By Jackson Ude
I am trying not to draw myself into the debate about what happened during the former President Goodluck Jonathan, the Chibok Girls, the #bringbackourgirls campaign and campaigners. If you do not or was not privy to any security information or intelligence, stop bringing personal opinion to justify whatever you were told.
I served in that Government. I was a member of a Presidential delegation to the WhiteHouse and the State Department. There are some intelligence reports I was privy to during those visits. Some of which I can share here and some of which would remain with me.
No Nigerian can say their lives have been better or safer after President Jonathan left office. Buhari did worse things to Nigeria and Nigerians than the over 200girls that were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists. There is absolutely no basis to compare the two Governments.
Yes, the #bringbackourgirls campaign was fine but it was hijacked and used as a political tool to bring down the GEJ’s Government.
At one of the meetings I attended at the U.S State Department, an official of the Department pulled me by the side and told me that the then opposition party, the APC, had done a report to the U.S government where they described the GEJ’s Government as “worse than Abacha” in terms of killings and corruption.
He said the report was getting a lot of attentions at the WhiteHouse. I shared this with the late Oronto Douglas and Dr. Doyin Okupe when I returned from that trip and GEJ was briefed about it also. Dr. Okupe was on that trip too.
GEJ became unpopular in the West because of China and the decision of the then David Mark’s led National Assembly to reject and criminalize LGBTQ in Nigeria. The Chibok girls kidnap became an instrument needed to kick GEJ in the butt. And when the #bringbackourgirls campaign started, the likes of David Axelrod found the right seasoning to spice up the soup to get GEJ out. APC at that time, took advantage of that to pepper the GEJ Government with an overdose of propaganda. It was the beginning of a heavily oiled political propaganda machine and campaign in Nigeria filled with lies, lies and lies and led with a man called Lai Mohammed.
Since GEJ left office, insecurity has remained in the increase. More kidnappings have occurred. According to available data, in 2017, there were 484 kidnapping victims, the figure grew to 987 the following year, then 1,386 in 2019, and 2,860 in 2020.
The number of kidnapping incidents increased too, from 110 in 2015 to 135 in 2016, 140 in 2017, 156 in 2018, 330 in 2019, 437 in 2020, and then 315 in the first half of 2021.
And between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2021, at least 2,944 people have already been reported kidnapped.
These shows that the issue of the Chibok girls kidnap was not really why GEJ was considered bad, the international conspiracy against his Government was huge and the APC only took advantage of it. Not that they had anything to offer!
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