Nigerian Military Rescues 1890 Persons In A Fortnight, Still No Signs Of The Chibok Girls

Nigerian Soldiers

The Nigerian Army has confirmed the rescue of at least 1890 persons, in the last two weeks, since it began a new offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents. Yet, there is no word that the Chibok girls, or at least some of them, are among those rescued.

President Buhari and General Buratai, Nigeria's army chief, have recently promised to bring back the Chibok girls from their abductors, and I have continued to maintain that they are both lying through their teeth. What is it that both men stand to gain from their lies? Why is it so hard for them to admit to the families of these girls and the world that the Nigerian government has failed these girls? Buhari was not the president when they were abducted from their dormitories, and General Buratai was not the Chief Of Army Staff then, and they are both aware that it took the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan all of two weeks to even acknowledge the kidnap of these girls. Why are they therefore so bent on taking the glory for the rescue of these girls when those who should have properly managed the situation then did not do their jobs? I may not be privy to the intelligence that they may (or may not) have on the alleged location and condition of these girls, but I am very certain that they are lying each time they remind us of their promise to rescue the Chibok girls, and they know it. It is this knowledge that they are deliberately lying to the nation and the parents of these girls that is particularly egregious. It is perhaps too late now to admit that those girls will never be reunited with their families, and so they have to continue to maintain the lies. But time will out them for this unforgivable treachery. They have boxed themselves into a very tight corner, and I am waiting to see how they intend to wiggle their way out of this one. They may be relying on the very short memory of Nigerians, or for some other catastrophe to overshadow this one, but not everyone will forget. Particularly the families. One cannot even begin to imagine the harrowing nightmares that these families have been put through. I have experienced my own share of tragedies, but this is one that I would not wish upon my enemies, yet, Buhari and Buratai continue to give them false hope with their wicked lies.

I am particularly very disappointed at president Buhari's crass insensitivity to the plight of the families of the Chibok girl. For someone who became president after the fourth attempt at the polls, he has quickly forgotten the negative feelings engendered by his three previous defeats at those polls. Those feelings should at least give him an idea of what these families are going through, but since he has finally become president, all is forgotten. That is certainly not a presidential quality, and is reminiscent of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, who became president 1999 shortly after his release from Nigeria's inhumane prison system. He had promised during his campaign to make the squalid conditions he faced in prison fit for humans, but he quickly forgot his travails in prison while he was there, as soon he became president. Nigeria's prisons are still unfit to raise animals.

President Buhari, a former army chief himself, should show some military balls, and human empathy and tell the world the truth about the Chibok girls. He simply cannot continue to tell us that he can rescue them when he knows he cannot.