Because we didn’t atone for Chibok

Close to 10 years after the gruesome abductions of 276 female students at Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria has become a notorious destination for crimes of mass abductions, especially of school going youngsters.

It’s much like the crime of negligence committed in Chibok keeps crying for atonement, and not returning to acknowledge the puzzle has emboldened other criminals to visit more schools, while the political leadership remains remorseless and clueless.

If there were those who thought Chibok was too inconsequential to demand inquisition, today, the crime has gone beyond stealing teenage girls of a particular complexion for game and domination, a pastime for sectarian conquistadors.

The criminals now go for boys and girls of all colours, with tens of schools invaded in more than 70 attacks in Zamfara, Katsina, Yobe, Niger and Kaduna states. It is estimated that 180 school children were killed in the process.

There are isolated cases in southern states as well. In 2016, kidnapers invaded a school in Ikorodu, Lagos, where they kidnapped three female students. In January this year, a bus conveying pupils and teachers was hijacked by kidnappers in Ekiti State. The driver was killed and the survivors kept in hideouts until ransoms were paid.

But abductions in schools is now an epidemic in the north. It has become an industry. The criminals are deadlier now because they do not value human life. They have also gone beyond trading in millions, they now talk in trillions.

Apart from the immediate threat to life and to scarce resources, the other threat that will take a while to manifest is the damage to education. Already, parents across northern communities have lost confidence in government’s ability to secure children in schools. Schools have been abandoned, with governments even conceding to have them shut.

Former lawmaker and activist, Shehu Sani, lamented that more than 10,000 schools were shut in the north due to terrorism and kidnapping. He said those engaged in terrorism today were those who were not educated in time past. That brings the reality closer home, of a gloomy future where batches of out-of-school children would be unleashed.

That painful story of the Chibok girls has to be told again and again to remind society how today’s scourge was manufactured. That grand plan to move large numbers of students across local boundaries, military/police checkpoints without resistance was not ordinary. It must have taken months, resources and support from high places to plan and execute.

The success of Chibok is what terrorists are replicating with ease and audacity since 2014. However, if the excuse for Chibok was that Borno State, then, had a lot ungoverned swathes of land mass, more than the size of Belgium, what’s the excuse for the latest Kuriga school abductions, in Kaduna State of 2024? What about the billions that were invested in the military to combat terrorism? Why has government continued to fail the people, especially delicate school children that deserve special care?

Since the Chibok crime was not investigated and culprits were not brought to book, it’s as if the State has licensed mass abductions as an enterprise, one with great risk but good returns.

There were personnel who kept custody of the school girls. There was a Divisional Police Officer who managed that area, under a commissioner of police. What about the military operations in the area, who were those who manned them?

Apparently, there were some who orchestrated the negligence that enabled the assault. Nobody was invited to account for that crime against humanity. Once the political leadership failed to apply its constitutional mandate to secure those schoolgirls in Chibok, the country simply lost the moral authority to do same anywhere else.

As it were, nemesis has been at play, haunting a political class that refused to discharge responsibility when it mattered most, and those who watched in gleeful connivance as young destinies were squandered, dreams dwarfed and ambitions cruelly terminated.

When the government of President Bola Tinubu, through the Presidential Spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, alleged that sub-regional forces were at play to humiliate this government, he merely recounted history. Hear him: “I will say this: Across the north, we understand that some of the sub-regional political forces that are currently at play are actively conspiring against the stability of Nigeria.’’

At that historic moment of Chibok girls’ abductions, today’s party in government, the All Progressives Congress (APC), was roaring to outrun the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government led by Goodluck Jonathan. Everything was thrown into that effort, including blackmailing Jonathan and making a capital of his adversity.

At that time, the APC enjoyed some reckoning at home and abroad, with fans including former President Barack Obama and Michelle, his wife, among other western leaders, who didn’t like the politics of Jonathan.

The man had been profiled to be too dogmatic in failing to comprehend the West’s new definitions of gender and sexuality. In addition to his poor judgment on other matters, the icing for Jonathan was the Chibok sin. He was described as clueless.

