The day I met Peter from Chibok (2)

Continued from last Friday (17/4/ 2015)

I HAD to inform and enlighten Peter on the need to tell his story; not to keep quiet. That one day, the right people would read, hear, listen or watch his story and something positive would occur. One suggestion that brightened Peter’s face was when I told him to begin to write down all his recollections about that day and his journey to Lagos.

I asked him: “Do you have an exercise book? Buy one and begin to write down everything you remember. It would become a book in future. Tell your friends from Chibok, too.

If you don’t write it down, you would begin to forget the little details.” As I left with Istifanus; my friend who introduced me to Peter, my thoughts were on overdrive. I began wondering about the whole Chibok girls abduction and the government’s response.

Why did chards of false intelligence continue to ricochet from one government source to another? Why wasn’t there a collective willingness to believe and why didn’t this abduction grip the upper echelons of the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Administration? Isn’t it glaring that something about the government’s lackadaisical nonchalance was just too “velvety-bosomed and too Rolls Royce” as fragments of corroborative information were swirling among the populace but not even swirling in the air-tight corridors of power in Abuja? In all my articles about the Chibok girls, I have always included comments by two African Presidents and this piece won’t be an exception.

The reason for the addition is to bring to your notice, the mindset of African leaders who know the meaning of safeguarding the citizenry.

That is why the Ugandan Head of State, President Yoweri Museveni would state in disbelief and berate the current Nigerian administration headed by Jonathan; for calling on the United States to help him rescue the Chibok girls.

In Museveni’s words: “We have never called the United Nations to guard our security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call on the UN, I would rather hang myself.

We prioritised national security by developing a strong Army; otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children.” He said, inviting foreign power would be a vote of no confidence in his government, if the state can’t guarantee security of the people.

That is why Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (who doesn’t kowtow to the whims and caprices of the West) made this hard-hitting and sincerely blunt commentary. Don’t read his comments if you don’t have the guts to read the truth. For those who have read some of President Kagame’s speeches, you would concur that he tells you what several other African Presidents wouldn’t dare say.

President Kagame said: “When I am watching television and I find that our leaders, who should have been working together all along to address these problems that only affect their countries, wait until they are invited to go to Europe to sit there and find solutions to their problems…it’s as if they are made to sit down and address their problems.

Why does anybody wait for that? In fact, the image it gives is that we are not there to address these problems…they are (African leaders) happy to sit in Paris with the President of France and just talk about their problems.”

The Rwandan President went further: “It doesn’t make sense that our leaders cannot get themselves together to address problems affecting our people. African leaders, we don’t need to be invited anywhere to go and address our problems, without first inviting ourselves to come together to tell each other the actual truth we must tell each other,” he said. -Monday, April 13, 2015.

As I concluded this piece, I tried to call Peter five times between 9.40 a.m. to 11.40 a.m. but he did not pick my calls. But during the first attempt, my call was picked, no one spoke but I heard the cries of his two month old baby boy. Memories of my conversation with Peter rushed back, flooding my mind like a Tsunami.

After my friend and I said our goodbyes to Peter, I asked Istifanus, if the Chibok boys can ever be normal, since I am fully aware that they would be battling with nightmares, psychological and emotional traumas related to the abduction of their siblings and family members. Meeting Peter from Chibok, I know the answer to my question.

That is for the boys; what about the Chibok Girls? I shudder. My heart was blown to smithereens when I saw Peter’s eyes and his body language when he said: “He just wanted the government to rescue the girls”. I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. Concluded. • Aina wrote from Lagos. dolapo@dolapoaina.com