Femi Adi/Kaduna

After about four months of silence, a group of northern elders finally musters courage to demand for the rescue of the over 270 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State abducted by Boko Haram insurgents
Since the kidnapping of over 270 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents on 15 April, which has consistently attracted criticism from within and outside Nigeria, people from northern Nigeria, ostensibly viewing the abduction as a political issue, have been conspicuously silent in the clamour for the girls’ release.

This trend, however, has been broken by a group of northern elders who, on the platform of Northern Elders Forum, NEF, last week decided that it was time to call for the rescue of the girls.

The Forum said the decision to act was informed by their “firm conviction” that the security situation in the North threatened the individual and collective existence of the country.

It was against this background that the Maitama Sule- and Ango Abdullahi-led NEF gave the Federal government an eight-week ultimatum to move into Sambisa forest in Borno State and rescue the girl from their Boko Haram abductors.

Speaking at a press conference last Monday in Kaduna, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, on behalf of the Forum said the elders have refused to believe that the Nigerian military cannot defeat Boko Haram terrorists. According to him, the activities of the terror group were beyond doubt a security challenge that posed serious threat to the 2015 elections and the survival of Nigeria. “We strongly advise President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to bring an end to the insurgency in all its manifestations and produce the Chibok girls before the end of October, 2014,” he said.

He stated further that, in the event that President Jonathan failed to do this, not only northerners but the entire Nigerians would be left with the only conclusion that he has forfeited his right to ask for their mandate beyond 2015.

While condemning the federal government for failing to rescue the girls and protecting the citizens within the North-East region, who are direct victim of the sect, Baba-Ahmed identified a lack of strong will at the level of the Presidency to fight Boko Haram, deep-seated corruption, incompetence in government, among others, as reasons the Chibok girls have not been rescued and Boko Haram thriving.

However, the Forum did not blame President Goodluck Jonathan alone for the North’s security and economic challenges; it also indicted past and present crops of northern leaders, who were expected to have used their God-given privileges, power and influence to effect a reversal of the dangerous trend before it got out of hand.
Among those mentioned are General Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdusalami Abubakar, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Architect Namadi Sambo, General Theophilus Danjuma and all retired Chief Justices of Nigeria from the North, who the Forum said were leaders that poorly represented and grossly under-utilised assets of the North.

“If these leaders cannot visibly help to transform the fortunes of the North in the next few months, they will leave northerners with the damaging impression that they have abandoned the region and the people to its seemingly irreversible decline and ultimate destruction.” Baba Ahmed noted.

Meanwhile, the elders rejected the notion that multiple internal security challenges such as attacks on villages, ethno-religious conflicts and banditry springing up by the day in many parts of the North are all a coincidence. In fact, they alleged, most of the conflicts are engineered to weaken the North politically and economically by interests which intend to exploit such weaknesses for electoral benefits.

On the recent clash between soldiers and Shi’ite sect members in Zaria, the elders called on the President to immediately set up a judicial panel to investigate the recent killing of over 30 members of the Islamic Movement in Zaria.

NEF kicked against the internal investigation by the military in an event in which soldiers wre involved, saying it would not meet the minimum standards of fairness and acceptability. It recalled that it was the murder of Muhammad Yusuf by the Nigeria Police in 2009 that formed the major point of escalation in the activities of the group known today under the generic term of Boko Haram. Thus, he insisted, “Justice must be done this time”.