by Dolapo Aina

The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders-Dr Myles Munroe

Several thoughts ran through my mind while writing this piece; thoughts like the inability of government to protect citizens and wondering what the benefits of being a patriotic Nigerian are. I read my previous piece on the 100^th day of the abduction of the Chibok Girls and I was surprised that some opinions therein, were beginning to come to fruition and it would appear that nothing had changed. A salient thought ran through my mind. At the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs October Lecture which had the Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman (Professor Attahiru Jega) as guest speaker; Nigeria’s former External Affairs Minister during the General Babangida regime-Professor Bolaji Akinyemi; reeled out a number of “takeaways” which sought to hammer into our re-collective skulls, several events that have occurred in 2014. He had to reel out these events (disappeared funds, Chibok Girls and the strange ceasefire, Nigeria-South Africa fiasco, Ebola and the need to the government to without procrastinating publicly acknowledge the efforts of the young doctors who gave their lives) because; according to him, Nigeria is a nation that forgets (may I add deliberately forgets).

200 days later, the Chibok Girls haven’t been released; after government sources informed Nigerians and the world that the government had secured their release through a brokered cease-fire deal facilitated by a certain Danladi. Nor have the Chibok Girls been released; since according to government officials; the girls’ whereabouts were known to the government.

I wouldn’t bore you with grandiloquent sentences; but I would joggle your memory that it was due to Malala Yousafzai’s visit on the 90^th day of the girls’ abduction; which prompted President Jonathan to meet the parents of the girls and those who escaped. Lest we forget (like we are wont to), there was a little fiasco pertaining to whether money was given to the Chibok Community to be shared. Was money handed out or was it shared appropriately (or equally as Nigerians love to say); who knows?

I won’t bore you with the deliberate attempt to discredit the BringBackOurGirls’ organisers by some sponsored and faceless voices; who insinuated the organisers were card-carrying members of the opposition party.

200 days later, the girls have not been found; the trauma can not be visualised vividly. When the girls were abducted, the statements of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda which I included in the piece of the 100 days; should be highlighted here.

Leaders stand for something-vision; leaders stand on something-values-Dr Myles Munroe

President Yoweri Museveni would state in disbelief and berate the current Nigerian administration headed by President Goodluck Jonathan; for calling on the United States to help him rescue the Chibok girls. In President Museveni’s words “we have never called the United Nations to guard our security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call on the UN: I would rather hang myself. We prioritized national security by developing a strong Army, otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children.” He said, inviting foreign power would be a vote of no confidence in his government, if the state can’t guarantee security of the people.

Also, President Paul Kagame (who doesn’t kowtow to the whims and caprices of the West) made this hard-hitting and sincerely blunt commentary. Don’t read his comments if you don’t have the guts to read the truth. For those who have read some of President Kagame’s speeches, you would concur that he tells you what several other African Presidents wouldn’t dare say. President Kagame went thus “When I am watching television and I find that our leaders, who should have been working together all along to address these problems that only affect their countries, wait until they are invited to go to Europe to sit there and find solutions to their problems…it’s as if they are made to sit down and address their problems, Why does anybody wait for that? In fact, the image it gives is that we are not there to address these problems…they are (African leaders) happy to sit in Paris with the President of France and just talk about their problems.”

The Rwandan President went further; “It doesn’t make sense that our leaders cannot get themselves together to address problems affecting our people.” And he concluded by stating “African leaders, we don’t need to be invited anywhere to go and address our problems, without first inviting ourselves to come together to tell each other the actual truth we must tell each other,” he said.

The public didn’t know who their leaders really were-until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal-Dr Myles Munroe.

I opined in my previous piece and I would reiterate it once more. What this writer thinks goes thus; 2015 elections’ catalyst would be the Chibok Girls theme. If the Chibok Girls are rescued; it would be the best PR strategy cum campaign President Jonathan’s PR team (Levick) would deploy for another term.  There is no shying away from this fact; no matter the advertisements bombarded into our skulls via the media and political campaigns.

And if President Jonathan decides not to run again (rescuing the girls and leaving on a high; leaving the scene on a blaze of Glory), without any iota of doubt, he would become an instant global statesman sought around the globe. The only change in the aforementioned is that the President is gunning for the number one seat in 2015; therefore the opportunity of being a global statesman has been discarded.

And the recurrent déjà vu that characterised his “journey” to picking up the only presidential nomination form available can best be imagined than read. What would have happened if the president made an error while filling the “27million Naira paper(s)”? Permit this writer to digress a bit; the governor of Ondo State (South West Nigeria) Olusegun Mimiko decamped from Labour Party to the Peoples Democratic Party but his security detail was/were not withdrawn. But when the serving House of Representives’ leader Aminu Tambuwal decamped from PDP to All Progressive Congress; his security detail was/were ordered to be removed like clockwork. The season of the Hallelujah Boys has begun.

On the Chibok Girls’ abduction and other previous and recent abductions of females and males; People (male or female) who kidnap children and harm and inflict on them untoward and unspeakable acts; aren’t normal but delusional and are certified paedophiles. Anyone who agrees to an amnesty with such persons and doesn’t let the law of the land take its course; has no future for the children of this country and would be informing parents and the world that the Goodluck Jonathan Administration doesn’t see anything morally and ethically incorrect by not prosecuting criminal-minded terrorists and paedophiles-for this is what they are. How does anyone let loose serial paedophiles who have committed heinous crimes of murder and rape? A final thought, is it by some stroke of magical wand that the response of government to the kidnapping of relatives of government officials is always topnotch?