Why isn't our government doing anything about the missing girls?
It's been over a week since over 200 girls went missing from a school in Borno state, Nigeria and they still have not been located; they were abducted from their hostels by Boko Haram. These are people's children; daughters, sisters, cousins - vanished. Nigerians are being asked to fast and pray about the girls' release and recovery. If fasting and praying is the immediate response of a country, which budgets a trillion naira a year to security services, to such display of grave, heart-wrenching terrorism, it is pitiful. That we want to fight an active, unreasonable, blood-hungry group which continues to prey on innocent lives with prayers instead of setting up practical systems that will work in preventing further attacks and will bring these girls back home safely and as soon as possible, is nothing short of sad.
For a country so rich in resources and for a people so tenacious, we are not doing very well for ourselves. I cannot begin to imagine what the parents/caregivers/families of these kidnapped girls have gone through since they were abducted. I cannot begin to imagine what the girls held captive are going through; they could be being physically or sexually abused as the days go by. It is sad and difficult to imagine.
In my opinion, the only reason these girls are still missing is because they are not the daughters of 'important men'. I cannot imagine the daughter of Jonathan, Sambo, Shettima or Adenuga getting kidnapped without the government raising hell and moving mountains to recover that one child. These are 200 girls. And their parents are being forced to take matters into their own hands.
Nobody wants to die. Absolutely. And the North has become so unpopular in recent years that many people don't want to go there or have much to do with it. But the job of government is to protect its people, at least in an ideal world - and, yes, I do take into account that Nigeria is far from an ideal country. But the government is there to protect. As is the military. According to this article, the girls are being held in a forest a hundred kilometers away from Chibok, where they were abducted from. Why hasn't the military infiltrated the forest in search of these girls yet?
At the root of our problem as a nation is negligence and apathy; nobody cares and nobody wants to know how to care. And it is not just our leaders; this mentality has permeated and eaten into every strata of society - from banks to schools to government parastatals. In February, we held centenary celebrations in the aftermath of the slaying of 59 school children in their sleep in Yobe state by this same terrorist group. In 2012, a Dana Air airplane crashed into a neighbourhood in Lagos, killing everyone on board - the crash was due to complete and utter negligence on the part of the airline. Last year, three women were stripped naked and tortured in a Lagos market having been accused of stealing pepper - their ordeal was caught on camera. Hundreds of other atrocities have been committed, with our government doing little to nothing to prevent and alleviate the effects of such disasters.
I think the question now is 'How much more?' How much more will we take before we decide we have had enough? It's sad because many Nigerians do not seem to understand the gravity of what is happening around them. We get so carried away by the hot songs that seem to be dropping every week, and get so carried away by the creativity and wit of our comedians that we forget we are living in a boiling pot which will boil over any moment now. "The North" is not as far as we think it is; it is not a land light years away and we are not shielded from the mayhem happening there; the Nyanya bombing proved that.
Maybe the question isn't so much 'Why isn't our government doing anything about the missing girls?' Our government has time and time again proved that the safety and wellbeing of its citizens is not its priority. The true question is: 'When are we going to do something about the missing girls?'
For a country so rich in resources and for a people so tenacious, we are not doing very well for ourselves. I cannot begin to imagine what the parents/caregivers/families of these kidnapped girls have gone through since they were abducted. I cannot begin to imagine what the girls held captive are going through; they could be being physically or sexually abused as the days go by. It is sad and difficult to imagine.
In my opinion, the only reason these girls are still missing is because they are not the daughters of 'important men'. I cannot imagine the daughter of Jonathan, Sambo, Shettima or Adenuga getting kidnapped without the government raising hell and moving mountains to recover that one child. These are 200 girls. And their parents are being forced to take matters into their own hands.
Nobody wants to die. Absolutely. And the North has become so unpopular in recent years that many people don't want to go there or have much to do with it. But the job of government is to protect its people, at least in an ideal world - and, yes, I do take into account that Nigeria is far from an ideal country. But the government is there to protect. As is the military. According to this article, the girls are being held in a forest a hundred kilometers away from Chibok, where they were abducted from. Why hasn't the military infiltrated the forest in search of these girls yet?
At the root of our problem as a nation is negligence and apathy; nobody cares and nobody wants to know how to care. And it is not just our leaders; this mentality has permeated and eaten into every strata of society - from banks to schools to government parastatals. In February, we held centenary celebrations in the aftermath of the slaying of 59 school children in their sleep in Yobe state by this same terrorist group. In 2012, a Dana Air airplane crashed into a neighbourhood in Lagos, killing everyone on board - the crash was due to complete and utter negligence on the part of the airline. Last year, three women were stripped naked and tortured in a Lagos market having been accused of stealing pepper - their ordeal was caught on camera. Hundreds of other atrocities have been committed, with our government doing little to nothing to prevent and alleviate the effects of such disasters.
I think the question now is 'How much more?' How much more will we take before we decide we have had enough? It's sad because many Nigerians do not seem to understand the gravity of what is happening around them. We get so carried away by the hot songs that seem to be dropping every week, and get so carried away by the creativity and wit of our comedians that we forget we are living in a boiling pot which will boil over any moment now. "The North" is not as far as we think it is; it is not a land light years away and we are not shielded from the mayhem happening there; the Nyanya bombing proved that.
Maybe the question isn't so much 'Why isn't our government doing anything about the missing girls?' Our government has time and time again proved that the safety and wellbeing of its citizens is not its priority. The true question is: 'When are we going to do something about the missing girls?'
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