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By Tony Ogunlowo On the 19th of February this year more than a hundred girls were kidnapped from the Government Girls Science and Technology College , Dapchi in Yobe state by a faction of the dreaded Boko Haram. *Leah Sharibu Five weeks later 105 girls were released, 5 had died in captivity and one girl was held back.  The name of the girl held back is Leah Sharibu, only 14 years old at the time, and her captors refused to release her because she refused to convert to Islam. Eight months on and she is still being held against her will with her captors threatening to execute her at any time: they have already executed two Red Cross health workers kidnapped earlier this year. Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information and Culture, has recently said that the government was doing everything within their power to secure her release: but considering the ongoing Chibok girls saga this can mean virtually nothing substantial is being done. Politicians will always say one thing and do ...

By Femi Fani-Kayode ”A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping. Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more”- Jeremiah 31:15. O lifeless one, you have lost all sense of decency and you are drunk with power. As the children are murdered in cold blood and cut short in the streets of Abuja by your soldiers you watch silently from a distance: smug, smiling, detached, indifferent and secretly egging the killers on. Simply put, the butchery and bloodfest excites you and stirs your passion. You love the brutality and finality of murder: it makes you feel like a powerful man and it makes your Adrenalin  flow. As the mothers of the slain weep and as their fathers cry to God for justice your impish Vice smiles the smile of the wicked and boastfully proclaims how the two of you are preparing to dance "shaku shaku" for the 2019 election. Your sheer depravity and insensitivity is certified and confirmed. You have proved me right: in ...

By Obi Nwakanma Since the movers of Boko Haram think of books as “haram,” it is most unlikely that they, being illiterate, can comprehend, and therefore are likely to read this tribute to the young woman whom they have killed, Hauwa Liman. And so, this is not directed at them.  *Hauwa Liman They cannot read. In any case, one must address a community of humans, those who share human traits; who have the natural human, and healthy instinct for empathy. It takes a subhuman freak, and a deadly form of misanthropy, to take another life. Members of the Boko Haram movement are not human.  They do not feel like humans. They are beasts with bilateral capacities. That is where it all ends. They are incapable of comprehending the basic instinct for shame or regret or that basic requirement for intellect – introspection. What is clear is that Boko Haram responds to just one instinct – to kill, and inspire fear. In both instances they have failed. Nigerians are not afraid of them. Nigeria...

By   Paul Onomuakpokpo With the murder of Hauwa Liman, we have once again been starkly reminded of our lack of governmental bulwark against the savagery of those who are unmoored from all legal and moral boundaries in our midst. *Leah Sharibu Yes, it is only a reminder. Successive governments have abandoned the citizens in a gruelling struggle with their challenges. But the battle for daily survival only becomes more tormenting with the lurking reminder that these challenges are not just existential; they are unconscionably inflicted by a pestilential leadership deficit. Now, consider this: Despite the billions of dollars that are yearly voted by the government for electricity, security and other forms of infrastructural development, the citizens are saddled with the responsibility of providing these for themselves.  It is this state of government-spawned stasis that renders the citizens vulnerable to marauders and terrorists like Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram. And the grisly...