The Nation Newspaper

Tag: captivity

  • Five years in captivity

    •Govt must do more to return the remaining Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu to their families

    For five years, 112 of the kidnapped Chibok girls are still in Boko Haram captivity. That is five years of excruciating trauma for the family. Also, for over a year, Leah Sharibu is still held by a faction of the Boko Haram, following the Dapchi kidnap. Significantly, the families appear to have lost faith in the capacity of the country to rescue their children. So, they handed over their hope to a popular pastor in Lagos, T. B. Joshua, for his spiritual intervention.

    The tragic incidents in Chibok and Dapchi portrayed our nation as one  in free fall. A classic case of a failing state, when a non-state actor like the Boko Haram audaciously moved into a Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014, took 276 female students captive and drove off into the forest. The Federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan was so remiss that it spent days prevaricating and arguing whether the abduction was not a hoax. While the government dithered, Boko Haram expanded its conquered territory.

    Perhaps that was one major reason the government was sacked at the general election in 2015. President Muhammadu Buhari’s government that took over, promised to do everything possible to secure the release of the Chibok girls. That promise yielded only a partial success, such that five years after their abduction, 112 of the girls are still in Boko Haram custody. Could it be that our country has surrendered the fate of the Chibok girls to Boko Haram, since their status was not even made a campaign issue during the last general election?

    That may explain why the families of the girls and their communities have lost faith in the secular power and surrendered their trust to a religious leader. We hope those in authority understand the import of such loss of faith on the psyche of the citizens. While the families of the Chibok girls and Sharibu have resorted to prayers as their self-help, others who have lost faith in the capacity of the state to perform its responsibility may resort to other variants of self-help.

    Of note, while the government of President Buhari takes praise for securing the release of some of the Chibok girls, a similar audacious invasion of Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, in Yobe State, took place on February 19, 2018. Agreed, the government moved swiftly to gain the release of 109 out of the 110 girls abducted, the remaining girl,  Sharibu, remains a sorry reminder of that incident.

    While the regime of President Jonathan takes the blame for the poor handling of the Chibok kidnap, the present government must take all necessary steps to reunite the remaining girls to their families. After all, the primary essence of government is to ensure security of lives and property of citizens. When a government fails in that responsibility, as it has done with respect to the Chibok girls and Sharibu, then citizens resort to self-help.

    The general insecurity in the country is reaching a boiling point, and President Buhari and his government must rise up to the occasion. With kidnappings, armed banditry and killings of citizens becoming an everyday occurrence, we are afraid the country may slip into anarchy. Notably, during a debate on the state of insecurity, the senate demanded for the establishment of state police, which we have also canvassed severally. Stakeholders have also requested for amendment of the exclusive legislative list to give the states greater economic activities.

    Without hesitation, Nigeria must chart a new beginning; one in which the citizens can live in peace and harmony.

  • Polls: Kidnapped APC candidate still in captivity

    Less than one week to the conduct of the governorship and state assembly elections across the country, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Owan West state constituency in Edo state, Micheal Ohio-Ezomo, who was abducted on January 23, 2019, at his Sabonginda Ora residence by gun men after his police orderly was killed, is yet to be released by his abductors. The kidnappers were said to have demanded for a ransom of N100m. It was also learnt that an attempt to rescue him from the kidnappers’ den failed.

    Ohio-Ezomo was first elected into the Edo State House of Assembly between 2011 and 2015 but his attempt to get a second term ticket failed as he lost the primaries to Hon Ojo Asein. His brother, Martins, had told newsmen that the family members were worried that he was yet to regain freedom. He said his abducted brother was supposed to be campaigning for his election ahead of the March 2nd House of Assembly election. Martins appealed to the kidnappers to release him unhurt.

  • Cleric to FG, Nigerians: Leah must not die in captivity

    Leah Sharibu, the Dapchi Christian girl in Boko Haram captivity since February must be freed at all costs, a staff of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students(IFES), Rev Gideon Para-Mallam, has appealed.

    He told the Federal Government and well-meaning Nigerians to stop at nothing to secure the release of the 15-year-old girl and others in terrorists’ camp.

    Para-Mallam admitted the Federal Government has been doing so much behind the scene but urged that such efforts be intensified for Leah’s release as soon as possible.

    The Jos-based preacher told our correspondent however said the government should much more for the release of all abductees.

