There have been signs of cynicism in many quarters on the release of another batch of Chibok girls. Just before President Muhammadu Buhari jetted off to London to continue his treatment, 82 of the Chibok girls, who have been held by Boko Haram terrorists for over three years, were released. He delayed his travel to London by a few hours to receive the girls. Information minister, Lai Mohammed, now knows that the President was not working from home. He was debilitated by ill health and has now heeded the call of many, including our views as expressed in this column last week, that he should do the needful, which is to give greater attention to his health. He has followed due process in writing the National Assembly, wherein he put the Vice President in charge with the caveat that his doctors would have the final say on when he would return.
The President knows that working from home in Aso Rock is a disservice to himself and the nation. He has toed the path of wisdom. It is our hope that he will return to the county stronger and better. Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo is now in charge, irrespective of what lawyers and the opposition want to make of the letter President Buhari gave to the Senate, wherein he said Osinbanjo would coordinate government activities in his absence. Whatever coordination implies is immaterial given the provisions of Section 143 of the Constitution, which makes it clear that the Vice President would step in and act in the circumstance that the nation now faces. I believe that the proviso that doctors would determine the President’s return should be the issue since 90 days is the constitutional limit. That is a matter for another day.
The release of 82 Chibok girls has tended to elicit reactions from cynical people who think the whole saga is an orgainised scam. They have pointed at the robustness of the girls and juxtaposed it against the fact they ought to have be in captivity, and cannot bring a logical conclusion from the mix. They have raised some questions, insisting that nobody has told Nigerians the true story, even laying blame on journalists for not investigating the event and unraveling the truth.
They say those who hold that the girls were not taken away from Chibok stand the truth on its head. There is no doubt that the girls were taken away from their school but people have now raised the question as to who aided the ‘abduction’ and what vehicle the captors used to take away the girls, about 276 of them. Where have they been kept since April 14, 2014? There are questions about why the girls cannot speak English at their supposed level of education even when they were supposed to be tutored in English language.
Why were journalists barred from speaking to them? Why did the school principal, one Hadija Asabe Kwabura, defy the instruction by then minister of education to move the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination to Maiduguri? Why did the woman give two contradictory accounts of the same event, one to the authorities in Maiduguri, another to Abuja at that time? There are too many questions begging for answers. But my heart goes out the Chibok parents who must have been a pawn in the scam, if the incident is a scam as cynics say. There is no way they would have been willing conspirators in the incident and allowed the lives and future of their children to be toyed with in such a careless manner.
They would have caved in and betrayed the plot these three years, if they were sure of the safety of  their children. They would have been as robust as their children, if they had played along with the deceit. I agree that the girls look robust but details of these security issues never get to be put out in the public. The American people and, indeed, the world did not know that an operation was underway to take out Osama bin Laden until the deed was done. The matter of the Chibok girls, which involved international bodies, may have seen the captors receiving money for the upkeep of the girls, long before their release.
It is pertinent to remember that government consistently promised to ensure the release of the remaining girls. There must be something they knew and the public did not. The snag would be for all the girls to return even when the insurgents who abducted them say some of them have been killed by bombs from Nigerian forces. I hope and pray that all the girls return, scam or no scam. The parents had no hand in it, which is why I wish that all the girls return to the warm embrace of their parents. Cynics do have logical questions but they do not detract from the agony of Chibok parents who are genuinely saddened by the disappearance of their children. No one should make light of their plight because they are not part of any scam, for those who hold that the incident is one. As one saying goes, the corpse of a stranger is like a log of wood; cynics must refrain from making light of the girls. The difference would be if they had a daughter or relative in their midst. The truth would come to light someday, maybe in someone’s memoirs or books that get written long after some people have left office. If there is more than meets the eye on the matter, it would certainly come to light. For now, let us clink glasses with some of the Chobok parents whose long agony has ended and hope that the rest of the girls return someday soon. If the whole saga is a scam, then the world has been scammed, including international media houses whose reporters stayed in Nigeria for days. The BBOG (Bring Back Our Girls) campaigners would have been taken for a ride.
I do not know where the pendulum of truth swings. All I know is that I felicitate with the parents of these girls. There should be a limit to politics on both sides of the divide.

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