Like the proverbial Phoenix in Greek mythology, the protests to press home calls for government at both federal and state levels to secure the release of the 234 schoolgirls abducted by terrorists in Chibok, Borno State, continue to reverberate across the country and, indeed, the world. The protesters, in their angst, are urging President Goodluck Jonathan to take actions necessary to bring the girls home.
Even the international community is beginning to ask why, three weeks after the April 14 midnight abduction, the nation’s security apparatus is still wallowing in helplessness. The 49 who managed to escape from the grim hands of their captors did so by sheer guts and luck. Worse is the blame trade going on among the political leadership as well as the cluelessness of the security agencies who were, again, caught napping in other frontiers of the war on terror.
Much as the principal of the school is discomfited by the horror, parents and families of these maidens are, without doubt, distraught by media reports that their children and wards might have been turned to sex slaves; N2, 000 was said to have been paid as dowry for each in an orgy of forced marriages. Across the country, rights groups and women are crying their hearts out in lamentation over the fate of these girls.
We are concerned that revealing the identities of the victims, as is presenting going on in the media, may cause them undue stigmatisation when they are eventually rescued. A serious matter like this should not be trivialised under any guise. We are aware that the National Security Council has been investigating the incident; it is time to put the outcome of those investigations to work. Time is of the essence: reports filtering in over the plight of the girls are disgusting, inhuman, weird and unpleasant. The media, for their part, should appreciate the sensitivity of the matter in their reporting.
There has been insensitive and uncharitable double standard on the part of the government. For instance, it is utterly unconscionable that the Federal Executive Council could shut down to mourn the death of a sibling of the vice president and lavishly celebrate political decampment and marriage when the whereabouts of the girls remained unknown. If the government had been sufficiently provoked to tap into diplomatic and international military channels, the captors of the girls would have felt the heat enough to release them.
The PDP women are not just politicians; they are also mothers. They are in a position to apply pressure on the executive and the legislative arms of government to bring this vexatious abduction saga to an end. Crying like ordinary folks to seek presidential intervention or pandering to public sentiment is not enough. Being of the same political family, they are in a position to compel the president to activate his powers as the commander-in-chief to smoke the insurgents out and make them surrender their victims unhurt.
