How Many More Girls Need to Disappear?

I have to say, that I cannot remotely imagine being a mother who received word 2 weeks ago that her daughter was one of the girls kidnapped from a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria. I have to say, that I cannot imagine being the politician who knows what avenues can be taken and efforts made to #bringourgirlshome, yet chose to turn a blind eye because quite simply, it’s not their daughter or better yet…”too many people will go under…myself included!” You see the thing that pains me about the whole situation with the kidnapped two hundred and something girls in Nigeria is not that the government is failing is yield any answers – (dare I say this is commonplace for most African governments – it’s so late for the girl child), but it’s the fact that not only was there minimal coverage on the issue until social media ran rogue, but this is seemingly the plight of girl children across the African continent, in one form or another, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. How many voices are being silenced through human trafficking and being sold off as sex slaves? How many rich filthy old men at the helm of political authority are exploiting other people’s daughters in drug labs across South America? Yes you’ve seen the scenes in high octane movies – young women dressed in bras and panties packing little packets of this million dollar powder. What about the prostitution rings in Thailand, the mass rapes in the Congo, women and children in Dafur and Syria’s refugee camps?
I remember growing up and being able to watch a full hour of news that didn’t come with gut wrenching headlines. Yes you would have the story on government subsidies, a stateman’s diplomatic visit to some nation for whatever reason – but never was it plagued with news of sinking ferries, church bombings and kidnapped children! What on earth is going on? And it always happens that as the story unfolds, some person did not carry out their due diligence. Simply put, for a second, they didn’t care and that lack of care resulted in the loss of many a life. I’m trying to understand this whole terrorism thing, as the Chibok Girls’ disappearance has been linked to Boko Haram, and in my mind I can’t help but ask the question of whether or not the Nigerian government is in actual fact doing enough to curb this newly emerging war on terrorism. How is it that a country whose economy has toppled that of South Africa to become the best economy on the continent through GDP evaluation – is “failing” to tackle a couple of rogue militants bent on killing for reasons best known to them. I am not Nigerian, but I can understand the frustration of a people who feel that they have been failed many a time before by the very people who are supposed to serve them – the government. I feel the pain of Nigerians who need to understand what is going on in their nation for the simple reason that…I am Zimbabwean. I look forward to a time where protests on our continent will not lead to images of people being thwarted into silence by the police and armed forces, but to parliamentary discussion on what can be done to employ radical change. I look forward to a time where tomorrow’s generation doesn’t feel that safety is found only outside its continent’s boarders. I guess this a good time to cue MLK’s “I have a Dream Speech”#sigh.