Governance and Empathy

The authorities have not done enough for the Chibok girls, argues

Today, our country is witnessing an almost unbelievable nightmare with the invasion by the murderous and bloodthirsty hounds named Boko Haram. No fewer than a million Nigerian citizens have been displaced from their homes while many thousands have been killed. To compound the situation, many of our compatriots are still wandering in the wilderness, their entire communities having been sacked. Relatively safer host communities have been compelled to absorb hundreds of internally displaced people without any preparation, while other homeless people have registered to live in various camps that have sprung up in Adamawa, Borno, Yobe and Nasarawa States, as well as the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory.

Today, first class traditional titleholders around Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States currently reside outside their domains because their palaces have been taken over by the insurgents. Boko Haram flags have been hoisted on Nigerian soil, with villages and towns renamed by the vicious intruders. Almost every day now, we awake to the frightening news of yet another onslaught or bomb explosion, with rumours of our military and local hunters battling the insurgents to reclaim lost territories that are most often lost again in few days.

However, the memory that will never go away is that of Chibok, a community in Borno State. Chibok came to limelight when the Boko Haram insurgents abducted 279 schoolgirls one dark night in April 2014. It took two weeks for the federal government to react, apparently not believing that the incident even occurred. The #BringBackOurGirls coalition, initially comprising just a few concerned mothers and men succeeded in drawing attention to the plight of the girls. However, even while the coalition has gone international and despite all its efforts, it has not achieved its core objective: to ensure that the girls are brought back home to their parents, safe and alive. Now that we have come to the end of the year, one would expect government officials to be taking stock but they all seem more interested in the polls coming up in February 2015 than in rescuing the nation’s vulnerable women and girls, caught up and still held by the Boko Haram insurgents. Today, all that seems to matter, from the bickering going on in the public sphere, as well as the billions of naira being raised even from state governments that have been unable to pay the salaries of their civil servants, is the coming general election. It does not even matter if the very citizens expected to vote in these politicians are being incapacitated and killed in their thousands. The common refrain these days is that Nigerians should support the government in its efforts to combat the insurgency, yet reminding these people about the ordinary Nigerian citizens that have been missing for months on end is perceived as confrontational and anti-government. Criticising the manner in which the operations have been conducted, that have so far failed to rescue the girls, is perceived as standing with the opposition. Demanding that our military officers in the field be properly equipped and motivated before being sent out on the deadly missions against