Where have the kidnapped Nigerian girls gone?

Imagine sitting in a crowded class room, surrounded by other girls all aged between 16 and 18, taking your final Physics examination, when a large group of men burst in and force you all  to climb into trucks while they set the school on fire. That is what happened to over 200 girls on the 14th April this year in Nigeria.  The actual number of girls taken has not been definitely confirmed, because all the school records were destroyed. The school had opened up specially to provide a venue for the examinations and the girls slept in dormitories on site because it was too far to return home.

The men who took them belonged to a group called Boko Haram ( meaning Western education is forbidden).  One of the Boko Haram leaders, in a video link, said "I will sell them in the market, by Allah, I will sell them and marry them off. Women are slaves".In March, another rural boarding school had been attacked and at least 29 men were murdered while the girls were let free and told to go home and get married.

This group of insurgents are well organised, thought to number several thousand, with many armoured vehicles, and live deep in the forest. The Nigerian intelligence agency, despite attempting to infiltrate their ranks, have singularly failed to do so and the government will not send forces in to locate the girls for fear of causing their death.

Olusegun Obesanjo, a former president of Nigeria, has spoken out against President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing him of waiting too long to report this serious situation, and saying that we may not know the whereabouts of these girls for many years. Rumours abound that there has been a mass wedding among the Boko Haram supporters suggesting that the girls have been shared among the militants.

58 girls escaped, many by jumping off moving lorries. Several ran into the bush when they were sent to fetch water and hid until nightfall, making their way back to a local village. At least 2 have been thought to have died of snake bites.

On June 21st, Gordon Brown ( United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the UK) published an article in the Daily Mail which was illustrated with photographs of 185 of the missing girls. The leader of the community council in Chibok, the district from which the girls had vanished, had been painstakingly collecting information about each girl. But there has not been any real progress in finding them. Gordon Brown goes on to use the article as a platform to expand on the vast issue worldwide of young girls being forced into marriage and denied education. The 200 or so Nigerian girls we know about are but a tiny drop in the ocean against this backdrop. In Nigeria alone, ongoing raids on small local markets continue unreported to the media, with women and girls regularly being taken.

The Nigerian population are frightened to speak up, the Nigerian government is unwilling to act for fear of starting an outright civil war, and foreign agencies have limited ability to influence the situation. Despite help from the US, Canada, Britain, France and China, no progress has been made. I wonder when we will hear more about these girls. Like Olusegan  Obesanjo, I think we may have to wait a long time.

Lunch with Robert Emmet

On a recent  trip to Dublin, I bought a sandwich and headed into St Stephen's Green to enjoy a quiet lunch break in the green oasis away from the traffic of central Dublin. Strolling leisurely through the cool, shady paths, looking for an empty bench, observing the business men in smart suits, tourists with expensive cameras, students in scruffy jeans and noisy Spanish visitors, I tried to recall how it felt to be a student in this vibrant city many years ago.

Finding a bench, I sat down in front of the statue of Robert Emmet. For such a well-known Irish patriot, he looked rather inconspicuously short, with a slight frame and  pointed nose. Not a handsome man I thought.  I realised that I knew very little about him, though I suspect something must have been said during history classes. Perhaps I had not listened.

There was little information displayed by his statue, other than that it was made of bronze, a replica of one in Washington DC, by the sculptor Jerome O'Connor. He led an uprising against the British for which he was executed and the statue was erected in 1968 opposite his birthplace ( though the actual house was long since demolished).

On returning home, I was stimulated to find out more about Robert. He was born in 1778 and executed in 1803. The youngest of 18 children, his father was a prominent  Protestant physician and the family were relatively wealthy. Robert attended Trinity College and by all accounts was an extremely clever student, though his studies were cut short when he became politically active.

The Reverend Thomas Elrington ,Senior Dean of Trinity College at the time Robert was a student, described him as having' a dirty-brownish complexion; at a distance looks as if somewhat marked with small-pox; about five feet six inches high, rather thin than fat, but not of an emaciated figure; on the contrary, somewhat broad-made; walks briskly, but does not swing his arms.'

He was a talented speaker, driven by his idealism, organised an uprising against the British which was rapidly put down. He went into hiding , but was eventually caught, tried and sentenced to death. He is remembered particularly for his dramatic speech on the occasion of his sentencing. Witnesses were in tears as he offered the sacrifice of his life to his country.

He said: 'Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character; when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.'

Thank you, Robert , for keeping me company over lunch.