Why in God’s name was the world so slow to act?
THE massacres at Dunblane and Sandy Hook shocked us to our core precisely because they were so out of the ordinary – innocent children gunned down in the supposed safety of their schools. But in Nigeria, where I have been this past week, the bombing, burning and kidnapping of schoolchildren is now almost a regular occurrence. Another day, another outrage. Schools are far from safe havens, and they must be just that.
Why in God’s name has it taken three weeks for the world to sit up and care about this atrocity?
I once visited a school on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, with Bono. What struck me most during our visit were the appalling conditions and the substandard education they were receiving. Lessons were being offered in a dilapidated school with a leaking, roof. Children huddled together, three or four at a desk.
Ultimately we learned that this school was losing pupils to a madrasa a few miles away – a new, well financed institution that offered free education. The drawback was that they were indoctrinating students by preaching support for terrorism. So it is no surprise that extremism, fed by propaganda infiltrated through the education system, is on the rise in Nigeria. And now, thankfully, the international community has finally woken up to the fact that 270 girls were snatched at gunpoint from their school.
The murderous terrorist group Boko Haram – the name means ‘Western education is forbidden’ – has claimed responsibility for the abductions, and their twisted leader Abubakar Shekau released a video stating the girls should not have been in school and should be married. A further eight girls were kidnapped last week. These lives now hang in the balance.
Kidnapped and carted off in lorries into the jungle territory of Borno state, their parents are unsure whether they will be used as sex slaves, taken over the border and sold as child brides, or killed.
It is horrendously late, but a search, involving the UK and US and using stateof-the-art equipment, will finally begin. Last week the world was angry and vocal. Look at the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. This week the world will be watching and praying.
And the Nigerian government and people deserve the fullest support in tackling terrorism. Last week in Abuja, Boko Haram killed dozens. Over the past four years the group’s attacks on Nigerians have taken more than 4,000 lives.
We also now know that in a separate incident in the past few weeks, seven teachers were murdered and 27 members of their families were abducted in Borno state. Another day, another outrage.
This brings to 171 the number of teachers who have been assassinated in Nigeria since 2009. It makes it all the more important that the Safe Schools Initiative I announced on Wednesday, which aims to increase security available to pupils and teachers in school grounds, is moved forward as quickly as possible.
We simply cannot stand by and see schools shut down, girls cut off from their education and parents in fear of their daughters’ lives. The education system that has the potential to transform Nigeria cannot be undermined.