If the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is admitting that it set up the #BringBackOur Girls to orchestrate the propaganda war to have the girls released, then it is about time we began to ask which group contracted out the assignment to have the girls abducted in the first place.
Audu Ogbeh said, on the day that APC’s 72 years old trump card, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) declared his intention to contest in the 2015 presidential election, that “We commend #Bring- BackOurGirls movement led by members of this party. We thank them for their commitment to Nigerians.”
This was at an event another of the #BBOG leader, Hajiya Bala Usman, was introduced to the crowd that graced the event. Expectedly, the naive pawn in the whole chess game, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has been shouting on top of her voice claiming that APC had no voice at strategic meetings of #BBOG. And who would believe her?
Read her: “I take very strong exception to what is being credited to Mr. Audu Ogbe of APC, another tragic low in making #ChibokGirls political pawns. I am neither covertly or overtly a member of the APC, PDP or any other party. It is false and wrong to say #BBOG Nigeria is led by members of APC. If Mr. Ogbeh is being correctly quoted, he can only be referring to those of their members who are part of #BBOG_Nigeria. Never has there been any speck of political party consideration in anything that the strategic team of the group that I chair does.” Arrant hogwash!
As if all that was not annoying enough, APC spokesman, Lai Mohammed, issued a statement telling President Goodluck Jonathan not to play politics with the issue of the Chibok girls. Who, I beg, has been playing politics and seeking to gain cheap political capital out of the misery of a nation? Which party had to set up a non-governmental Organisation (NGO), BBOG, to continue to torture our collective psyche? Now that the bubble is about to burst, Ezekwesili is bursting her crocodile tears bag and worsening the situation with her holier-than-thou posture.
One wonders if this party wants to rule Nigeria or simply spoil matters for its presidential hopefuls by messing up whatever credibility they have so that Jonathan can coast home to an easy victory. Lai says that tongues are wagging that Jonathan knows where the Chibok girls are and that he wants them to be released only when it will give him the maximum political advantage.
In a manner that bespeaks its knowledge of something about the planned release of the Chibok girls, APC narrates a sequence of events intended to prove that President Jonathan knows the whereabouts and the current state of the girls.
Here is the party’s narrative: “A little over a month after the girls were abducted, the Chief of Defence Staff said the security leadership in the country had located where Boko Haram is holding the abducted girls. Since then, Nigerians have been waiting for the girls to be rescued, to no avail. No one has told Nigerians the problems that are mitigating against the release of the girls, be it logistic or otherwise.
“More recently, on Sept. 23rd, the military tweeted the imminent release of the girls, only to retract the statement shortly thereafter. However, in the intervening period, thousands of ‘supporters’ of the President had gathered at the Pierre Hotel in New York to welcome the President (who was then in New York for the UN General Assembly session) after the release of the girls, while media interviews had been booked for him. No one has told Nigerians why that ‘imminent release’ of the girls was botched.
“Also recently, a flurry of nocturnal activities have been going on ostensibly to negotiate the release of the girls, even after the same government that is apparently behind the activities had bluntly ignored wise counsel and said it would never negotiate their release.” At the risk of being tagged a conspiracy theorist, it appears that either APC has moles in government or it is getting information from the abductors who are holding the girls.
As of the time of rounding off this piece, there was news that the federal government and the dreaded Boko Haram, described as the military wing of a particular party by Femi Fani Kayode, have reached a ceasefire agreement. It seems the APC chiefs knew of the close of the deal and went on to take credit for working through the #BBOG to force a truce. Ezekwesili can shed all the tears she wants, but she and her political sponsors cannot fool Nigerians they were not in on the macabre drama that has played out in the country these last six months.
Written by Matthew Adejoh.