by Vincent Okwuanya

Expecting the heavens to handle every governmental or human ineptitude tantamount to a desperate “Deus ex machina” mentality, which would most likely not be rewarded. 

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

In the wee hours of 15^th April of 2014, the boarding students of Government Secondary School, Chibok were relieving the stress of the external examinations. Some were in their beds while others may be burning the candles in an ill-fated attempt towards brightening the prospects of their very bleak Nigerian future when a group of militants, largely believed to be Boko Haram insurgents, gave them an unanticipated awakening, rounded them up, unperturbed by the Nigerian security agents in an attack that spanned for more than two hours. After the attack, over two hundred girls were reported missing. As days passed by, hopes for an early rescue or even a decisive reaction by the government dissipated as these girls and their families are now left in an uncharted emotional territory and all but to their own devices. So far, it is evident that for all the results generated by the government as a response, the families of these girls and the girls themselves have produced better results than the increasingly clueless government. The families of these girls have organized search groups while some of the girls, probably informed by the government’s impotence have taken matters into their own hands and thus, have managed to escape their captors probably out of sheer serendipity or even divine bread crumbs dropped by the heavens for the Nigerian government, the heedless Hansel. It is indeed the case that in the face of such governmental powerlessness and systemic fragility, eyes tend to turn to the skies in the faint hope that God could demonstrate at least enough clemency to wipe the tears off the faces of these unfortunate families who have been forced to endure these long days of nightmares and scary permutations.

Expecting the heavens to handle every governmental or human ineptitude tantamount to a desperate “Deus ex machina” mentality, which would most likely not be rewarded. A popular adage has already warned that “heaven only helps those who help themselves”. There is the thought that God himself would be easily exasperated by the level of cruelty manifested in the unraveling of this human drama (Genesis 6:5). It is a drama with a capacity to be viewed as a comedy by the exploitative politicians who count votes while others count body bags, in a sick twist of schadenfreude. It is a drama with a capacity to develop into a tragicomedy if the government finds some resolve, empathy and sincerity. Lastly, there is a palpable feeling that this drama would result in a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions if it is not handled with the seriousness and urgency it deserves. However, as the government sits on its hands, the Chibok Kidnapping provides a deeper look into the hearts of men and their dispositions as this may be the crucial reason why these girls are yet to be reunited with their parents. The hearts of men as Joseph Conrad would note, is the “Heart of Darkness”. Therefore, there is the need to call a spade a spade and thus confront the obscure cruelty that may have kept these daughters from their families.

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

Cruelty is a word, which most men would not want to be associated with. It is a pariah word. This is largely because the image of man as produced by societal conventions is the image of a largely benign being despite the fact that experiences suggests that man has as much capacity for cruelty as he has for humaneness. There is then, the need to define cruelty so as to understand the parameters used in the categorizations and the accusations that would later be made in this piece. “Cruelty” has been defined as the disposition to inflict pain or suffering. It has also been defined as being devoid of humane feelings. Thus, cruelty is not just the disposition to inflict pain bust most crucially, it is the indifference to the plights of others. This dual understanding of “cruelty” would help us understand how our lack of humaneness has caused the kidnap of our sisters and daughters. Firstly, it must be understood that with the kidnap of these innocent school girls and their rumored maltreatment, Boko Haram has plunged new depths in their cruelty. Blowing up men and properties into bits and pieces is cruel, but at least, it is final for the families of the affected, and in a way, it is impersonal to the insurgents. Possibly, the bombs are planted and detonated from a distance and so, the insurgents watch the carnage from a distance and or read the results of their dastardly acts on the national dailies but this kidnap is no longer impersonal to these insurgents even as extraneous circumstances forced the death of two abductees. Holding and sexually abusing a teenager against her will is extremely cruel but crueler is the realization of the kind of torture the affected families undergo each passing day their daughters and sisters stay with their abductors. Their places on the beds are vacant; their absence at the kitchen is distressing while their friends wonder if the girl that was abducted would still be the one they would find. Would she have lost her virginity to the forced marriage? Would she come back with some bastards?  Would her mind withstand and or survive the putrid experiences or would her mind succumb to this unimaginable horror?  The sufferings of these concerned families and friends are accentuated by the fact that they do not know where their children are or whether they are dead or alive.  Thus, we can say that over two hundred families are living their hell on earth because their hopes are paradoxically underscored by their despair and are tainted by the same.

Onye sikwa  ma o buru ya.

Accusing only Boko Haram as being the only guilty party in this tale of abstruse cruelty is lazy. The Jonathan-led administration and the politicians perhaps intentionally or even unwittingly demonstrate their own variations of cruelty. This cruelty could be traceable to the inertia of the incumbent administration that appears to be sitting on its hands with regards to the kidnap debacle or the threats of the insurgency in general. This inertia could be translated as insensitivity to the plights of the citizenry who are now well fed-up with the clichéd verbiage that comes from the President or Reuben Abati. It was this line of thought that led to one of the fathers of the kidnapped girls submitting in a telephone interview with a leading online newspaper  that they have been abandoned by the government because they are “poor” and have “no influence whatsoever”. It would appear that the policy makers need to be affected before tangible strides to check this tragedy would be taken. Thus, Olusegun Agagu, a political stalwart of the south-western extraction needed to die “twice” before the government would press for serious reforms in the aviation sector. Could the distraught father have been right that they were neglected because they lacked the clout to force a governmental response or even sieve out any sort of sincerity from them? Another facet of this cruelty is evident in the insensitive or non-chalant PR moves recently made by the administration. While his decision to go ahead with the hosting of the Economic Forum could be apologized for as an expedient bravado, his decision to continue his 2015 reelection campaign sticks out like a sore thumb. It grinds the gears of these affected people that the presidential campaign adverts and his campaign schedules still go on at these periods of national mourning and pensiveness. Simply put, with his reelection bid going on simultaneously with the search for these Chibok girls, the president has unleashed a bull in a china shop. This is not to say that the President should abandon his reelection bid but to state that a better PR manager would have advised the president that a show of support or an overt display of his humaneness is the best campaign he could do right now. People need to see Mr President walking the talk. Furthermore, securing the rescue of these girls by whichever means necessary would guarantee him the votes of the friends and families of the affected. Politics indeed can be a force for good. It is worrisome that people do not exploit these legitimate channels to further their campaign goals rather doling out money and condiments that hardly survive the month. The current approach of the administration is an affront to the affected families who would be further devastated by the realization that their daughters’ lives have been abandoned at the instance of politics.

