Fifty-seven girls were said to have escaped soon afterwards but the remaining 219 are still being held and have not been seen since they appeared in a video released by Boko Haram a month after their abduction.
His government’s explanations did not impress; nobody
was in the mood for excuses. Not even the issues raised with the gaps in the
‘abduction’ narrative and how they posed an uncommon challenge to a President
eager to avoid the pitfalls all terrorists dig for their targets, cut any ice.
It was a sore point in the man’s tenure, but it fitted perfectly into the
opposition designs during the political campaigns towards the 2015 general
elections.
The opposition APC fed fat on the blame game. General
Muhammadu Buhari who was running for the presidency on its platform made a
sing-song of the failure of leadership on Jonathan’s part and campaigned
largely on the promise to return the girls within weeks of his inauguration.
Eight months into his presidency, there appears no path to identifying the
girls’ location, much more rescuing them.
The
worry is not that Buhari has not returned the girls as promised; the worry is
more because his pronouncements on the issue so far, have been inconsistent. While
addressing the European Parliament on February 3, Buhari went on the same jive,
reassuring the international community once again of his government’s resolve to
rescue alive the school girls kidnapped in April 2014 and reunite them with
their families. He got the cheers he deserved but it was obvious to those who
know, that it was made, apparently, to impress.
Less than a month earlier, the president was far less optimistic. Indeed, what came out of the meeting he had with some of the parents of the missing girls last month, was gloomy and confusing. A presidential statement had reported Buhari as having promised to launch a new investigation into the abductions. The account of the encounter by former education minister Oby Ezekwesili, who leads the BringBackOurGirls group, said Buhari had told them there was no "reliable intelligence that would enable them to rescue the girls…”. So what are we to believe?
His prevarication was evident during his first presidential media chat when he locating the girls who “have been dispersed over the place …” was one thing and identifying the right leadership of Boko Haram for any form of negotiation for their release, was the other. He has since repeated his preparedness to negotiate with any "credible" Boko Haram leaders for the girls' release.
I
am not one of Olusegun Obasanjo’s fans but one thing you cannot take away from
the former president is his deep knowledge of issues and the conviction with
which he expresses them. Following
Buhari’s repeated assurances, OBJ, as he is fondly called, has declared to
optimistic Nigerians that
“anyone
saying the girls would return was simply telling lies”. It is not the first
time he had expressed doubts that all the girls would ever come back home.
Without
being unduly cynical in the circumstances, the truth is that it seems unrealistic
---some say it is practically impossible --to rescue alive, over 219 girls
abducted in such a dire situation of strife and warfare nearly two years ago.
Unless of course, they are kept in some cosy apartments in Maiduguri, away from
these air and ground bombardments, and if we discountenance the threats made by
Boko Haram leaders to either marry them off or trade them for cash.
In
the last quarter of 2015, Buhari had issued the military an order to defeat
Boko Haram by the end of the year. When Lai Mohammed was installed Minister of
Information, he redefined the order which now looked impossible, to mean that
Buhari actually meant that by December 31, 2016, Boko Haram would no longer be
in control of any inch of Nigerian territory.
If that order was achieved, how do we then believe that
our soldiers are still combing the expansive Sambissa forest for the missing
girls? While not renewing the blame game, even if it is obvious that Buhari has
not fulfilled his promise, it is important that he reviews the narrative. We
must not lose hope, and we must not relent in our efforts to get the girls --and
prevent more from being held or killed. But we demand that the president speaks
more matter-of-factly about such issues instead of the present situation where
fewer and fewer Nigerians take him seriously when he repeats that
well-rehearsed promise to rescue the girls alive and to return them home.
Optimism
has its uses but there is a limit to it; more importantly, as many people are
wont to remind him, the campaigns are over.
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