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#BringBackOurGirls Campaign Continues On

by Felix Omondi

African leaders from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Benin and Chad met at a conference in Paris, where they reached an agreement on how to deal with Boko Haram going forward. They agreed to share intelligence, coordinate their action and monitor borders, since Boko Haram has now grown to not just being a Nigerian problem, but a West Africa problem with threat levels similar to that of al Qaeda in the Middle East.

#BringBackOurGirls Campaign Continues On

The Nigerian government has also commissioned a military operation to search and rescue the over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram. The government is also willing to negotiate with the Islamist group on the girls’ release. The international community too has come to Nigeria’s aid with countries like the USA, Britain, China, Israel and Canada sending their experts to help the Nigerian government in search and rescue mission for these girls. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls campaign seemed to have played a big role in soliciting help from the international community.

Innov8tiv magazine was approached by The Peace Gong; a children’s newspaper operating in India. To show their support for the abducted Nigerian girl, an Associate Editor for The Peace Gong, Syeda Rumana Mehdi composed the following poem, as part of her contribution to the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls campaign:

#BringBackOurGirls Campaign Continues OnSyeda Rumana Mehdi, Associate Editor, The Peace Gong & ‘A’ Level (Cambridge System), The Lyceum School

I saw you standing there,

Looking at me while I shed tears of despair,

 

You just stood and watched with unblinking eyes,

You watched as no one paid any heed to my cries,

 

You witnessed everything that happened,

You stared as my steady grip on hope slackened,

 

I waited for you to come forward and rescue me,

But your white lips are all that I see,

 

Your silence was worse than a vicious sword,

This insensitive silence will never reap any reward,

 

How can you quietly watch this barbaric act?

Why don’t you do something to keep my honor intact?

 

More sex slaves, more prostitution and more degradation of the daughters of Eve,

You burn irreplaceable holes in the tapestry of love and happiness that we weave,

 

I don’t know what the future holds,

Probably an agonizing life of torture from what I’m told,

 

I’ll die a thousand deaths every day,

My charred soul will be a spectacle to display,

 

Because of your silence, happiness and love from 300 lives shall be lost,

Yet you don’t realize what your uncaring attitude can cost,

 

We raise our quivering hands towards Heaven and pray,

That at least one of you shall have something to say,

 

Help us become the phoenix that is reborn from its ashes,

Otherwise we’ll become the sand castles that cease to exist every time a vicious wave crashes.

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