The Girls of Chibok
By Aniedobe
Within 24 hours
after Nyanya Motor
Park became a theatre of body parts
strewn many feet away from the epicenter of a bomb-loaded bus, Nigeria treated
the world to yet another gruesome theatre of violence. This time, on April 15,
2014, over 200 girls were abducted from their
all girls’ school in Chibok, Bornu State, and driven by lorry into the
jungles of Sambisa forest before a stupefied world presumably by Boko Haram, a
dreaded terror group, which has declared a war against Western Education.
This is a story
that has to end well that won’t end well and however it ends, will become a
symbol for a Nigeria
in a post modern age that is stuck in the middle ages. It is a story that
captures everything bad about Nigeria
and paints a graphic of a helpless Nation, serially served by terror, by a
terror group that has abandoned any human conscience until the country became
numb to violence. This is Nigeria’s
new story, plot’s thickening with mind bending boldness, gripping, bloody, ruthless,
and whose end, however it is written, will leave a deeply scarred Nation in its
wake.
At Chibok, young
girls were first stripped of their humanity, and driven, as Nigeria watched
into a forest where every bit of their human dignity will be peeled off until
disrobed of everything that makes them human, they will be forced to submit to
terrorists as sex bounties or else die not by a well placed bullet designed to
produce dignified death, but by submission to the cruel edges of a curved knife
originally intended to be used only on cattles and goats.
No doubt, in the forest of Sambisa are heroic girls – girls who
have elected death to sexual indignities and have no doubt been beheaded. In there are girls who have submitted and are
hoping that their nightmare will end in a successful rescue effort. In there
are girls so stricken by terror that they are unwilling to neither die nor
live. This is the story that is playing itself out while Nigerians sleep and
the rest of the world holds her breath.
If Nigeria were
not numb to violence, how does Nigeria; how do our leaders; how does the
Inspector General of Police; how do our Journalist; how does the Speaker of the
House of Assembly; how does the Senate President; how do the Service Chiefs;
how does Governor Shettima; how does any responsible adult in Nigeria go to bed
and sleep when the Chibok girls lie awake in terror; many of whom, no matter
how this ordeal ends, may never sleep again.
How do our leaders
not wake up in the middle of the night, shuddering to think what has become of
those girls and whether some have become impregnated by terrorists?
As the world
watches, Nigerians go by their daily business. Motor park touts are still
making brisk business. Politicians are still collecting from inflated
contracts. Prayer contractors are still smiling to the banks with their tithes.
Politicians are still hoarding cash ahead of 2015. Oil marketers are still
carting away billions of Naira. Directors in the Civil Service are still
collecting gratuities to shuffle papers along. The Mosques will be full on
Friday and the Churches will over flow with patrons on Sunday. Nigerians will
beseech Allah as usual, begging God in the name of Christ or Mohammed to give
them electricity, cash in excess of what they need, and make their relatives
win political offices so that they too will corral their own entitlement from
the national cake.
We are a nation
caught between crass violence and crass corruption. In a country that has not
abandoned its conscience, Press men and women would go about making uncomfortable
people whose comfort are not disturbed by the tradedy of the Chibok girls. “Mr. President, exactly how many girls are in
custody?” “Mr. Chief of Army Staff, do you have enough personnel to arrest the
situation?” “Mr. Inspector General of
Police, have you made any arrests?” “Mr. Inspector General of Police, do you
have plans to infiltrate their camp?” “Mr. Governor, can you assure the world
that other schools in your State are safe?” “Mr. President, shouldn’t you head
to Sambisa to direct the war against the terrorists?” “Mr. Senate President,
what has the Senate done to ensure that this type of thing does not happen
again?” “Mr. Speaker, is their any reason why the House has not expressed any
solidarity with those girls?” “Mr.
National Conference Chairman, can Nigeria stay united in the face of
terror?”
“Mr. Presidential
Candidate, what is this President doing about terror that you will do
differently?” “Mr. Parent,
congratulations on being lucky to have your child escape, what are your
feelings about this matter?” “Mr. Iman, what do you think is happening to the
girls right now and do you have a message for the terrorists?” “Mr. Controller General of Immigration, what
are you doing to secure our border from foreign grown terrorists?” “Mr.
President, how would you feel if those girls were your kids?” “Mr. President,
can you assure the world that Nigerians schools are safe?” “Mr. President, do
you have any foreign technological assistance, and if not, why not?” “Mr. Army Chief of Staff, are you using dogs,
infra red surveillance technology, night vision goggles?” “Mr. Army Chief of
Staff, have you narrowed the camp within one square mile, and if not, why not?”
“Mr. Director General of SSS, after four years of terror, are you any where
close to figuring out who is behind them? If not, why not?”
“Mr. Governor, how
long have you known that Sambisa Forest is a terrorist stronghold and what have
you done to deny them the use of that forest?”
This is how a Nation
with conscience goes about her business. It takes committed citizenry; it takes
committed leadership; it takes vision and courage; it takes religious leaders
and lay leaders; it takes retired and active Military Officers; it takes every
man, woman, and child in Nigeria to send a message to the terrorists that however
long it takes, that this is a war whose outcome is certain - that Nigeria has
decided to rise from the ashes of her divided past and forge ahead as one
country and that after one hundred years, no terror can separate us and no
violent politics can kill our will.
That is how you
fight and win the war against terrorism. Chibok is not a Northeast affair; it
is a Nigerian tragedy that should concern every Nigerian from the creeks of
Opobo, to the plaintain farms of Shagamu, to the groundnut fields of Sokoto. It
is a global tragedy of bare faced terror of the worst kind mixed with child
abuse rolled into one by a Nation not afraid to mix politics and violence. It
is a story whose end was scripted as the truck sped into the forest – the girls
would either live as sex trophies or die if they dared refuse and whose rescue
depended more on divine intervention than carefully calculated effort at rescue
by politicians unwilling to risk their electoral chances for the unlucky girls
of Chibok.
Some are of the
view that the only chance to save the girls is to negotiate with the
terrorists. Negotiation is a give and take between two reasonable parties. Like their counterparts around the world,
these terrorists believe that girls should not go to school and that women
should only live to amuse men inclined to as many as seventy two virgins. Is
this a negotiation Nigeria
wants to make? Some believe that anything to make the terrorists release the
Chibok girls should be done, including amnesty from prosecution, a separate
Islamic Republic, and shut down of all schools in the North where Western
Education is taught. Is this a negotiation Nigeria wants to make?
Nothing should be
off the table, including negotiations, if the terrorists are inclined to offer
terms that Nigerians can live by. The whole point of this article is that
Nigerians and our leadership are not engaged enough in this crisis. We seem to be waiting for yet another chapter
in these serial tragedies to overshadow the Chibok story so that the world will
shift its focus.
We need Nigerian
leadership to spare no resources until we stand down the terrorists in Bambisa.
Anything short of that is a further disservice to these young girls who forever
will be a symbol of a Nation that failed them and fails many of her citizens
who wake up everyday wondering where the next bloody carnage will happen.
Mr. President, the
world wants the Chibok girls out; their parents want them; concerned Nigerians
are not sleeping until those girls come out; and for those little kids – their
sun should not set until they hear signs of a rumble, army air crafts hovering
over head, army dogs barking and being shot to death, a shoot out here and
there, a panic in the captor’s camp, a knowing wink from an infiltrator, any
glimmer of hope that after two weeks can give them assurance that the Nation
has not abandoned them.
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