It’s 500 days, and Chibok girls are not back

It is now 500 days since the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School Chibok, Borno state, and 219 of them have still not been freed.

In the night of April 14, 2014, the marauding insurgents besieged the school, carting off the girls in trucks and torching the building. It was a commando operation, sinister in conception and daring in operation.

Although Boko Haram had been trafficking in the abduction of women and children, the Chibok case, due to the number of girls involved, was convincingly unprecedented.

Surprisingly, the immediate past government of Goodluck Jonathan responded feebly to calls for the rescue of the schoolgirls; it spent the first week after the incident drawing clouds in the air and munching conspiracy theories.

The lacklustre pose of the Jonathan administration to the incident irked concerned citizens, and soon a movement crystallised – the “Bringbackourgirls” campaign group.

Technically, it began on April 30, and a week after, the advocacy group – led by Obiageli Ezekwesili, former minister of education and Hadiza Bala Usman, chief of staff to Nasir el-Rufai, the Kaduna state governor – led a protest to the national assembly, in the crucible to demand immediate rescue of the girls.

In the blitz of the rain, David Mark, former senate president and Aminu Tambuwal, former speaker of the house of representatives, received the group, which at that time “commandeered” about 1000 protesters.

The lawmakers gave assurances that they would ratchet up pressure on the government for the safe rescue of the girls. This was in May, 2014. But sadly, to this day, the schoolgirls are still captives to some blood hounds.

The Ezekwesili-led citizens’ group did not let up. They took their cry to the defence headquarters, to the office of the national security adviser and even to the presidency, but got assurances that thinned out with the exit of that administration.

However, the campaign gingered up and mushroomed international appeal and call for the rescue of the Chibok girls. Global personalities like Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton adopted the advocacy slogan, “Bringbackourgirls.” Even celebrities cued in.

As the movement for the rescue of the Chibok girls assumed a global dimension, the world became more attuned to the atrocities of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

So with more global media attention, some countries like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) offered to help search for the girls, but their effort petered out in rumours of conspiracy.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said the rescue of the girls and the extermination of insurgency are his “select-executive” actions. He has since planted the military command control centre in Borno, and has rallied the support of regional leaders in the “holy” fight against Boko Haram.

Interestingly, in June, just a few weeks after he took the oath of office, he invited the advocacy group to the presidential villa, in a show of solidarity. He also provided buses to convey members of the group to the villa. But his predecessor had repeatedly turned down requests for an audience with the group.

In one of the citizens’ movement aborted protest to the villa, former President Goodluck Jonathan had sent his ministers to “waylay” the protesting group on the road leading to the villa. There, the ministers conveyed the message of the president to the group.

According to Olajumoke Akinjide, former minister of state for the FCT, Jonathan told the group to direct its campaign against Boko Haram and not his government.

So, it was not surprising when a pirate group, ‘#Releaseourgirlsnow’ emerged to counter the campaign of the pioneer, ‘#Bringbackourgirls’ group. Thugs were also unleashed on the group. Yet it remains dauntless.

Although Buhari has given a rather warm disposition to the campaign for the rescue of the Chibok girls, it is still early in the day to say the Buhari government has failed to do its duty to the girls. Let us hope that within the three-month time limit given to the military to crush Boko Haram, the Chibok girls will return to the waiting arms of Nigerians, and indeed their parents.

The advocacy group for the rescue of the girls has kicked off a series of activities to commemorate 500th-day of the abduction, and they have vowed to keep standing until the girls return – because it is not in anyone’s interest for the 1,000th day of abduction to be commemorated.