Are you guys not tired of the lies you constantly peddle against Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili? Why do you continue these malicious lies to paint her black just because she is that mirror you look into and you become ashamed of the rot you became. It hurts you that somebody is denying you the excuse you give yourself. You justify your action by saying that everybody is doing it, and here comes a woman who has served with integrity and selflessness, a woman who cared when children of the poor were taken away, a woman who speaks truth to power and even the one she served in, a woman who served and put citizens first and showed that leadrship role does not take away empathy, and because of that, you peddle all sorts of malicious lies against her.
Recently, all of you have been sharing vile and untrue messages on WhatsApp that Dr Obiageli said something about working with Fulani in #BringBackOurGirls.
First of all, BBOG is not a project; it is about empathy and humanity, which you don’t have. At BBOG, we do not see people based on their tribal, religious or gender affiliations. We see people based on their humanity. We came together for a single purpose, and is to bring back school children that were taken away by terrorists. You were busy playing politics with it and you said it was to bring a President down, an incompetent President who sat down and ended up losing election to somebody that had never won election; somebody Nigerians rejected from 2003 till 2015. Today, your lack of empathy has caught up with you and we have become a country where citizens are abducted with impunity. Instead of you to be remorseful at the lack of empathy and humanity you displayed that emboldened the terrorists to keep abducting and gave the government the enabling environment to keep abducting innocent citizens. You would rather look for anything to malign Oby to appease the conscience you have to live with daily than accept that she took the ball when you all dropped it.
Yes, she went into office as minister and she didn’t loot money. Is that why you are angry? Here, you have a minister who had opportunities to loot like others, but she did not, and you are angry at her because you are inherently selfish. You are angry when you see anybody display selflessness. You want everybody to be the same; so everyone would be in that mould of inhumanity, lack of empathy, refusal to fight government and only watch out for self rather than watch out for all.
Nigerians really should be ashamed of themselves. You go after people who do not care about you, people that say nothing when you’re being killed or hurt. They focus on their career, mind their business. But the one that doesn’t mind her business, whom I call the single parent of Nigeria because she carries it on her head, all she gets from you is insult. Foul things are thrown at her, just because she’s that person who wants to raise leaders.
Reuben Abati should be ashamed of himself. He actually took the malicious WhatsApp message they were passing around about Ezekwesili and published it. Ezekwesili was saying to the whole nation that the issue of the #ChibokGirls should not be joked with, and that we should not think it is about children of the poor that can be forgotten. She told the nation that if the terrorists got away with abducting #ChibokGirls, they would come after everybody. But you were insulting her. Are you not feeling it now? Is everyone not a potential kidnap victim? The insensitivity and inhumanity got us here.
Some of you that said Chibok girls were not abducted in 2014 are now paying ransom. All of us are victims waiting to happen. Being a victim is no longer a matter of ‘if’, but a matter of ‘when’.
In 2014, she said we might not have carried #ChibokGirls in our wombs, but we carry them in our hearts. Over the years, she cried out over the killings in our country. She even did one woman protest all the way to the Presidential Villa. People were laughing at her. Guess what? People are now marching on that same Unity Fountain we used to march, pleading for their children to be brought back. She wanted you not to feel that pain. She wanted us to stand united and make demands.
You said #BBOG was about removing Goodluck Jonathan. You think Jonathan was worthy of us putting our lives in danger and going through emotional and psychological torture for seven years? When will you acknowledge that Jonathan’s lack of empathy for school children abducted from school played a role in his defeat and not citizens making demands? For a man that talked about having no shoes, he had no ounce of sympathy for children of the poor. When will you acknowledge that his failure made a candidate who was rejected three times an option?
#BBOG started because girls were taken away from their schools, and the government of the day was incompetent and clueless. The government refused to acknowledge the abduction. Jonathan did not speak about Chibok girls for 19 days after they had been abducted. If it was your own child, do you think that would be okay?
Abati was as bad as Femi Adesina, if not worse. Go and check his statement, telling us that we had no right to ask the President to speak on issues happening. Even to go and present budget, Jonathan was no longer presenting budget to the National Assembly; he would send the Minister of Finance to do that. You have forgotten because you have short memory.
Anyway, it is Turn-by-Turn Nigeria Limited. Yesterday’s victims were once survivors. Today’s victims were yesterday’s survivors, and tomorrow’s victims would be today’s survivors.
The question is, who is next? Ask yourself.
*Yesufu, a socio-political activist, is co-convener of Bring Back Our Girls Movement
