733 days, as of this writing, since the young Chibok girls were abducted. 733 days of parental agony. 733 days of a nation unable to disentangle itself from the clutches of a murderous band of insurgents that in the recent past, made our armed forces look like Boys Scouts.
The fate of the 219 girls abducted from their school by the murderous insurgents called Boko Haram, remains unknown but nevertheless, a national challenge. On April 15, the formidable and caring men and women who refuse to let the nation forget these unfortunate girls, and its responsibility to them, staged a public demonstration in Lagos, asking the Nigerian government, to bring back the girls. A Daily Trust front page lead story on the demonstration dropped the ominous hint that “The government is in dilemma because it wanted all the girls released at once but the militants said they can only be released in batches of ten.”
I have problems with that. It is not usually the business of a beggar to be a chooser. I do not think the government, if indeed the story is true, is in a position to dictate the terms for the release of the girls. I can find nothing wrong with bringing them home in batches of 10 or even five. The release of the first batch would reignite our hope for the return of their friends.
The Daily Trust, quoting unnamed sources, claimed that negotiations were going on between the group and the government through a third party foreign country. How much hope can we place in this? Seems all so speculative. Buhari promised through his media aide, Garba Shehu, that “we will explore all options to rescue them.” I have no reasons to doubt his commitment. Still, I think the president can get off the high horse of civil service speak and brief the nation at regular intervals and in concrete terms about the options he is exploring to bring the girls back home.
Given the high security nature of the operation, we do not expect to be told everything but the information can be sufficiently filtered to help us appreciate what is going on. Keeping the people in the dark creates its own special security problems. An open government means just that – exemplified in a rapport between the government and the governed.
It seems to me that the word, dilemma, in the Daily Trust story, defines the apparent confusion and helplessness the Nigerian government and the rest of us face over the Chibok girls. The path to their freedom appears both murky and muddied by the depth of dilemma into which we have been driven, thanks to the do-nothing Jonathan administration. Each day deepens the agony of the girls and their parents and makes our government look clueless and incompetent as far as this is concerned.
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