Chibok girls: Buhari’s immediate mission

Nigeria is currently on autopilot. Don’t act like one just said anything special,
we’ve been on autopilot for the most part of the last half decade. The loss, or
rather the abduction, of the Chibok girls, the other abducted children and women
in the North-East of Nigeria and the 2000 of them that have already been
abducted since 2014, have to be the greatest indication of while Nigeria may have
a president, the country has an alarming vacuum at the Presidency. And since the
March 28 elections returned a new president set to be sworn in on May 29,
2015, the current administration has adjusted its snooze mode to “permanent.”
Nigeria needs closure on the Chibok abductions, that can only be brought about
by a successful rescue mission or a fact-based confirmation about the futility of
one based on the realities of their abduction. Unfortunately, the current
administration is nowhere near rescuing the girls than it was last year. When the
Goodluck Jonathan administration gets summed up, amongst its embarrassing
mountain of failures, the abduction of the Chibok girls, the government’s virtually
nonexistent rescue mission and the failure to rescue the Chibok girls will be the
most sour part of its embarrassing miasma. Politicising the issue of the Chibok
girls has to be the lowest point of the Jonathan administration and this writer
was not only glad to see the President voted out, one worked very hard to
make it happen. No government has ever deserved to lose an election as the
outgoing government in Nigeria. Posterity will dump its guilty actors in the bin of
oblivion.
This is why May 29, 2015 cannot come soon enough. Nigeria’s incoming
president, Muhammadu Buhari, already has his work cut out but the rescue of
the Chibok girls must be top on his agenda. We expect that the security chiefs
are already briefing him on the security report on the girls. If they have not
started, they should get started immediately. We cannot afford to have Buhari
start this mission in a black hole. He and his team need to know exactly what
the situation is. The reason is because we need to hit the ground running from
May 29.
It is interesting to see those who denied for so long that the Chibok girls were
abducted suddenly change the tune of their ignorance. Right after the President
lost his bid for re-election, their new sound of ignorance became “Buhari must
rescue the girls within a week.” Coming from those who either said the girls
were never kidnapped or that it wasn’t the responsibility of the President to
rescue them, one can only be glad that at least they are learning to understand
the president of Nigeria indeed has a responsibility to safeguard every Nigerian.
Maybe, they subconsciously believe our current President is incapable of making
that happen, so they’d rather have the nation not bother him.
Let it be said, President Jonathan would have earned himself a place around the
moon — a place in the stars is reserved for leaders who genuinely care and do
their job because it is their job and not because they want to be rewarded with
name tags like “hero” and all that — if he indeed rescues the girls before he
exits the scene. It looks impossible if he would weaken the terrorists so effectively
in four weeks, with another two extra weeks committed to rescuing the girls.
This will yield very positive results. If this does not help in rescuing them, at
least we would have learnt a thing or two about the state of the rescue mission
or put one in place if it does not exist today.
We made mistakes as a country. Fighting Boko Haram is one thing, a mission
to rescue the Chibok girls and indeed all the abducted victims of Boko Haram
should be separate. You cannot assume that fighting Boko Haram means trying
to rescue the abducted. There must be a clear plan in place, with a unique
strategy and effective espionage tactics to help rescue all the abducted victims of
Boko Haram that can still be rescued. We have fooled around on this matter for
too long.
While we work to rescue the abducted, we must have it at the back of our
minds that our rescue efforts would be useless if we continue to lose our
children and girls to these insane terrorists. We must commit to preventing further
abductions even as we commit to rescuing those already abducted. Like we said
never again to incompetent leadership across the country during these 2015
elections, we must say never again to future governments that treat issues of
our security like a goat and yam gibberish talk. We cannot continue to laugh
about human lives and the things that matter to our basic existence.
Rescuing the Chibok girls is a matter of urgent international importance. If
Nigeria wants its international respect back, it must start by truly committing to
rescuing the Chibok girls and destroying the terrorists. We must not waste time
on this mission, we have wasted almost 20,000 lives already. One more wasted
life is one too many.
One must give credit to all the Nigerian citizens and friends of Nigeria who
stood for the Chibok girls and continue to stand for them. For many of them,
this came at a great cost. The likes of Hadiza Bala-Usman, Oby Ezekwesili,
Aisha Yesufu, Bashir Yusuf, Maureen Kabrik, Veronica Kabrik, and especially
Bukky Shonibare who continues to organise a daily one-man protest on their
behalf, the other brave and empathetic men and women who continue to remind
our nation of the Chibok girls, all of you must know that if this generation
refuses to celebrate you, the coming generation will ink your remembrance in gold!
I am personally proud to have stood with you on this one.
To friends at the African Union, Addis Ababa, who indulged me on at least
two occasions for a #BringBackOurGirls photo session, to friends like
Boniface Mwangi, who not only joined the march but allowed one to use his
Pawa254 Nairobi studio for #BringBackOurGirls photo sessions with
Kenyan musicians, actors and actresses, we will never forget your contributions to
this cause even as we stand together with you in prayers on the tragic Garissa
Attack. Our continent will conquer terrorism.
Some have since given up but a lot of credit must go to friends and celebrities
from around the world who made this a global issue. Some of them may be
silent now but the voice they added to this cause still echoes through. Alicia Keys
deserves special mention for committing to this beyond just a picture. Jim
Clancy, Isha Sesay, Christiane Amanpour and the CNN crew, Aljazeera ,
France 24 , Channels TV , TV Continental, PUNCH
newspapers, Daily Trust , LEADERSHIP newspapers and indeed all the
media platforms that continue to commit to staying on the issue of the Chibok
girls, we will always remember you added your voices to this.
To the much maligned Hashtag Generation, your contribution may be hard to see
by dinosaurs but those who understand the power of amplification, the ubiquity
of your space and the spread of your reach will never doubt that those who
contributed their voices via social media did speak as much as anyone who spoke
into a mic about this same thing; that the Nigerian government rescues our girls
quickly! God bless Nigeria.