CHIBOK - INNOCENCE LOST

I have only just summoned courage today, this minute, to write this, because I was once a young girl, innocent and full of hope and eagerness for what the future holds. I was once a student, exploring my options on which path to follow, science or the arts. Once I decided on which path to follow, I did just that. My hope and aspirations, my youth, my body, my security protected and assured especially within the walls of my home and my school. I went to a catholic school and I was taught so many good things, most of who I am today is because of the nurturing I got from my school.

I remember when on the verge of puberty, my classmates and I were all seated in the art room which had been converted into a mini cinema so we could watch a short documentary film, titled- 'Its Wonderful being a Woman.' That experience taught us a lot about ourselves as women, taught us that we are beautiful creatures, wonderfully made, that we are delicate yet strong and that the world comes into being through us.

And so I have tried not to think about these young girls who were so brazenly abducted from the cocoon of their of formation in Chibok, Borno State of Nigeria. Their hopes, aspirations, dreams stolen by a thief in the middle of the night. I have tried to think of anything else but these girls yet they remain constant in my thoughts and prayers, I cannot get away from them.

I have been in shock for many reasons since the news broke, that so many children could be 'abducted' at once, that they are female, that it happened in an institution, that the actual figure of how many girls were abducted cannot be ascertained, that they still remain missing as I write this, a week later, that nobody has been sacked, fired, charged to court for something, anything, mass negligence, gross incompetence, gross stupidity, gross ignorance, gross maladministration, just something, that nobody has resigned, that life has continued for us as if it is just another unfortunate incident and we need to just get over, as we do all other incidents. The more I try to get over this incident the more I regress back to when I was a school girl and the horror of it all is magnified. This will never go away. For these poor girls, their mothers, fathers, siblings, relatives, Christians, Moslems, this will never go away.

I was once a young girl, now a woman and a mother. I cannot imagine the pain and agony these girls and their mothers are going through right now. All women are in this together and because we have been endowed with the strength, the power to bring forth life, we must draw on that strength and power to see us through this horror, we must draw on that strength and power to prevail and overcome. May God intervene.