The opposition took advantage of the Chibok disaster to rally voters against Jonathan and his rudderless PDP. Then Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, became the anchor for that campaign to dethrone Jonathan.

Yet, it was under Shettima the girls were kept, as the chief security officer of Borno State. The girls were in school, waiting to write their examination, as the tale went. It was stated that intelligence went forth concerning the planned abduction, but nobody took responsibility.

Shettima and his former boss, Modu Sheriff, knew more than other Nigerians about the insurgency that began in the Northeast. It probably was not designed to be as catastrophic as it turned out, but it was under Sherrif the insurgency was incubated.

The original ideologues of Boko Haram were supposed to be political partners. Some say it was a conspiracy designed to exploit political Sharia to win votes. Then it turned awry and bloody. The story is better told by the politicians themselves, so that lessons may be learned. But the governments have failed to demand confessions.

It’s not late to dig into all that happened in Borno and Chibok, if that will bring solution to the menace of abductions in the north and elsewhere. There’s no profit in whipping up sentiments and alleging that there are plots to destabilise the Tinubu-led government. There are always plots. It is President Tinubu who should rise above politics to deal squarely with the situation.

Under Jonathan, each time the Federal Government considered wielding the big stick on insurgency, he encountered the kith and kin syndrome, in the guise of northeast elders who demanded more of non-kinetic deployment. Meanwhile, the intelligence ring around the theatre of operation was heavily compromised, such that informants fed terrorists with valuable information on movement of troops. Is that what Ngelale is inferring?

It was APC that cleverly manipulated the insurgency and the Chibok issue to its advantage. The chief proponents of the #BringBackOurGirls orchestra, have since 2015 abandoned that charity. They have been in government. And the world has moved on.

Buhari, who benefited immensely from the Chibok conspiracy and blunder, with a promise to put an end to Boko Haram in a matter of months did the very opposite. Apart from failing to end insurgency, he worked very hard to expand the frontiers. Under Buhari, Boko Haram transmuted into banditry and kidnapping. Unknown gunmen joined the fray under his clueless watch.

Nigeria is yet to officially probe the insurgency that began in the northeast. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, yet, there is no inquisition to unearth hidden facts and compel the original conspirators to tell their stories. Until that is done, the insurgents who have morphed into bandits and militias will remain veiled and unknown to law enforcement. Those who have their secrets are in government, they’re playing politics with Nigeria.

The excuse by the Tinubu government to see unnamed forces, rather than the criminals taking over schools in the north is another cheap blackmail. Jonathan once alleged that Boko Haram members were in his government, yet he failed to do anything about it. He preferred to navigate the landmines to benefit his 2015 re-election. He failed colossally, after he realised that his victory was not worth the blood of any Nigerian.

There are stories that Tinubu is already nursing a second term ambition for 2027. He cannot confront bandits and terrorists in his government and those outside if that is his plan.

In 2021, the government of the United Arab Emirate (UAE) listed six Nigerians among other terrorist sponsors on its watchlist. Those persons had set up Boko Haram cells in the UAE to raise funds for fighters who were terrorising Nigeria.

But back home, no single financier of terrorism has been uncovered by government. The closest was during the brief encounter with Boko Haram suspect, Kabiru Sokoto, way back in 2012, when he was arrested at the Borno State governor’s lodge in Asokoro, Abuja, alongside a serving military officer. Suspects who were detained at Kuje Prison, Abuja were set free in the 2022 jailbreak.

Instead of looking for faceless persons that want to bring this government down, let the Attorney General ask for the list of Boko Haram suspects and those politicians who had links with them.

People in government cannot continue to be remorseless and unfeeling because their children are safe from harm. Many Chibok parents have died because government failed them. Many Chibok girls are still out there, miserable and wasted.

When the fate of schoolchildren in the north and elsewhere is surrendered to the machinations of deadly non-state actors and their colluding politicians, we’re all in trouble. Let the Ministers of Defence, Police Affairs as well as the National Security Adviser go into the bushes. They must BringBackOurChildren today!