By Aniebo Nwamu
Until
now, I didn’t believe any representative of the Nigerian government would raise
their voice during a conversation with parents of the missing Chibok
schoolgirls. Government exists to protect life and property, and, where it fails
as in the case of the Chibok schoolgirls, it should at least feel guilty. I
thought no Nigerian leader could look the distraught parents in the face and
still speak words that hurt.
I was
proved wrong on Thursday, as I read with disbelief what “Mama Taraba” Aisha
Alhassan told the Chibok parents during a meeting in Aso Villa. Here were
agonising parents transported from Chibok by the #BringBackOurGirls (BBOG)
movement to receive consolation from the powers that be. Here were parents
expecting the presidency to tell them when to expect their long lost daughters.
The presence of Hajiya Alhassan, who is also Nigeria ’s minister of women
affairs, must have reassured them that there was a mother who would protect
their interests. How then could Alhassan, a mother and grandmother who is still
hoping to be awarded the governorship of Taraba State ,
have spat on their faces?
“Mama
Taraba”, first, told the grieving parents they were not invited to the villa.
Then, she reportedly told them that the girls were not kidnapped under the
current government, “so why are you harassing us?” As if the diatribe was not
enough, Minister Alhassan reminded them: “You wanted schools, you wanted
hospitals, you wanted this and that… you wanted so many things.”
BBOG
leader Oby Ezekwesili was said to have rebuked Alhassan for not being sensitive
to the parents’ feelings. But did the minister show any remorse? Not likely. A
group named Taraba Women for Democracy Network had to issue a statement
expressing shock and calling on all Taraba women to rise against the woman “who
wants to be our first female governor” for acting like “a typical Jezebel with
wickedness and callousness towards these poor parents who travelled all the way
from Askira Uba to Abuja”.
Up
until the time of this writing, I have not heard that “Mama Taraba” has
apologised for the alleged insult or replied the women’s group from Taraba.
Does it therefore mean that she uttered those words in the presence of parents
whose daughters had been missing for almost two years?
Not many can live by the philosophy of the parents of the 219 Chibok
schoolgirls. I can’t imagine how I could have stayed alive for 21 months (God
forbid!) without my daughter and still wait to be told stories. Some of the
girls’ parents have died already. But, were I one of them, I would have been
the first to be reported dead. From the minute I received the news, I would not
eat or drink until I saw my daughter. I would have raced to Sambisa Forest ,
perhaps alone, and fought the terrorists until I dropped dead.
*Aisha Alhassan |
So, I
really applaud the parents who have been attending meetings with and listening
to overfed government officials. And how much more, when they listened to a
minister pouring insult on their traumatised souls!
While
the parents must have reached the lowest depth of despair by now, the nation
might have turned the Chibok disaster into a comic affair. President Buhari,
for his part, told the parents that he did not know where the girls were. He
promised to constitute a panel that would investigate the circumstances of the
kidnap. Hugh? Was Alhassan speaking for the presidency also?
Nobody should be blamed for expressing doubts about Chibok anymore.
President Goodluck Jonathan initially didn’t believe the kidnap story was true.
Later, he and other government officials kept saying they knew where the girls
were and promising to rescue them. Twenty-one months after, another president
is seeking an inquiry into the affair. Doesn’t someone smell a rat?
One
theory that gained ground shortly after the abduction was that it was a hoax
organised by politicians to blackmail the government of President Jonathan in
an election year. A fortnight after the Chibok story broke, a woman (not “Mama
Taraba”) asked some probing questions. PDP woman leader Kema Chikwe, at a
prayer session for “the security and peace of the nation” on April 30, 2014,
asked: “How did it happen? Who saw it happen? Who did not see it happen? Who is
behind this?” The same Chikwe praying for the kidnap victims was later
described as insensitive for asking those simple questions. When, a columnist
asked at the time, did we start accepting every statement as a dogma that must
not be questioned?
As it
appears, Chikwe has not been alone. Perhaps Alhassan too had viewed the Chibok
parents as impostors, hence her vituperations. There are still sceptics
who believe that just as no one knows what Boko Haram is today, nobody knows
how information is manipulated to achieve certain interests in this age of
terrorism: They reason that, at first, we were told 129 girls were kidnapped;
later, the number became 234, and then 276. Could one truck or four Hilux vans
have been used to abduct 276 girls even if they were packed like sardines? Some
girls that later escaped implicated some local people and some people in the
same school where the crime was committed. Could 30 trucks or vans have moved
into Chibok and departed with 276 girls undetected?
I see
no justification for Minister Alhassan’s attack on the Chibok parents, except
that she perhaps had some doubts too. I see no other reason for the effrontery
of asking the Chibok parents to stop harassing the current government. Or
scolding them for making demands. Or reminding them they were not invited to
the presidential villa.
The
parents were really longsuffering. As I stated, if I were one of them [God
forbid!], I wouldn’t have had the disposition to attend any meeting with any
government official in the first place. And if I did, I would have punched
Alhassan’s nose if she dared add insult to injury.
For
failing to empathise with the troubled Chibok parents, Alhassan has simply put
her name in the black book of not just the parents from Chibok but all parents
in the world. It’s bad enough that she spoke as minister of women affairs; what
if she had been sworn in as the governor of Taraba State ?
*Aniebo
Nwamu is a Nigerian commentator on public issues
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