My little girl Amarachi woke, me up last Monday, May 26, to remind me that the next day May 27th 2014 would be children’s day. She did not stop at that but went ahead to tell me how I must be the one to drive her to the stadium and stay with her till the end of whatever activities and also buy ice cream, cheese balls and many other items too numerous to mention. In order to shield myself from her disturbances, I told her I will do all, and that granted me respite for the moment.
The moment she left, my mind went wondering at the vivacious nature of Amarachi. Amarachi, I must confess is a very brilliant girl, and there are many like her in several other families who keep bringing back to their different homes honour awards from their schools as a result of their excellent academic performances. I thought of other children and their wonderful virtues and came to the conclusion that truly God blessed humanity with the peculiar gifts of wonderful children. In the process, I remembered one of the biblical sayings that Children are the inheritance of the Lord, Children are The source of joy And happiness.
Yes! Young they may be now but great tomorrow because the good God we all serve have great plans for every child.
Still wondering in my thought, I imagined a home without a child. The bible says “happy is the man who have his quivers full of them.” The reason is because the goodness associated with children cannot be quantified and cannot be over-emphasized. They are the joy of every home as well as the strength of every generation. From tender feet, everything about a child is sweet. No parent can deny the joy which the presence of children in any given home can generate. They are the strength of every parent and the joy of many. Little wonder why everybody is happy when a child is born. It is only an evil person who can keep back smiles at the sight of a little baby. Their tender and tiny feet at birth, curly and hairy body as well as the bright but innocent eyes, the supple and tender skin are the irresistible compositions of the child. Thus, every body who comes in contact with a new born baby keeps wondering at the almightiness of our creature the perfect artist in the whole world.
The God we serve is one who appreciates beauty and this is manifested in everything he has created including humans. You cannot beat the beauty of a flowing river, the flowers in the garden and the green vegetations that surround the cities of the world. If you travel up North, you will see high rising mountains that will leave you gasping for breath as they clearly reflect the wonders which God’s hands have made. What of the lilies of the valleys, the elements in the universe – Sun, moon and stars are equally the works of his hands. God in his infinite mercy after creating the things of the world gave life to every living thing and most importantly a serene atmosphere and absolute peace so that all living creatures will enjoy the world to the fullest sense. But that peace did not last long as Satan and his cohorts truncated God’s master plan for mankind.
It was at this point in my reflections that my mood changed. Certainly when I saw my lovely daughters walk around in the house with mops, buckets, brooms to begin the house chores, my mind went straight to the fate of the Chibok girls who were abducted in April. I imagined the kind of trauma these girls have been through since their abduction. And to think that most of those girls were writing their final exams in the secondary school made me feel for them and their parents. All these years, while in school starting from their first year in school, the great God has protected them from harm until that black day when the enemy struck and they were all abducted and taken to an unknown destination and uptil now nothing meaningful has been heard about their where about and the hope of their release.
The questions I keep asking myself in relation to this matter are: Who are really members of this Boko Ha ram set? Is it the same potter that made me that made them? This is because if their father is the God Almighty why are they not manifesting the essence and nature of God in them? Because the God/ I serve is a good God, who advocates peace/ he hates killing and detests every appearance of evil. In the holy book, he enjoins all believers to allow this mind that is in Christ Jesus to be in them. What mind? One may ask. A mind of compassion, sacrifice and love ofcourse. That is the nature of our God.
Stories abound how some notable personalities in Nigeria are the pillars of the Boko Haram sect all because they want to let Mr. President know that the presidential cap does not fit him but fits others better. I have also asked how feasible it could be to stand against God. This is because the Holy book equally states that “there is no power that be that is not of God” the implication of this, is that it is God that institutes the governments that preside over affairs the world over. If it is not the will of God, no leader would smell the seat of governances from the on set. The Boko Haram sect need to answer these questions fast so that they can retrace their erring steps before it becomes too late as it is already getting too late at the moment.
My major submission in relation to the current ugly trends going on in Nigeria is that enough is enough. More especially as it concerns the abducted girls. Those holding them captive, should know that these are young girls, fragile and dependent. They are not too strong for the harrowing experiences they are being made to undergo. It is more than one month now, most of them may be in their monthly periods and they need adequate environment to take care of themselves. Some of them may be prone to one ailment or the other, and so they need their drugs to survive.
Also the hearts of their parents are broken and shattered. I mean the trauma is too much both ways – the parents and the girls. As a person, the thought of these girls being still in captivity draws heavy tears from my eyes because the feeling I experience each time I think about the Chibok episode is the feeling of a dagger in my heart. If I am having this bad feeling this much what about their biological parents?
I sincerely plead, together with other Nigerian Children to the abductors of these girls to please leave them alone. The 27th day o May is a day of celebration for every Nigerian child and not a period to hold anyone of them captive; so please I beg the abductors in the name of God whom they claim to believe in to set these children free so that