    “Such negotiations are difficult, confusing, convoluted and complicated. It happened during President Jonathan’s time and we just have to pray and trust God for the best outcomes, as it clearly shows that the government does not seem to be getting things on the right track at the moment.

    “No one will believe that the government is doing enough if there are no concrete results in securing Leah’s and others release from captivity.”

    Expressing pains over the execution of the 24-year-old aid worker Hauwa last week by terrorists, Para-Mallam said government should ensure that was the last of such incident.

    He said Leah and other abductees must not be allowed to go through similar treatment.

    “That Leah and Alice were left alive is something to thank God for. It also means in some way that Boko Haram is listening and this is where the appeals and advocacy at the local and global levels must continue to the Nigerian Government, the AU, EU and UN to do all they can to secure the release of Leah and other captives.

    “Other international bodies need to also support the efforts of the Nigerian government.

    “Such negotiations are always done in utmost secrecy or confidentiality, my hope and prayer is that the Government is engaging with the authentic negotiators from the Boko Haram’s side.

    “I believe the government needs to do more now, than ever before to secure Leah’s release.”

    On the declaration by Boko Haram terrorists that Leah and Alice have been converted to their slaves for life, Para-Mallam urged well-meaning Nigerians to collaborate government’s efforts to secure their release.

    “I wish to appeal to well-meaning Nigerians who are open to helping in contributing towards raising funds for the freedom of Leah to take decisive and concrete steps from now.

    “I will always like to maintain in prayer and hope that – may Leah’s release lead to the release of other captives: Christians and Muslims alike.

    “We must not make the mistake of leaving everything to the government. Governments are human although they like to portray themselves as super humans and almost invincible.

    “Governments make mistakes, they engage in missteps and therefore limited in more ways that they care to admit.

    “Bravado talks in complex situations such this yields nothing but empty talk which diminishes the credibility of government.”

    He asked Nigerians not to stop praying for Leah and Alice’s release, stating “Christians and Muslims, at home and in the diaspora should jointly pray for the freedom of Leah, Alice and others currently in captivity.

    “Pointing fingers alone at the government is not enough. Let’s work together. There will always be profiteers in such situations but they can be defeated so that men and women of integrity and work in partnership to see Leah and other captives safely home.”

     

  • A nation in captivity

    We have just celebrated another year of democracy and did some stock taking. The Democracy Day came when the agitation for re-structuring was gaining strong momentum. We have just witnessed the “Biafra sit-at-home” which seems to have been very effective! The leadership in Nigeria continues to preach unity and the benefits of our staying together as a nation (the ideal) while those outside the leadership loop are pressing their call for restructuring (the pragmatic). Given all that one has encountered in over six and a half decades of earthly existence and given the benefit of hindsight, one should be able to take some position on these issues.

    My emerging conclusion is that Nigeria continues to remain captive to the past military governance and as long as the key operatives of that military era are around, no meaningful action can take place on the future of Nigeria. We will continue to live under the illusion of unity which makes any tinkering with the unitary state they created by decrees – a failed legacy of the military – almost sacrilegious.

    The last democratically created sub-division of Nigeria was Mid-Western Region in 1963 when we moved to four regions. Up till that time, Nigeria was manageable and we were relatively prosperous. We are now 36 states – all created by the military, gasping for breath with all but Lagos and may be two other states pitiably dependent on the federal government to survive.

    Because these military men of yesterday fought in the civil war which they caused, they have virtually made it impossible to review Nigeria’s structure. We are here talking of the Gowons, the Obasanjos, the Danjumas, the Buharis, the Babangidas – that generation of military men who progressively ruined Nigeria and institutionalized the damage to our values. They remain in control of Nigeria till this day and no matter our views, we remain somehow “subservient” to them and to their whims and caprices.

    It is observed that from October 1, 1960 to date, people with military background whether they were in khaki or agbada have ruled Nigeria 68.6% of the time while “pure” civilians have ruled for only 31.4% of the time. Projecting Buhari’s tenure to 2019, it would be 69.7% (or 14,935 days) military and 30.3% (or 6,489 days) civilian. By the same token, the North has ruled 69.3% of the time compared with South’s 30.7%. Projecting to 2019, comparative tenure would be 70.3% (or 14,334 days) North versus 29.7% (or 6,362 days) South.

