(No) Help!

It saddens me that Nigeria is the way it is… almost to the point of regret of my Nationality. I was so happy when I heard that some of the kidnapped girls had been rescued. It even gave me hope. Hope there might be something in our system that hasn’t yet yielded to the corruption and ineffectiveness that has ravaged our society. Hope that our law enforcement agencies, and by association Government, could still be depended on.

But news broke not too long after, that all the stories about some of the girls haven been rescued were false. The Principal of the school has confirmed that none of her girls have been fortunate enough to be rescued by our fabled law enforcement agencies. The only girls who have gotten away from the Boko Haram Kidnappers are those who have employed their own wits and summoned courage that they probably never knew they had.

What’s worse? Is it that our Government and law enforcement agencies has failed us at a time such as this or that someone (from within the agencies?) failed to get their facts right before raising the hopes of all concerned by talks of a rescue operation that never was? What kind of people think that at a time like this, face-saving is the priority? It’s been over 1 week since these girls were taken. Our law enforcement agencies have not been able to shame these perpetrators of evil by stealing back from them even 1 of these girls. I can’t help wondering if they are all still alive and what ill treatments are being meted out on them.

It’s a day of mourning when we discover as a country that a bunch of teenage girls are more resourceful than our law enforcement agencies. It’s time to put aside our fineries for sack clothes when over 200 teenage girls are grabbed by the literal Hands of Evil and we all as a country stop in our tracks, shake our heads in despair, even shed a few tears then go on with our lives. How? Why? These girls are not dead (as far as we know) but as far as our government is concerned, it seems like their death certificates might have as well been signed. I dare say that if 200 cars went missing from a Toyota dealership, more efforts would have gone into recovering them. What are we to make of this? Are material things worth more to us as a people than lives (so long as they are not our very own)? How can we go on with our businesses as usual as if over 200 potential leaders of tomorrow have not been stolen away in the dark of night? I hate to sound like I’m obsessed with the western world, but I have no doubts that had this incident happened in America or Britain, their Governments would have gone all out to recover the girls. Our Government’s inaction (yes, inaction!!!) speaks so loudly of a lack of compassion that I fear for all of our lives. If a lack of compassion is not the problem here, then it has to be the grossest of ineptitudes. So which is it?

Updates on the situation...

http://www.bellanaija.com/2014/04/24/boko-haram-threatens-to-kill-abducted-school-girls/

Sweet Mother

I just came across this video on Youtube. I know it’s well past Mother’s Day but it was too beautiful to pass up plus Mother deserve to be appreciated every day, in several ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY&feature=youtu.be

It’s just about brought tears to my eyes … that’s a lie! It DID bring tears to my eyes. I also made be proud to be a Mom. Made me feel better about all the times I thought my efforts went straight in the drain.

This video is a tribute to every Mom out there who feels undervalued and over worked. God Bless you for your labour of love!

OH GEJ!!! (2)

I gladly eat my words this morning. What?! Yes! I’m happy to announce that some of the girls that were kidnapped on Monday by the Boko Haram (BH) sect have been rescued. Read news here. There was a search and rescue operation after all and it has yielded some favourable results. Let this be a lesson to the faithless; God does answer prayers.

I can’t express enough how relieved I am for the “over 80 girls” that were safely recovered from the terrorists nor can I imagine the bravery of the 16 who escaped the clutches of their abductors. I pray that God will always give us the grace and wits we need when life presents us with unpleasant situations. My prayers remain with the girls who are still being held. My hope is that they too will be safely recovered and that they can put this horrible incident securely behind them.   I urge the good men (and women..?) who rescued the “80 or so” to intensify efforts to recover the remaining girls because I can’t imagine the rage and frustration that would be vented on these poor girls by the kidnappers.

Every morning on my way to work, I tune in to Classic FM 97.3 to listen in on their Front Page News & Analysis by Sly, Bukola and the delightful Jimi Disu. It’s a great program and most times, the analyses are spot on. But today JD decided to play the Devil’s Advocate and see things from the perspective of GEJ on his attendance of the Kano rally in the face of the terror that BH had just unleashed. So he said… maybe GEJ went to the rally because the acts of terrorism were perceived to be BH’s way of trying to clog the wheel of the Government …maybe GEJ did not want to accede to the expectations of the sect by halting all Government activities.

As a little boy I know would say “No! No!! No!!!” I beg to disagree with Mr. Disu and ask…

 “How do dancing and clapping at a rally organized to welcome Ibrahim Shekarau (a man who can’t seem to make up his mind on where to pitch his tent) back to the PDP move the country forward?! How do Mr Shekarau’s political proclivities translate to the governing of our nation?! No one says the rally had to be cancelled but did GEJ have to be there in person?! Forget the rally; does this explanation also cover his attendance of the 100^th birthday of the Olubadan?”

