The Nation Newspaper The mystery of mass abductions
lighted on a government secondary school in Chibok, a small town in Borno State, and kidnapped 287 hapless schoolgirls. Some escaped captivity by their own devices, others as a result of the efforts of civil society groups.
Such was the suspicion that the incident was just political mischief to embarrass the government of the day that then First Lady Patience Jonathan got in on the act and convened her own panel of inquiry to get to the root of the matter. The result was a comic, shambolic affair that end with her famously wailing in frustration “there’s God o!”
The Jonathan administration’s inability to bring back the girls, or to rein in a campaign of terror unleashed across the North by the extremists, was part of the contributory factors that defined it as weak and clueless. It would pay the price at the 2015 presidential elections. In mid-December 2020, gunmen riding on motorcycles arrived another secondary school in Kankara, Katsina State and seized 300 boys. The state government went into negotiations and six days later their release was announced.
In the last two to three years, it seemed like the criminals had lost appetite for their evil enterprise. Not so. They are back with a vengeance. On March 7 this year, the usual suspects raided a school in Kuriga, Kaduna State and seized 287 pupils who they are still holding. They have asked for N1 billion to set their captives free; a demand that has been rebuffed by President Bola Tinubu.
While it is possible to sympathise with the authorities, things cannot continue this way. Yes, they are under pressure to act. But make no mistake about it, the kidnappers are also under pressure to resolve things. It cannot be a tea party having to mind 287 little children in the middle of nowhere.
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