PHOTOSPEAK: RESCUE #AbductedBornoSchoolGirls #BringBackOurGirls

Speaking to newsmen,  the executive director of Spaces for Change, Ms. Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, stated that the Nigerian government has failed to live up to its primary obligations of protecting lives and property. More than two weeks after hundreds of school girls were abducted, the Nigerian government is yet to publish the accurate data of the missing girls. The plethora of federal and state government agencies that corner more than 70% of the annual budget to themselves have not come up with any known strategy or action plan for gathering accurate data of the number of missing, displaced, wounded and disappeared persons.  Without shame or guilt of underperformance on their part, both the state and federal government agencies now totally rely on the foreign media and external NGOs to assist them with routine data-gathering.

Beyond finding these girls, the government needs to tell us what it is doing to ensure the abduction of young school girls do not reoccur in the future. Finding these girls is not meaningful if they would be merely taken back to Chibok, where they are vulnerable to further attacks and re-abductions. The federal government must guarantee human security in Borno communities. In the meantime, the Nigerian government must take immediate steps to provide alternative education hubs in less volatile locations where these young girls can go to school and fully realize their potentials.

She further noted that the three major factors fuelling the crisis in the North East are: the uncertainty of the perpetrators, the uncertainty of prosecution and the uncertainty of justice. Finding these girls is imperative, but identifying the abductors of these young girls and ensuring that they are punished will demonstrate that the government is indeed serious about entrenching accountability in the fight against terrorism.