Chibok girls: Four years after

Last week, we celebrated the fourth anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok girls and still over 115 of the girls still remain in captivity with hopes of getting them out alive fast fading especially with the revelation, last week, by Ahmed Salkida, a journalist who has covered the insurgent group for a long time, that only 15 of the 113 girls are alive and that even these are no longer in the control of the Boko Haram leader but have been married off probably to Boko Haram fighters.
Although the government has flatly denied Salkida’s account, the inability to bring back the girls even after the government claimed to have successfully negotiated the release of the kidnapped Dapchi girls does not inspire confidence and hope. Here we are, four years into the abduction saga and government has not been able to fulfil the promise it made to Nigerians and their parents to bring back the girls alive. We are left to wonder whether if these were the daughters of high ranking politicians and government officials, they would have remained in captivity this long! But alas, these are daughters of poor Nigerian men and women, struggling daily to make a living and to provide their children a better slate in life, amidst the hardships and economic challenges worsened by the impunity with which our leaders have run this nation for years, and they are yet to be found.
Perhaps, the Defence Minister, Brig. Gen Munir Dan-Ali was speaking the mind of the government last year when he said it will take years to rescue the remaining of the Chibok girls. “It was an 8-10 year struggle by the U.S. intelligence and special operatives to get Osama bin Laden,” he claims.
Herein lies the anguish of the parents of the missing girls and Nigerians in general who have been appalled by the manner in which this issue has been handled since 2014. Why will it take years to rescue our daughters and sisters snatched in the prime of their youth by these depraved men leaving chaos and pain in their wake?
There is very little to show that the past or present government has taken up a very personal struggle to find these girls. And only a very personal struggle will do in this instance.
In May 2014, shortly after the incident, Amnesty International accused the Nigerian Army of not acting on advance warning that the kidnapping would happen. Then information minister, Labaran Maku dismissed the statement as outrageous and promised it was going ‘to be investigated’.
Buhari had during his inauguration declared his unflinching desire to find these girls saying the defeat of the sect would only be complete when they were found. In December of 2015, Buhari declared that the sect had been defeated. Over a hundred of these girls are yet to be found.
It is compelling to see that four years down the line, the hope of these parents and the outcry from some of the initial campaigners that sought the immediate release of the girls have not dimmed. Who can blame them? We cannot imagine the anguish and indescribable pain and loss that they have had to carry for four long years. We cannot imagine the sense of aloneness that they have been thrown into given that the government whose duty it is to protect and preserve the lives of its citizens have not done enough to ensure they come back. We cannot imagine the vacuum that their disappearance has caused their family, friends, teachers and all who knew them. We cannot imagine the renewed sense of loss they must have felt with each girl who returned.
The government has shown over the period that the lives of its citizens can be toyed with and treated with levity. The Chibok girls are not the only victims of the insurgency and mayhem in the northeast and it only goes to show how many more children and women will be forcefully taken and never be accounted or fought for.
It is time to seek for all the international help that is necessary to finally solve the conundrum of the Chibok girls. The families of these girls deserve to have their daughters back or at worse know what has happened to their daughters. The government must be able to rescue them or provide explanations as to what happened to them.