    So far, the military class has refused to accept responsibility for Nigeria’s woes! Even the civilian leaderships, except Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, were created and enthroned by the military. An interesting observation from the statistics above is the strong correlation between military and northern domination of power. This clearly suggests that for the North, there is a strong interface between the military and the political class while in the South, the interface is weak or non-existent.

    Let us take a look at some of their legacy institutions, Gowon’s National Youth Service Corps, Obasanjo’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the structure of the nation.

    The National Youth Service Corps programme was established by General Yakubu Gowon and it was heralded by protests and demonstrations across universities in the 1972/73 academic session. Decree 24 of May 22, 1973 eventually established the NYSC “with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity”. According to their web site, “the NYSC scheme was created in a bid to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian Civil war”. The war ended 47 years ago! Forty-four years after NYSC was established, the unity underlining its establishment has continued to elude us.

    Graduates continue to get conscripted as if we are still in the military era. Even joining the armed forces and the other security agencies is voluntary. Why should service in NYSC continue to be by coercion? Yet as long as Gowon is alive and with so much of his emotion attached to the scheme, no meaningful review of the NYSC can take place, not to talk of outright cancellation.

    Yet current realities should have made the scheme become voluntary while interested graduates should have registered for participation in their final semester. Deployment of corps members should have been within their geo-political zone of choice excluding their states of origin. No consequential and discriminatory rules should have been attached to participation and non-participation.

    We are all aware of multiple tragedies that have befallen corps members over the years. I lost a relation in Port Harcourt who was shot by militants while in uniform, on his way to his passing out parade. NYSC has outlived its usefulness and potential as tool for promoting national unity! It should be scrapped or be made voluntary.

    JAMB in its present form is a retardant to national progress and an assault on equity. When JAMB was introduced in 1978, there were 13 universities in Nigeria of which seven were in the south and six in the north. Quota-based admission with differential cut-off marks was an attempt to distribute admission to favour the educationally disadvantaged states, a crude attempt at balancing between merit and federal character. The story is very different today.

    All the 36 states and the FCT have at least a federal university. All except Zamfara and FCT have state universities. All but 13 have private universities. In all, there are now 153 universities in Nigeria made up of 40 Federal, 44 states and 69 private. It is time that the universities compete among themselves in the market place. A good university would attract brilliant students while a not so good university will attract applicants who are average in academic capacity. Goodness would be determined by the quality of graduates over time and their productivity in the work place.

    The role of JAMB should be to conduct the standard examination for purposes of national standard and simply makes the result available to all universities. Students should be free to apply to any universities of their choice, as many as they wish while those universities should be free to admit students as they deem fit. JAMB should not place any students into any university. JAMB should be to Nigeria what Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for example is to the USA. But it would seem that so long as Obasanjo is around, no meaningful review of JAMB and its proper role placement can take place.

    Nigeria is trapped under the jackboot of the fast-becoming ancient military that fought the civil war. They were the people who fragmented Nigeria and imposed current structural imbalance on us. To institutionalize their hold, they put it all in the constitution and made sure we did not see the constitution until May 29, 1999 when they transformed from Khaki to Agbada/Babanriga. Today, Nigeria has become too fragmented to be viable. Only two to six states can stand on their own out of 36! While I don’t wish these surviving warriors dead, they need to firmly step aside in the interest of Nigeria. We too need to help them achieve this task of taking a break from national involvement and influence if we are to meaningfully achieve the elusive unity. It is time for a meaningful change.

     

    • Otunba Oguntuase writes from Lagos.
  • Still in captivity

    Still in captivity

    •More than four months after they were abducted from their school, the Chibok girls appear to have been abandoned by federal civil and military authorities

    The hope of rescuing the Chibok girls soon seems to be fading as the Defence Headquarters has ruled out plans to storm the Sambisa Forest where they are said to be kept. While the military authorities have attributed the reluctance to act to concern for the safety of the abducted secondary school girls who have been in captivity for about four months, recent development involving the morale of the fighting force seems to suggest that the state could not psyche up its men and officers to undertake the assignment.

    In denouncing reported plans of attacking the terrorists believed to be holed in the forest, the military also denied the statement credited to it that the captors and captives are in view. It could not come up with any alternative plan for effecting the release of the girls.

