I am taking a long walk to Sambisa, heading to a forest that doesn’t guarantee my life or coming back home. Who cares to join me? I am visiting the ruthless and forbidden forest where our Chibok Girls have been trapped for more than 200 days. A walk with little or no hope for my life. I am going to be beheaded, maimed, slaughtered, or buried alive in Sambisa Forest. Tell my family, my loved ones, my admirers, my fans, my friends and foes; those on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, BBM, other social networks and those scattered all over the world that I am ‘Marching’ to Sambisa Forest for ‘Our’ abducted Chibok girls. Rather than ‘Marching’ for a Buhari dictator or a clueless and incompetent Jonathan, I shall on 14th February, 2015, march for ‪#‎BringBackOurGirls‬, and March into Sambisa Forest. I am marching with no guns, axe, shells, bombs, cutlasses, improvised explosive device or voodoo, but I am marching into the Sambisa Forest this very Saturday with the message of ‘Love.’

I am going to Sambisa Forest to tell the abducted and abandoned Chibok girls that people are celebrating ‘Valentine’, showering their loved ones with ‘passionate love.’ I want to go and tell them that their parents have cried and howled dejectedly, looking towards the Sambisa Forest to see if they would ever return home. I want to notify them that their parents’ hope about them is getting dashed by the day. I will also break the bad news to them, that some of their loved ones have died of hypertension, high-blood pressure, heart-attacks, roasted with explosives, incinerated into ashes, and illegally ‘cremated’ alive by both the security personnel and Boko Haram insurgents, and mass graves organized for them at the dead of the night. I will let them know that President Jonathan is celebrating luxurious and exotic weddings for his children and siblings. They will also learn from me that election was scheduled to take place on 14th of February, but Jonathan truncated the whole processes excusing such dastardly decision with a message that his soldiers were ‘marching’ into the Sambisa Forest to rescue them from the den of Boko Haram. I will equally tell them that Buhari was unable to find his certificate, and that people are worried about his age. In fact, they must read Prof. Soludo’s letters to the PDP and the APC, and how he accused Jonathan’s clueless administration of incompetence, maladministration, lack of direction, theft, and siphoning billions of dollars meant for all Nigerians, and how he also accused Buhari of lacking economic agenda, especially his ‘issueless’ policy. They must also know of how President Jonathan plunged our economy into the precipice of collapse, and how the nation is precariously dangling, suffering from imminent military take-over and breakage. Lest I forget, I will intimate them that the military is now quaffing and gulping whopping billions of ‘monies’ meant to procure and purchase arms in order to hasten their rescue, and how junior soldiers were being condemned to death for demanding better weapons to deal decisively with the heartless Boko Haram terrorists, as the ones they are currently using have gone obsolete. Yes, I will whisper to their ears that ‘Mama Peace’ and her husband denied that they were kidnapped, that they even dismissed such as a ploy to rubbish their ‘transformation agenda.’ But I will shower them with ‘Love.’ I am going there with the message of love and hope. I will show them the real message of ‘Motherhood’ from Ezekwesili fighting relentlessly for them. This charade called ‘Presidential Media Chat’ which was held Wednesday night and the many lies, incoherence, and confusion inherent in it must be relayed to them. What else do I tell them? Racking my brain… Yes! Buhari stormed Al jazera and CNN and threatened to autocratically do more? To also subvert the constitution and deal decisively with corrupt elements? To tell them that Buhari said people should stop judging him with his past as far back as 1984. Oh! Yes, they must equally know that finally, Jonathan has, in his own term and definition, elucidated the difference between ‘corruption’ and ‘stealing.’ These girls are members of our family. They deserve our love…

More than 200 of our prime girls were abducted in April 2014 under the glaring watch of our security personnel in broad daylight, and they were marched into the Sambisa Forest where they were, surgically raped, heartlessly defiled, sexually and physically polluted and psychologically traumatized. I am marching forward to the Sambisa! Who knows the road to this Sambisa Forest? Who can show me the route to this evil forest where our girls are choked down, tied to be slaughtered, and are being reprogrammed? Who cares to go with me? Those who had gone to Sambisa Forest before and who, with a glimpse of fate and luck, came back alive; disfigured and mutilated would narrate terrifying and horrifying ordeals they passed through in the hands of the evil men that possess the land of the ‘living-dead.’ A Land of the no nonsense, seemingly unbeatable, brutal and ruthlessly radical Islamic jihadists, Boko Haram. Should I doff my hat for them? Who has ever gone to the great Sambisa Forest and escape the onslaughts of the dastardly and nasty Boko Haram before? Not even the Nigerian soldiers! A land of the darkening darkness! A Threshold of death, skulls, bones, and those possessed with ‘animalistic tendencies!’ Boko Haram looms larger than the earth. In Sambisa, the inscription at the threshold of the Forest reads; ‘Keep Off!’, and another one boldly reads; ‘WELCOME TO SAMBISA FOREST: YOUR GRAVES ARE READY!’ Truly, it’s a land of death. A forbidden territory, yet our children are there day and night, naked, hopeless, rejected, dejected and sexually abused by uncircumcised elements. Yet, nobody is talking about them. Instead, politics and campaigns dominate Nigeria’s national issues and landscape.

The question nobody is asking is, ‘when will our girls return from Sambisa Forest?’ As we celebrate Valentines with our loved ones, let us take out time to reflect deeply, stay sober and pray for the abducted children, pray for the family they left behind, pray for those traumatized, pray for the poor, the rejected, the hopeless, pray for those who have no loved ones to say happy Valentine, pray for those sleeping under bridges, and most of all, show them love. Let them feel the warmth and vibes of love once again in their life time, extend a helping hand, give freely and display charity. They need you and I to survive the harsh and man-made structured environment. This is my message of hope, of love, of life! Happy Valentine!

Wait for me

Wetin this one drink?