NIGERIA’S MISSING PEOPLE
The authorities must do more by clarifying the fate of missing persons
Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said more than 23,659 people are missing in Nigeria, leaving 13,595 families in anguish. Protection of Family Links Team Leader of ICRC in Damaturu, Mr Ishaku Luka, stated this during activities to mark the International Day of the Disappeared. About 68 per cent of those still searching for answers were women, while 59 per cent of those missing were minors at the time of their disappearance. Yobe, one of the states devastated in the Northeast by the Boko Haram insurgency, accounts for 2,500 cases of the missing persons, most of whom were recorded in Gujba Local Government Area.
Nigerians are living in trying times. Many leave their homes and workplaces without returning. Indeed, the sheer number of unaccounted people is a pointer to the gravity of the situation. For the affected families, living through the ordeal of having a relation missing can be a most traumatic experience. The anxiety generated in such situation is far worse than in established cases of kidnapping, wherein the release of victims could be conditioned on the possibility of reaching a deal with the abductors.
Perhaps no case highlights the plight of missing persons in the country more than that of Abubakar Idris, (popularly known as Dadiyata), the Kaduna-based critic abducted from his home six years ago. His family has since joined several others in Nigeria who cannot account for the whereabouts of their father, mother, daughters, sons, uncles and other loved ones. Such is the regularity of this occurrence that a civil society organisation, ‘Enough is Enough’ has opened a website to document the trend.
Available records reveal that some missing persons have been found after some days, weeks or months, sometimes in locations far away from home. Mr. Luka stated last week that the organisation had facilitated the reunification of seven separated children with their families. But others are never found, thus prolonging the anxiety of their family members who would forever wonder: Were they kidnapped or involved in road accidents? Were they victims of rituals? Are they dead? Or alive?
It is instructive that insecurity is perhaps the biggest reason for the increased disappearances in Nigeria. Nigeria is virtually at war. Armed conflicts in the northeast, banditry in the northwest and farmer-herder crisis in the north central and, indeed kidnappings and other sundry crimes in the south have contributed largely to the growing number of the problem. In addition, thousands of people cross borders, the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety and better life each year. Such movements often entail great risks, including the risk of disappearance.
But whatever may be the reasons, this is a serious national security issue. The uncertainty of families of missing persons is heightened by a feeling of hopelessness and despair, especially when there is no official place to which they can receive succour. In other societies, the realisation that the country provides a platform for reporting and tracking missing persons offers a sense of hope, perhaps of possible tracing and eventual reunification. The obligation to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons arise from the fact that their relatives have specific needs. These include administrative, economic, psychological and psychosocial support and the need to have their suffering acknowledged.
Beyond reporting to the police, there must be other avenues by which the families can seek public support with the assurance that the lives of their loved ones whose whereabouts cannot be accounted for matter.
