The demand for Justice and freedom for Nigeria’s kidnapped girls

It was as close New Yorkers of all colors, shapes, sizes and ages could have gotten to Nigerian soil.

Hundreds of women, men and children, most of them dressed casually and carrying placards that demanded the release of at least 260 school girls who were kidnapped last month by the terrorist organization, Boko Haram, and its leader Abubakar Shekau, took to Second Avenue, directly across the street from the Nigerian Consulate-General and Mission to the United nations. What they succeeded in doing was expressing their outrage and disappointment at the kidnapping that has captured the attention of people everywhere. And they did so in a forceful yet dignified manner.

Under the rules contained in Vienna Convention whose provisions govern the practice of international relations, a property owned or occupied by a diplomatic mission is considered the foreign country’s soil that can’t be violated. So when New York’s Mayor de Blasio, the Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network and a plethora of African and African-American organizations staged the rally their complaints were heard in Nigeria.

                  With almost every speaker demanding “Bring Back Our Girls,” the international rallying cry of the anti-kidnapping movement, the word reached the Nigerian government in Abuja and its President Goodluck Jonathan almost immediately. It was: act aggressively to free the young girls from bondage. The appalling abduction of the teenagers by the pitiless terrorist group has cast a pall over Nigeria and by extension the African continent.

                  At a time when many African states are being managed by elected governments and their economies are registered robust growth in sharp contrast to those of Caribbean and Latin American states Nigeria, Rwanda, Angola and a host of other countries are a positive sight to behold. Indeed, the abhorrent actions directed at Nigeria’s Muslim community in the country’s northeastern region have taken some of the shine off of Nigeria, preventing the international financial community from tipping its hat to Africa’s largest and most successful economy.

                  What has really unnerved and shocked governments everywhere, as far away as Jamaica, Brazil, Britain, Egypt are the brutality, callousness and inhumanity inherent in the Boko Haram actions. The terrorist group has threatened to marry-off the abducted underage children to adult men who undoubtedly would use and abuse them sexually and otherwise, keeping them in a horrible and unthinkable state of subjugation and depravity.

                  There is a larger and nefarious purpose behind this crime against humanity: robbing girls of a chance to get a decent education that would pave the way to a better quality of life, prosperity is perhaps a better way of putting it. Boko Haram which has taken aim at schools and other centers of learning, insisting that educating girls was against its religious principles. As a matter of fact, the organization’s name, which roughly means “Western education is a sin” aims to derail the aspirations of the young girls, destabilize Nigeria and ultimately to unseat its government.

                  Ironically, the Jonathan administration and its supporters in and out of Nigeria must shoulder much of the responsibility for this awful situation. According to state-controlled media in Nigeria, Patience, the President’s wife has shamelessly accused demonstrators who are demanding the girls’ release of “playing games” and of “using school children and women” for propaganda purposes. That’s an unbelievable act of callousness that has no place in modern society.

                  It is about time that Nigeria demonstrates to the world that it can protect its citizens from the worst forms of violence against women and children. There is clear evidence that President Jonathan was aware of the kidnappings but sat on its hands and even declined to accept international help that would have tracked down the culprits and freed the victims.

                  Britain, which once ruled Nigeria and a long list of African colonies in the past Second World War period offered expert and high-tech help to end the atrocity shortly after it had occurred but Jonathan, his country’s vast security system and other governmental agencies ignored the offers. It was a reflection of the ineffectiveness and the incompetence that characterize the way this large country is being managed.

                  Michelle Obama, wife of America’s leader, Barack Obama some of whose roots can be traced to Africa, used a national broadcast a few days ago to condemn what’s going on in Nigeria, calling it, quite correctly, “an unconscionable act” by “grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls.”

                  The first lady, the mother of two daughters believes American teenagers can learn a valuable lesson from the events in Nigeria. It is: they mustn't take “school for granted.”

                  As the demonstrators used their loudspeakers on Saturday to send their strong messages into the Nigerian government offices and the ears of their diplomats in New York who undoubtedly relayed the complaints to their capital, the tragedy of kidnappings and the treatment of the girls cried out for immediate elimination.

                  Mayor de Blasio, who along with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and daughter, Chiara, appeared at the rally, said that the message of the protestors must also reach the adducted girls. The mayor and the demonstrators from the five boroughs, the Caribbean and elsewhere want to assure the victims in Nigeria that they aren’t alone or forgotten by New Yorkers, the international community and millions of decent Nigerians.

                  “They need to know the world is with them,” said the new Mayor.

                  Well said Mr. Mayor.

(Culled from, The New York Carib News )