Opinion: Why the government is not responding to missing Chibok girls

by Afolabi Opanubi

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Military interventions to save abducted Boko Haram victims have proved fatal, with victims being killed in the rescue process. This is probably a consideration of the government. However, this challenge doesn’t excuse ineffectiveness. Subtler forms of rescuing these girls can be used.

On Tuesday, people woke up to the news that girls, aged 16- 18, who had been abducted from Chibok, a community in Borno state, were being married to militants and allegedly, to men across Nigeria’s borders. Reports claim that some of these girls were sold for less than twenty dollars. This news has devastated even more, parents of the abducted girls and concerned Nigerians. Far from being a positive development or a rescue story that people have been hoping for, this news has shown what more could go wrong when innocent girls are held by the extremist Boko Haram.  In fact, so much has gone horribly wrong since the abduction of over 200 girls and the murder of travellers at Nyanya park, Abuja: the government has been accused of falsifying numbers of girls missing and rescued, parents have gone in search of their daughters  unaided by the government.  A mother of one the missing girls has had to ask “why isn’t the government deploying every means to find our children?” This question emotional as it is is key. Because it highlights the Nigerian government’s half-hearted attitude towards the Chibok girls and the country’s youth.

Nigeria is never subtle in what it teaches its youth. Politicians who’ve looted funds are the most extravagant, policemen aren’t so much inconspicuous when they extort money from drivers. Young people are witnesses. They realize quickly that their business in such a society isn’t to try and change things or spark social change or be involved in stewardship, what their concern should be is building their own small world of happiness somewhere and locking themselves within it, high fences with barbed wire looming over them. So far, the few missing girls who’ve returned to their parents have done so only by escaping from hide-outs or jumping from trucks conveying them. There hasn’t been any rescue spearheaded by government agencies or the military. Parents who’ve ventured into forests, supposed hide-outs of Boko Haram, armed only with bows and arrows, have done so unaccompanied by security officials. Government response has been so lacking that social media has been abuzz with comments.

tolu ogunlesi@toluogunlesi  Has President Jonathan made a statement about the #Chibok girls? Even one word? cc. @abati1990@renoomokri

Funmi Iyanda@Funmilola  Told the prof sitting by me about our missing girls and her face went pale. If one girl goes missing here, everything would stop she said.

This poor response falls under a larger pattern in Nigeria. Problems become antiquated in society, not solved. Youth unemployment, a poor public education system and human trafficking are issues that have been around much before BH spate of attacks. They have become ‘talk’ one grew up hearing, one experiences and lives with; almost like a dead body on the road that everyone sees yet drives past. Nigeria’s unemployment rate is about 24% which ranks high in the world. The government creates skill acquisition and business support programs to deal with such a statistic. Which really is providing band-aid solutions to bigger problems. From girls being taught how to sew or being given 10million naira to promote businesses, the country doesn’t experience concerted, overarching efforts to really deal with the issue. As a nation, that experience of recognizing a national problem, collectively working with the government to deal with it and, in the end, witnessing remarkable change is almost out of reach. Present only in our imaginations. We are used to a government caught up in its politics and graft. When government projects are carried out and accomplished, we’re all too grateful, no matter how basic the projects might be. Every young Nigerian who has experienced the NYSC program, the compulsory one year work term done in any state of the officials’ choosing, knows quite well what government neglect is. The camps young people (corpers) are sent to have deplorable hygiene levels, the military can be disrespectful to corpers, the female corpers more so. Only a few exceptions exist. Young people have been killed in accidents on their way to serve the country or have died due to treatable illnesses (NYSC-approved hospitals are usually ill-equipped government clinics). Yet there aren’t many notable government efforts to change the NYSC program and how it works. Everyone has to learn quite quickly that you’re on your own. This brutal message is being sent to parents of the missing girls and the country.

Military interventions to save abducted Boko Haram victims have proved fatal, with victims being killed in the rescue process. This is probably a consideration of the government. However, this challenge doesn’t excuse ineffectiveness. Subtler forms of rescuing these girls can be used. For instance, gathering intelligence, mapping out possible locations where they’re captured. For a government enthusiastic about negotiating with a terrorist group, perhaps making a deal with BH wouldn’t be out of the question.

One hopes that the continuous attacks on civilians and the military serves as a wakeup call to the government to act. Rather than politicizing the country’s security issues. The current system that exists is self-enrichment, bolstering one’s own businesses and coffers through stints in public office. Boko Haram cannot be fought with such a status quo. Children’s’ safety in the Northeast cannot be assured in such a system. In a society like ours where public service is turned over on its head, it is easy for terrorist groups to thrive.

 

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Afolabi Opanubi was born in Lagos but grew up in Port Harcourt. At sixteen, she left Nigeria for Canada to do a B.Sc program in Biology. She is  a writer and does mostly prose fiction. Her work has appeared in The Drum literary Magazine, 34th Parallel and Rabbit tales.

 

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

 

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