MY VIEW: #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS AND #TAKEOURRUNSGIRLS

By Henshaw Uzama
I remember when this hashtag was so popular all over twitter last month. Well, just like every other worldly trend, it has faded away. I just couldn't help writing this article on the previously "famous trend". Before I begin, I want to remind my dear intelligent readers that everyone is entitled to his/her opinions about everything. I shouldn't be critisized for my opinion no matter how silly it may seem.

No girl is missing! That's what I believe. The two hundred and something number that keeps wavering is a facade as far as I'm concerned. I do not hold this opinion because Alhaji Asari Dokubo claims same, but because I see reason with him. To start with, the issue has been made so complicated by the people involved that nobody knows who or what to believe anymore. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to insist that my opinion is correct neither am I trying to impose it on anyone, I'm only trying to express it without mincing words...

I may be wrong, I may also be right. How possible is it that the parents or relatives of people who have been missing for nearly two months will be comfortable and not promote or organize any intense action when they know that the lives of their loved ones are in danger? 

No parent can feel comfortable with the gruesome images of their child being tortured by terrorists frizzling in their minds, yet we have not seen any parent start a facebook page in the bid to protest or even storm the newspapers with his/her appeal to the government. So far, the parents of these "missing kids" have not been shown on TV, interviewed on radio nor have they come out to express their pain. Beside that, why is it that the names or the identities of the missing girls have never been revealed to the country. 

If they are truly missing and they show us their identities, it would help for recognition of them if any 'escapes'. I know it would be very hard for anyone to believe that the large world virtual protest was done for something that isn't even real, but as far as I can see in this issue, that is the case. When the First lady, Dame Patience Jonathan tried to get into the case and help, the principal of the school kept acting like a dumb fool and dodging as if she had something to hide. 

If the principal really had nothing to hide, why did she find it so hard to bring along the people that the first lady summoned in respect to the case. Anyway, that's another day's topic. But what I want to air is that nobody is missing. The whole thing is a setup to humiliate Jonathan's government. It's hard to believe that people can be kept for so long in reality, yet the issue only came as a drifting saga through the minds of the masses, a simple come and go experience. 

Even if the Nigerian security forces are as incompetent as we claim they are, they should have been able to rescue the girls by now if they are really missing. Even though Boko Haram showed us video evidence, that evidence can easily be dispersed as false. It's too easy for the uneducated indigenes of some northern areas that are in support of Boko Haram to give or sell their daughters to boko haram to front as proof of people missing by showing them in a video dressed in islamic dresses and reciting the quran. 

Is it not the same Boko Haram that brought in another entirely different man claiming he is Shekau when the original Shekau is dead?

In summary, conclusion and simple words, nobody is missing. We've been fussing around for nothing.

Note: The Chief of Defence Staff said they have located the location of the girls. Is he also lying?