For the past three weeks, the safety and whereabouts of some 220 Nigerian schoolgirls has been a mystery, ever since they were rounded up from their boarding school by masked and armed men, put in the back of trucks and driven away in the night to deep in the bush. Boko Haram militants have now admitted to being behind the abduction, but nothing has been heard of the girls’ fate since then. It is assumed by the authorities that the girls are to be sold either into slavery or auctioned off as young brides.
But as sad as this case is, there has been no international outcry, no global powers demanding to know what happened, no cross-border agency raising their plight in the international media. Just silence, as quiet and as frightening as the dark Nigerian bush into which they were taken. From Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan down to officials, school authorities, police and security forces, there has been incompetence and inaction. If this happened anywhere else, imagine the outcry and call for answers. But this is Nigeria and, sadly, the silence is deafening.
