by Waziri Adio

And when the protesters were told to direct their protests at the terrorists and not at this administration, the take-away message is: If you want the girls back, ask their abductors to release them!

In the past weeks, the federal government has struggled to refocus the plaintive request embedded in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Some of its spin merchants would prefer the request to start with “Release” instead of “Bring Back.” Ordinarily, the amendment sought should excite William Strunk and E.B. White and all those stylists who preach economy in the use of words. And for the rest of us, it shouldn’t really matter what words are used as long as the abducted girls are reunited with their parents and loved ones.

But there is a not-so-tiny problem here. Their preferred phrasing is not a vote for economy in language. And it is not necessarily animated by the verve to rescue those distressed girls who by tomorrow would have been in the possession of some mindless terrorists for 50 days. Rather, what they are advocating is a semantic trick designed to shift blame, divert attention and reframe the discourse. It is work avoidance at its most pathetic, which, regrettably, has become the signature character of this administration.
You don’t need a diviner to tell you what the motive of this hollow attempt at counter-narrative is. On 22 May 2014, a member of the posse of ministers and presidential aides sent by President Goodluck Jonathan to receive the #BringBackOurGirls protesters in Abuja engraved it on the marble: “When a bomb goes off in Baghdad, Iraq, the people of Iraq do not blame the government, they blame the terrorists. When a bomb goes off in Islamabad, Pakistan, the people of Pakistan do not blame the government, they blame the terrorists. When a bomb goes off in Nigeria, we must all unite to fight the terrorists.”

It was a clever rhetorical attempt, even if vacuous. In case they still do not get it, Nigerians are not blaming President Jonathan and his government for the abductions and other acts of the terrorism that are now becoming so commonplace, they are merely urging their government to rescue the abducted girls and keep the rest of us safe. And when the protesters were told to direct their protests at the terrorists and not at this administration, the take-away message is: If you want the girls back, ask their abductors to release them!

Beyond providing another un-flattering insight into the quality of thinking in this government, that statement builds on others to showcase a government that is more fixated on its image than on its responsibility, a government that is conditioned to see everything from the prism of 2015, and a government that has become so paranoid that it sees even a simple reminder of its obligations as enemy action.

Let’s face it, there is a lot to criticise this government for on this Chibok matter, and I shall return to some of these shortly. But most of the demonstrators are only interested in getting our government to do what governments everywhere are expected to do when citizens fall into distress. In making their demand, the protesters are standing on the authority the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which in Section 14 (2) (b), states that: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Now, should it not be the primary purpose of our government to rescue the abducted girls? Is our government saying it is beyond its capacity to rescue these girls? Is our government saying our only hope lies in appealing to the conscience of those conscienceless terrorists?

Two days after the protesters were charged to focus their anger on Boko Haram instead of the government, a group surfaced at the Unity Fountain in Abuja, where the Oby Ezekwesili and Hadiza Bala Usman-led group had been protesting for the rescue of the abducted girls since April 30. The message of the new group was “Bring Back Our Girls, Say No to Boko Haram”. And two days after that, another group showed up in great numbers. Conveyed to Unity Fountain in Sure-P buses and dressed in red-shirts, the new protesters had a message clearly directed at Boko Haram: “Release Our Girls Now.” Their pro-government protest was covered live by NTA, and a minister and his aide excitedly tweeted it, without a thought for the need to cover their tracks!

And yet two days after, on May 28th, some thugs descended on the original BringBackOurGirls protesters, snatched phones and handbags, smashed tripods and cameras of journalists, and pulled and destroyed the plastic chairs that some of the protesters sat on, right in front of the police. It is safe to assume that this government has not yet plumbed so low as to be sending thugs to attack women who have been protesting peacefully for over a month now. But the government has not distanced itself from this disturbing throwback to the era of military dictatorship, nor has it re-assured the original protesters that their safety will always be guaranteed. Encouraging others to push a counter-narrative on a very clear issue is surely counter-productive, but can be understood. However, attempting to force the issue through intimidation should have no place in a democratic society and can only worsen the administration’s image deficit.

As part of the lame attempt at reframing the narrative, the FCT junior minister had told the protesters on 22 May that the government responded swiftly after the mass abduction. Ms. Olajumoke Akinjide would need to tell us what exactly that swift response was. The critical issue, which remains a sore point, is not that the abduction happened, but about that the response was tardy and not commensurate with the gravity of the situation. It was reported that the abduction operation lasted hours in a state under emergency, that some of the trucks used by the terrorists broke down, that some of the girls escaped on their own, and that some of their parents took the risk of searching for their daughters. Nothing in these accounts suggest that the Nigerian state responded appropriately and on time to rescue these girls in those critical hours immediately after the incident.

Anywhere in the world, the abduction of more than 200 girls should be a national emergency that should reflect in the mien of the head of state. Within minutes of such a disaster, the commander-in-chief should be aware and should swing into both concrete and symbolic actions. But the day after these girls were carted away, President Jonathan was dancing away at a political rally in Kano. And the president’s first public act, weeks after the online and on-street protesters have put a global spotlight on the issue, was to set up a fact-finding committee!

This first tragic error (aptly described by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as occasioned by denial and fixation on reelection) was followed by a catalogue of unforced errors, from the disastrous media chat, to the tragi-comic inquisition by the president’s wife, and the countless mixed messages being spewed forth by an army of spokespersons. Some opportunities have presented themselves, which if taken, would have been more effective than bussing counter-protesters to Unity Fountain, nurturing conspiracy theories, and accusing every dissenter of being sponsored by the opposition.

I will stick with only one such opportunity, which is largely symbolic but very important. And it is the opportunity to connect with and comfort the distraught parents of Chibok. If the commander-in-chief could not go to Chibok for whatever reasons, he can at least send a plane to bring a few of the affected parents to the Presidential Villa, and if that is still impossible, he could at least speak directly by phone to some of the parents to empathise with and reassure them that Nigeria will do everything to rescue the girls. Is this also difficult to do? And if it has been done, is it too sensitive to disclose?

All said, it is only President Jonathan, and not Boko Haram, that can bring this lingering national trauma and the unremitting tragedy of errors to a close. It is his job to bring back the girls or get Boko Haram to release them. And when that happens, and we hope soon, it will be marvelous for the girls and their parents, and for their community, and for the country, and for his image.

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This article was first published in the Thisday Newspapers

 

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