Buhari’s best and worst moment

For most Naija citizens, last week was a season of joy and tears. After nearly two years in captivity, 21 of the 300 schoolgirls abducted on April 14, 2014 from Chibok have regained their freedom. Over the weekend, in a tear-jerking ceremony aptly dubbed a thanksgiving service, the girls were reunited with surviving parents and […]

For most Naija citizens, last week was a season of joy and tears. After nearly two years in captivity, 21 of the 300 schoolgirls abducted on April 14, 2014 from Chibok have regained their freedom. Over the weekend, in a tear-jerking ceremony aptly dubbed a thanksgiving service, the girls were reunited with surviving parents and relatives. Several of the parents of the abductees have reportedly died while more suffer emotional and psychological trauma.
Many people followed this recent tearful reunion with prayers and wishes for the girls to know peace and love for every moment of their horrible ordeal. There have always been a few display of psychosis by some individuals who continue to throw in conspiracy theories, describing the whole ordeal as a well-choreographed political drama. We should respond to such individuals that while most diseases can be fixed or managed; you cannot fix stupid!
Anyone who has ever loved or had the privilege of raising a child cannot even begin to imagine what it has been for the abducted girls and the agony of their parents especially with the prevaricating taunts of a demented Abubakar Shekau threatening to auction them into perpetual slavery or have them killed. An estimated six of the abductees have reportedly met their untimely death in captivity. Their remains now lie in unmarked graves in Sambisa forest. This is where the missing part of the jigsaw gets depressing. For the parents of the dead ones hope is not lost because they wish that their earthly remains would be found through DNA and returned to them for proper internment. It is a futile quest that closes a sordid chapter of their lives, one that the state owes them.
While reunited parents are giving thanks, there are others in the grip of uncertainty, the parents of those still alive but in captivity hoping that one day, they too would be reunited with their own. Our prayers are that their joy and ours would be complete soon.
Kudos to the Red Cross Society; the Swiss authorities and those who brokered the deal that gave these girls their freedom. No earthy reward that can compensate for their efforts in securing the return of these girls. But there are still grounds to cover. The stories of starvation and near misses that one of the girls related are proof that Shekau’s bandits are living on their last wits. We hope that they would see the light, release the remaining girls and other captives and surrender themselves to for the law to take its course. Not even the death penalty can atone for the carnage they have unleashed on our nation.
Now that these ones have tasted freedom, let us hope that we avail them of the resources that would help them pick up the pieces of their lives. For a nation whose negligence led to their ordeal, no resource should be spared to help them rekindle hope in their motherland and the humanity, such as the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that kept the nation’s conscience pricked while others wanted to sweep their ordeal under the carpets of lethargy and insouciance.
Unfortunately, the Buhari administration is robbed of the glory due to it for the role it played in the return of the girls. President Buhari’s post-election cold treatment of the parents and campaigners left much to be desired. On the day they were to be released, the president and the Borno State governor jetted out to Germany on an official visit. One should never stop expecting that our leaders would display the requisite empathy needed to prioritize matters of urgent national importance above junkets. Let’s hope that whatever was negotiated in Germany would benefit both the released and the captive as well as others who now live a life of despondency and uncertainty in internally displaced camps, IDC.
The lingering domestic spat between Mr President and his wife covered the shine of the Chibok girls’ release. Standing by the developed world’s most powerful woman, Angela Merkel; President Buhari displayed his characteristic badge of verbal dishonour by shamefully saying that his wife belongs to his kitchen, his sitting room and the other room. It was the denouement of the display of crass ignorance of the trend that women’s rights are the foundations of true human rights; a fact that is not lost on 18-year old Malala Yusufzai.
By insisting that his spokesman Garba Shehu was wrong in trying to repair the damage that his verbal outrage caused the nation the world over, President Buhari justified a painful assertion by a Twitter handle which last week urged him to step out of Jurassic Park. He arms those who would now ask in derision if Naija citizens come from that country where a woman’s place is only suited for the kitchen. This is not a badge of honour for his delectable daughters. It is a sad moment that would characterize his presidency even though his wife broke all traditions and taboo by publicly humiliating her husband in public. Matters meant for ‘the other room’ should never be discussed in the public square.