Fact Checking The School Girls Kidnapped by Boko Haram by Viola Okorie

I think the press needs to sit down, get their acts together and ensure that media reportage on sensitive issues are professionally carried out. Is someone reporting the abduction from Abuja? If those girls could still be going to school then it is safe enough to assume that there should be at least one reporter on ground that can give us accurate information.


I deliberately stayed off commenting on anything yesterday because my heart was heavy. It took a lot to lift me up yesterday and here we are struggling with all sorts of conflicting info. I even saw a friend take a jibe at me for insisting at one point that on the ‪#‎20AbductedGirls‬, I needed to hear from at least one parent complain. Is that too much to ask? I do not even know what he meant by "for my viewing pleasure", I will not even go there but please guys, members of the fourth estate, when half information and mis information begins to fly all over the place, it hurts the cause more than a bomb will.

Can we get the figures right? "243, we were asked to count ourselves". "100 were taken out of 243". "200 taken in 4 lorries". "120". "80 found". "All but 8 found", "Not 80 found, but 14"... Haba. I am boondazzled...
Reportedly, it took the terrorists 6 hours of working at a relaxed pace to gather all the girls, yet local vigilante were able to give them a hot chase ON FOOT and recovered some of the girls. Then it was that the trailers were stuck trying to pass through a muddy patch and the girls escaped of their own free will. Then... matter of fact, I am confused, but more disappointed in the fact that PANIC and HYSTERIA is now being employed as a tool to further divide us. Once again, after the purported slaughter of close to 200 JAMB students, no names, no next of kin, no accurate information. Slowly, over a matter of days, the numbers began to whittle down until it became an undisclosed number of students...

The Press, please, it is your duty at this point in time to provide us with accurate information. I begin to suspect some of you wait for cyberspace to report events then rush off to the press and hit the streets. Panic is spreading and spreading fast, we need accurate and precise information on these issues. Do not worry, we have watched reporters on foreign media, stand in the middle of a battle field, bullets whizzing all around, and reporting news. We expect no less from you, especially since e never reach that level yet.
May the girls (whatever their numbers are) reportedly abducted from GGSS Chibok all be found speedily In Jesus Name.

PS: As a matter of urgency, if there are any other schools still open in the worst hit states by the ongoing insurgency, (I recall reading on the news after the Bunu Yadi slaughter, that government had asked all schools to remain closed), please, close the schools down and let the Federal Government bear the cost of reintegrating the students into other schools in calmer parts of the country. Forcing these kids to go to school in order to prove a point is an extreme form of cruelty and the education officials in that state should immediately resign or be sacked (na hin dey reign na).

What point are they trying to prove when young innocents are being traumatised, scarred for life and exposed to the risk of horrible misuse, disability or death?

God forbid!