I keep hoping for better news. I keep hoping for a resolution. I keep hoping for the missing girls to be returned.
I keep getting disappointed, horrified, and angered. This is one of the rare times I’ll use the phrase “trigger warning” because of the content below the jump.
It took two weeks of people making noise about it, but international media has finally decided to cast its gaze. I doubt anyone likes what it sees.
News appears to be breaking that Boko Haram has admitted to stealing the girls from the school, outright saying so in an video now being beamed around the world. I won’t link it, but it’s easily found.
Over 200 girls (as many as 276!) are still missing, rumored to have been sold into sex slavery for twelve US dollars. I apologize for using the term marriage. Marriage to me is a consensual contract between two (or more) adult, unrelated individuals. The media has used the phrase “sold into marriage for $12.” This is not the case. Boko Haram has sold the girls into sex slavery. They will be raped, if they haven’t been already. Even the term “sex slavery” doesn’t capture the horror of what is happening to these young women. I apologize again for being so blunt.
News is also breaking that the First Lady of Nigeria, Patience Jonathan,had her feelings hurt and had the leader of the Chibok protest arrested.
A woman leading protests over the abduction of more than 200 girls in Nigeria has been detained on the orders of the president's wife, activists say.
Naomi Mutah took part in a meeting called by First Lady Patience Jonathan and was then taken to a police station, they say.
Mrs Jonathan reportedly felt slighted that the mothers of the abducted girls had sent Ms Mutah to the meeting.
Analysts say Mrs Jonathan is a politically powerful figure.
Ms Mutah, a representative of the Chibok community where the girls were seized from their school more than two weeks ago, last week organised a protest outside parliament in the capital, Abuja.
The protesters, and many Nigerians, feel the government has not done enough to find the missing girls, who are thought to have been kidnapped by militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
Goodluck and Patience Jonathan are singularly misnamed individuals. The Nigerian Federal military dithers and frankly, sucks at providing security in a region allegedly under martial law.
They are not doing their jobs, while 300 girls were stolen.
Outrage is growing across the country. And world, for that matter.
And people in Borno and all across Nigeria’s north deserve better, instead of living in fear. Their government should have Boko Haram under control. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even filter out BH supporters in its own bloody Federal military. There are hideous terrorist supporters in their military. Holy mother of all the gods.
Through interviews with witnesses, schoolchildren and security officials, the Guardian has pieced together the security lapses that allowed the militants to launch a five-hour assault while encountering barely any resistance. The military says it knows where the girls are being kept, but insiders say several rescue attempts have been thwarted by tipoffs from their own numbers. The kidnapping and ensuing confusion appear to point to widespread infiltration of the military by Boko Haram supporters. Some security sources say another mass abduction is inevitable.
Perhaps when bombs start exploding in the capital they’ll pay attention.
Oh, wait. That’s happening now.
There are protests planned for tomorrow at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC. If you can make it there, be there. 10AM to 1PM. Let them hear you. Nigeria has an extensive expatriate community in this country, including members of my own extended family. Let them know the rest of us care.
Also of note is the World Economic Forum On Africa will be meeting in Abuja on May 7-9. There will be protests there too.
The twitter hashtag is #BringBackOurGirls. While there have been more than plenty of words about the efficacy of “hashtag activism” I feel that sometimes, it works. In this case, it got the international media to notice that almost 300 girls were stolen from their schools.
I have to add I am not looking for US military intervention, and I have to stress that point. Now, there was a time where I would have and if you look back through some of my diaries on Darfur that I wrote in 2006, you’ll see that. But I no longer feel the US is capable of humanitarian military intervention. I really don’t think anyone really is. I was wrong. What I want is to keep this story in the forefront. I want the light shined. I want the girls returned to their families.