You can choose to be indifferent to your neighbour when a tragedy happens to them, but you do not have any right to scorn at them and make fun of their misfortune. In any culture in the world, it is immoral, inhuman and unacceptable to laugh at someone who is grieving.
It has been more than a hundred days since the horrific event of the abduction of 276 girls from their school in Chibok, out of which 57 escaped by their own efforts and 219 are still being held in captivity by Boko Haram. It is bizarre and shocking that some people are still spreading the falsehood that the kidnapping of these girls is a scam. I do not intend to answer such argument but to speak to the conscience of those promoting it. Such a statement amounts to a mockery on the poor girls and their unfortunate families.
These little innocent girls were kidnapped from their school where they had braved the insecurity and cultural barriers of their region to acquire an education. They were forced into captivity and for a hundred days and still counting, have been at the mercies of terrorists who have no control of law nor conscience and have proven to be brutal and inhuman to limits beyond imagination. No one knows the experience these girls have been going through every second of their lives since that moment their liberty to a free life was violently seized from them; from the moment they realised that in a free world, they have been singled out and stripped of their dignity, ripped apart from humanity and reduced to mere items of bargain and trophies in the contest for money and power.
The story of their lives has been brutality interrupted by a tragedy they never saw coming, a cruel fate they do not deserve to suffer. They had lived like every other young person, with their individual hopes and dreams, supported by the love of their families and friends. As they sat for their final exams, they had aspirations of how they will proceed with life after secondary school. One cannot swear that they all had a perfect life, but they had the right to it and the freedom to live it without hindrance. Then without any warning, they suddenly found themselves in the thick of a cruel fate. One hundred days later, they are a mere reference for news headlines as they languish in captivity while their beloved family members can only cry in hopelessness. Now they can only remember their dreams and where they would have been if life had no dealt them such a devastating blow. The pain, sorrow and helplessness of such a situation cannot even be imagined.
Think about these girls for a moment and imagine if your daughter or sister was among them. How would you feel everyday, not knowing what they are going through and having to live with the fear of all forms of horrors that may possibly be happening to them? There are more than 200 hundred families who have been going through it all and much more, for more than a hundred days, with no hope in sight for when it will end. The world can only imagine the grief of these families but no one can feel it. We can imagine the pain of these people and break down and cry, but no matter how real and strong we feel it, it is nothing compared to actually experiencing it.
And to think that someone has the heart to play politics of partisanship, religion and ethnicity with the fate of these grieving people is so painful and extremely impossible for me to understand. We cannot be so heartless as a people. We just can’t be. Denying that these girls have been kidnapped is highly offensive, wicked and inhuman. It suggests that these parents hid their children and are pretending that the children are missing. What cruelty! You can imagine how you will feel if this kind of tragedy happens to you and some people go about insulting you and saying you are merely pretending and that nothing of such has happened to you. It means such people are celebrating your grief and by all moral standards, it is a behaviour that is not acceptable.
Now that the President has hosted the grieving families and personally met with the victims, those who truly did not know what to believe should be convinced that indeed such an act of criminality is being perpetrated against these girls, their families and our collective humanity. Regardless of the evidence, I know there are people who will still continue with the false narrative that the kidnap is a scam. I leave them to the judgment of God the Almighty and their own conscience.
For standing on behalf of these girls to ensure they are not an abandoned episode like the victims of the Odi and Zaki-Biam massacre and several of similar injustices that dent our history, the BringBackOurGirls advocacy group has come under severe attack from the government and some section of the Nigerian people. The hostility and isolation they have faced is not based on the demerits of their campaign but on the cruelty of a society that has lost its sense of brotherhood and humanity. Their antagonists have used the narrative of most of them not even being from Chibok to question their right to stand for the girls. This only shows how much of our humanity we have lost that we cannot feel the pain of another, let alone stand with them in their moment of sorrow.
Brotherliness is a virtue that we all share as humans and whose strength defies all boundaries of race, tribe, religion and political persuasion. That this group has upheld it in spite of the diversity of its membership represents a great hope for our society in particular and humanity by extension. They may not seem worthy of appreciation and encouragement to some people today, but history will prove that they are a legion of honour; the little beacon that shot the ray of hope that revived a society on the brink of self-destruction. They represent the reality of a new Nigeria that has emerged from the humanity of a few to heal the wounds that emphasis on our differences have inflicted on us.
I plead with all Nigerians to support the BringBackOurGirls advocacy group in defense of our collective dignity as members of a common humanity, which has been violated by the Boko Haram terrorists. We must demand that the government live up to its obligation of protecting and defending the lives of all citizens and consequently ensure the quick and safe return of our girls. Those who say the demand for the return of our girls should be put to Boko Haram and not the government must know that we did not vote Shekau or Boko Haram, neither do we pay tax to them. We have a government we elected, pay taxes to and are loyal to its leadership. President Jonathan heads that government and on May 29, 2011, swore to uphold the responsibilities of the mandate we gave to him. To him we must make our demands because the buck stops at his table. It is his duty to protect our lives and defend our sovereignty and he must fulfill that duty and #BringBackOurGirls now and alive.
Meanwhile the advocacy continues regardless of what the government and its apologists feel towards the BringBackOurGirls movement. Its demands are legitimate and no amount of falsehood or intimidation will deter them. It is a common saying that no one can stop an idea whose time has come. This is the time for Nigerian citizens’ action and it is foolhardy for the government to think they can fail to live up to their responsibility and enjoy a conspiratorial silence from all the people. #BringBackOurGirls now and alive!
Iyorngurum is a writer, poet, editor, commentator on public issues and the secretary of the Abuja Writers’ Forum. He writes from Abuja.
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