Chibok Shame
Posted by The Nation Editorial
•FG’s latest threat to arrest BBOG protesters shows Jonathan’s clear impotence on saving the Chibok girls
The Chibok kidnap saga, in its six months, is a test the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency continues to fail. The latest threat to arrest Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) protesters, led by Oby Ezekwesili, former education minister, is an empty bluff to cover clear impotence.
Mike Omeri, director-general of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), getting whiff of the BBOG lobby’s planned march on Aso Villa to meet the president, issued the threat. He went into adjectival overdrive, dismissing the protests as “inconsequential” and “unpatriotic”; and climaxed with a flourish that the protests were a “distraction.”
Mr. Omeri did not end his tantrums without the reflex charge that the protests were opposition-driven — the same allegation President Jonathan was levying when the kidnap was still fresh, and a prompt reaction could perhaps have saved the girls. Mr. Omeri then bared his fangs that the BBOG protesters risked arrest.
Mr. Omeri clearly thought his threat would abort the march. Well, it didn’t — which is some good news from a very bad situation. The BBOG protesters have done well by pressing their right to free and lawful assembly. They have proved that in a republican democracy, even the president and his high office are bound by the laws of the land — these same laws that created his office and raised its occupier above co-equal citizens, so the president can deliver on his duties — cannot be taken away by a lowly official of state, which Mr. Omeri is.
But even the BBOG march only gifted the Jonathan presidency the chance to further belittle itself.
First, a contingent of police women cordoned off the gate of Aso Villa. The president apparently was too busy to meet with a group of citizens, among them hurting mothers of the kidnapped girls. The protesters were told to contact Mr. Omeri — the same Omeri that had earlier threatened them with arrest — to read the president’s body language on the matter!
In fairness to the president, he sent a quad of female ministers — Zainab Maina (Women Affairs), Sarah Ochekpe (Water Resources), Lawrentia Mallam (Environment) and Ekon Eyaakenyi (Lands, Housing and Urban Development). But even that proved a cold comfort. One of the ministers rather trivialised issues, thus underscoring the administration’s crass insensitivity on Chibok.
Told by Dr. Ezekwesili that one of the escaped Chibok girls would address the gathering in Hausa (she was not proficient in English because of Nigeria’s educational collapse), Mrs Ochepe fired back that it was under Ezekwesili’s tenure as education minister that the educational system collapsed.
Talk of leaving the ball and going for the leg!
True, Dr. Ezekwesili should not have added the caveat of collapsed education, true as it is. Still, should Mrs Ochekpe have been so insensitive as to launch a spiteful personal attack on Dr. Ezekwesili — an attack that drew stinging rebuke from the protesters? So, because the Chibok girls were no use educationally anyway, their country should not protect them from terrorists? Or did she think attacking Ezekwesili would remove the perceived impotence of the Jonathan Presidency on the Chibok affair?
That attack was simply reckless and Minister Ochekpe did her government no credit by it.
But then so had the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, done her husband no credit, when she tried to put the Chibok kidnap victims in the dock on prime time television. That, of course, backfired in the infamous “Dia ris God ooo …” tragi-comedy.
The president too had lost precious lead time letting himself be misguided that the Chibok kidnap was an opposition ploy to discredit his government. On Chibok, the Jonathan government becomes more discredited by the day — which is a pity: because the government manifests lack of rigour and compassion, which questions the president’s competence to continue holding on to his job.
Let Mr. Omeri be warned: not even the president can take away the rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution.
The president too should do the needful and bring the Chibok girls back home, however difficult that is. The Chibok stain would not go away, despite the childish and contemptible grandstanding by the administration’s officials.
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| Nigerian high school students kidnapped in Borno state. |
•FG’s latest threat to arrest BBOG protesters shows Jonathan’s clear impotence on saving the Chibok girls
The Chibok kidnap saga, in its six months, is a test the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency continues to fail. The latest threat to arrest Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) protesters, led by Oby Ezekwesili, former education minister, is an empty bluff to cover clear impotence.
Mike Omeri, director-general of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), getting whiff of the BBOG lobby’s planned march on Aso Villa to meet the president, issued the threat. He went into adjectival overdrive, dismissing the protests as “inconsequential” and “unpatriotic”; and climaxed with a flourish that the protests were a “distraction.”
Mr. Omeri did not end his tantrums without the reflex charge that the protests were opposition-driven — the same allegation President Jonathan was levying when the kidnap was still fresh, and a prompt reaction could perhaps have saved the girls. Mr. Omeri then bared his fangs that the BBOG protesters risked arrest.
Mr. Omeri clearly thought his threat would abort the march. Well, it didn’t — which is some good news from a very bad situation. The BBOG protesters have done well by pressing their right to free and lawful assembly. They have proved that in a republican democracy, even the president and his high office are bound by the laws of the land — these same laws that created his office and raised its occupier above co-equal citizens, so the president can deliver on his duties — cannot be taken away by a lowly official of state, which Mr. Omeri is.
But even the BBOG march only gifted the Jonathan presidency the chance to further belittle itself.
First, a contingent of police women cordoned off the gate of Aso Villa. The president apparently was too busy to meet with a group of citizens, among them hurting mothers of the kidnapped girls. The protesters were told to contact Mr. Omeri — the same Omeri that had earlier threatened them with arrest — to read the president’s body language on the matter!
In fairness to the president, he sent a quad of female ministers — Zainab Maina (Women Affairs), Sarah Ochekpe (Water Resources), Lawrentia Mallam (Environment) and Ekon Eyaakenyi (Lands, Housing and Urban Development). But even that proved a cold comfort. One of the ministers rather trivialised issues, thus underscoring the administration’s crass insensitivity on Chibok.
Told by Dr. Ezekwesili that one of the escaped Chibok girls would address the gathering in Hausa (she was not proficient in English because of Nigeria’s educational collapse), Mrs Ochepe fired back that it was under Ezekwesili’s tenure as education minister that the educational system collapsed.
Talk of leaving the ball and going for the leg!
True, Dr. Ezekwesili should not have added the caveat of collapsed education, true as it is. Still, should Mrs Ochekpe have been so insensitive as to launch a spiteful personal attack on Dr. Ezekwesili — an attack that drew stinging rebuke from the protesters? So, because the Chibok girls were no use educationally anyway, their country should not protect them from terrorists? Or did she think attacking Ezekwesili would remove the perceived impotence of the Jonathan Presidency on the Chibok affair?
That attack was simply reckless and Minister Ochekpe did her government no credit by it.
But then so had the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, done her husband no credit, when she tried to put the Chibok kidnap victims in the dock on prime time television. That, of course, backfired in the infamous “Dia ris God ooo …” tragi-comedy.
The president too had lost precious lead time letting himself be misguided that the Chibok kidnap was an opposition ploy to discredit his government. On Chibok, the Jonathan government becomes more discredited by the day — which is a pity: because the government manifests lack of rigour and compassion, which questions the president’s competence to continue holding on to his job.
Let Mr. Omeri be warned: not even the president can take away the rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution.
The president too should do the needful and bring the Chibok girls back home, however difficult that is. The Chibok stain would not go away, despite the childish and contemptible grandstanding by the administration’s officials.
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