Chibok: The Blame Game

For the past three weeks or
thereabout, many Nigerians have lost patience with the Jonathan administration as a result of the April 14 bomb blasts that occurred in Nyanya which left scores of their compatriots dead and many more injured, as well as the abduction of over 200 school girls who were sitting for West African School Certificate (WASC) examinations at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State.
President Jonathan unwittingly exacerbated the mood of the nation when he attended a rally organized by his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano, where he treated the world to scintillating presidential dance-steps, barely twenty-four hours after the mindless killing and abduction of his hapless subjects.
Consequently, there have been accusations and counter-accusations over the security challenges facing the country occasioned by the activities of the Boko Haram sect. The National Women leader of the PDP, Kema Chikwe and the leader of Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Asari Dokubo, publicly expressed disbelief that the female students were kidnapped, given the fact that Borno State along with Yobe and Adamawa States are in state of emergency.
Dokubo went further to challenge the Borno State government and the school authorities to publish the names and photographs of the abducted students.
However, on Friday, May 2, the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan convened a stakeholders’ meeting to assist the Borno State government and the parents of the abducted girls in addressing their plight. The meeting which was re-scheduled for Sunday, May 4 drew tears from the eyes of Mama Peace as the First Lady is fondly called, when she discovered to her chagrin that the wife of the Borno State governor, Hajiya Nana Shettima and parents of the missing girls were absent.
According to her, before the kidnapping and killings started in Borno, she assured the wife of the governor of her support but she was surprised that after such incident, Mrs Shettima did not come to see her.
“After the incident, I waited for her, she did not come. I sent for her, she came. I asked questions, no answer. I asked her to come with the principal and parents. She did not turn up till today. To our greatest surprise, she sent a commissioner.
“The next thing I saw was women demonstrating. No woman will fold her hands while her house is on fire. She is the mother of Borno. She is the mother of these children. I am their grandmother. She should be more concerned and come to her grandma.
“The Police, Army, WAEC, government officials came with a few of their own but no parent was present to tell us their child was kidnapped or among those who escaped.
“I don’t want anybody to reply or abuse me on the pages of newspaper. It is because we are pained and crying that is why I am doing so.
“Why should I cry more than the bereaved? The world will ask me question if I do. If after today Borno people say we should not help them, don’t go to the street to demonstrate.
“You are playing games. Don’t use school children and women for demonstration again. Keep it to Borno. Let it end there until you people are ready to co-operate”, she said.
The Head of National office of WAEC, Mr Charles Eguridu also spoke on this matter. He said, “I wrote to the Minister of Education to ask for the relocation of students to sit for their examinations in the state capitals, in safe location.
“The Minister in turn wrote to the three governors but none of them responded. Then I directed my Zonal Coordinator in Borno in particular to liaise with the Ministry of Education in that state.
“The response they got was so disheartening; they were told that they had security in place for the candidates and that we should come and conduct the examinations in the schools.
“They also said that they were not ready to relocate their students from Chibok and indeed other areas to Maiduguri or nearby locations, where security agencies could provide security.”
The Borno Elders Forum (BEF), an umbrella body of elders in the state, condemned the statement credited to the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan that Governor Kashim Shettima, being the chief security officer of the state, should be held responsible for the abduction of Chibok school girls.
The spokesman of the group, Bulama Mali Gabio in a statement said the First Lady spoke out of ignorance.
According to him, since Borno was under a state of emergency, where powers of control over security have been withdrawn from the governor and vested in the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, governor exercises little or no control on security matters in such circumstance.
“We have listened to the very disturbing remarks of our First Lady, saying Governor Kashim Shettima should be held responsible as he is the chief security officer of Borno State.
“It is very important we remind her that the emergency declared by her dear husband, Mr President is still in force and this means the constitutional powers of the governor as chief security officer have been temporarily withdrawn by the President in accordance with section 305 of the constitution which the President relied upon.
“The President as chief security officer of Borno exercises his powers through his appointees, the Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff or any of the service chiefs, and the governor administers other aspects of governance that fall under concurrent legislative list of the constitution.
“It is very ridiculous that the First Lady threatened to lead women to protest at the Government House in Maiduguri when her husband is still the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces with the provision of security directly vested in the Federal Government that he leads.
“If the First Lady of the nation absolves the President of blames and leads protests to the Governor of Borno, should the governor’s wife also lead protest to the chairman of Chibok Local Government Area as the one to be blamed? Should the wife of the chairman also lead protest to the principal of the school as the one to be blamed and possibly the principal’s wife or husband lead protest to the gateman at the school as the person to be blamed? This is funny indeed.
“The First Lady should grow to be the mother of the country and not to be seen doing things that can best be seen as unpresidential and capable of causing unnecessary confusion in the land at a time that the country desires leadership from her husband,” the statement said.
In an interview on CNN last Tuesday, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka said that the government of President Goodluck Jonathan was not capable of countering the menace of the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram.
“This menace has to be internationalized. Every country has to be involved in finding solutions to the problem. It is not a Nigerian problem but the problem of the whole world. From the activities of the group and the response of the government since the madness started, it is clear that the government cannot handle this problem alone”, he said.
Soyinka accused both the past and present governments in the country of living in self-denial, by believing that they could negotiate or appeal to murderers and killers to stop their activities.
“It is not just the President that has been living in self-denial but some of those he has surrounded himself with. I cannot understand why it is difficult to ask for international help when you are confronted with a problem of this nature.
“This problem would not have reached this monstrous level if the President has not been living in self-denial. So, accepting the help of the United States in this matter is long over-due.
“The politicians helped to entrench this problem in the first place. The large army of Almajiri metamorphosed into the raw materials that those terrorists recruited and politicians also used them for their own selfish interest. Now, they can no longer handle the problem”, he said.
Also disappointed with the handling  of the abducted school girls by the Federal Government, United States former First Lady US former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said last Wednesday night in New York that the Nigerian government had shown irresponsibility in matters relating to girls and boys over the years.
“The government of Nigeria has been, in my view, somewhat derelict in its responsibility for protecting boys and girls, men and women”, she said.
She described the action of the terrorist group as “abominable, criminal, an art of terrorism” which required the “fullest response possible first and foremost from the government of Nigeria”.
A reowned preachers of the Christian gospel, Prophet T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue, Church of All Nations also comented on the abduction of the Chibok girls in his sermon last Sunday.
According to him, “Nigeria is calm, it is the political  parties that are not calm. The  political parties gave birth to militants and Boko Haram.
“How can over 200 school girls be kidnapped some where and we are talking about disagreement between political parties. And APC and PDP are not ashamed?
They should suspend all rallies and acrimonious campaigns. It is the division that  gave opportunity for hoodlums, militants and Boko Haram to explore and exploit.
“If our political class does not stop their campaigns and rallies and put aside the names of the parties – APC , PDP, Labour – to come together to discuss as Nigerians, those people will turn against them. Any moment from now, you will hear big shots being attacked.
He assured the parents of the missing schoolgirls that their children would be rescued, saying they should not be misled by spurious news reports.
“Get ready to receive your children back. Your children are coming home”, he said.

 
Reward Akwu