The former V-P of the Africa unit of the World Bank on about what drives her to fight for the girls abducted by Islamic militant group Boko Haram in April 2014
Ezekwesili says what would ultimately de-escalate the challenges of society would be for people to get educated, especially for more women to be educated because when more women are educated, they invest much more of their time and income in ensuring that the next generation would perform even more than they have done.
New Delhi: In April 2014, the Islamic militant group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls in the predominantly Christian town of Chibok in northern Nigeria.
The news received little attention from the government of then President Goodluck Jonathan.
One woman, however, took note of it, first with disbelief and then with extreme anger. Within a few days, Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian minister of education and former vice-president of the Africa division of the World Bank, started the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, which went on to become one of the biggest social media campaigns of 2014.
Ezekwesili was in New Delhi to speak at the Women in the World summit about her efforts.
In an interview, she spoke about what drove her to fight for the girls, the current situation on the ground and why it is important to let every woman in every corner of the world know that she matters.
Edited excerpts:
Members of the audience have been approaching you to tell you how inspiring your session was and how much they admire you. How do you react to all the adulation?
I am humbled by it. I appreciate it, but I am totally oblivious to it. You cannot internalize things like this, otherwise you will lose the essence of what you are doing.
How did the campaign “Bring Back our Girls” start?
What had happened was that a day after the girls were abducted, the news spread. I thought this cannot be correct. I tried to find out and it turned out to be true. I said our military must go and get back these girls. I disturbed everyone in the government, I used my social media account, I tweeted to everyone, I was screaming at journalists and saying why are you keeping quiet? Say something. These girls must be found. They ignored me.
Ten days after this I was co-hosting a UNESCO event and I said to the audience, ‘it’s ten days since our girls went to school and we don’t have a trace of them. Our government is not saying anything; the military initially in response to what I was saying said they had found the girls only for it to turn out to be a lie. We can’t do a book event without talking about our girls. All of you rise up with me and demand “Bring back our girls, bring back our daughters”. One of my followers on Twitter said ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ and I re-tweeted and I said adopt this mantra and that’s how it started.
Is the campaign a fight for justice, a fight for rescue, what is its essence according to you?
The campaign is about giving a voice to people whose voice has been taken. That is essentially what has happened to those young women, they’ve lost their voice. Their parents are so poor, the previous government made it seem as if being poor meant you had no right to justice. Basically what we have done is to escalate the voice of their parents.
It’s a problem we see worldwide, we must stand against it. It does not matter how wealthy the family may be right now but just go through the history of your family and you will find out that there was a point when the family started out with poverty and it was opportunity that made it possible for families to climb to wealth. So you can become wealthy, powerful, influential and then forget the poor, it’s wrong, it’s offensive.
“Bring Back Our Girls” was one of the most powerful social media campaigns of 2014. Unfortunately, it did not have the desired impact in terms of actual rescue of the girls. What went wrong?
The campaign had spread all across. Countries, including the US, Canada, Israel, France, China, came and said we want to help, see if we can get them back. The government we had in power was ineffectual and not interested. So they made the girls become a political conversation. How could you make children who go to school, how did they become a political pawn? They missed the opportunity. Now we have a new government (Muhammadu Buhari, a former dictator, is now President) and it is important to refresh the agenda, bring the matter of the girls to an end. You cannot keep it as an open-ended situation.
What is the situation on the ground today vis a vis the actual rescue of the girls?
Our new president said they have a deadline of 31st December to terminate Boko Haram. I don’t think they will achieve that but at least they have set a target. He has also said that we cannot say we defeated Boko Haram without bringing back our girls. That is a strong commitment.
Social media gave the movement a fillip but the medium also limits the life of a news cycle. Do you think the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign could have benefited from longer term attention?
Social media is simply a tool that facilitates actions. What social media did for us was it made sure the world heard us, it compelled them to join, escalated our voice, shame our government that wanted to pretend nothing had happened into some measure of action. Now that action did not lead to results, you can’t blame social media for that. We continue to use social media as a platform for our voice.
What is the actual form of the movement on the ground?
Everyday we gather around the Unity Fountain in the federal capital. Many people have moved on but many have not given up hope yet. A considerable number come everyday, sit there, demand justice for the girls. (A) Majority of (the) people feel that the girls need justice. Not everyone can give the amount of sacrifice I have given on account of the girls but it does not mean that they don’t care. Sometimes they see me at airports and they say I want you to know how much I pray for you every day, pray for the girls, that’s good. The movement is still there. The domestic media does not report it the same way as the international media.
We live in an increasingly unsafe world, where children going to school don’t necessarily feel safe, where people stepping out to go for a concert don’t know what will happen next. What is the cost humanity ends up paying for this?
The cost is huge. It goes from losing freedom to losing their lives. How can the cost of education be the cost of life? It is unacceptable; it is reprehensible that we have allowed it to fester. What would ultimately de-escalate the challenges of society would be for people to get educated, especially for more women to be educated because when more women are educated, they invest much more of their time and income in ensuring that the next generation would perform even more than they have done.
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