By Kennedy
Emetulu
We have had our
presidential election and President Goodluck Jonathan hated deeply by Boko
Haram has lost.
That means he would not be there as from the end of next month
when he hands over to the winner, General Muhammadu Buhari.
We as a nation are
celebrating several things at the moment. We are celebrating the election of a
man whose perseverance and insistence on getting to the top is inspiring; we
are celebrating a president who considers the wellbeing of his nation and its
people far and above his own personal ambition; we are celebrating the peace
that we are still enjoying despite all the hues and cries about Armageddon,
whichever way the presidential election goes. But there is still one
celebration we are not doing.
The darkest day of our
history since the annulment of the June 12 election was 15 April 2014, the day
we were told over 200 young girls of school age were kidnapped by Boko Haram
militants from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State at a time
they were preparing to sit for their West African School Certificate
Examination.
It wasn’t that the Boko Haram insurgents hadn’t killed more people
in their campaign at the time. In fact, before then on February 25 2014, the
insurgents had gone to the Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State
where they slaughtered 59 male students.
The nation choked in horror at all
these atrocities. But it was the kidnap of the Chibok young girls that
emblematized all that is wrong with our country. It was what announced us
internationally as real barbarians.
The significance of the
Chibok kidnap is at several levels. The victims were young girls from a part of
the country where female education is not particularly encouraged socially or
through deliberate government policy. We are talking of a part of the country
that needs human and material investment in education like the body needs
blood.
Yet, here is an insurgent group that as a policy is against Western
education going about killing and kidnapping students and destroying schools.
Parents who thought they had foresight to send their female children to school
were railroaded on a guilt trip as they dropped dead one after the other in
lonely agony over the loss of their children.
Today, no one knows what
state these girls are in, but it cannot be good. When they were kidnapped,
Nigerians and the world rose as one to ask they be returned. The
#BringBackOurGirls hashtag became the most popular in the world and their group
of campaigners became a permanent sight in Abuja.
It’s been almost a year now
and we still don’t have the girls back. Boko Haram has sworn to hold on to the
girls until Jonathan leaves or converts to Islam and until their own militants
held in Nigerian jails are released.
I would have thought
Jonathan’s loss in the election and the celebration of Nigerians welcoming a
new epoch should be the best signal to Boko Haram to release these girls who
have been to hell and back. Why are they still holding the girls when Jonathan
is on his way out in a matter of few weeks?
Shouldn’t they be joining the
nation in celebration of the election of Muhammadu Buhari by using this
opportunity to give us the gift of the girls’ release as a sign of their
goodwill and readiness to join the rest of us to build a new nation? Why are
the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners and the rest of us silent about the girls
now in the midst of our celebration?
Why are we not out there in full
campaigning that these girls be released before the inauguration of a new government,
so that dark part of our history is closed? Yes, the trauma counselors and
medical team would take the girls away to be looked after, but this would mark
a true beginning for our nation.
I think the Buhari team
needs to be proactive now. They need to begin now to reach out to the Boko
Haram people to signal that they would be ready to talk with them once they
come to government at the centre.
The point must be made to the insurgents that
the incoming government is not ready to inherit or carryover the liabilities of
the Yar’Adua and Jonathan governments where Boko Haram is concerned. They must
tell the militants they are prepared to start on a clean slate, but that the
militants must show goodwill and willingness to negotiate by releasing the girls
before inauguration.
Buhari must not just sit there and say he’s waiting to
take over government first before he can do anything and he must know that a
military solution will never bring the girls back. He needs to begin work on
this now.
As for the rest of us,
there’s no way to hide the fact that the longer the girls remain in captivity,
the more diminished we are as a people. The national and international silence
over these girls now is a scandal! We need to up the ante now! We need to
reenergize the campaign to get them back!
Boko Haram should release those girls
now as a sign that they are ready to negotiate with the new Buhari government
once President Jonathan leaves.
Jonathan won't be
taking the credit for such a release as the Buhari era has started from the
moment he was declared winner of this historic election, so everyone would know
that it’s his election that opened the opportunity for the release of the
girls.
So, people, let’s all get
back actively on the #BringBackOurGirls campaign now! It must be our duty to
ensure the girls are released before inauguration on May 29, 2015.
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