Thirty six children left for school, and never returned
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By Omolola Olakunri
This one landed.
This one hit home.
The abduction of children from three schools in Ogbomosho, Oyo State.
Some of them as young as two years old.
There is a particular heartbreak that accompanies the loss of children. They are innocent. They are vulnerable. They do not know anything about the price of rice or the political intrigues that follow an election year.
They are just children.
They leave for school every morning to get an education that is supposed to be their platform to greatness and success. Instead, they get kidnapped by a group that uses the innocence of children as a shield to protect its evil desires.
I can imagine one of the two-year-olds asking his mother if he could sleep a little longer that morning. The rainy season brings with it an early morning coolness. Warm and snug in his mother’s wrapper, school was probably the last thing on his mind.
He was cajoled into waking up, bathing, eating, and getting dressed for school, with the familiar promise:
‘Don’t worry. I will make your favourite meal when you get back.’
The older students rose at sunrise. Knowing what to do. They checked their homework, ensured their books were in their bags, tucked away money for lunch, and set off for school.
They took routes that passed by the homes of their friends so they could walk together.
They laughed… they chatted… they hurried along.
Nobody wanted the punishment that came with being late.
It was supposed to be an ordinary school day.
Instead, it became a nightmare.
That fateful morning, thirty-six children left their homes. Three weeks later, they have still not returned.
Homes that were once filled with the banter and boisterousness of children have become desolate.
The ache in the hearts of parents is perhaps the worst agony of all.
Mothers roll on the ground, wailing and bemoaning the fate of their children. They pick up clothes worn the night before. They stare at hurriedly abandoned food plates. They replay conversations that seemed ordinary at the time but now carry unbearable significance.
Fathers look on in disbelief.
Shock.Fear.Helplessness.
“Our children are missing.”
Few sentences can carry a heavier burden.
Parents can endure almost anything.
They can cope with the high price of foodstuffs.
They can trek miles when transport fares become too expensive.
They can suffer indignities.
They can juggle two jobs just to make ends meet.
They do all this safe in the knowledge that their children are okay.
The children they would willingly bleed for.
The children who are their laughter, their joy.Their reason for carrying on.
Now those children are missing.
Yorubas say that a dead child is better than a missing child.
I have heard that saying many times, but I honestly do not know which is worse.
Because even when these children return, and we pray they do, many of them may never be the same again.
The trauma of going from hiding behind a mother’s wrapper after being scolded to sleeping on bare ground under an open sky in the rainy season.
The season when mosquitoes unleash their fury.
When cold dew settles heavily on the grass.
When children can easily fall ill.
Then there will be the trauma afterwards.
The nightmares, bed-wetting.
The fear of sudden noises. Anxiety and the panic attacks.
The feeling that nowhere is truly safe anymore.
The outrage over these children has been massive because children are sacred.
They should be protected.
Every society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members, and no group is more deserving of protection than children.
A child should worry about homework, not survival.
A child should fear examinations, not abduction.
A child should dream about the future, not wonder whether they will ever see their parents again.
To abduct children is not merely a crime.
It is a violation of something sacred
The thought of babies not seeing the familiar and reassuring faces of their families has raised a lamentation across communities.
And perhaps that is because every parent sees their own child in these children.
Every mother imagines an empty bed.
Every father imagines a missing voice.
Every family imagines the unbearable uncertainty.
What have these children done?
What do they know?
What possible offence could a two-year-old have committed?
Nothing.
They are children.
And that is precisely why they should have been protected.
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