Retrieving More than Just Our Girls, By Odera Okakpu

Nigerians are suddenly bold enough to challenge Boko Haram to bring their girls back but no one bothered to hash tag bring our Nigeria back.

As a member of the “social media” age it is safe to say that the hash tagging started with the younger generation. Because of the wildfire it has caused youths to feel a part of something big. Perhaps it is the digital age that makes us shy away from the physical and take safe haven behind our internet supported devices, but reality is it is going to take far more than hash tags to move Nigeria forward. Initially on Twitter there were arguments on how exactly a hash tag was going to bring the girls back. I personally retweeted a tweet where someone answered that retweeting definitely won’t bring the girls back but it will let the world hear. I beg to differ now. Now that the world has heard what has it helped? Make no mistake, the foreigners have only arrived at the beckoning of the President, hash tags did not do that.

The real danger about this #bringbackourgirls movement is that young people are going to go on thinking that # will solve any problem. While the revolution spirit is within the youths of Nigeria we must bear in mind that not all youths have access to Internet, international media or even local media. Not all youths are educated the same way or are as open minded. And not all the youths with Internet in their hands are as educated or rightful thinking as we would want members of the better Nigeria to be. It is going to take a 360-degree mind and paradigm shift for change to occur. The hash tags only work if there are subsequent actions to match it.

Nigerians have just woken from a very deep slumber. And still just barely. Since Hollywood got wind of #bringbackourgirls it spread like wildfire. But the truth is what has the government done for any one person’s actual well-being? No water;

they kept quiet, no light; no hash tag, no jobs; no protest. Or are the remaining 170 million of us not important anymore? How about the generations we hope to leave behind? Nigerians have not had the guts to stand up to their country about their own well-being until Hollywood caught wind of it. Sure the initial spark was caused by a protest but the bandwagon was created after international media ate it all up. Not one of the celebrities’ hashtagging has sent a dime to the supposed incapable Nigerian government to help with the search. Not one Nigerian has dropped a kobo at Aso Rock’s gate on national TV to say, “I do not have money but see, I’m giving you this to go look for those children”, as a public slant and insult to the government. Not one mogul or millionaire has gathered a team of experts. No political chieftain has led a march for a political ceasefire.

Since the moment Boko Haram started becoming a thorn in our flesh no one hash tagged or protested. Bomb blasts are now going off almost everyday, no hash tag “Boko Haram stop the violence”. Or are the people who have died since the girls went missing any less important? Forty children were killed in a school in Yobe and Nigerians did not cry out at that heartless bloodshed. The mothers of those children were not paraded on the streets of Abuja crying. No one hash tagged, no one protested, Nigerians were not as angry as they are now.

Even down to just tribal sentiments the average Nigerian has not dropped it and said let us work together to weed out these messages of hate we live around. Tensions still abound over irrelevant issues that Nigerians are not ready to voice out. Take for example, how the Half of a Yellow Sun movie was banned on the basis it may incite crisis. Let’s not even get started on how absolutely no basic Nigerian history is given to the young people of this great nation, maybe for the same reason not to incite.

Nigerians are suddenly bold enough to challenge Boko Haram to bring their girls back but no one bothered to hash tag bring our Nigeria back. Nigerians have refused to rally round each other and challenge the government.

Nigerians, so quick to bastardize their leaders and their government are taking to the streets to rally for the government to do something, but how exactly do they expect a government they have shown no faith in to do the right thing now?