Fragments For the sake of Malala

Malala Yosoufzai who was shot by the Taliban in a school bus in 2009 and subsequently became a global girl-child education campaigner came to Nigeria on Saturday to spend her 17th birthday in order to push for the release of more than 200 school girls abducted in Chibok, Borno State over 90 days ago.

She also met with some parents of the Chibok abducted girls and some abducted girls that escaped.

The parents were happy and seeing her had renewed their hope of having their daughters safely back to them.

One of the parents, Bura Momodu told BBC Hausa radio, “The visit of Malala has given us courage. If you look at the way she escaped we also hope we will see our daughters again one day.”

They also hoped her visit would spur President Jonathan to do more in rescuing their daughters.

Malala met President Jonathan and told him that the parents of the abducted girls wanted to meet him, and the president agreed! For the sake of Malala.

Since the girls’ abduction after many expectations, pleadings, advice, blackmail and what have you to make the president to go and commiserate with the parents and the government of Borno State, the president refused to go.

Not even the tears of the parents and many Nigerians could move him. He said he didn’t have to go for the girls to be rescued, leaving the parents of the girls to feel neglected.

And now suddenly because a 17-year-old Pakistani ‘international’ girl asked him, he agreed to meet the parents at the Villa, even though not at Chibok, but even this ‘magnanimity’ was not extended to them before, but only now for the sake of Malala.

However, the meeting with the parents did not hold as the parents didn’t go, with reports saying the President has directed that letters of invitation should be sent to the parents for a rescheduled meeting. So now they get presidential attention, but only for the sake of Malala.

The embarrassment of the aborted meeting with screaming headlines saying Chibok parents have shunned Jonathan has apparently not gone down well with the government.

The government accused the #BringBackOurGirls group of taking advantage of the girls and their parents.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe said on Tuesday that buses had already been dispatched to convey the parents to the State House, but that investigations showed that the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners whisked the escaped girls and the parents of the missing girls back to Borno State early yesterday morning (Tuesday). He said the rescheduled meeting might hold next week.

“The meeting was scheduled for 4p.m. today(Tuesday) at the instance of the request that was made by Malala and the president graciously agreed within 24 hours to meet with them,” Okupe.

Isn’t it an insult that it is considered a gracious act for the president of a country to meet with the parents of girls abducted by gunmen?

So if not for Malala, the president would never have deemed it fit to meet with them, but a meeting was arranged within 24 hours for the sake of Malala.

One wonders why the government didn’t send a plane to bring the parents from Borno State to the State House all along, at least it would have shown that the President cared about their plight.

The Malala visit and the way the government handled it made Nigeria look like an unserious country and that the government only plays to the gallery.

Besides, has the government only realised the importance of girl-child education with the coming of Malala, is the abduction of the Chibok girls not enough to drive this point?

After the aborted meeting between the President, the escaped girls and the parents of the abducted girls, the parents said it was blown out of proportion. They said they didn’t come to Abuja to meet with the President, and that they were only few among the parents.

If the meeting holds next week or at any other time, what would the President tell them after more than three months of the abduction of their daughters?

Would he at last commiserate with them even belatedly, but just for the sake of Malala?