Former Minister of Education and leader of the BringBackOurGirls movement Oby Ezekwesilli spoke on the expectations of the group, two years after the girls’ abduction.
When you started the fight, did you ever dream of it getting to two years?
How could anyone have? I mean there was no way. As a matter of fact, you will recall that I started the advocacy on social media the very next day after the abduction. From the 15th of April, I started screaming that they should please run after these people and get the girls back and it was on the 30th of April that we embarked on our first march but between when I started online and we had our march, I had continued. In fact, on the 23rd of April, the reason that we had the caption #BringBackOurGirls was because on the 23rd of same month, I was at an event in Port Harcourt for the world book capital launch and I had said to the audience that we should all rise and show solidarity for the girls and say that our government should bring them back and it started the hastag bring back our girls. There was no way in all of these that I could have imagined that we would still be talking about them two years on.
On the day we marched, on the 30th of April and the whole world joined us and continued to call for the girls release, my thought was a minimum of two to three weeks.
The Federal Government promised to deal directly with the Chibok parents. Has there been any form of communication since then?
Not that I know of, both the Chibok community as well as the Chibok parents have not heard any interaction with government since our meeting in January, which is very tragic. I think that the government of Nigeria has successively and consistently treated citizens in a very undignifying manner. The way that our Chibok community and parents have been treated both under the previous dispensation and the current one, it just leaves much to be commended at all because when you think of the fact that a nation places little dignity on the life’s of citizens, then you can understand why other nations will hold your own citizens in contempt, you can’t treat your citizens in this manner and expect the rest of the world to consider them.
Does it mean that you are not satistifed with the government’s actions?
We are absolutely not satisfied; we feel like our Chibok girls are being let down. You have to understand that the earlier days of the abduction where the more probable period for their rescue that notwithstanding, the current government took over when it was already a year plus of the abduction but if after seven months of the new government, we met with the President and the response to us was no credible intelligence. For whatever that meant it just didn’t come out the right way, not the right thing to say to parents who when they met with him, together with our movement previously in July, a few months after he was inaugurated into office, he gave that assurance that he was going to do his utmost to rescue our Chibok girls. Seven months after, you were then told of lack of credible intelligence. I’m sorry the government of Nigeria exists to find credible intelligence. So, there is no credible intelligence, so what next? Are the parents supposed to take no credible intelligence and just walk away? No, the government owes much more than that and the President needs to keep his promise to these parents and community of Chibok and to our movement that he will not consider Nigeria to have won the war against terrorism without bringing back our Chibok girls and other abducted citizens of the country.
It’s been two years already, do you believe it is possible for everyone of them to be accounted for? Taking into account the environment they are in with the fighting going on around them?
It is quite possible that all manner of things would have happened to them by now but the truth is bring ten, twenty, thirty, forty, bring even one to show that the government of Nigeria is totally committed to its citizens. You see, it is so sad but a society that has always functioned not on the basis of the talents, productivity or capability of its citizens but on the basis of money from oil has a tendency to behave as if those citizens don’t matter; that is what we are saying. If we were a country where citizens mattered and depended upon to drive the process of development, they will care about the citizens and do everything for the citizens because to lose 219 of them that went to school to acquire the best knowledge that they can get would be a material loss for the country and it will not be able to take it. So, it will do everything to bring them back. That is why, for example, if one American is in distress, the entire American government would rather shut down and get that person out than allow that one American to be gone without a fight.
What advice will you give to the government at this point?
The government must find the credible intelligence. The parents are saying, is it that the government cannot even tell us the story of what happened to our daughters. That is amazing two years on and the government of Nigeria cannot intelligently tell the story of these girls, cannot put together the tracing of where they could possibly be. It’s all about rumours and counter rumours. No, that is not how a country functions. So, get the credible intelligence, bring back all the countries that once came here and were frustrated. Until they left, they had some of the capabilities that we don’t have. In a world of intrusive technology, surely we should be able to figure out what happened to 219 young women. I mean if it was one person, it will be less likely but 219 for goodness sake, we can, so let’s find that credible intelligence and then when we have located that this is exactly the story of what happened to the girls, then we need to acknowledge that it is the responsibility of government to take the risk of a negotiated release of the girls or a military rescue of the girls whichever way. There must not be inaction or tentativeness; it was tentativeness that made the girls stay this long. This is not going to be an open-ended tragedy. There needs to be closure. One of the mothers of our Chibok girls after we met with the President said: ‘I have no closure, why is anybody thinking that just telling me there is no credible intelligence would be a source of closure for me?’ And the President did not say what next, after saying lack of credible intelligence, what next? In this second year of this girls being in abduction, what the government owes the parents, community and those of us who are interested in the matter of these girls’ rescue is what next, it cannot be open ended, it will be irresponsible for it to be open ended.
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