Book of Chibok meets the public

The Book of Chibok’, a poetry collection documenting the historic abduction of 276 female secondary school students in Chibok around April, 2014, written by Benjamin Obiri, has been unveiled recently at the famous Barcelona Hotel, Abuja.
In attendance during the launch were the members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and its Coordinator, Obi Ezekwesilli, Prof. Epiphany Azinge, SAN, Prof. Paul Idoigie, Members of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), members of the Ben200 Fan Club, members of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), and many others.

Speaking after the launch, Obi commended the author for this bold step for having taken the lead in documenting the travails of the missing girls, saying: “Intellectual property is really the foundation of vibrant democracies and what Ben had done is basically to intellectually document this very tragic episode in the life of this country. I know that there are going to be many books that will follow, it is interesting that he had gone ahead with this book of poetry.”

On the possibilities of rescuing the missing girls, the former Minister said: “There is actually no counter factual evidence to end our hope that these girls would be back. We are hopping and holding on strong that there is not yet any closure to the matter of our Chibok girls and for us, we are not unreasonable to think that the probability is as strong as it was in the early days of the abduction.

“ As a matter of fact, if we had done what we supposed to have been done in the early days of the abduction, according to research, we stood greater chance of finding them and bringing them back alive.
Even though the hope is slimmer, hope is hope. We are holding on strong and standing behind the effort that is being made. We are waiting and trusting that our Chibok girls would be found and brought alive,”she hoped.
Earlier, the author said the book was written in the space of one year. “It started when I was invited last year to Mc the #BringBackOurGirls vigil where I wrote few poems and continued thereafter.

“The reason behind the book is to document for posterity the realities about the kidnap of the Chibok girls and to also document every other people who have suffered following the terrorism that has befallen us.
“A lot of people forget some important incidents in their lives so soon and move on, especially with the advent of Twitter where one is always waiting for the next trending stories or headlines. But yesterday’s trending stories or headlines are as important as today’s.

“So this book is a reminder for people in the future that we had problems like these in the past and we should try not to forget them and not to allow them to be repeated,” he warned.
Speaking on some of the challenges faced, the author said time was one of the greatest challenges he face during the course of this work, “especially because this book is a book of poetry where you have to wait for the lines to come up your head.”
He added: “Also, a lot of people stigmatized me because the thought it was a bad subject, thinking that the kidnap and the campaign are fiction, fictitious and political. But I told myself there is no problem and I moved on. I have a poem that says:

“If I was your daughter would you wait for 500 days before you believe that I was lost?”
In the words of one of the greatest poets who provided the forward of the book, Chiedu Ezeanah, the Book of Chibok’, is a satirical poetry collection that did not only tell the story of the abduction of 276 female secondary school students on the 15th of April, 2014, that the author had created a refreshing medley of poems that communicated his main theme, the abduction the Chibok girls, as one of the incidents that remains remembered until the these girls are back home alive.

Ezeanah also said the book contains several genies mixed in an aspiring hybrid that includes: panegyric, travelogue elements, satire, commentary, reminiscence, and the lyrical that takes the reader through a voyage of exploration and poetic revelation of precarious existence of children, especially female children, in the unending war of terrorism around the world, especially in Nigeria.