 Oh GEJ!!! *smh

Oh GEJ!!!

I haven’t blogged in a long while. Some of that time, it was for a lack of topics that I thought were worth the read but most of the time, it was for the lack of motivation or time to put my fingers to a keyboard (used to be “pen to paper”). Today however, I have an excess of all elements and they are all embodied in the man popularly known as GEJ.

When GEJ made his Presidential debut I thought (as did most Nigerian’s) “Here’s a man with a grass to grace story. Here’s a man who knows the pains and agonies of lack (He did say he had no shoes at some point!). Surely he would know how to bring about change. Surely he would WANT to make a difference. Surely he would want his grass to grace story to end well and probably itch a mark or two for himself in the sands of time.”

I have been so sourly disappointed on so many counts and occasions since I first entertained these thoughts that I have lost count and have I resorted to bidding time till he is relegated to the archives of the long and sad story of the brutalization of the country called Nigeria.

There are so many ills and misdeeds one could lay at the feet of GEJ but at the moment one particularly resonates in my mind.

On the morning of Monday the 14^th of April, 2014 dozens of Nigerians lost their lives in a bomb blast attack by the infamous Boko Haram sect in the Nyanya area of Abuja . Picture from the scenes of the blast depict such carnage that the weak of heart have made conscious efforts to avoid them. So desperate was the need to help the survivors that even the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Andrew Pocock, went and donated blood. All we got from dear GEJ was what seemed like a half-hearted visit to the scene of the blast (several other curious Georges visited the scene as well) and hear-says from his not-so-eloquent Speaker. Is it that the Brit is more concerned about the hurting Nigerians than the Nigerian President or does the sight of his own blood make him queasy?! Even if the act by the High Commissioner was politically motivated, I dare say a politically motivated move that saves lives is better than a limp handshake!

Several hours after, on the same day, some members of the same sect stormed an all-girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State and carted off about 200 students in a style similar to that in which 20 or so girls were lost earlier in January. If there have been any search-and-rescue operations by our military forces they must have been EXTREMELY hush-hush and we all know that is not the style of our government. So I’m wondering “Don’t these girls matter to Mr. President?!” and “After every terrorism attack does he just like most Nigerians check to see how close to home the casualties are and   heave a sigh of relief when all family and friends have been safely accounted for?!” Doesn’t he ever wonder if just maybe the call to Presidency might be more than placatory remarks hurriedly flung from the steps of a plane bound for some western country or another so he can hobnob with the world powers on the bill of the Nigerian people?! What does he discuss with his other power-wielding friends at those meetings anyways, because it’s definitely not how to move the nation he leads forward!

Now I get to the crux of the matter…the reason I felt moved to speak. I was not shocked by his inaction on all of the above issues after all what is new about the President of Nigeria doing nothing as the country seemingly gets ripped at its seams by the many ills that besiege us? Nothing!

What is new to me however is how loud I heard GEJ speak on Tuesday, April 15, 2014. Wow was he passionate and all fired up! What IS sad is that he wasn’t speaking at the sites of any of the calamities that struck recently nor was he commissioning the eradication of the ill that has been scourging some parts of the northern part of the country. I heard our President’s voice at its loudest ever since his rise to power at a political rally in Kano less than 24 hours after all those people he purports to lead were killed and some more with promising futures stolen away to face new futures the thoughts of which cause me to cringe with pain. And No, he did not stop at the political rally. Our Dear GEJ flew to Ibadan to felicitate with the Olubadan of Ibadan who was celebrating his 100^th Birthday! Couldn’t his VP or some other of his hypocritical cohorts have represented him at that event while he sat with his service chiefs and strategists to review the events that had just occurred and perhaps pretend to be concerned about recovering those innocent girls? No oh! Mr GEJ’s priorities are obviously different so why should he bother?

My religion teaches that where a man’s treasures are there his heart will be. What does Mr. President’s heart gravitate towards? Sometimes I wonder (GEJ being a religious man and all), what would his response be on the D-Day, when he meets his Maker and is asked the famed question ”What did you do with the Country I gave you leadership of?”

On the premise that there is still a tiny part of him that really means well for Nigeria and its people, I give this advice: The next time there is a disaster or mishap in the United States (not because I wish ill on the country but because such are the times we live in), His Excellency should grab pen and paper and take diligent notes on how Obama reacts. I am beyond doubt that a thing or two would be gleaned.

Picture culled from here