October 11, 2014 makes it exactly one hundred and eighty (180) harrowing days since the cruel abduction of our innocent Chibok schoolgirls. The reality stares one in the face, intermittently jolts one back to ‘life’, and makes you wonder if indeed it was tens of nights and days that summed up to make this day. I mean, how can one fathom it? Over 200 schoolgirls, lined up, and ferried for hours without being accosted and stopped? How? For me, it beats my wildest imagination and makes me ask if this is a sane society? What’s more worrisome is the unthinkable condition they may be living. These are adolescent girls – feeble, naïve, and dependent. I constantly fight back torrents of unanswered questions that pop up in my head like: how do they hygienically care for themselves during their monthly menstrual cycle? Do they use pads, pieces of clothes, or tissue? Can they kill a cockroach, much less a dangerous animal if it comes near? What do they eat? What do they wear? How about their undies? Healthcare? Can they do what teenage girls do: play, engage in girly gist, etc? Where do they sleep – on bare cold floor? No matter how comfortable the terrorists may try to make the girls’ new abode habitable, which I doubt, it would never be like home. Never!

Experts say that the chances of rescuing an abductee drops with every passing minute, while emphasizing the criticality of the first few hours to the eventual outcome. But, hey… it’s been more than 4,320 hours – 259,200 minutes, since these helpless girls were taken. The reality drilled deeper when, last week, I saw a client who I had not seen for sometime. She was pregnant and she looked so heavy. Her tummy was quite big and I couldn’t help but ask how far she was gone. She said ‘6 months’! I immediately calculated in my mind and figured that April was the exact month she took in. That tells me that a woman who conceived the same day the girls were abducted would put to bed in three months’ time. A child born in April 2014 would be crawling now! Ah!!! This is reality, folks… it is REALity!!!

Hope is seen and somewhat tangible. Hope is expecting, having visualized – seen it in one’s mind’s eye that something will happen. For instance, we hope that the Chibok girls will return home; it is in that expectation, upon its realization, that our hope is tangible. But, the tangibility of hope is hinged on faith. Faith is unseen and intangible. Faith is built on trust. Faith is exemplified in trusting that what is said/promised is true and will happen, because the source (the one/entity that said it) is respected and expected to measure up. But in our case, our hope has gone opaque. There seem to be nothing to hold on to. The ‘hope’ we hold on to is that which we continuously create for ourselves – internally, in our minds, and is strong enough to strengthen our resolve. But how long shall we ‘survive’ with this our self-formulated internal hope without commensurate external factors that can make it a reality?

I have been involved in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign from inception (April 30^th), and I recall when, after some days into the campaign, we needed to do some publicity materials and the printer told us it would take two weeks; we told him not to bother because we were so confident that we would not be doing this campaign for that long. We hoped. Yet it has failed, over and over again.

I pen this down with ache in my heart and tears in my eyes. I am just unable to wrap my mind around the fact that for 180 whole days – six frightening months, I mean half-a-year, these girls have been missing!!! How is a mother able to live through this? Or a father able to cope? I have consoled and held some of these parents and relatives when they cry; it is not a sight to behold – watching able-bodied men and women, in their old age, wail loudly, publicly, and unashamedly; it just leaves one emotionally torn apart. Yet, they are human beings like you and I – mothers, fathers, relatives, and friends of these girls who have had to endure the emotional and psychological torture of not knowing where their loved ones are.

When the Regional Summit on Security in France happened on May 17, I recall reading carefully all the pronouncements and promises that came out of that Summit. I was so hopeful, especially in view of the joint voices and forces of the supporting countries, development partners, international security experts, etc; at least, with the spotlight on Nigeria, they will all come to our aid and help in efforts to #BringBackOurGirls and, by extension, end the scourge of insurgency in Nigeria. Of all that raised my hope, Mr. President’s speech was one that I carefully read word-for-word and held on to, after all, these were statements made to the whole world by the ‘almighty’ Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of our dear country and he would, expectedly, be held accountable should any not be fulfilled. Well, it’s 148 days after; the ‘results’ speak for itself.

