Like a lingering, tiresome bad dream that refuses to go away, the mystery over the 219 girls abducted from their dormitories in Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014 re-opened wounds of despair and haunted passions, after a video emerged showing 15 of the girls – the first concrete indication that at least some of them are still. Across the world, the abduction touched the hearts of millions of people who expressed outrage. For Nigerians and especially, the girls’ parents, the past two years have been harrowing and of untold anguish. It is a pain that must be brought to a closure by finding and returning the girls to their families. It is the abiding duty of humanity the world over, to keep demanding this until it is done.
By any streak of the imagination, the plight of these girls must stir the conscience of humanity as never before. However, two years after, the cry for their release seems to have waned, understandably, as many more grievous and murderous occurrences have overshadowed the Chibok tragedy. But after what seemed like a collective and tragic amnesia, this latest video is indeed, a reassuring development. The video sent to government negotiators by the captors showed the girls wearing black hijabs in an unspecified location, stating their names and the recording date. They were identified by two mothers of the 219 girls still missing. Another mother broke down because her daughter was not among the girls in the video. At the end, a girl identified as Naomi Zakaria, made an apparently scripted appeal urging the Nigerian authorities to help reunite the girls with their families.
On this second anniversary of the abduction, President Buhari once again assured the parents that he shares their pain. In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, Buhari affirmed that as a parent and leader of the country, he understood the torment, frustration and anxiety of the parents and will spare no effort to ensure the safe return of the girls. If this sounds familiar, it is because Nigerians have heard it several times before, yet nothing was done. After two years in captivity, the seeming forgetfulness of the authorities is a sad indication of how humanity has taken flight from Nigeria, while business has continued as usual.
To the eternal embarrassment of this nation, three weeks after the abduction, the then Jonathan administration had no clue how murderous terrorists seized upon obvious gaps in security, stormed the girls’ hostel as they prepared for school certificate examinations, and herded them into trucks – away into oblivion never to be seen till date. Despite the apprehension and fear of parents and well-wishers, news of the missing girls was dwarfed by routine government activities, prompting questions whether Nigerian leaders were as callous and heartless as to be unable to even feign concern over the girls? How would the President, Vice president, Senate president, governor, legislator or Minister react if their own daughters were so abducted?
The immediate aftermath of that tragedy, typified by government’s indecision and bureaucratic vacillation, amid conflicting reports, created a public anxiety of devastating proportion and one of the most odious image-battering events in Nigeria’s recent history; another open sore on the nation’s conscience. So scandalous was the government’s insensitivity that it triggered a groundswell of vocal protest reactions worldwide, with the #BringBackOurGirls hash tag, campaign on social media.
Despite the massive global outcry, Nigerian officials remained in denial, creating an image problem for then President Jonathan. With Jonathan’s diminishing public image over the incident, his wife, then First Lady, Patience Jonathan, who had suggested the abduction reports were faked by detractors to discredit her husband, decided to deal with the matter in a town hall meeting with parents of the abducted girls. It was a textbook case of damage-control run amok as the drama that followed in the meeting became a comedy of errors. To make matters worse, all calls on Jonathan to make the symbolic gesture of empathy by visiting Chibok and consoling the families fell on deaf ears. So badly handled was the crisis that Jonathan lost credibility at home and abroad. It cost him huge political capital and all but sealed his fate even before a single vote was cast in the elections that swept him from power.
Sadly, however, two years on, instead of decisive action to free the girls, selective amnesia has infected the government, as the issue doesn’t seem to be high in the pecking order of national priorities. Granted that Buhari inherited the problem, the government inaction is scandalous. A lack of compassion and empathy with suffering, pain and bad fortune seems to have created a disposition of callous insensitivity in Aso Rock. Perhaps, this may be due to the absence of proximity. Chibok is far, remote and removed from the hustle and bustle of Abuja. It is therefore “their” problem, not “our” problem. Glossing over the plight of the girls, and the systematic politics of denial it portends, is an uncomplimentary tale of the levity with which Nigeria treats the security and welfare of citizens.
But the fact that the Chibok girls are human beings, especially Nigeria’s daughters, their continued disappearance mirrors the possibility of any Nigerian child being in that situation. This being the case, the painful suspense of their condition should worry all; their unexplainable absence should trouble all, and the pain and unimaginable sorrow of their parents and relations should feel all with anguish. That the government and authorities are, as of yet, clueless about their whereabouts, should frighten all.
Chibok might have faded into its original remoteness whence it came, but at a time like this, when Nigerians have asked for and got change, Nigerians should change from apathy to painful remembrance of the girls, and prick their consciences until personal commitment and official action cause the girls to be found. The world remains traumatized by the abduction and the whereabouts of those girls. With its indelible imprint of guilt on the national psyche, the memory of Chibok should spur an examination of conscience in every concerned Nigerian.
A lifetime of trauma for the grieving parents of Chibok must boggle the mind just as failure, so far, to rescue the girls from captivity has left a gash in their souls. If, as it is feared, many of them have already been forced into marriage, then, Nigerians can only hope for the worse. As the world marks two years since the abduction, Nigerians should keep the Chibok girls alive in their memories by insisting that the girls be found and brought back home. That is the only way they will know they have a nation that cares. Until that happens, the President should never know sleep or rest.
