#BringBackOurBoys: We already forgot about the schoolboys abducted in Kankara? | Boko Haram releases video

Without mincing words, Nigerians have the attitude of losing voice almost immediately after they start screaming on the streets over one problem or the other. It is a cultural trend and you will need years of research to understand how we came to be people like that. Off your head, you could assume that Nigerians have lost faith that anything could happen even if they jumped 10 feet with their heads as their feet, and organised the longest endurance trek the world has ever known. Nigerians have lost faith in the Nigerian dream, because, relatively, no system is working.

But, one more supposedly indispensable element has been lost too – our humanity. Such that when we see headlines that read that 100 people have died in a certain part of the country, we are hardly bothered about the deaths of fellow human beings or the existence of also fellow human beings who may be in danger – not knowing when they will be killed like the others.

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More than 100 gunmen on motorcycles stormed a rural school north of Kankara town, forcing students to flee and hide in the surrounding bush. Many boys were able to escape, but many were captured, split into groups and taken away.

In an audio message Tuesday, December 15, 2020, from a man identifying himself as the leader of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, has claimed that the armed group was responsible for the abduction of hundreds of students from the all-boys school in Katsina.

There are contradictions as to the number kidnapped, but Military spokesman, General John Enenche told Channels TV Monday, December 14, 2020, that 333 pupils were unaccounted for after gunmen raided the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in the town of Kankara.

I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina,” said the man in Tuesday’s voice message.

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The families of the more than 300 kidnapped Nigerian schoolboys are worried they may be radicalised or held for years – typical of the Chibok schoolgirls or all the other kidnapped Nigerians –  as security forces combed a vast forest on Wednesday for armed captors possibly from the jihadist Boko Haram movement.

Late on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, Katsina Governor, Aminu Bello Masari told the BBC Hausa service that the missing boys were in the forests of neighbouring Zamfara. Earlier in the day, an aide to Masari said soldiers and intelligence officers had been combing the Rugu forest, which stretches across Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger, in search of the boys.

The man in the audio message offered no proof for the claim. No video footage was released of the missing boys. Also, the country’s supposed president has only expressed sadness on the event – while he and his tired Service Chiefs continue to tell the world that the situation will be handled. And, Nigerians have stopped talking about it, while the families of the children continue to suffer the pain, knowing that they may never be reunited with their wards.

No doubt, parts of Nigeria where terrorism is non-existent have their peculiar problems. For Lagos, we could talk of the unchecked activities of cultists in certain parts of the state, the now-neutralised Badoo boys, the traffic monsters who stop residents in broad daylight to rob them with weapons, etc, yet, we could not forget that Northern Nigeria is currently experiencing wildfire and we should not keep quiet about it.

If we could put maintain pressure, keep shouting until the insecurity problems of the North are solved, we could be saying that ‘a problem half solved is better than its continuance’.

Some Nigerians argue that political will alone could not solve insurgency in Northern Nigeria, as there are indications that the terrorist group and the bandits have their sponsors scattered all over Nigeria and abroad. But, what does it do to sit back and watch as the country burns to the ground?

If the #BringBackOurGirls movement had sat back to enjoy the ride, we would not have had some of the girls reuniting with their families.

Meanwhile, in a video released Thursday, by the terrorist group, some of the boys urged the authorities to cooperate with their captors in order to facilitate their release from captivity. One of the boys in the video could be heard saying, “Please help us. Tell the vigilantes and soldiers not to come around.” He also added that there are “more than 500 of them in the forest”.

These children are all of us. Indeed.

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