Prophet Isa El-Buba stood in Jos on Sunday at a national Christian mourning event declared by the Christian Association of Nigeria and delivered a message that has now been said so many times, from so many other people, that its repetition has become a story of its own.
“If you will not get our children out of the forest, resign from your position,” he told President Bola Tinubu.
He was not the first and from the looks of things he will not be the last. But when a prominent cleric is now saying it at a nationally declared day of mourning, tagged Black Sunday, is worth pausing on.
Because in the past two weeks, this same demand has arrived from almost every corner of Nigerian public life.
Atiku Abubakar said it. The former VP said Tinubu had no moral or political right to stay in Aso Villa while hundreds of abducted citizens remained in captivity. He called the Safe Schools initiative hollow and the rescue promises empty.
Sowore said it. The human rights activist led the OccupyAsoRock protest in Abuja on June 4, marching from Eagle Square to the Presidential Villa with supporters calling for the rescue of all abductees and an end a government that had chosen elections over lives.
HURIWA said it. The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria issued a 24-hour ultimatum for the rescue of the Oyo schoolchildren, pointing out that the President had been photographed smiling at Sallah celebrations while children sat in terrorist camps.
The Yoruba Union said it. Their statement noted that Tinubu was flashing his teeth and taking photos with politicians while showing no concern for women and children in captivity, and called his approach to insecurity cosmetic.
Now El-Buba has said it at a church event. At a prayer gathering. Which means the call for resignation has moved from opposition politicians to civil society to human rights groups to ethnic unions to the church pulpit.
The government’s response to each of these has been the same each time. Tinubu put out a statement on Children’s Day promising that the abducted children were not forgotten or abandoned. He directed security agencies to intensify rescue operations. He said as a father and as President, the children remained in his thoughts.
The children remain in the forest.
