anti-Christian agenda.
As I write, a statement by Northern CAN seems to concur with him.
Yet, even if, as he alleged, Boko Haram specially conducted a hurried census that April night before abducting the Christian girls of Chibok, why should that be surprising? Would that have been anything new? Is the group not the one said to be responsible for bombing churches as Christians prayed? But, going by his own logic, would Fani-Kayode then have been relieved and pleased if the girls abducted by Boko Haram had been 100 per cent Muslim? To any sane, discerning Muslim, one Christian girl abducted is already one too many; and to any sane, discerning Christian, it is vice versa. Mankind is a family forever tied together by its common humanity and always united in its grief; and no person is killed or molested without our collective and individual humanity being that much diminished.
But why did the issue of religion have to be brought in at this stage? The gunmen of Boko Haram didn’t discriminate—they killed and abducted Muslims and Christians; but even if they did, would it have been right for us, the bereaved mourners to do the same? Why should anyone wish to disunite this nation in its hour of united grief and shared bewilderment?
And, for heaven’s sake, these are daughters—the apple of our eyes: their femininity is to be protected, not to be exploited for pecuniary profit; and, in their current circumstances, they are to be prayed for, not have their plight preyed upon by bankrupt politicians or ethnic rabble-rousers. This nation must stay united in its hour of grief and continue demanding that the government does what it is supposed to do.
But there is a ray of hope out of this hopeless and painful situation. As the limit is reached, the Americans have offered to help and the president has accepted; and Britain, China and France, which has taken a keener interest in what is happening than all the three, earlier in the week offered their own expertise, which we hope will also be accepted. Of the four, at least two have been suspected of having links, no matter how tenuous; but isn’t it curious and surprising that it is only Israel, which has been deeply embedded in the nation’s security network, that has not openly offered to help? It is time for game change, isn’t it?
