Tag: Chibok

Riddle over the abduction of about 200 school girls from Chibok, Borno State will for quite sometime, continue to dominate public discourse locally and beyond. In the last couple of days, there has been heightened international attention on the matter especially given the spate of protests over the abduction and the inability of the government to secure the release of the girls.

At the last count, no less than four world powers and international agencies have indicated interest to assist the federal government in its efforts to get the girls freed. Leading these countries is the United States which promised to give Nigeria all required support and assistance to save the abducted girls and bring the reign of terror unleashed by Boko Haram on parts of the country to an end. Britain and China have pledged to deploy high resolution satellite imaging capabilities to locate the girls’ whereabout.

With this renewed interest, expectations are very high that respite will come the way of the girls in the days ahead. But this hope will have to confront some of the challenges that have trailed the abduction. There is the issue of time lag. It has taken about three weeks since the incident. This time frame is enough for the insurgents to conceal whatever information that would have been of help in facilitating the search and rescue operation.

Unconfirmed reports that the girls have been ferried out of the country pose another challenge. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has boasted he will sell off the girls or marry them out as war booty. If this happens, deploying satellite imaging to locate a concentration of girls of the magnitude under estimation may prove futile.

Even then, there are still issues with the actual number of the abducted. The military, apparently dissatisfied with conflicting figures emanating from the school authorities and the Borno State government had to saddle that government with further dissemination of information on the matter. They may have also been piqued by the reluctance of the state government for full disclosure in respect of the actual number of students registered and their gender.

Matters were not helped when it was discovered through the intervention of the West African Examination Council WAEC that there were indeed male students enrolled in that school. That apart, the inability of the authorities to supply or publish the names and photographs of the girls for proper documentation did not go down well with the federal government. The excuse of the host government was that such was against the religion of the girls which was presumed to be Islam. And when eventually a list of the names came out from the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN northern chapter, the 180 names released had only 15 as Muslims while 165 were Christians. This may have fuelled speculations that there is more to the abduction than ordinarily meets the eyes. It may have also accounted for the reaction of the wife of the President who had heaped the blame of the mishandling of the incident on the Borno State government. She was even reported to have suggested that the abduction was contrived. Many have picked holes with the conduct of Mrs. Jonathan on this singular issue. She may not have given the issue the finesse it required especially given the conflict between what she was doing and her husband’s approach to the matter. The undefined roles of first ladies either at the federal or state levels on state matters may have further earned her criticisms. And when she wept alleging they wanted to kill her husband and make her a widow, she must have incurred the anger of many who felt such posturing was unedifying of the wife of our number one citizen.

But then, some of the doubts surrounding the abduction can only be ignored at the expense of the overall success of the rescue operation irrespective of the number of countries involved. There is no doubt that information emanating from the Borno State government left room for suspicion. There were issues with the number of those abducted, the gender composition of those registered for the exams and their religion. And as it turned out, they were mainly Christians. That puts to serious question the claim that information about the girls could not be made public because of their religion and the purported fear of stigmatization. It is trite to say without knowledge of the actual number of girls abducted it will be difficult to say when they have all been rescued.

Even then, further disclosures from WAEC that it wrote the Borno State government on the need to transfer the students to safe centres but were told that adequate security would be put in place at Chibok is also a key issue. It would have been helpful for that state government to give account of the type of security it put in place to ensure the safety of the girls. These are very potent issues irrespective of the sentiments and anger that have trailed the abduction.

Many would want none of these details but quick action to have the girls released. That is how strong the sentiment had been. But beyond this sentiment, is the underlying need to take a critical perspective of the matter so as to enhance the overall success of the rescue operation. Besides, terrorists want maximum impact for effect. It would appear that objective has been achieved by the insurgents through the selective kidnap of girls pursuing western education they deem evil. That was why Shekau had to come on board to further ruffle the sensibilities of the public by threatening to humiliate the girls. The shock and emotions elicited by that threat have achieved the objective of the terrorists. To underscore this point very poignantly, the media was awash shortly after with news of the abduction of another eight girls or so in another part of the same state.

The point here is that the terrorists went for the girls because of the impact they intended to create since killings and destructions have more or less become very familiar news.

Given the attention this singular abduction has generated, the terrorists may have now discovered that this is one area they have made real success and may begin to focus on it so as to get even with the authorities in their weird endeavour. We may witness more of the abduction of school girls and children if adequate responses are not made to beef up security around schools. They may begin to focus on the more vulnerable to create public discontent and discredit the government.

The abduction has sufficiently aroused public sympathy on the unmitigated evil which Boko Haram has been. The pledge of other countries for logistic support to secure the release of the girls and combat terrorism is most welcome. Nigerians of all hue have also been sufficiently aroused to the dangers posed by the insurgents. That is why we have seen a plethora of condemnations from all political divide not only against the abduction but the Boko Haram insurgency.

A common string running through all these sentiments is that apart from freeing the girls, it is high time terrorism is wrestled to the ground. And that is the real issue. President Jonathan has promised that this singular abduction will see the last of insurgency in the country. That is heart-warming provided the promise is matched with the necessary and sufficient capacities to stamp out these purveyors of hate, awe and terror.

The heightened interest against terrorism provides the needed ambience for Jonathan to fully deploy needed military arsenal; smoke out the insurgents and quash all their activities in the north-east. He has been made to take the blame for insufficient action or inaction. He must now do the needful and rise or fall together with its outcome.