Dapchi and Chibok should never happen again

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Like Dapchi, Chibok community witnessed the mass abduction of schoolgirls in April of 2014.

Hundreds of Nigerians in the northeast continue to be picked up at will by terrorists, pouring plenty of cold water on government’s claims that Boko Haram has been “sufficiently degraded”.

Chibok and Dapchi shouldn’t have happened. According to Amnesty International, there’s ample evidence to prove that Nigeria ignored warnings of an impending Boko Haram attack in Dapchi.

Failed to act

“We reveal evidence Nigeria’s hours before abduction of 110 Dapchi Girls. No lessons appear to have been learned from the terrible events at Chibok four years ago”, Amnesty International said in a report.

The organization added that "The Nigerian authorities must investigate the inexcusable security lapses that without any tangible attempt to prevent it”.

The story of Nigeria has been one of no lessons learned, inexcusable security lapses, porous borders, government incompetence, reacting when we should be proactive and the mind-boggling corruption that has paralyzed all institutions including security institutions.

Yet, the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of its people.

Fail

We fail our children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and cousins each time we allow those despicable terrorists lay their filthy hands on them. We fail children whose only crime is seeking an education, when we continue to leave them in harm’s way.

After Chibok, we should have screamed “Never again!” with steely resolve. Instead, four years down the line, we returned to our vomit because we never learn a thing.

We protect politically exposed persons and VIPs while leaving the vulnerable in our population to their fates.

We know that mass abduction is now Boko Haram’s cash cow and that after Chibok, they would want to milk that cow with renewed vigour. And what do we do? We do not watch over our schools in the northeast and elsewhere. There is no greater government failure than allowing vulnerable persons in the population to be kidnapped on a whim.

There have been kidnappings of school kids across Nigeria as well including in Lagos the nation’s commercial capital and most cosmopolitan of cities. What will it cost the nation to make schools safer around Nigeria?

We should do better. We can do better. We must do better. Dapchi, Chibok and Igbonla in Epe shouldn’t happen again.