It is cheering that government and the Bring Back Our Girls advocacy group are finally on the same page. Of course, the kidnap of the school girls at Chibok was, and remains, an open sore on the psyche of the nation. It wasn’t just a slap on our face, a poke on our nose and a twist of our ears by the irritant and ideology barren Boko Haram group, the kidnap of the school girls and the failure of government to secure their complete release after three years in captivity is a thumb down on our pride as a people.
There is no doubt that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has given a very good shot at the effort to recover the girls. The intensity of the military campaign that has seen the rescue of thousands of hostages – women and children – freed from the claws of the dreaded terror group upon the decapitation of the fighting ability of Boko Haram insurgents give credit to the wonderful job that the Nigerian troops have been doing since the inauguration of the Buhari presidency.
Desirable as the rescue of the kidnapped school girls of Chibok is, we must not make the mistake of making their release the only condition for victory in the war against the Boko Haram sect. For if we did so, Boko Haram would have sufficiently succeeded in capturing our minds and, if care is not taken, we will forever remain victims of their obnoxious terror campaign.
The axiom that defeat or victory in warfare is the perception the human mind adopts between the two, should be a guide to how we can successfully finish the war on Boko Haram.
By calling on the leaders of the BBOG for a combined search of the Sambisa forest in finding the missing school girls, government has made a loud statement to the effect that it is not opposed to the agitations of the BBOG and that finding the missing girls is a top priority of government. For the BBOG on the other hand, the search will afford the group the opportunity to assess and quantify the extent of work done so far by the gallant men of the Nigerian Armed Forces to rid the North-East of the vestiges of terrorism.
But while we pray that the search of the Sambisa forest comes out with a positive result, we must also not lose consciousness of the binary nature of the outcome of any such search: luck or no luck.
If the search team is lucky, the whole of the country will be proud and happy for it; if the outcome is to the contrary, we must also have the courage to brace up and move forward with the larger picture of annihilating Boko Haram and other terror agents from our geographical space.
Although it could be a tough breath to take for us to draw the curtain on the search, more so for the parents, relatives and friends of the missing girls, it is important that we do not allow Boko Haram take victory in the mind war. Perhaps when we refuse to be ensnared into its game plan of using the girls as ransom, Boko Haram might lose its guards on its hostages and at that point it becomes easier for governments and civil rights groups to sniff the trail of the hostage hide-out and secure freedom for the girls.
And even at that, the hope of finding these girls isn’t forlorn for as many of them that are still alive. One day, Boko Haram will be crushed completely and the girls will be freed from the claws of their captives no matter how long it takes.
The same hope, however, is not there for families and friends of the missing Malaysia MH370 passengers.
Just on January 17, authorities finding the missing aircraft in the Indian Ocean – it is the only likely crash site – announced the decision to suspend the search after nearly three years of unsuccessful find. The search took place on an expansive 120,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor – a search site similar in size to the expansive Sambisa forest. The MH370 passenger plane carrying 239 passengers and crew disappeared on March 8, 2014 – the same year of the Chibok girls kidnap – while travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
The ABC News reports: “In a joint statement, the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments said the decision to abandon the search was not taken lightly, or without sadness. Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting-edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.”
Balogun writes from Ibafo, Ogun State.
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