Sambisa Forest: Where are the Chibok girls?

But painfully, what we have not been able to see, and which would have gladdened our hearts the more, are any of the Chibok school girls who are probably still in the stranglehold of Boko Haram in Sambisa forest. More than 250 of such girls were abducted by the terrorists nearly a year ago, and […]

But painfully, what we have not been able to see, and which would have gladdened our hearts the more, are any of the Chibok school girls who are probably still in the stranglehold of Boko Haram in Sambisa forest. More than 250 of such girls were abducted by the terrorists nearly a year ago, and majority of them kept in the forest, we were told; let us hope that they were not among the people bombed there. One wishes that President Jonathan made out time to meet with some of the parents of the abducted girls when he visited our gallant solders; but he didn’t.
It is recalled that it took international and local outcry for the Nigerian presidency to accept the fact that Boko Haram actually abducted hundreds of female students from a school in Chibok, Borno State on April 15, 2014. Having come to terms with the reality, the president then promised to rescue the girls, repeatedly, alive. At a point he gave a time limit and ordered the military to get into action but their action remained lukewarm until very recently, probably to score a political point, since the election must hold this year. Routing of Boko Haram that has remained with us for about six years now seemingly is what the president promised last month would be accomplished within six weeks and hence the 2015 elections were shifted to March 28 and April 11.
The president had been criticised severally for his persistent ‘I don’t care’ attitude towards the parents of the kidnapped girls and also to those campaigning that the girls must be brought back. If what I am calculating is correct, the abducted school girls have remained in captivity for almost eleven months; period enough for most of them to turn nursing-mothers. Without trying to irritate us, most of the surviving girls, no doubt, may have given birth to their (first) babies, thereby increasing Boko Haram’s population.
Had the present administration done something earlier as demanded by the international and local outcries, this situation could have been avoided. Now, what has incubated for six years, he wants to achieve in six weeks. Why the mad rush when things have gone awry? In local parlance, it is termed; medicine after death. Finally; bring back our girls alive.
Dr. Cyril Kachi Madueke, Awka Road, Wuse II, Abuja.