Wednesday, April 23, 2014

(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/

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