#BringBackOurBoys: The Kankara kidnap, one kidnap too many – Ozioma Onyenweaku

By Ozioma Onyenweaku

It was in 2014 that we woke up to the news of the abduction of over 200 girls from a girls’ school in Chibok. After all the hues and cries over the abduction, the girls remain missing more than 6 years after. With all the security paraphernalia Nigeria can boast of, actions did not go beyond condemnation; and the girls are still missing to date.

That inaction has emboldened a greater one. 623 school boys have been abducted from Government Science Secondary School Kankara in Katsina State.
The ease with which the 623 boys were abducted at once from the school raises serious concern. How were the students moved in that number from the school without rescue? It is petite for someone to suggest that motorcycles were used in moving 623 boys into the forest; so also for someone who said the boys were moved in buses.

The students must have been herded into the forest; and nobody stopped them!

This situation is more worrisome if we realise that Kankara is less than 200km away from Daura the home town of His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari. The area should experience and enjoy the heavy security presence for being close to Daura. So it is worrisome to even imagine the dare-devil’s confidence in staging and successfully carrying out the abduction with the presence of the President and all his huge and vast security paraphernalia. Yes, we understand that the President was in town on vacation at the time. So heavy security must have been on ground. So what went wrong? How did the whole evacuation of the boys take place?

Aligning with the populace assertion of wrong use of security operatives in Nigeria, the grief-stricken mothers of the abducted students were said to have been teargassed by the Nigerian Police Force. Are we still a sane people? Mothers were peacefully protesting and begging government to use its powers to rescue their children, and the Police used teargas on them! The same State apparatus of power that could not be used to save the innocent students from being abducted is what was used on the grief- stricken mothers thereby aggravating their pains and sorrow! Who did this to us as a nation? Such insensitivity to the plight of these mothers can send some of them to an earlier grave.

If children are not safe in their country where else will they be safe! We cannot ignore the fact that protection of life is the first line of duty of the government. It falls squarely on the government to protect life and ensure security of all citizens including the children. The government has been sleeping on this duty. The thought alone of the insecurity in the country is so destabilizing and mental torturing. Nobody feels safe any more any where.

Not only were the students abducted, there is growing fear for their lives. Nobody knows how many of them would make it back alive. This is in no way being pessimistic because report has it that two have already been killed. Innocent lives being wasted, and we have a responsibility towards these young ones.

The attack on schools and the abduction of students is an attack on education. For how long will we keep toying with the education of our children? It is enough that the schools are neglected and ill-equipped In Nigeria but adding insecurity and loss of life to it is too grave.
Somebody has to take responsibility for all these and do the needful. This is no time to play politics with the lives of the students. We owe the students a duty of care. Now their lives are in danger; even those that escaped, and those that would be rescued would have had their emotional, mental and psychological health messed up. So a lot is at stake here.

We have been failing the children, may we not fail them further. We must show commitment towards rescuing the Kankara students.
All hands must be on deck. We must be intentional at getting to the root of this particular kidnap. It is one part today; it could be another tomorrow. Insecurity in one part is an insecurity in all the parts of the country