150 DAYS LATER: Where are the Chibok girls?

One hundred and fifty days ago, over 200 pupils of the Government Girls’ Secondary School in Chibok, a largely Christian community in Borno State, were abducted by members of the violent Islamic sect known as Boko Haram.

Reports claimed that the pupils were writing the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination when the kidnappers struck. A few of the girls had managed to escape and the rest, most of who were aged between 16 and 18 years, were taken away.

The news of the kidnap, no doubt, shook the whole world and it signalled the beginning of a frightening dimension in insurgency, especially in North Eastern Nigeria.

The kidnap attracted a global outrage and condemnation, especially from countries that viewed it as having a negative implication for the security of the girl child.

Unfortunately, despite intense pressure on the Federal Government to ensure their release, the abducted Chibok girls are still under the captivity of Boko Haram.

While the world continued to await a proverbial glimmer of light in the dark tunnel of this saga, election campaign posters, designed like the hash tag #Bringbackourgirls – the symbol of the pro-Chibok girls rescue campaign – and apparently aimed at whipping up support for President Goodluck Jonathan, suddenly appeared on the streets of Abuja.

Needless to add, the posters ignited reactions from many Nigerians and members of the international community, who felt that it mocked the essence of the #Bringbackourgirls campaign.

The first wave of flak came from the American newspaper, the Washington Post. In its editorial article published on Tuesday, the paper, which clearly felt obliged to sum up the global relevance of the #Bringbackourgirls campaign and distinguish from the offending poster, said, “It was the social media campaign of the year. #BringBackOurGirls awoke the world to the ravages of Boko Haram, an al-Qaeda-linked terror group in Nigeria, and the plight of the millions of people who live in the midst of their insurgency.

“At the heart of the message were hundreds of missing schoolgirls, abducted in April from the remote village of Chibok by Boko Haram fighters who vowed to turn them into slaves.

“The #BringBackOurGirls hostage channelled sympathy from abroad and local outrage and concern in Nigeria, with many angry at the government of President Goodluck Jonathan for being unable to free the captured women.”

The editorial said that while #BringBackOurGirls had briefly united the West over a subject of mutual importance, it had a deeper meaning in Nigeria.

It said the hash tag echoed “the larger frustrations of a society that has little faith in its political leadership.”

Noting that President Jonathan’s seeming indifference to the whereabouts of the missing Chibok girls had not helped their situation, the newspaper continued, “In this context, the new campaign slogan is particularly galling. Jonathan has not brought back the girls, yet his campaign expects Nigeria to bring him back to power. One wonders if it will spawn more rich satire among Nigerians on social media. After all, there’s plenty of precedent.”

More protests against the election campaign posters trended on Twitter on Wednesday, with most of the tweets indicating that many Nigerians were running out of patience with the Federal Government for what they perceived as its lukewarm attitude to the rescue of the kidnapped girls.

Some of the messages showed how much some people were hurt by the development. For example, a respondent, Kathleen Ndongmo, tweeted that after 150 days of the girls’ disappearance and continuous pressure from the citizens to find and rescue, government had responded with an insult in the form of the election campaign poster.”

While it was clear that Ndongmo was angry that the poster implied a mockery of the #Bringbackourgirls campaign, John Igoh tweeted, “Shame on those people involved. It only goes to show the heartless and insensitive nature of our rulers.

Also, just as one Akinosho Abdulhakeem wondered why Jonathan decided to adopt the same slogan he had previously kicked against as a campaign tool, Peter Cunliffe-Jones tweeted, “Misuse of the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag by Jonathan’s team for his election campaign marks a new low – even for him.”

Although the President quickly reacted to the gathering outrage by ordering his aides to take down the offending poster, his critics were unwilling to let him off the hook.

Responding under the alias, Opinion Nigeria, a user tweeted, “President Jonathan only came to this understanding because the international community condemned it. This is something he shouldn’t have allowed to fly in the first place.”

Another user, Mr. President, condemned a photo showing a group of women, a paid crowd from the look of it, dressed in wrappers and sweat shirts of the same colour and design, saying, “The fact that these women camp so close to where the #bringbackourgirls sit-out holds is worrisome. I am pained by the fact that it ever started or was allowed to be run until the public outcry.”

Even as Jonathan’s election campaign posters continue to whip up emotions on social media, there appears to be increased anxiety over the fate of the missing girls.

As if to underscore the urgency of a rescue effort, a former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, who is also one of the leaders of the #Bringbackourgirls campaign, told a national newspaper, three things that the Federal Government must do to ensure the release of the girls.

The former minister was quoted as saying, “What we know is that there are three options in an abduction situation. You either militarily rescue the girls or you engage in a negotiation and dialogue that could be on the basis of multiple objectives shared between you and the party that abducted the girls until you come to a place of agreement about bringing your targets out of activity. The third one could be a mix of the two, which is military and dialogue.

“The Federal Government is constitutionally responsible to bring back the girls. The constitution gives it the mandate and the resources to be able to do that. And schedule 2 of our constitution spelt out the primary duty of government. We have no business talking with the governor of Borno State or the kidnappers.

“We are acting on what the constitution said because the command and control of security apparatus does not belong to anybody other than the federal government. When you do an advocacy, you advocate to the person who has the power to do something about the cause you are advocating for. That is the reason. It is not borne out of any malice. Empirical evidence and the constitution deposit the powers to rescue the girls in them (Federal Government).”

Although president Jonathan has earlier given the assurance that his administration would everything possible to rescue the girls, their fate continued to hang in the balance.

In a meeting with the parents and relations of the missing girls, as well as leaders of the Chibok community, in Abuja a few months ago, the President had said, “Our commitment is not just to get the girls out; it is also to rout Boko Haram completely from Nigeria. But we are very, very mindful of the safety of the girls. We want to return them all alive to their parents. If they are killed in any rescue effort, then we have achieved nothing.”

“Our duty now is to take all relevant steps to recover our girls alive and our primary interest is getting them out as safely as possible. I will not want to say much, but we are doing everything humanly possible to get the girls out.”

No longer contented with waiting, the Northern Elders Forum had on August 11, 2014, given President Jonathan up to October (next month) to produce the schoolgirls or forget his 2015 presidential re-election bid.

An ex-Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Mr. Solomon Dalung, at a press briefing on behalf of the forum, said the failure of the President to rescue the Chibok girls and tackle other security challenges in the land amounted to the forfeiture of his rights to ask for another mandate to lead Nigeria beyond 2015.

“In the light of our firm conviction that the insurgency and related security challenges pose threats to the 2015 elections and the survival of our nation, we strongly advise President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to bring an end to the insurgency in all its manifestations and produce the Chibok girls before the end of October 2014,” Dalung had said.

Another dimension to the situation was revealed when on August 31, 2014, the Sunday Punch quoted rights activist and President, Civil Rights Congress, Mr. Shehu Sani, as blaming some “powerful Nigerians” for the Federal Government’s failure to negotiate with Boko Haram for the release of the girls.

The report said that though Sani confirmed that the FG and the sect had started another round of talks aimed at the girls’ release, he expressed the fear that the same people might sabotage the peace process.

The civil rights activist, it adds, also expressed the opinion that promises made by foreign countries, such as the United States of America, China, Britain and France, to assist in the rescue of the missing girls had failed to produce positive results.

Still, the world awaits the return of the girls as anxiety continues to mount.