By ETIM ETIM
In the night of June 14, or probably early in the morning of April 15, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists invaded Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State and took away 276 girls aged between 16 and 18, in what was the first school kidnap in Nigeria. Fifty seven of the students escaped right away by jumping off trucks. Others later escaped captivity and/or were released. Many are still missing. The brazenness of the crime, its rarity and the sheer number of the victims, and the fact that they were schoolgirls, caused an international outrage and a global anger that quickly morphed into a movement tagged #Bring Back our Girls. It was supported by activists of different hues and colours; politicians of different stripes, world leaders like Gordon Brown and then US First Lady Michelle Obama.
It is safe to assume that the defeat of President Jonathan in the elections of March 2015 was partly due to the Chibok girls’ abduction. In the run up to the poll, opposition politicians, including the incumbent president, made a mincemeat of Jonathan, ridiculing him and branding him incompetent for failure to stem insecurity. Chibok was a turning point in the Jonathan presidency. Muhammadu Buhari, the main opposition leader and presidential candidate of APC, the leading opposition party then, promised the nation improved security if elected. He was elected, but things got worse.
In a manner of poetic justice, President Tinubu is experiencing another school invasion. On May 15, 2026 – 12 years after the Chibok abductions – another daring set of terrorists swopped on three schools in Oyo State and abducted 39 pupils and students as well as seven teachers. Some victims taken from a nursery school were as young as two. But there has not been an international outrage, while reactions within the country has been largely mooted. President Tinubu, who as opposition leader during Chibok led the attacks against Jonathan, has not been ridiculed, abused or asked to resign. Instead, there has even been deliberate ploy to shield Tinubu from taking responsibility for the systemic failure to secure the country, with some supporters playing down on the incident. Former Ekiti governor Ayodele Fayose ridiculously claimined the other day that the Oyo abductions were orchestrated by Gov. Makinde to frustrate the reelection of the president.
After the Chibok abductions, The Nation, a newspaper owned by Tinubu, wrote no fewer than three editorials, condemning the attacks and taking Jonathan to task for his inability to protect Nigerians. On August 28, 2014, – four months after the attacks, The Nation wrote a scathing editorial titled “Still in captivity”, in which it criticized the federal government and the military for what it called abandoning the girls. “More than four months after they were abducted… the Chibok girls appear to have been abandoned by federal civil and military authorities”. It also stated: “As a newspaper, we cannot support any policy that directly or indirectly abandons innocent children whose only sin was heeding the call of government to seek education”.
On May 18, 2014, the paper wrote another editorial titled. “Tragedy of massacre politics”. It opened with: “We kneel and pray for the safe return of the over 230 schoolgirls recently abducted from Chibok, Borno State by the terrorist group, Boko Haram”. The piece framed Chibok as part of Nigeria’s wider problem with violence and corruption. Academic studies of media coverage also noted ‘’The Nation’’ gave the Chibok story heavy attention, with more front-page headlines than The Punch. Overall, other newspapers in the country were equally critical of the Jonathan administration. But in the case of the Oyo attacks, The Nation has not written a single editorial on the incident. Its coverage of the incident has been largely obscure and restrained, while no newspaper has called for the resignation of Tinubu.
Chibok also delivered a severe emotional and psychological stress on Jonathan’s family, notably his wife, Patience. We still remember how the former First Lady suffered a nervous breakdown on national TV, when it dawned on her that the Chibok violence was carefully orchestrated to humiliate her husband out of office. Patience Jonathan became the butt of jokes all over the country. In the case of the Oyo attacks, First Lady Remi Tinubu has largely kept a cool distance from the fray; appearing sometimes unperturbed and unsympathetic. A cleric, Primate Ayodele recently lampooned Mrs Tinubu for not behaving ‘’like a mother’’ by not showing enough empathy for the Oyo school children. He wrote in a recent Facebook post: ‘’ You can’t even pretend; what you did is very bad. You should have done what Jonathan’s wife did. You never protested or demanded that these Oyo schoolchildren be brought back. Instead, you were busy distributing cars for political campaigns. I will tell you the truth’’.
While Chibok presented an opportunity to ridicule and campaign against Jonathan, Oyo has become an occasion for government to advise Nigerians ‘’not to politicize insecurity’’. In the 12 years since Chibok, there have been many instances of violent terrorist attacks and other dramatic school abductions. Nothing appears horrifying or shocking anymore – from national and indeed international outrage in 2014 to a seeming nonchalance in 2026. There has also been a shift in the tone of conversations around insecurity since Chibok.
In 2014, Jonathan was largely described as a failure and calls for his resignation were rampant because as the Chief Security Officer of the federation, the buck stops at his table. Under President Buhari, insecurity was equally unrelenting, but the general narrative was that although the president was the chief security officer, Nigerians were expected to protect themselves because security was our collective responsibility. Some even argued that the president could not be everywhere, and so he ought not to bear the responsibility alone. Now under Tinubu, the blame has to be shared. We are told: ‘’Do not politicize insecurity…what are the governors doing…Why are the citizens not protecting themselves…Why do you want the president to look bad? Whether you support him or not, Tinubu must remain president until 2031…if you like keep kidnapping your people and blame Tinubu’’.
The feeling of resignation and helplessness among Nigerians because of failure of the state to protect them coupled with the growing tactics of shifting responsibilities by state officials are clear signs of defeat. It is quite disconcerting to hear officials blame the uptick in terrorist attacks on the looming election season. If they knew that much, why didn’t the government prepare for it? Why did we not recruit forest reserves all this while? Why have we been dawdling on the establishment of state police? Inability to prepare for a calamity you had anticipated is a hallmark of incompetence and failure.
ETIM ETIM is a veteran journalist and PR professional with over 35 years of cognate experience.
He is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Policy & Politics (www.policyandpolitics.com.ng), an online newspaper dedicated to insightful analysis of Nigerian news and world’s report. He is also a columnist with BusinessDay and The Cable and is a regular contributor to other newspapers.
Contact: +234802 3159969 (WhatsApp Only)
