“Governor Makinde’s request is, if anything, far more restrained. He has not accused President Bola Tinubu of committing crimes against humanity. He has not demanded that the president be docked before an international tribunal.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government is angry that Governor ‘Seyi Makinde made a call on Monday for an international probe of the abduction of 46 pupils and teachers in Oyo State. The APC Federal Government forgot that, 13 years ago, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), led by the incumbent president, Bola Tinubu, made an even harsher demand.
The Tinubu-led ACN said President Goodluck Jonathan should face the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague because of the mass abductions and killings that happened under his watch.
What goes round, indeed, comes around!!!
Between Makinde and Tinubu
Those who, yesterday, demanded international scrutiny of another government’s conduct cannot, with any moral consistency, denounce the same demand today simply because it comes from a political opponent. Principles lose their worth the moment they become prisoners of partisan convenience.
The irony is striking. In April 2013, after the massacre in Baga, the ACN did not merely ask for a local inquiry. It declared that the killings amounted to crimes against humanity and urged the ICC to intervene because, in its view, the Nigerian Government was either unwilling or unable to ensure accountability.
It argued that innocent citizens had been repeatedly slaughtered without consequences and that international institutions had a responsibility to step in where domestic mechanisms had failed. Those were not whispered words. They were forceful, deliberate and unequivocal.
Governor Makinde’s request is, if anything, far more restrained. He has not accused President Bola Tinubu of committing crimes against humanity. He has not demanded that the president be docked before an international tribunal.
He has simply asked that the United Nations (UN) and other international human rights and accountability bodies examine the circumstances surrounding an abduction that held schoolchildren and teachers captive for 56 agonising days.
How is that a more outrageous proposition than what the ACN itself demanded 13 years ago?
Indeed, the governor has advanced a compelling case. His request is not an attack on the Nigerian military or other security agencies. Throughout the ordeal, he consistently praised the sacrifices of the armed forces, the DSS, the police, Amotekun and local vigilantes.
After the rescue, Makinde publicly thanked President Tinubu and the security services for bringing the victims home. His appeal is for answers, not for applause or condemnation.
And there are questions that deserve answers.
How did heavily armed terrorists invade three schools in broad daylight, abduct dozens of children and teachers, and disappear into the forests? What intelligence failures made such a brazen operation possible? How did the abductors sustain themselves and move their captives for nearly two months?
Who supplied them? Who protected them? Were there collaborators in the government, and within the affected communities or beyond? Could institutional negligence or outright collusion have prolonged the ordeal? Most importantly, what lessons must be learnt to ensure that no Nigerian child ever suffers such horror again?
These are not political questions. They are questions of public safety.
The rescue itself, welcome as it was, came at a terrible price. Teachers died. Security personnel paid the ultimate sacrifice. Families were shattered. Young children were dragged through forests, beaten, traumatised and denied the innocence that should define childhood.
Some of those children may carry invisible psychological scars for years, perhaps for life. Trauma does not disappear because captives have returned home. It often begins its deepest work after freedom has come.
That is why this tragedy cannot simply be wrapped up with photographs, congratulations and official statements. Rescue is not the end of accountability. It is only the beginning.
Across the democratic world, major security failures are routinely subjected to independent scrutiny. Democracies investigate, not because they hate their institutions, but because they value them enough to improve them. Public enquiries after terrorist attacks, aviation disasters, military failures or intelligence lapses are designed to expose weaknesses, recommend reforms and rebuild public confidence. They are exercises in institutional maturity, not admissions of national weakness.
Nigeria should not be afraid of the truth!!!
If our security agencies acted professionally throughout the operation, an impartial investigation will only strengthen their reputation. If mistakes were made, those mistakes should be acknowledged and corrected. If there were collaborators, they should be exposed. If there were systemic failures, they should be remedied. Nobody loses when the truth prevails. Society loses only when questions are buried beneath political defensiveness.
The Presidency’s response would have been stronger had it welcomed scrutiny with confidence, instead of dismissing it as politics. Governments that are certain of their integrity do not fear independent examination. They embrace it.
What makes the current criticism particularly difficult to sustain is history itself. The political family that now condemns Makinde once insisted that international intervention was necessary to confront insecurity under another administration.
It cannot now argue that such intervention suddenly violates Nigeria’s sovereignty merely because the occupant of Aso Rock has changed. Consistency is the first casualty when politics becomes more important than principle.
This is bigger than Governor Makinde. It is bigger than President Tinubu. It is bigger than the APC or the PDP.
Forty-six children and teachers were stolen from their classrooms. A mathematics teacher never returned alive. Soldiers and other security personnel died trying to rescue them. Families spent 56 days suspended between hope and despair. The emotional wounds inflicted upon those children may outlive all the politicians currently arguing over the matter.
Nigeria owes those victims more than sympathy. It owes them the truth. Truth does not perish; only those who try to suppress it exhaust themselves.
If an independent international investigation, under the aegis of the United Nations, is instituted and ultimately vindicates every institution and every official, so much the better. If it uncovers failures, negligence or complicity, the nation will be stronger for confronting them. Either way, justice is served.
That, surely, is not too much to ask, after 56 days of terror.
•Mohammed writes from Abuja.
