Today, July 20, is exactly 97 days since the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, abducted over 200 female students from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
The hapless girls would have been forgotten by now if not for the internationalisation of the campaign to rescue them.
As it is with most things we do in Nigeria, such a dreadful matter that requires unity of purpose has been politicised. Meanwhile, the girls are in an indeterminate state, in limbo if you like, without anybody having any clue as to what has happened to them, what is happening to them and when their ordeal and that of their parents will be over, if ever.
Those that are yet to be kidnapped, even the girls that managed to escape from the kidnappers, den, are in mortal fear, afraid to show their faces in public for fear of retribution from the evil group.
But the biggest regret in this tragic saga is that after being in denial for so long, President Goodluck Jonathan could only be persuaded to meet with some of the girls who miraculously escaped and their parents by the visiting teenage Pakistani girl-child education campaigner, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai.
This is happening more than three months after the abductions. Watching a 17-year-old Malala lecture our president on issues that we could have taken the initiative on months ago was embarrassing. So, if Malala did not visit, those who rule us would not have had the presence of mind to empathise with traumatised Nigerians?
As sad as that is, even more embarrassing is the altercation between the presidency and some activists calling for the unconditional release of the girls. Having allowed himself to be persuaded by Malala, who celebrated her 17th birthday in Nigeria last week, Jonathan hurriedly wrote a letter inviting some of the parents who were actually in Abuja to meet with Malala.
When the invitees refused to honour the invitation, Jonathan’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Doyin Okupe, quickly accused the #BringBackOurGirls activists of persuading the parents of the girls not to show up.
“Unfortunately, the #BringBackOurGirls leadership prevailed on the parents of the girls not to come. What happened was that they actually avoided the meeting with Mr President because the foreign media and everybody were waiting for this meeting. They made it expressly clear to us that they were no longer coming,” Okupe said.
The allegation was a face-saving ploy by the presidency. Why would the activists tell the Chibok parents not to honour Jonathan’s invitation? The truth of the matter is that the presidency has grossly mismanaged this Chibok kidnap saga.
It is unbelievable that it took more than three months for Jonathan to deem it fit to meet with these anguished parents. And to do that he had to be persuaded by a foreign teenager who came to lecture us on the need to do the needful.
So, if Malala did not come, the president would not have deemed it fit to meet with the parents of the kidnapped girls and some of them who escaped, even when the committee he set up on May 2 to gather information on the abduction and ascertain the exact number of those abducted had submitted its report.
The Chairman of the Presidential Fact Finding Committee on the abducted girls, Ibrahim Sabo, a retired brigadier general, told Jonathan while presenting the report that a total 219 girls are still missing.
“Mr President, the committee here wishes to lay to rest any residual doubt whether or not any student was abducted at Chibok,” he said.
“As most Nigerians already know, there were some persons who doubted whether in fact any student was abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok.
“On the other hand, for those who believed that there was abduction, there were lingering doubts as to how such a number of kidnap victims were conveyed, considering also that information was sparse as to how the raiding insurgents evacuated the victims.”
Jonathan and his handlers should have heeded Sabo’s advice that, “getting the girls out and safely, too, is by far more important than the publicity generated by the blame game that has tended to becloud the issue,” because what the presidency has sought to do with Malala’s visit and the so-called invitation to the Chibok parents is to continue on that ill-advised route.
These childish antics must stop. The main issue is, how do we bring these unfortunate girls home? Now that the Americans have flatly refused to put boot on the ground to get the job done, will the Israelis and Australians do the job?
The American establishment rebuffed pleas by Nigerians to solve the riddle even when they know what the solution is and have the capacity to do it.
About three weeks ago, a high ranking Nigerian delegation went to the United States to see the officials saddled with the task. Even when the Americans showed them maps of the entire Sambisa and told them that it has been mined by the insurgents, they still refused to go beyond that.
The explanation was that if any single American soldier was to die in the operation, the backlash would be too difficult for the Barack Obama administration to handle.
Moreover, the Nigerian delegation was told that intelligence reports shared with the Nigerian military leaked and the loyalty of some highly-placed public officials was in doubt.
The presidency is aware of this report and should be worried. Everything should not be politicised. The kidnap of the Chibok girls is a grave national issue that should concentrate the mind of the president until it is resolved and the girls safely reunited with their loved ones.
Dissipating energy and time on what former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, and her group are doing is tantamount to pursuing rats while one’s house is burning.
Now that Malala has left and we have maximised the photo opportunities, can we get on with the task at hand?
The Chibok girls are still in captivity. This is the only thing that should concern us.
