Buhari Pledges to Recover More Abducted Chibok Girls

Tobi Soniyi in Abuja and Victor Ogunjein in Ado Ekiti

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.”