Leah Sharibu: ‘Buried’ in the cacophony of campaigns

NIGERIA is a nation perpetually in the throes of amnesia. As the Yoruba would say; ‘ohun ti won ba n je lowo ni won mo.’ They are only mindful of the current bliss. Is there anything blissful in the current situation in the country? That is a story for another time. Ultimately, it is a country swept by the gale (either positive or otherwise) of currency. It is a country where hundreds of people would perish inadvertently and cries of regret and condolences would follow only to be followed by a government’s inauguration of wheel barrows for unemployed youths the next day. Even the nation’s soldiers died in droves and the government ‘danced on their mass grave’ the following days.

But Leah Sharibu is not dead yet; at least, we don’t have any such report. She is one of the 110 female students of Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe State who were abducted on February 19, 2018, allegedly by the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Others were later reportedly freed, but upon her refusal to renounce her Christian faith, she had been held in captivity ever since. In the wake of the refusal of the dreaded group to release the teenager, there had been some sorts of crocodile tears across the country, from citizens and governments alike, as if the release of the girl would be secured the few following days. Not on one occasion had the Federal Government vowed that every effort would be made to secure the release of little Sharibu. How much efforts has been made remain s unknown to Nigerians, more so as there have been suggestions in some quarters that it is not right for government to negotiate with terrorists. It could result in further empowering the dissidents, it was argued. Well, there is no doubt that such would be the stand in any sane clime. But what other options have been explored? Does anyone in government think of the agony of parents who raised a girl to teenage and suddenly have to face the grim reality that she is locked in a bush with some animals in human skin and that they might never set eyes on her again?

Since 2014 when their own incident occurred in Borno State, not all the Chibok school girls have been brought back to their parents. Their case seems to have been buried in the belly of a nation suffering from unbridled amnesia. In about a fortnight from now, Sharibu would be one year in captivity. Nobody knows what she would have gone through in the a-little-less-than-365-days in her kidnappers’ den.

What makes it more saddening is that the government that has been promising heaven and earth over Leah’s case appears now totally lost in the noise of February and March elections. It has been the case since about six months back. But it is not the government alone. The fever that has gripped the entire nation now is that of election. And there is a Leah Sharibu in every one of us. The majority of our people is not so much as free as little Sharibu is. Nigerians are in the captivity of lack, hunger and insecurity. But the current universal’ song is that of an election that might not, after all, be electoral. Sharibu has remained a metaphor for the average Nigerian citizen. She believes in her God; her faith. That is the reason she was not allowed to follow her mates home. Nigerians are very religious people. However, for Nigerians of the current dispensation, it is every man for himself, God for us all. We have been abandoned in the cold like day-old chicks whose mother hen has been scared away by a hovering hawk. Most Nigerians today are dead bodies walking the desolate streets. Like the promises made on Leah Sharibu, there are a litany of promises of efforts that have been made and those being made by the governments to give the average Nigerian the very basic living condition. It is yet to be seen that they have translated to freedom from poverty, hunger and insecurity.

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But there are yet many Nigerians, the very ordinary ones, who have also been lost in the season’s campaign choruses. You can’t blame the governments alone. Such Nigerians also need to take another look at their lives. At campaign rallies, where you have their usual so-called “mammoth crowds,” there are persons whose only expectation is the N1,000 to be taken home. Such have children left, with a mere breakfast of garri flakes with nothing penciled in for lunch, at home… No hope of where the New Year house rent would come yet. Have those ones been freed from the captivity in which they found themselves in Africa’s most populous black nation?

The governments, and those seeking to dislodge them, are carrying on the campaigns for the soul of the nation as though it is a means to the end of the common man’s captivity. It has always been like that every four years. Incidentally, the common man is also lost in the songs of collective amnesia. The nation carries on as if all its Sharibus, both inherited and self-created, have been freed from captivity.  Elections are a must for the continuity of democracy. The campaigns, featuring allegations and counter-allegations, intrigues and horse-trading of all kinds, do not give the assurance that the coming elections would result in deepening democracy and translating to better life for the citizenry. It is, as usual, a chorus that leaves us forgetting where we are coming from with inaudible lyrics of where we are actually going.

If weighty issues like the predicaments of the remaining Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu are this easily forgotten and we carry ourselves like we have since moved on, we certainly haven’t learnt any lesson from the great novelist, the late Chinua Achebe, who said that a people who forgot where the rains began to beat them would not know where to begin to dry themselves. Yes, a nation cannot be static on account of tragedies that befall it. But we need to ask ourselves; how soon do we forget harsh events that have shaped our today? One year, two, a decade? I recently read the comment of a Nigerian on social media concerning the bomb blasts that claimed the lives of nearly a thousand people, mostly children and women, at Ikeja and environs of Lagos State, on a single day, in 2002. It dawned on me that Nigerians have consigned that sad incident into dustbin of history, and I quit the narrative with despondency. I witnessed that incident. In other climes, the memories of such casualties are dignified with remembrance. That is not Nigeria.

If we carry on with the culture of failure to appraise our past, we should not lay claim to the moral standing to blame history for repeating itself. B’omode ba subu, a wo ‘waju; b’agba ba subu, a wo eyin wo. We should cultivate the culture of being mindful of the object of our downfall in the journey towards nationhood. Let the governments and people of Nigeria, immediately, get back on the track of rescuing the Leah Sharibus being held captive in the fabric of our nation.

• Gbadamosi is on the staff of the Nigerian Tribune