{"id":10653,"date":"2015-04-16T07:13:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T11:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=10653"},"modified":"2015-04-15T23:41:02","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T03:41:02","slug":"buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html","title":{"rendered":"Buhari Does Not Promise To Bring Back Our Girls &#8212; And I Respect Him For That"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\">I know what you\u2019re thinking: two back to back posts about Nigeria? Well, even if you\u2019re not thinking it, I definitely am. I don\u2019t usually like blogging about anything back to back, but I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/15\/opinion\/muhammadu-buhari-we-will-stop-boko-haram.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Buhari\u2019s op-ed on New York Times<\/strong><\/a> yesterday, and I just had to mention it here.<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">I am not into politics at all, and I am even less into Nigerian politics. When GEJ was President (yes, I am deliberately referring to his administration as past tense), I used to get boiling mad whenever I read something from him. And I would wonder how on earth a President can be so out of touch in every way possible. I remember when GEJ ran for election the first time and we fell for his story about not having shoes. We considered him truly blessed and highly favored &#8212; because what kind of man just steps into presidency? Surely, the hand of God was on him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">But when he made statements like <em>\u201cAmerica will know,\u201d<\/em> and when his wife said things like, <em>\u201cAll the blood they\u2019re sharing in <strong>Bronu<\/strong>\u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and when it&#8217;d take him forever to respond to big events like Boko Haram attacks, I was devastated. Then this new election happened and I really was not expecting Buhari to win \u2013 not because he did not deserve the win (in my opinion), but because this is Nigeria and the incumbent is never voted out. Thankfully, I was wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">So yesterday, I read this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/15\/opinion\/muhammadu-buhari-we-will-stop-boko-haram.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>op-ed from Buhari on New York Times<\/strong><\/a>, and I was neither angry after reading it, nor was I ashamed that this man would soon be leading Nigeria. President-Elect Buhari does not promise to bring back our girls; instead, he promises to do whatever he can to find them and combat Boko Haram. I was relieved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">Sadly, the Chibok girls have been missing for exactly one year now and the average Nigerian citizen does not know if they are dead or alive. I say &#8220;average Nigerian citizen&#8221; because there is no guarantee that the government does not actually know. \u00a0For me, I am satisfied with Buhari saying he cannot promise to find them. In America, when a person goes missing, the police is scrambling to find them within 72 hours at most (or is it 48 hours?) because anything after that becomes even more dicey. The American police \u2013 while not perfect \u2013 are more trained and equipped to find a missing person. One missing person at a time. The Nigerian police (and even the military) being tasked with finding 200 girls after a whole year has gone by? Them go thief am? I&#8217;m sorry, I don&#8217;t have a lot of faith in the Nigerian police. Maybe some day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">Politicians usually mindlessly make promises that they know they cannot keep, all in a bid for our votes. And when they get the votes, there is no remorse for not delivering on their promises because after all, they are \u201cnot God.\u201d Somehow, they only remember that they are not God after they win. It\u2019s insulting to our collective and individual intelligence. For that, I am thankful to Buhari for not insulting my intelligence. I am not of the opinion that finding the Chibok girls is absolutely impossible, but I am very cautiously optimistic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">I have never in my life cared more than two cents about a Nigerian president, but this Buhari guy, I like him. I still don\u2019t know what he stands for, nor do I know what his plans are for Nigeria, but I like him. He talks like he has a brain. He sounds like he meditates on his words before speaking them. It\u2019s an admirable virtue in anyone. If one day, Buhari is on TV speaking and I am with my American friends, I don&#8217;t have to lie and say that he&#8217;s merely a chief in a tiny village.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">You know what\u2019s even more shocking to me, I can \u2013 on this very day \u2013 confidently say that I would love to meet Buhari, and it would be an honor to do so. It\u2019s the strangest thing. I have never wanted to meet a [living] Nigerian President (or President-Elect). And I have never had a desire to find out if Aso Rock is a real place or just a figment of our imagination. I think this can only mean one thing: I\u2019m relocating to Nigeria tomorrow to form a committee to look into forming a committee to get me <del>elected<\/del> appointed as the \u201cHonourable Minister of Something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\">God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria (and I mean every bit of these words).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333;\"><strong>P.S.<\/strong> Don\u2019t forget to read his op-ed on New York Times <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/15\/opinion\/muhammadu-buhari-we-will-stop-boko-haram.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know what you\u2019re thinking: two back to back posts about Nigeria? Well, even if you\u2019re not thinking it, I definitely am. I don\u2019t usually like blogging about anything back to back, but I read Buhari\u2019s op-ed on New York Times yesterday, and I just had to mention it here. I am not into politics<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[560],"tags":[1176,1175,208],"class_list":["post-10653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-social","tag-bring-back-our-girls","tag-buhari","tag-nigeria","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Buhari Does Not Promise To Bring Back Our Girls - And I Respect Him For That - Verastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vera Ezimora\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html\",\"name\":\"Buhari Does Not Promise To Bring Back Our Girls - And I Respect Him For That - Verastic\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Buhari.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-16T11:13:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Buhari.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Buhari.jpg\",\"width\":750,\"height\":499,\"caption\":\"Buhari\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/buhari-does-not-promise-to-bring-back-our-girls-and-i-respect-him-for-that.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Buhari Does Not Promise To Bring Back Our Girls &#8212; 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