By  Jide Ajani

Just imagine.  Imagine, that, in 2010, at the  height of the contestation for power, between the leadership of the Northern Political Leaders Forum, NPLF, a wing of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the fledgling Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, there was a consensus on how to deal with members of the  Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which, in English, means, “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”, and otherwise known as Boko Haram!

Just imagine that, in the midst of all the recriminations about Goodluck Jonathan’s qualification to contest, the need for power to remain in the North as agreed to by the then ruling PDP at a meeting on December 22, 2002, the audacity by some  septuagenarian that the country would be made ungovernable, that politicians, opinion leaders, traditional rulers had stepped back a bit to ponder the consequences of their action.

You can still imagine that, had the government of Borno State not  stiff-neckedly insisted on leaving the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, open against the admonition of the Federal Government of Nigeria that it should be closed because of the activities of insurgents, may be, just may be, the families of the girls abducted and the girls themselves would have been spared the horror.

Yet, because Nigeria remains a country where the North and the South are  two completely different nations, people tend to see things differently.   This is further accentuated by the contending socio-political and economic  contradictions, made worse by the role of religious beliefs.

Today marks the 734th day since the over 200 girls were abducted.

But because of the callousness of the political elite in the country, many used the issue of the girls, among others, to bring down the last administration.

They may again use the girls to galvanize support for what is becoming a shambling and shambolic contraption called the present administration.

In fact, Nigerians shouldn’t be surprised should the negotiations for the release of the girls be made to come through just on the eve of the 2019 general elections.

All these may have been avoided had the Borno State government acted  responsibly, in the first instance, by ensuring that there was police presence in and around the school – though, it could then have been  debatable whether that police would have stopped the abduction as we now know it.

Even Jonathan, the man described by the Economist of London as an ‘ineffectual buffoon’, cannot be excused in this bizarre episode of the Chibok girls because the first 48 critical hours were wasted.  Because he didn’t want to displease some people, he continued to displease and annoy everybody.   That was President Goodluck Jonathan for you.

Until Boko Haram members choreographed an attack of Muhammadu Buhari in 2014, many people merely paid lip service and chose to make it appear as if it was a Jonathan problem.   Some leaders, in government today, were among those insisting on using kid gloves to deal with the insurgents.

For all these people, both in and out of power, we say callous they were, callous they are.

Esther Yakubu, one of the unfortunate mothers of the Chibok episode, had this to say last Thursday: “It’s not our fault, we did not ask for it. The people around me are women and they know the pain of child labour. Some mothers have died because of the trauma. I am not better than the ones who are dead.   Everybody will die some day. But the Almighty God that I believe in; the God that I worship, will see us through; and all those that have hands in the kidnap of our girls will never go free. My Lord will fight that battle for me. The Lord is here with me and He will fight that battle. Whoever has told the Police to barricade this road will be judged. Be it the IGP, be it the President, they are above me, but they are not above God. And He will see me through; and He will set all the girls free.”

During the campaigns for the 2015 general elections, the APC leaders made it appear as though, within months, they would have secured the release of the girls.

Unfortunately, staccato tunes keep coming out since taking over power – ‘all the girls may no longer be alive’, ‘they are no longer together’, ‘we do not know their whereabouts’ and all such insensitive statements have been coming out from officials of this administration.

Worse still, even some people who appear to have presented glimmers of hope for the possible rescue of the girls are constantly rebuffed.

Senator Shehu Sani is an APC member from Kaduna. He is optimistic that the girls can be rescued.   So, the question for President Buhari and his APC leaders is:   Why  hasn’t Senator Sani been  approached? Then there is one freelance journalist, Ahmed Salkida, who continues to insist that there is a way out.   What has this administration done to engage?

THOSE COMPLICIT

President Muhammadu Buhari – for using the grief as a campaign issue.

Goodluck Jonathan – his tardiness aided the escape as the first 48 hrs were wasted fiddling.

Patience Jonathan – for bringing in theatrics and almost  trivialising the matter.

Governor Shettima – for leaving the school open even after the Federal Government had  counselled against such.

PDP – the party in power that could not live up to expectation.

ACN/CPC/APC – the coalition that made so  much issue and gain from the grief of the parents and the girls.

In the final analysis, had those who could assist in halting the activities of the insurgents from the outset set to it, the evil of the day could have been extinguished.

From what was once thought to be a Jonathan/PDP problem, the present administration, for all its preachments about defeating Boko Haram, must contend with the opprobrium of not being able to  rescue the girls yet – as promised.