I find the below write touching and a reflection of what a responsible government should take cognizance of. It was a bright and beautiful Monday morning and as usual I had just woken up to get ready for school. I couldn’t help but notice my mum pace around aimlessly. There was something wrong and it seemed very wrong. It was November 9, 1998. I knew my eldest sister was pregnant but what I didn’t know was that buried deep within every mother is this indescribable pain synonymous with child birth. I was later to realise that the reason she paced was that she was terrified at the thought of her daughter going through an overdose of the pain called labour.
I had to abandon school for a few days, partly out of care and partly out of curiosity. I wanted to stay there, to be there for her and I also wanted to find out why she dreaded childbirth so frighteningly.
Finally, on the morning of Wednesday, November 11, 1998, after so much tears, mostly my mother’s and mutterings and fears and bated breaths, my beautiful niece was born. And so I witnessed a great miracle firsthand and for the first time. That day came with many ‘forget-nots’ but two of these unforgettable sights seem to have stuck with me forever- firstly, my mother’s tears! Oh, she shed all kinds of tears- all manner of tears-of joy, of relief, hope, love and motherhood, tears of “grand-motherhood”- all sorts!
My most unforgettable experience of that day was certainly not my mother’s tears- it was something far more divine. I was stunned at the sight of the little one. There she laid, beautiful and full of life, yet a fragile little thing. She looked but didn’t seem to see, she held out a hand, almost as if to say “hold me, touch me, let me ease your pain”. When I finally summoned the courage to touch her brand new fingers, she held tightly to my thumb, not letting go- it was the most beautiful sight I had, and perhaps ever have seen.
There is this bundle of untold joy and hope that the Creator wraps up in every little child. He seems to be saying every time He lets us have a child; take, raise, love and support, protect and defend and do right by her or him. Every time a child comes beaming that ignorant smile or wailing that doubting tear, they seem to ask: will you do right by me?
This question has lingered for a period of eon in my mind, the question: Have we done right to the Chibok girls? Have we loved, supported, protected and defended them? Each one of them is like my sister’s little spring of hope to their parents- full of life, brand new prospects and amazing promises. Yet, I can’t help but conclude that as long as we have moved on, not only have we failed these beautiful daughters of Chibok, we have also violated the sacred memories of their mothers; their rights to treasure and nurture all the hopes and promises that come with motherhood. That is exactly what we do each time our leaders parade their odious abandon towards the plight of these promising children.
I watched the United Nations address of President Goodluck Jonathan. He said, among other things, that the girls had been gone for “over three months”. It took the unwashed memory of Hala Gorani, a CNN correspondent, to remind the world, Nigerians and especially our President that our Chibok sisters have actually been gone for over five months.
It is so easy to forget, it is so easy to raise our heads and embrace each new day with renewed vitality, forgetting the anguish of those who will never return, forgetting the terrible pain of mothers who will never hold their kids again, of fathers who are lost in the doubt of the miserable gloom hanging over their daughters.
But is it really easy to forget? Can we easily forget these victims of our collective omission and dereliction of duty as a nation? Does your heart tick every time you wake in the ambient cool of your room to remember that these girls perhaps didn’t get a quarter of the sleep you just had? Does your soul nudge when you want to lay your head to remember that these girls wouldn’t remember the friendly comfort of a blanket? Or, is your conscience simply numbed?
Have we earned the right to forget? There is a reason victims of man-made tragedies seek closure. The assurance that comes with knowing that those who armed you or inflicted your pain have been dealt a mortal blow and that the state has exerted the same measure of pain upon them in the belief that others like them will be dissuaded from joining the fray. This is what lawyers call deterrence. Yet, the families of these girls can neither have solace nor closure- their daughters have neither been found nor their violators punished. So long as Boko Haram boys still loom large, striking at will, invisibly-invincible, like turtle ninjas, we cannot arrogate to ourselves the right to forget.
As long as our military keeps ‘killing’ Abubakar Shekau everyday, while we all keep counting and hoping that they kill him at least the ninth time, like the proverbial cat with nine lives, we cannot forget or abandon this terror dance orchestrated by the endless Boko Haram tune. And it stills beats me that our consciencelessness has even dipped to a “lower low”. How can anyone attempt to sell us the dummy that “Shekau” has been killed? Please, and please! When Osama bin-Laden died, the US government didn’t have to release photos or go to the extent of cooking stories to sell the point. Americans simply felt it. When Shekau is truly dead, the Nigerian Army will no longer need the services of a “photo-shopper”, we will simply feel it. Somehow we will know that he’s has been killed.
So a few days ago, when October 1 came upon us- our usual time to roll out drums and songs and fly our colours- I just simply didn’t feel any conviction that this year’s was worth celebrating. This is my opinion and I am unapologetic about it. I am not a pessimist and I know there are a few areas where we have excelled, like the curtailing and containment of Ebola. However I believe that deeply ingrained in the meaning of ‘independence’ are synonyms like ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’. It is therefore a sad irony that we had the shameful audacity to even think of marking this year’s independence when our “girls” still wallow in the forest of God-knows-where. Can we truly celebrate independence when these compatriots are still at the mercy of these brutally- carnivorous Boko boys. Can we celebrate independence when over two hundred girls have been held captive for about six months-denied freedom and liberty? Our true mark of independence should not just be in ‘green-white-green’ or in a National Anthem or a lofty Pledge. When your head aches, your legs don’t just stand up to go to the village square. When your head aches, your body aches. That is the grain of our “Ubuntu” philosophy: “I am because we are”. It is what makes us Africans, the culture buried deep within us that “we will never leave anyone behind”. It is bad enough that we failed them in the first place, it is even worse that we are struggling so hard to numb ourselves to a perennial ‘hang-over’ regarding the whereabouts of these Chibok queens. So, the least we can do, the very least we can do is to keep their memories alive, to stay true to the ageless African creed that whoever you are, so long as you are our kin, we will be your keeper, we will not abandon you. This is not asking for too much!
Again you leave me no choice President Jonathan, because indeed after all is said and done, the buck stops on your table. It is commendable that you are rumoured to have declared that you will put national interests and unity first before personal ambition. I believe one very good way of showing this is by declaring that you will not declare your second term bid until the Chibok girls are found, brought home and reunited with their families. You will be surprised at how ingenious your aides can get when it comes to finding these girls. Their ideas will literally astound you. The bitter truth is that these girls “vanished” under your watch and so the responsibility of ensuring their safe return rests squarely on your shoulders. This is the solemn responsibility that comes with your office. It makes you owe the world, Nigerians and very strongly, the mothers and families of the Chibok girls their safe return.
These children like my niece, came wrapped in a bundle of hope and love. They looked at their parents at birth and beamed the “asking smile”: Will Nigeria do right by us? Mr. President, I believe it is not too late to answer, and our answer can only be ‘yes’ the day we start placing a non-negotiable premium on life, and it has to be any life for that matter; your child’s, my niece’s or the Chibok girls’! We must never forget them.
Source: http://www.punchng.com/opinion/how-we-have-failed-the-chibok-girls/
By: Abayomi Ojo |