    It is unfortunate that the poor girls have been left with the kidnappers and every extra day they spend imperils their lives, puts their families through torture and suggests that no Nigerian is actually safe. While the whole world is aghast that so many young ones could be so abducted and driven into one forest or other location, it appears that neither the federal authorities nor the military high command thinks much of the development. Major-General Chris Olukolade who speaks for the armed forces has been quoted as saying, “As it is now, let the sleeping dog lie peacefully.”

    This may be so simple to the military top brass in the comfort of their homes and offices in Abuja, but not so with the poor people of Chibok and its environs. The parents wake up in agony everyday and could only wish and pray for the safe return of their children. Some of the parents have since died of heart attack and related ailments traceable to the heart-wrenching incident.

    It is sad that leaders at the federal level still consider contests for political offices as more important than the lives of these girls and the country’s image. Groups have started moving round the country propagating the ‘gospel’ of the President-Must-Run again. There is perhaps nothing intrinsically wrong in groups mobilised to do the job for as long as they are so convinced. What is surprising is that, at a time when the country is trying to combat enemies of the state, the President and his men in and out of uniform think campaign and jostling for power the most important thing. There are no clear-cut policies and strategies for effecting the rescue. The authorities have even ruled out making such moves.

    As a newspaper, we cannot support any policy that directly or indirectly abandons innocent children whose only sin was heeding the call of government to seek education. Any country that abandons the vulnerable and gives no hope to the innocent does not deserve patriotism and is unlikely to excite development. Nigeria has been so mismanaged by the governing elite that it is a crime to expect the people to repose confidence in her. When taken with the collapse of social structure, we are faced with a possible failure of the state and its attendant consequences.

    For as long as the Chibok girls are in captivity, the soul of Nigeria is seared and the future is bleak. We call on the federal civil and military authorities to do everything to rescue the Chibok girls now if only to assure Nigerians that they are not walking alone.

     

  • Chibok girls’ captivity is like Ebola, say protesters

    Chibok girls’ captivity is like Ebola, say protesters

    •Mark’s wife at 63 seeks Chibok girls’ rescue

    Members of the #BringBackOurGirls movement have said the continued captivity of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls is akin to delaying the Ebola virus.

    They noted that if nothing is done fast, the negative effect of the abduction would affect many innocent people.

    The protesters said the new trend among Boko Haram insurgents of using girls as suicide bombers is dangerous for the affected communities and other parts of Nigeria.

    The movement said the girls were being indoctrinated to negatively accept as normal the evil manipulation of their captors.

    They said the girls may have been so brain washed that if the insurgents ask them to commit suicide, they might do so without hesitating.

    One of the leaders of the movement, Bukky Shonibare, spoke in Abuja at the 96th daily sitting of the group.

    He said: “Each day is terrible for those girls. If you look at the recent state of female suicide bombers, it is dangerous, not just to the communities involved but also to the whole nation. It’s like another Ebola. If nothing is done, it will spread round.

    “The girls have been there for 111 days today. They are being indoctrinated. Their values are being changed. Something is being done to them.

    “They are being affected by the Stockholm syndrome, where they begin to feel loyal to their abductors and may no longer remember the negative things done to them. They may feel a psychological kind of safety.

    “So, when the abductors tell them to carry bombs or something, they will. These are girls between the ages of 16 and 19. Their values not yet shaped. The government needs to do something to make sure the girls come back soon. It has to be our priority.”

    Also, Mrs Helen Mark, wife of Senate President David Mark, has urged insurgents and terrorists to stop their activities.

    Mrs. Mark spoke yesterday in Abuja at a church service to mark her 63rd birthday.

    Mrs Mark, according to a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Senate President, Paul Mumeh, said violent crimes and terrorism not only pose serious challenges but impede the peace, unity and development of the nation.

    She said: “The mood of the nation does not call for celebration. I wish that we live in peace in Nigeria. I am not celebrating the birthday because of the situation we now find ourselves. It is sad.

    “The security situation is embarrassing. I wish that by next year, I will celebrate my birthday in a very joyous mood and in an atmosphere of peace and unity. Not in this kind of sober mood.

    “I sincerely join our compatriots and all well-meaning citizens of the world to plead with the terrorists to sheathe their swords and let us come together. Let them state in clear terms what their grievances are, and the government would address them.”