By Viola Ifeyinwa Okolie
Have you ever lost a child before?
Your child?
Okay, sometime last year I went off on an early vacation with my daughter. It was her 10th birthday and I had planned the trip as a surprise for her.
It was all fun and games, until I decided a trip to London would be incomplete without a visit to the Liverpool Street Market.
Our hotel was not far from the train station, so once I had worked out the route and tracked down the train departure times online, we took a leisurely stroll down to the station. As we took the stairs down, I saw a train standing at the platform and checked the number and time against the schedule. It looked like our train so we raced down the stairs.
I jumped on the train then turned round to hoist my daughter up, only to watch the train doors close with her still standing on the platform. She had pulled her hand out of mine and taken a step back at the last second.
I hit the emergency brakes button, hit the open doors button, hit the glass and stared frantically at my daughter who also began to panic and burst into tears as the train slowly pulled out of the station. The other commuters tried to get the train to pull over to not avail and as my daughter ran alongside the train with me creating a proper African woman scene in the coach, a woman walked up to my daughter, held her hands and was motioning to me to calm down.
I lost sight of them then as the train left the station but somehow, knowing she was with an adult was a bit reassuring until my mind suddenly flashed back to the horror stories of child molesters and paedophiles that suddenly seem to litter the whole place.
My panic level went from zero to 500 in ten seconds flat:
Who was that woman?
Why was she holding my daughter that way?
What did she plan to do to her?
Would I ever see my daughter again?
By Jove, the Queen will hear from me if anything happens to me daughter…
Panic, panic, panic but for once I saw the usually unconcerned London commuters take an interest in someone as they tried to calm me down and allay my fears.
We pulled up to the next station which was five minutes away in real terms but about 10 lifetimes away from where I last saw my daughter and I jumped off to hear my name and Nigerian phone number being announced all over the station. Someone met me off the train, took me round and put me in the next train back. I got back to the initial station and someone met me off that train too and we raced down secret paths and corridors, it was like an adventure movie and yes, I was trailing snot and tears all the way.
We finally reached the station manager’s office and there was my daughter sitting as calmly as you please, sipping hot chocolate and munching on a burger like the past 20 or so minutes were just a figment of my imagination.
I embarrassed her further by falling on her and slobbering in typical Naija mama stylee, then tried to cancel the shopping trip but she would have none of that.
“Let us go o, I panicked and jumped back but I think I am okay now.”
“Didn’t you miss me?” I asked her.
“I did but the lady that held me when the train left was nice and I knew you would come back to get me.”
“So what if I hadn’t?”
“I knew you would. But I would have just gone back to the hotel room and waited because I know you will eventually come back for me.”
See, even though her calmness brought down my nerves a little bit, I must confess I aged at least a decade that day. For the rest of our stay, I never hopped on a train I met at the platform. I would work out when the next one would arrive and we would sit, wait and board the train with ease.
Seriously, where would I start from? Who would I tell?
When the news of the kidnapping of the Chibok girls first broke, my heart went straight to the mothers of the poor girls. I couldn’t even begin to imagine, I would spend hours staring at my daughter and imagining myriads of situations all of which would definitely end with me killing somebody. The wheels of justice would grind too slowly for me oooo.
So I joined the BBOG protest but after one or two sit outs, I had some niggling concerns. I tried to vocalise those concerns but each time, I was either shut up by those I asked, or made to feel like an ogre for daring to question.
But I am that way.
I will ask the questions.
If you brush me off, I will go quietly but I will always wonder: if you have nothing to hide and your cause is above board, why are you averse to so many questions? What would it cost you to patiently allay those concerns if not for anything else, for records sakes?
So I kept my questions to myself – I refused to flog the cause, just like I also refused to lend my voice to it as I am wont to do when I smell a rat.
It is 2 years down the line, I must confess those questions still remain unanswered. Least of those questions is why we didn’t have at least 219 mothers camping out at Aso Rock or the Governor’s lodge until their daughters were returned to them.
Don’t mess with mothers whose children have been separated from them.
But these mothers, were eerily silent. Waiting to obey orders before they look for their children? Hah…
Anyway, add to all that consternation the fact that the wife of the man who promised to return the Chibok Girls if he was voted in as President chose the auspicious occasion of the two year anniversary of their abduction to release a book titled, “The Essentials of Beauty Therapy”?
And is dedicating the proceeds to the lost girls?
Seriously please I will not stop talking about this crass insensitivity and monumental gaffe because even though I am a Nigerian, this is one moment when…
I.
Just.
Can’t.
Please wake me up if you can.
I sorrow for Nigeria daily. I worry that someone who has been on a fuel queue all day and returns to the stench of rotten soup because he has not been supplied electricity for the past few days and this soup, this decaying soup, he cannot even bin it because he is yet to receive salary and has mouths other than his to feed, might soon reach breaking point.
YET…
That there is an obviously hypnotised Nigerian who will pause in the midst of his misery; go to his neighbour’s house to charge his phone and then log on to the internet to defend this mindless piece of skulduggery by the political elite – this Imelda Marcus of our times – is beyond me.
For those who died in the Nyanya bomb blast on the 14th of April 2014. For the girls who are yet to be reunited with their loved ones. For the parents whose grief seems too deep for physical expression. For the survivors of the Nyanya bomb blast. For all the survivors of man made carnage in this territorial confines we all share. For the dead in Agatu and Jos. For the survivors in refugee camps…
You all need to book yourselves in for a facial in a spa near to you.
The President’s wife thinks that knowledge of “The Essentials of Beauty Therapy”, is more fundamental to this country at this point in time, than whatever superficial thing you are there whining about…