It was about six weeks after they started their daily sit-out at the Abuja Unity Fountain and the time was 3.30pm when this heavy rain started. I decided to leave my office to go and check if I would still find any of the #BringBackOurGirls (BBOG) members at their designated venue. I had been going there almost on a daily basis (to spend no more than three minutes) as a form of solidarity but on that particular day, it was more out of curiousity. I wanted to be sure they would still be there when it was raining and was pleasantly surprised to meet 14 women and two men (I counted them) at the venue.

As the rain began to pour, a lady whose name I would later know to be Hajia Aisha Yesufu stood up and began to chant in a defiant mood: “What are we demanding?” And her colleagues chorused back: “Bring back our girls, now and alive!” Without pausing, she asked a second question: “What is our singular cry?” Again, they responded: “Bring back our girls, now and alive!”

Then she asked: “What do we want?” The response was immediate: “Results from the rescue operation!” From her came another chant: “What are we asking?” Her audience responded: “The truth and nothing but the truth!” Then she asked: “When will we stop?”

The response: “Until our girls are back and alive!”

I left the Unity Fountain that day not only with more respect for members of the BBOG group for their discipline and focus but also for the sacrifices they make, on a daily basis on behalf of all of us. Whether we realize it or not, it is their tenacity that has restored our dignity as a nation where the people would not just shrug and move on, while more than 200 female students are held in captivity by some lunatics.

Since I know most of the women who represent the moving force behind the BBOG, I am also aware they are top professionals who are very busy people. But they also see themselves first as mothers; and they can relate with what the Chibok mothers are going through. From the first day when they matched in the rain from the Unity Fountain to the National Assembly where they were received by both the Senate President David Mark and House of Representatives Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, the group has kept the faith. Yet all they do is to remind us of our obligation as citizens as we try to build a society that cares.

Incidentally, today Marks Day 93 that the group began its daily sit-out with a solemn commitment to remain at the Unity Fountain until the Chibok girls (abducted 108 days ago) are brought home safe and alive. However, in the intervening period, the group has endured all manner of provocations: from the taunting of some strange women apparently hired by some government do-gooders to the attack by thugs who came to disrupt their gathering, breaking chairs, snatching phones and handbags while the police looked on, unperturbed. And they have been stigmatized, in fact criminalized, by some overzealous official media handlers who mistake national security for regime protection.

I fail to understand why government cannot engage with the group, except of course somebody somewhere has given up on securing the release of the Chibok girls and therefore finds BBOG women as irritants for reminding government of its obligations to citizens in distress. I have witnessed several BBOG meetings and was on one occasion conscripted by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili to speak. When I declared not being a member, Mrs Bukky Shonibare interjected that their members don’t have any identification mark nor do they “perform initiation rites”. And it is true because anybody can attend their meetings and with that become members. Their sessions are held in the open and the discussions are conducted in a free atmosphere with the only singular item being the latest news on the Chibok girls, welfare of their immediate families, responses from government to their plights (if any) and the rescue efforts.

On Monday, the message pushed out by the group to their members and sympathisers like me was particularly moving. But the beginning says it all: “Today is day 105 since Our Girls were taken from us! The number of days is increasing. But no matter how fast the days run, each has a second, minute, hour, day and night; the lives of Our Girls in each of these has a story. We must not give up on them; they are our future, our jewels. We must push harder.”

I salute the courage and doggedness of the women, who are the real moving spirit behind the BBOG. What they teach us most poignantly is that there are no borders when it comes to compassion for our fellow human beings. Whether they realize it not, and regardless of whatever those in authorities in Nigeria today say about them, they have already earned a worthy place in the history of our country.

•This piece by Adeniyi (shown in photo) originally appeared in his column “The Verdict” in today’s edition of ThisDay. He can be reached via olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

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