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| President Muhammadu Buhari |
As the kidnapped Chibok Secondary School girls spend 1000
days in captivity, President Muhammadu Buhari has given further assurance that
the federal government will spare no efforts to recover those still in
captivity.
The
president gave the assurance in a statement yesterday in Abuja by his Special
Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, to commemorate the 1000th day
of the girls’ abduction.
Adesina said: “As the country, nay, the world, today
commemorates the 1,000th day of the abduction of schoolgirls from Government
Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, President Muhammadu Buhari has
recommitted the Federal Government to securing the release of the youngsters
kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents.”
“We are
grateful to God that on this landmark day, we are not completely in the depths
of despair, but buoyed with hope that our daughters will yet re-join their
families and loved ones. Three of them have been recovered by our diligent
military, while the freedom of 21 others was secured through engagement with
their captors. We are hopeful that many more will still return as soon as
practicable,” he quoted the president as saying.
Adesina
said Buhari reiterated his pledge, pronounced many times in the past, that
government would not spare any efforts to reunite the girls with their
families.
“I salute
the fortitude of the distraught parents. As a parent also, I identify with
their plight. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, months turned to
years, and today, it is 1,000 days. The tears never dry, the ache is in our
hearts. But hope remains constant, eternal, and we believe our pains will be
assuaged. Our hopes will not be shattered, and our hearts will leap for joy, as
more and more of our daughters return. It is a goal we remain steadfastly
committed to,” the president said.
Buhari
commended all those who had been in the vanguard for the recovery of the girls,
both nationally and internationally. “Someday soon, we will all rejoice
together,” he said, adding: “Our intelligence and security forces are
unrelenting, and whatever it takes, we remain resolute. Chibok community,
Nigeria, and, indeed, the world, will yet rise in brotherhood, to welcome our
remaining girls back home. We trust God for that eventuality.”
Real Story Yet to be Told
Meanwhile,
the Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said the real story about the
abduction of the Chibok girls has not yet been told, insisting that the truth
about the incidence would be known one day.
In a
statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Mr. Lere Olayinka,
the governor said the federal government needed to tell Nigerians why the 21
rescued Chibok girls were yet to return to their families since they were released
by the insurgents in October last year.
“Have you
ever seen anyone that will be in captivity for that long and won’t be eager to
reunite with his or her family two months after regaining freedom?” he queried,
adding: “If the girls are truly Chibok girls, their freedom must be total. They
must also be allowed to tell their own stories.”
Commiserating
with families of the army captain and five other soldiers reportedly killed by
Boko Haram insurgents during an attack on the Nigeria Army Brigade in Buni Yadi,
Yobe State, Fayose doubted the federal government’s claim that Boko Haram had
been defeated and maintained that the war against the insurgents could only be
won if federal government was transparent with Nigerians.
“If indeed
Boko Haram was already defeated, where are those suicide bombings and attacks
coming from?” he asked, adding: “Nigerians are faced with many wars now, Boko
Haram is just one of them and it is worrisome that we are not being told the
truth about anything,” he stated.
According
to him: “It is like a patient telling his doctor that nothing is wrong with
him. How will such patient be treated?”
He said it
was ridiculous that the federal government was celebrating the recovery of what
they called Boko Haram flag as a sign of defeat of the insurgents while more
daring attacks were being made by the insurgents against the army, killing the
nation’s gallant soldiers.
“The
reality is that insecurity has increased in Nigeria more than President
Muhammadu Buhari met it. Herdsmen have even killed more Nigerians than Boko
Haram in the last one year while hundreds have died through extrajudicial
killings by security agencies,” the governor said.
FG is a Monumental Failure
Also
commemorating the 1000th day of the abduction, the leader of the Bring Back Our
Girls (BBOG) movement, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, described the failure of the federal
government to rescue the remaining 195 Chibok girls after 1,000 days in
captivity as monumental.
She spoke
while addressing members of the BBOG movement in Abuja and said the inability
of the federal government to rescue the remaining girls was the saddest
occurrence in the nation’s history.
Ezekwesili
said: “We never imagined that it will last more than 30 days, then 60 days
came, then two years. We have had two governments and yet we have girls who
want to be educated still in the grip of terrorists and on Day 500 we had our
on our global week of action and we did say that 500 days was too long for
citizens to wait, for parents to wait for their daughters to be rescued.
“Today, it
is 500 times two. You can imagine how much of a monumental failure it is that
195 of our Chibok girls are still in terrorist captivity.”
A
co-leader of the group, Ms. Aisha Yesufu, accused the federal government of
contradicting itself by its recent declaration and celebration of the capture
of Sambisa forest as the end of the war on terror.
According
to her: “This action is contrary to the pledge that Mr President and the
military have made repeatedly that they would not declare victory without the
rescue of our Chibok Girls and all other abducted victims of terrorist
abduction.
“Sambisa’s
‘Camp Zero’ is the same stronghold in which the Federal Government stated that
the girls were being held and the 21 released were from there. Should parents,
communities, Nigerians and the world assume that the Federal Government has
given up on the Chibok Girls and other abductees?
“As with
the Jonathan administration, the Buhari administration’s response to issues
about the Chibok girls is representative of its handling of other issues –
insecurity, welfare of internally displaced persons, military welfare,
corruption and poor governance.
“Painfully,
#Day1000 of their tragic abduction is here and there has been no status report
provided by the federal government.”
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