by Bunmi Olaniyan

In a series of tweets he asserted that on a BBC Hausa programme interviewing escaped Chibok girls, they asserted that they have been abandoned. His tweets continued that the girls stated that they have not been provided much needed drugs or even basic food.

It has certainly been an emotional week, from the passively mundane to the patently sinister. The foreboding cloud of an Ebola epidemic bearing down on the collective, viral gargoyle sneering gleefully chortling on as we scurry about in fright and confusion, mounting  half-hearted reaction a semblance an attempt or even some forlorn vestige at isolation and control.

As if this was not enough to contend with the country was brought to an unprecedented precipice of anarchy with the double bomb attempt on both the front-line Islamic scholar Sheik Bauchi and the former military ruler General Buhari thankfully both attempts failed.

The predictable upsurge in pontificating, recriminations and suppositions ensued from the local league newspaper stands, socio-political/football analyst to the more pretentious hip, enlightened and socially aware analyst pervading social media sphere. Thankfully the discourse slowly ebbed back to an even plateau as people moved on either out of boredom or disinterest to other hot topics typical of the average Nigerian commentator.

In spite of these entire convoluted and insidious occurrences,perhaps typical of collective psyche encoded in the average Nigerian, I also, like most absorbed all these happenings and trudged on as normal same as an overwhelming number of my comrades.

However nothing prepared me for the shock of seeing tweets from a twitter handle @aminugamawa.In a series of tweets he asserted that on a BBC Hausa programme interviewing escaped Chibok girls, they asserted that they have been abandoned. His tweets continued that the girls stated that they have not been provided much needed drugs or even basic food.

Applying an elementary deductive reasoning it is patently obvious that no attempt has been made at rehabilitating or even counselling the girls and/or their families in dealing with the traumatic experience never mind bereavement counselling and support with news of some parents having died of heart break and other undisclosed ailments ensuing from the abduction.

After a lot of soul searching, I reached the obvious conclusion that individually, and collectively as a society, including the Bring back our girls assemblage and other advocacy organisations and the collective duo of Federal and state Government, we have all failed the girls.

Even though our voices had been vociferous and strident in the calls for rescue of Chibok girls, same voice was disappointingly hushed and tranquil in drumming awareness and support for the plight of the rescued girls, their families collectively and the community as a whole.

Let me put this in its proper context: since the daring escape from the vehicles being used to convey them by Boko Haram insurgents to their hideout in the dead of the night, absolutely no medical help has been rendered to these girls. Let us pause for a little bit.

Please ponder upon this for few seconds now let your mind wander over the barrage of overwhelming awareness, deluge of worldwide publicity that has accompanied these brave girl’s exploits and the dire straits the rest of their friends are in presently then engineer a snap interface in comparing to the stark reality of their situation presently.

Since they managed to escape they have had no medical intervention from either their state Government, the federal Government nor Bring back our girls group never mind other advocacy groups or even we Nigerians. Their ordeal also includes a total lack of counselling support to deal with the trauma they experienced and ensuing bereavement counselling especially with the death of some parents in their small tightly knit community including how to deal with the social stigma. Forgive me for repeating this point, it has to be restated due to the resounding poignancy.

The first question I asked myself is how we allowed this shocking oversight to take place?

That for slightly over 100 days while we condemned both the state and Federal Government  for their complacent and lack lustre response, while we harangued government to do all in its power to rescue the girls still in bondage, the welfare and basic provisions of the escaped ones were completely ignored and subsumed by sole concern for those who are yet to be rescued.

Have we or did we invest the sum total of our emotional reservoir into the quest for the return of the abducted girls to the fractional detriment of the escaped girls? Or are we somehow making a social inference here that as long as they have been rescued their families and communities are responsible for their treatment and provision? I don’t want to mention nor explore the last option plaguing my mind, even for me it is too disturbing some will say of malevolent hue to consider.

In our collective quest to dredge up and stimulate the innate benevolence, sense of charity in others we seem to have divested with a chunk of our own shared humanity. Perhaps we shall chalk this down to strategic or unwitting oversight? Whichever justifications we tender moral responsibility asserts that it is inexcusable and a collective shame on society.

While the share of the fault rests upon us as a society it must be said that we were constrained to the basic news emanating due to the limited scope we have over the overarching situation of the girls and anything happening in Chibok, a large chunk of the fault lies with the immediate Borno state Government and by extension of shared responsibility to the Federal Government.

The proper and prompt treatment of these girls lies firmly within the constitutional purview of their responsibilities and the inalienable responsibilities towards those girls both as indigenes of Borno and full blooded Nigerians.

There is little we as society can do since we have none or limited access at best to the community nor the parents of abducted girls, moreover we are not implicitly or even explicitly vested with the mandate to speak on behalf of the community or the parents.

In view of this the best we can do is highlight the disgraceful and harrowing plight of these girls and raise our concerns with those who have been handed mandate to act on their behalf or vested with responsibilities .

We earnestly urge them to pay as much heed to the rehabilitation counselling and providence of the escaped girls as they are doing raising awareness concerning the situation of the girls still in the dark clutches of Boko Haram. We appeal to them to use the platform of the bring back our girls not just to highlight the plight of the girls still in detention but to go beyond implied transience and go way beyond front line activism in sourcing for help concerning the escaped girls.

In conclusion I must not fail to apportion some blame to the Bring back our girls group and by extension other advocacy groups. By virtue of their sole issue campaign for the Chibok girls they have been in a vital position to be in direct interface with representatives of the community. In addition they have sole and unencumbered access to representatives of the Chibok parents hence all their yearnings and requests. For the girls to  complain of neglect in the most basic of wants invariably indicts bring back our girls assemblage  and further points to the fact that unfortunately they have come up short in one of the most significant and key responsibilities towards the girls.

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Olubunmi Olaniyan works in the IT sector in the West Midlands of the  UK as a software testing analyst in JHC LLP and is a a writer , social commentator and budding entrepreneur. He studied in the University of Salford Manchester for his BSc in politics with Criminology and Postgraduate in Coventry University obtaining an MA in terrorism international crime and global security. He  tweets from @Bunmola2010

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