"They include Wole Soyinka, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, Baba Omojola, Comrade Ola Oni, Ayo Obe, Dr. Segun Osoba, Idowu Awopetu, Clement Nwankwo, Frank Kokori, Chidi Odinkalu, Abdul Oroh and Richard Akinnola to mention just a few."
I for one was surprised to see (Lady) Ayo Obe listed among those at the forefront of the valiant, back in those heady days. So much for woman power. The Chibok Girls is also very much a woman's liberation issue. It was vulnerable Chibok Girls that were kidnapped – not Chibok boys, and that maybe says something about the status of women, school girls, and not only in Northern Nigeria.
The focus here is on the CHIBOK GIRLS. Uninformed as I am, can only conjecture that The Press did not fulfil their civic responsibility , didn't turn up in large numbers, to engage with the matter more fully because the Saturday event wasn't sufficiently advertised and also because it is after all the holiday season and even most journalists and the rest of civil society are at rest or free to take a break and consume copious helpings of ogogoro or imported alcohol beverages - chill out and out of action till the holiday is over and back to the nightmare.
The press has now been given advanced notice , and there's enough time to organise between now and Sunday, so one should think that when the day comes, the 1000th day anniversary of the Chibok Girls kidnapping - a very important woman's issue – that day will be political dynamite for e.g. Daily Trust and the patient, the exasperated, the long-suffering and no longer smiling who demand a better response from the Buhari government which with extended time has been expected Buhari to have succeeded where in the early days Goodluck Jonathan through negligence , maybe through cold-hearted incredulity bordering on callous indifference was slow to react, slow off the block - failed – had lost the race against time which was of the essence - in chasing the kidnappers who on day one could not have got so far (away) with the Girls if Nigerian Security had followed them hot in pursuit into the Sambisa Forest.
A few days ago, Chidi Anthony Opara reporting :
"Famed forest
Shabisha
Abandoned.
New occupants
Occupy.
Boasts of victory
Resound."
From which we gather the Boko Haram kidnappers vacated the forest - with their loot – the girls – if indeed they are/ were still there, and just like Napoleon's invasion of Russia the Nigerian Military hot in pursuit only captured the empty forest...
Sambisa Forest reconnoitred by helicopters and aeroplanes in broad daylight, no Chibok Girls in sight, or maybe in jungle camouflage, the Sambisa Forest of our imagination and speculation has received its fair share of attention in this forum
The pressure is on. The 1000th day of Chibok Girls in sexual slavery captivity should be given maximum publicity. Today Sweden took over the chairmanship of the Security Council and I'm sure that if sufficiently alerted this should be one of the priorities of our UN delegates. Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallström is pursuing a Feminist foreign policy...but the mothers and sisters and daughters of Nigeria are definitely , equally concerned as are the fathers , brothers and sons of Nigeria…
On Sunday, 1 January 2017 16:17:00 UTC+1, Ayo Obe wrote:
A journalist is writing about the death of Nigeria's civil society! I laugh. Laugh!
On Saturday, at our weekly #SpeakOutSaturday in Lagos to call on our government to #BringBackOurGirls we were discussing plans to publicise the fact that next Sunday will mark 1000 days since the Chibok Girls were taken and the issue of media coverage arose. We were advised that we would need to budget N10,000 for each media house or journalist whom we invited to cover the event because they would not see it as a news event but one that we wanted publicised. So we would have to pay.
This journalist may not attend #BBOG or other activities of the allegedly dead civil society. He and his colleagues won't cover them for free, so does he even see important work being done by groups like EnoughIsEnough, BudgIT and Integrity Nigeria - which have gone beyond 'complain-and-go' or 'press-statement-NGO' to concrete demands for accountability, accountability, accountability. Against that background I don't know what basis Professor Itse Sagay has for complaining either.
Is this journalist interested in finding out who the new leaders of Nigerian Civil Society are, or what they are doing or does he prefer that the old warhorses of yesteryear- whose names he recognises because there was a time when his colleagues knew what was newsworthy - should continue to occupy centre stage. Maybe our perennial complaint about sit-tight leaders only applies to political leaders.Life cannot be a perpetual 'Arab Spring'. But if a journalist only wants to cover 'Arab Spring' type events, then obviously he will think that Nigeria's civil society is dead. He won't see those doing the hard, unglamorous work of dealing with the nuts and bolts of democracy, strengthening its main component - the people - so that they take up causes for themselves.Anybody who is not satisfied with civil society as he or she finds it, or whose real complaint is that "certain people who agitated or demonstrated about certain issues in the past are not agitating or demonstrating about the things that I think are important" is perfectly free to do his own agitating or demonstrating. However, being an agitator or demonstrator is not my job, and indeed, I think that certain organised civil society groups such as the one I led, ought to have their own obsolescence as part of their objectives. Otherwise there is a danger of not putting enough effort into solutions and instead keeping problems bubbling away so that an NGO can justify its existence.For the rest, my main focus now will be on single-issue agitation. But as I said, the issues that concern me, may not be the issues that others are concerned about or worse - may not be the issues that others think I should be concerned about.
Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijamaOn 1 Jan 2017, at 12:46 AM, 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > wrote:Link: http://chidioparareports.blogspot.com.ng/2016/12/ article-death-of-nigerias- civil-society.html From chidi opara reportschidi opara reports is published as a social service by PublicInformationProjects--Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at AustinTo post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index. html ---You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com .For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
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