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

There is the fear that a tragedy this grave would be reduced to politics or as I have pointed out in an earlier piece, disaster porn. The campaigns to bring back these girls that have been so callously taken from us have been tainted by some unscrupulous politicians and political jobbers whose plastic distress only just veils their schandenfreude. These suffering girls are often used by the politicians as a pretext to subtly make political demands or even present themselves as Midas possessing the golden touch that would teleport us from this inferno to utopia. For these politicians, their disappointments, distress and commiserations are just skin deep as their endgame goes deeper than the rescue of these innocent girls. Their endgame is not surprising; they are after all politicians who must keep an eye on the opportunities presented by this Chibok kidnapping and the strategic edge it may give them ahead of the 2015 polls. An instance is in the consistent calls on the president to resign as a consequence of his inability to stem the tide of the onslaught. These politicians do not escape suspicions. If they had any strategy that would lead to a favorable resolution of this issue and are just waiting to win elections before they would deploy these strategies, then they must be cruel. Their insincerity has the capacity to sabotage the whole #BRINGBACKTHEGIRLS campaign. Playing politics with the lives of two hundred girls demonstrates a lack of empathy which is a vital quality for any prospective leader.

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

Furthermore, there is an ostensible cruelty in the ignorance of a large majority of Nigerians regarding the Chibok kidnapping. At this instance, ignorance assumes drastically cruel proportions. This ignorance and disinterestedness is most detectable in the Southern parts of Nigeria who have come to view the North-east more or less as a theatre. This disinterestedness is a cause for worry in the south east. Thus for the south-easterners, as  long as their relatives were not affected by the Chibok Kidnnapping, the incident was most likely heard in the news and then dismissed with a shrug or at best a half-hearted prayer.

For the Igbos who still feel some tinge of bitterness for the Biafra Civil War and their persecution within the Nigerian state, as far as the “Hausas kidnap and kill themselves”, it is karma. There are even arguments that the insurgency was a self-inflicted abscess which was initially fomented to destabilize the Jonathan-led administration and force him out of office. This argument is lent some disturbing credence by the comments of Sheikh Gumi, a northern Islamic scholar who seemed to think that Boko Haram would end as soon as Jonathan vacates the presidency. This would explain why empathy for the north is a scarce commodity in the most parts of the south. This would explain the apathy that pervaded the Chibok kidnap saga in the south.

To understand the issue clearly, I ran an impromptu interview on Facebook where I asked twelve people, five boys and seven girls all between the ages of 18 and 24 whether they have heard of the Chibok Schoolgirls kidnap. Of the ten respondents, nine did not know that over two hundred girls were missing. Only one of the respondents said that he is aware of the plights of his age mates who have been away from home for over two weeks. One of the respondents who I told the story of the kidnap asked me what she was going to do with it. This begs some questions, why would our brothers in diaspora and expatriates be so vibrant in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign when the people who are supposedly living the terror do not care about it?  How could we cohesively galvanize efforts and supports across the country when a great number of us do not know and sometimes do not just want to know? For perspective sake, the twitter channel dedicated for this campaign @BringGirlsBack has just over two thousand followers. In a country that has over five million twitter users, two thousand followers, some of whom are just concerned foreigners, is not good enough. We must not always resort to asking for help from the international community is doing to help. As invaluable as their help may prove to be, we must take the initiative to seize the bull by the horns. The comments of the First Lady who is willing to brave mortal peril in finding answers to this Chibok puzzle must be commended. That is the right sort of politics or at least, the right sort of rhetoric. The ignorance and the inactivity of most part of the south are cruel.

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

Summarily, national and global protests are good, the twitter channel dedicated to this campaign is applaudable, the tears that have been shed by the politician be it genuine or mere crocodile tears must be hailed for efforts but unfortunately, these are the minimum. There is the need to tell ourselves the truths are; the kidnap was avoidable and the rescue of these girls is possible. Their captors, the insurgents have lives, families and loved ones, our intelligent community needs to start working on their traceable links if they would ever prove to be intelligent. A greater and better level of intelligence gathering would see these girls rescued with little risks. Rescue operations have been undertaken in the past, no lest by the US, our very public allies. Another truth is that rash actions may trigger the massacre of the surviving girls and put out the faint light at the end of the tunnel, street protests and political tirades must take note of this fact too. Another truism is that there is need for empathy cutting across different social strata and ethnicities. There is the need for an expedient unity across different political parties and a greater level of sincerity and information sharing between them. The All Progressives Congress and The People’s Democratic Party must realize before it is too late that counting votes is easier than counting bodies. The tragedy does not favour any of them; it is distorting the very fabric of the Nigeria’s political system. The government needs to wake up to the softer part of their humanity. We all have to learn to put ourselves in the shoes of these unfortunate girls and their families. Succinctly put, we must learn to personalize tragedies.

Onye sikwa ma o buru ya.

I have a beautiful teenage sister who brightens our family with her uncommon brilliance and energy, God forbid that anyone would take her!

———————————-

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.