Dear Nigerians, by the time you read
this, it would have been three weeks that Boko Haram insurgents stormed
the hostels of Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State in the
dead of the night and abducted more than 200 girls. The abduction of
the girls, who had been sitting for the just concluded Senior School
Certificate Examination had happened almost simultaneously with the
Nyanya motor park bombing which claimed scores of lives and fatally
maimed many others. Both incidents, which were premeditated, had
shocked the nation. The country is still in shock as to how terrorists
could invade a school and cart away pupils unchallenged. In the days
since the incident took place, the girls have been speculated to be in
the custody of Boko Haram in the Sambisa forest.
But just a few days ago, Boko Haram,
which had earlier claimed responsibility for the Nyanya bombing, finally
owned up to the abduction. The leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, in
a video boasted that it carried out the abduction and promised more
attacks. Nothing could be worse than imagining those vulnerable girls in
the midst of terrorists. The Chibok girls’ kidnap which had previously
been a Nigerian affair has now sparked off global outrage. Several
international bodies, world leaders and celebrities have added their
voice to the campaign to bring back the girls. The social media also
brought the campaign to the attention of the global community with the
evocative hashtag, BringBackOurGirls. What the current campaign has done
is its exposure of the lethargic response of the Jonathan’s
administration. When the news broke, Nigerians were outraged by the
insensitivity of a President who went dancing on a political rally in
Kano.
Apparently, the President had treated the
disappearance of the girls as inconsequential, as he would other
matters pertaining to the nation. But it was not surprising because the
President’s lacklustre response fits into the administration’s approach
to the insecurity that is crippling the country. In recent years,
Nigerians have questioned the incompetence of the Jonathan Presidency to
the Boko Haram insurgency. But not until the abduction of the girls has
the issue gained global concern. The Chibok kidnap has thus exposed
this administration’s confused strategy to the worsening security
situation in the country. As I ponder on the fate of the girls, I came
to a terrifying conclusion that we may never find the girls. It is a
troubling thought. Emerging facts have shown that the girls are too far
gone and it may now be too late to find them. It is indeed distressing
to think that the once promising girls have become sex slaves to a band
of marauding terrorists.
Dear Nigerians, this is not doomsday
prediction but I think we should be prepared for the worst case
scenario. The reality on the ground has shown us that the government is
even more befuddled as to what to do. It appears it has exhausted all
the strategies that can be deployed in finding the girls. The
administration is caught in a dilemma. What it had thought will be a
business as usual reaction by Nigerians has developed into a worldwide
demand to find the girls. Now, there is no hiding place as public
protests at home and abroad have forced the President to seek a belated
international help especially from the United States to locate the
girls.
No example demonstrates the
administration’s confusion than the President’s media chat where he
revealed that he did not know the location of the girls. It was a
shocking revelation. The question that came to mind was; if the
President and his security chiefs do not have an idea of the girls’
whereabouts, then who will? So why search if they don’t know their
location? What technology has been deployed in their search? In the end,
Jonathan will have to admit that his failure to respond quickly when
the news broke weeks ago is the reason why we are in this mess. At the
time the President was dancing away in Kano, the girls were being driven
deeper into the forest or across the borders. If the authorities had
treated the situation with the urgency it required a few days after the
abduction, perhaps the terrorists could have been intercepted. But the
terrorists had gained enough time to disappear without a trace. What is
the use of a fact-finding committee, which the President
characteristically set up, when the girls were long gone? In a vast and
porous border that connects Nigeria with its neighbours, it would be
easier to find a pin in a haystack than to find the girls.
Another reason that has confirmed my
fears that we may not find the girls, at least as a group, is the
intelligence report by the American government which shares the State
Department concern that the girls may have been moved out of the
country. If this is true, then any hope of finding the girls will be
seriously jeopardised. Intelligence reports such as the one shared by
the US is crucial in the war against terrorism. However, this is one
area the Nigerian government has failed woefully. If there is any hope
of finding the girls, it must be when they are in a group. But such an
intervention should have happened as soon as they were abducted by the
terrorists. Now, more than two weeks after the abduction, what hope do
we have that the girls are still kept together? I do not see the
possibility. That is why I consider it an impossibility that the girls
will ever be found as a group. With American intelligence assessment,
the girls would have been taken to different locations separated from
one another.
The American intelligence assessment also
confirms Jonathan’s revelation that the military do not know the
location of the girls. To underscore the point that the abducted girls
may never be found at least as a group, the leader of Boko Haram,
Abubakar Shekau, in a video released earlier in the week, said that he
had a divine duty to sell the girls. Experts have suggested the video
may have been made shortly after the girls were abducted. That was more
than three weeks ago. Shekau boasted that the girls would be sold. If
the video is true, then it is likely that Boko Haram may have already
carried out its threat of marrying off the girls. So, what hope of
finding the girls if they have been shared to the warlords in different
locations?
These interrelated incidents paint the
hopeless picture of the situation as we continue to demand the return of
the girls. Now 11 more girls have been reportedly abducted. After three
weeks of fruitless search, we must know that the insurgents are smarter
than keeping 276 girls in one camp. They are no fools. Jonathan says he
does not know where the girls are kept; America says the girls may have
been taken in several groups across border to Cameroon and Chad; then
the bombshell by Boko Haram that the girls would be sold only point to
one depressing fact: That time is running out on any hope of finding the
girls. The President has asked America for help but that may be a
little too late. His government must accept the blame for not acting
fast enough. Now, we can only hope that the girls will find the courage
to escape their captors individually as they have done or that we simply
just pray, hope and wait for a miracle.
Credits file copy:
Bayo Olupohunda
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