I remember 26 days into our daily sit-out, May 26^th precisely; the Chief of Defense Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, announced that they now know where the girls are. Oh my! I vividly remember that day. Someone announced the ‘breaking news’ during the day’s #BringBackOurGirls sit-out; we all jumped, screamed, and hugged; we were so happy. We hoped, then, that since our military knew where the girls were, they (the girls) would be back within days. We hoped with certainty. Alas! 154 days after, the girls are still in captivity. Another dashed hope!

Then the international supports came from different countries, including the United States. Wow! I told myself we are getting closer. At least, the US government has successfully curbed terrorism in their country and has put measures in place to avert such occurrence. Their intelligence, in view of their wealth and depth of experience, coupled with that of other countries that joined forces, and, most especially, the capacity of our troops, who have performed outstandingly in peacekeeping missions outside the country, all summed up to increase my – our hope that the girls would return in no time. But, it is 180+ days and all these are yet to yield our most desired result.

While trying to revive my hope and create in my mind what to hold on to, the Defense Headquarters, through its spokesperson, Major General Chris Olukolade, killed it yet again when, on September 23 – 162 days after the abduction, said the Military had secured the release of some of the girls and were still making efforts to receive others as they were being released in batches. The news seemed so true. I didn’t want to doubt. I anxiously wanted the news to be true. Myself, and other members of the leadership of our campaign, were already ecstatic. I had already pulled out our Strategic Plan and highlighted what we had planned to do when the girls returned. I was already thinking of the actualization of each celebratory activity, while intermittently smiling to myself and exhaling that this was finally coming to an end. Then, few minutes after, the pronouncement was retracted. I felt like cold water was poured on me. It was the second very painful dashed hope from the military, with the first being when, on April 16^th, just two days after the abduction, the same DHQ spokesperson informed the world that they had secured the freedom of most of the girls, save for eight, who they were trying to locate. They even went further to say they ‘captured’ the terrorists who abducted the girls. Two days after, this was backtracked. Hope dashed, again!

My spirit waned when, on September 24, during the UN General Assembly, Mr. President – the father of the nation, said in his speech that our girls had been missing for ‘more than three months’, where, in reality, it was already more than five months – 163 days (five months and 13 days). As though that wasn’t enough, there was no mention of the abducted Chibok girls in Mr. President’s October 1^st (Independence Day) speech. These were two critical events that I thought should be leveraged on to further amplify the voices of the abducted Chibok girls. These were also times I thought the Federal Government would convey plans, albeit uncompromising, that is being made to get the girls back so it relay a sense of hope to the parents and Nigerians as a whole. But I didn’t know I was hoping for things that are not as though they were.

These, and many more, contributed to the gradual slip and now intangibility of the hope that I, my fellow #BringBackOurGirls campaigners, and the world at large, used to hold on to. Now, the painful reality is seeing how people have moved on because the hope they held on to is yet to materialize. However, in spite of the phrase that ‘hope deferred makes the heart sick’, we, the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners and other supporters of our cause, have sustained advocacy and unrelentingly stood in solidarity.

We continue because we deliberately and constantly create a new visualization of what cumulatively fuels our HOPE, despite surrounding discouraging realities. First, we hold on to our CONVICTION that the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain; and that we, the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners and other supporters, are capable of setting the new order – a new Nigeria that will make us measure up to what we are called – the giant of Africa. Secondly, we hold on to every positive and transformative PRAYER that has been said, and is still being said, over this land – Nigeria. We are certain that God answer prayers and ours will not be an exception. Thirdly, and most importantly, we hold on to the supremacy and sovereignty of the heavenly Government that govern every other governments – the higher Power that is able to turn tides and make things work in favour of those who have assurances that their expectations (hope) shall come to materialization. It is in these three truths, not facts, that our renewed hope is hinged and, now again, tangible.

Would you HOPE with us?