Last Wednesday, Nigerians woke up to an unexpected piece of good news, albeit one that eagerly awaited for more than two years: one of the 217 girls abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State by the Boko Haram terrorist group had been found.

Quite naturally, the airwaves and media has been awash with stories and pictures of the young girl; she together with her family even met with an elated President Muhammadu Buhari, who used the opportunity to reiterate his administration’s commitment to rescue the remaining girls in captivity as well as deliver the final crushing blow to Boko Haram.

Shortly on the heels of this, another girl, albeit not one of the 217 girls, even though a student in the same school, has also been found in the same Sambisa Forest.

We are excited about this excellent news, and excited for the young women, their families, the activists who have stood firm for them and a hopeful nation.

But something worries us.

The handling of rescued girls by all the parties involved – the military, the Borno State government and the Federal Government – has left a lot to be desired.

First, the information surrounding the rescue of the girls and the details around their identity and the circumstances of their kidnap has been incoherent, with the parties involved contradicting and correcting themselves over information they put out themselves.

For instance, the first girl, Amina Ali Nkeki was first identified as Fatima Mbalala; the man found with her has been described as a suspected Boko Haram terrorist; then as a young man who was equally abducted by Boko Haram, forcefully conscripted to fight and forced to marry her; and then as her brother; her baby has been described as both four months old and then as a year old. In the midst of all of this, the army even referred to the man who was possibly an abductor, a criminal and a child rapist as the “Boko Haram husband” of Amina.

We are also still not sure whether she was rescued or found; and if found, whether it was by the military or the Civilian Joint Task Force, and in what circumstances this happened.

The second girl, Serah Luka has not been spared of this either: she was initially described as a JS1 student of GGSS Chibok; then as an SS1 student in the school and from Chibok and finally, as a student of the school but was abducted from her home in Madagali, Adamawa State.

For a matter as sensitive and as controversial as the Chibok kidnapping, this sloppiness does national cohesion no favours. The mismanagement of basic information has only given fuel to morally bankrupt skeptics who insist, despite the consensus of reasonable men, that no girls were kidnapped.

We are happy to dismiss these fringe elements as beyond redemption of course, and no serious minded government must make decisions based on the delusions of a destructive minority, still the government has done itself – and us – no favours with this mess.

To this extent, we must advise caution as more girls, and more abductees are hopefully found and released over the next few weeks.

We remind the security agencies and governments involved of the imperative to ensure that information about the rescued girls and other hostages checks out properly before it is released to the public, as opposed to rushing out with statements only to refute and backtrack.

Not only that, the manner in which the girls have been turned into a media spectacle, shown off on television or rushed to the Presidential Villa for photo ops with the President gives off the impression that what is of a more urgent importance is to show them as results of a war against terrorism that is working. Information that ought to be private, such as the result of the HIV tests carried out on the girls, has been released to the public in the most careless of ways.

We understand that the government and the security agencies are under immense pressure to rescue the girls; indeed, making this happen was a key campaign promise of President Buhari last year.

However, government has more crucial responsibilities, and it must not forget these in its excitement. What is most important for an organ responsible for the quality of life of its citizens is the rehabilitation of girls who have been in captivity for two years and have suffered all forms of abuse, especially rape and sexual abuse.

It is important that we ask: does the government have psychological and trauma care and experts on hand for these girls? What happens after the camera lights are off and people seem to have moved on? How does it intend to rehabilitate the girls and have them reabsorbed into the society?

It is a shame that we have no information about these next steps, after the photo-ops.

The kidnap of Nigerian citizens and of Chibok girls has always been a matter of dignity. Dignity of human life, and dignity of the Nigerian citizen.

As we rescue and recover the precious lives of our compatriots from the wicked hands of the Boko Haram terrorists, let us not replace one tragedy with another.

The government must learn from the mistakes of the past week. We owe this to all Nigerians and most especially, to the hostages, to the activists, to their families – and to generations who must live in a Nigeria where every human life is special, is dignified and is treated with the utmost respect.