I have more girls among my birth children. I also have more girls among my adopted children worldwide and among my many mentees over the years. This is not by any design; it is just that more girls tend to gravitate towards me. Although many young men want to know what makes me tick, more girls tend to ask me questions. They are also interested in other things like my dress sense, etcetera.
I have started this column today by distracting myself from the main issues using mentoring, but that is not my issue today. I have just used it to indicate just how truly sad I am every time the Chibok girls are mentioned.
If anyone has children, not just daughters, one’s imagination runs riot when the Chibok girls are mentioned. There is constant buzz in my head every time I look at any young girl between the ages of 14 and 17. I have stayed awake several nights thinking about them, wondering where they are, what trauma they have encountered, and all I can see and taste is the all-consuming fear of the girls.
A 14-year-old has just started her menstruation and is still grappling with her sexuality. As I mentioned in a previous column, they are now shy of even their families. When one opens the door to their rooms unannounced, they cower, reaching for a wrapper to cover themselves. It is at this time that they dream large. “I want to be an aeronautical engineer,” my young cousin told me, and she does not even like physics. This is when they believe they can conquer the world. This is when their innocence propels them to become inventors, innovators, creators and transformers. These geniuses across the world who have changed things, the Zuckerbergs, the Steve Jobs, the Richard Bransons, it was at 14 that they began to dream.
At 14, one’s innocence allows them to conquer the fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, makes them kind to strangers not fully understanding why mum says that neighbour is a stupid woman. It is their innocence that makes them curious and gives them the joy and love that only a 14-year-old can give. They have not yet started processing hate, displeasure, ethnicity, religious bickering and all the things that unhinge us as a nation. They are not pretentious; they say what is on their mind.
Every nation needs its 14-17-year-olds to remind us of how we used to be. Happy, less judgmental, and more tolerant. It is a year ago that we sacrificed our children to a forest, a place as dark as hell, a place less travelled, un-interrogated and fearful. Our Chibok girls became the ultimate sacrifice of a nation on its knees where many have since obliterated the word “sacrifice” from their lexicon.
I have watched my younger daughter jump at the sight of a cockroach and sighed knowing the Chibok girls face gun-toting men, high on drugs and strange ideologies. I have seen their pictures of innocence on various international channels.
There are stories of sex slaves, of rape, of human merchandise, of forced marriages, of wandering in the forest, of domestic slavery, of things known and unknown. There is brutality, separation from what they know, the tearing apart of siblings and the slow painful departure from reality, the onset of depression and suicidal moments.
I have searched my mind’s eye for the answers and have been lost in a labyrinth of self-pity and a call to national atonement.
We need as a nation to call on our faiths, seek God’s face and eliminate deceit, greed, backbiting, corruption and all things that shame our founding fathers. It is time to deploy honest spiritual rescue across religious divides for our nation.
We have come full circle from the day we woke up to find unnervingly that over 200 of our girls have been abducted from a school by unknown gunmen.
Today, Nigeria has become the reference point for abductions and the North East has become a theatre of the absurd. There is abduction of grandmothers, incest by insurgents, women as cannon fodder, continuous rape of our women by society, by men, by institutions, by friends and family.
Today, we remember those girls and their parents whose sacrifice continues to benumb us as a nation. Let us all charge our boarding schools to be more alert in the care of our wards. There are too many careless moments.
a. Poor security in boarding schools both private and government.
b. One-too-many deaths of boarding school children as a result of poor healthcare systems.
c. Rules that are as ridiculous as the moon eating the sun.
d. Uncaring matrons and principals whose interest is how much money a parent can bring
e. Poorly-run and -manned boarding schools in our rural communities.
f. Parents who have sold their conscience and do not hold school authorities accountable at PTA meetings.
It is time to lead wherever you are to say, “Never again!” A salute to those who have kept the memory of the Chibok girls alive.
Eugenia Abu
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