One beautiful thing about this Baba from Owu in Abeokuta, General Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo, is that he has answers to all questions. It is not always that Uncle ‘Sege’ waits for you to ask that question agitating your mind. He knows what your question is most likely to be so he gives you the answer while you are still meditating about what exactly you want to ask. That is “Baba” for you.
The “oracle” has done it again by telling us that some of the abducted [were they kidnapped or adopted by a Shetima and company?] girls might never return back home. The old soldier kept the mind of the parents [and that is if they were really kidnapped] at peace by saying that what might deny them coming back home would be “marital” issue.
Hold it please. Baba did not say it specifically that those girls [either all of them or some of them] are married. But he did mention something about pregnancy. I am aware that most girls of this present generation do become mothers without marriages.
The tag “single mother” is almost becoming a title around the world today. In the United Kingdom, being a single mother [if you are a citizen] gives automatic right of “council flat” allocation. That is now the beauty of the game of being a single mother. But this is not the subject of discussion here. Let us go back to the topic.
It is over eighty days that those girls were taken away from their school in a circumstance that is yet to be fully comprehended. Were they kidnapped? Were they abducted [there is a slight difference between kidnap and abduction]? Or were they adopted? For now, only a few highly placed people can give us needed answers to these questions.
These are the Governor of the State, the Principal of the school, the Chief of Defence Staff, the General officer commanding the 7th Division of the Army [then because he has been replaced and of course, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Any other person who says he or she knows the exact fact of the girls “excursion” to whatever place they are is not a reliable witness.
Why would the Governor know? Simply, he said that much himself and being the Chief Security of the State, he has all the information before and after the “commission of the exercise”. He gave money to the parents of the girls, said that “we know where they were” and suddenly group photograph of “none-panicking and comfortable-looking” young girls video clip was posted on television by Ibrahim Shekau; the dreaded Boko Haram leader.
The governor, from circumstantial evidence related above, was in touch and most likely still in factual touch with “operators of the drama” involving our daughters from Chibok. The money he earlier [paid] gave to the parents of those girls might as well be the cost of “bride price” in a mass marriage arrangement he presided over. Please, don’t be in hurry to throw away this theory.
The Principal of the school ought to be the chief custodian of those girls under her care, all things being equal. She “arranged” the brides [girls] for the night of the “marriage” [sorry night of kidnap] without knowing the numbers before she went to her house to wait for the news. By the way, we don’t know the exact number of girls involved up till date. The Principal might be a willing or unwilling participant in the “marriage” arrangement of our daughters from Chibok but she surely knows more than she is telling us.
The Chief of Defence Staff; a three star General of the Nigerian Air Force told the whole world the “exact truth” about those girls. He said “we know where they are”. I believed him because he is next to the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President Goodluck Jonathan, in military matters.
He knows everything about the terrorists, either in or around the Sabisa forest of Borno State. It was the authority of his knowledge that made him to tell us the day he was appointed as CDS that Boko Haram would “come to an end by April”. Being part of the “marriage arrangement” of our girls later might be the way of telling us about “April” of which year the insurgency shall come to an end. He knows about the “marriage” and probably presided over the “ceremony” as chairman hence his knowledge of where the girls were [are].
Former President Olusgun Obasanjo retains a father- figure for the whole country. He knows everything and this is true; a fact you can confirm by reading his account of the Civil war in that “all-knowing” book – My Command. The book revealed the warrior from Egbaland as a man who knows “everything” about the totality of the war even if some of those battles he described were outside the sphere of the 3rd Marine Commando.
The Baba is almost God the Omni-presence. He “knows” everything. His resent lamentation that the Federal government has not given him the needed encouragement to put an end to the Boko Haram menace is additional evidence of a “man that knows everything”. He might not be there during the “marriage ceremony” [maybe the governor did not invite him] of the Chibok girls but he knows that “some of them might not come back because of pregnancy issues”.
Planners of the orchestrated “taking into custody” of the Chibok girls in the name of kidnap were out to stir antagonism of the Muslim world against Goodluck Jonathan and his government by presenting a scenario of kidnapped Muslim girls from the north. In executing the plan, they did not know that people would soon know that Chibok community is more than 90% Christian. The evil design meant against the President had become a blessing instead as the international community now sees the truth and has come into sympathy with the government.
The irony of the orchestrated kidnap remains however the forceful “marriage” of our Christian daughters to Boko Haram Muslim insurgents. These poor girls have been given out in “marriage” by unholy powers that shall perish soon. Let us wish them a happy marriage life though that is the tragedy of the whole saga!
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Godin Etakibuebu, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Lagos.
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