Nigeria's Kidnapped Schoolchildren: Blame the Victims, It's Policy!
The BBC reports a Catholic bishop criticizing Nigeria's failure to rescue abducted schoolchildren, only for the police to accuse the school of 'not cooperating.' This familiar playbook allows officials to sidestep accountability for repeated security lapses. Recall the 2014 Chibok girls abduction, which sparked global outrage but saw a similar pattern of delayed, inadequate government response and
victim-blaming, including accusations against parents for not disclosing information. It's a tragic cycle: children are terrorized, parents beg for help, and the authorities, instead of acting decisively, point fingers. The underlying systemic issues – corruption, underfunded security forces, and a lack of political will – remain unaddressed, while the media, like the BBC today, dutifully reports
the official deflection without deeper scrutiny of its historical parallels. How many times must this precise tragedy unfold before the perpetrators (the abductors) are truly the focus, not the schools or families scrambling for answers?