Finally, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday met with parents and relatives of some of the Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped by men of the dreaded Islamic extremist sect, Boko Haram since 14th April.
The meeting was held behind closed doors after a brief prayer delivered in front of the media.
The meeting also had in attendance community leader of Chibok town including three of the students who escaped from Boko Haram captivity, Senate President David Mark and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state.
The Chibok delegation, which arrived Abuja on Monday via a government-chartered plane, spent the night in the NICON Luxury hotel from where they were transported to the meeting with the president.
Pressure had been mounted on Jonathan to either visit Chibok or find another way of meeting with the parents of the girls since they were kidnapped more three months ago. Last Tuesday, few selected parents and guardians of the kidnapped girls had boycotted a hurriedly arranged meeting on Tuesday, saying they will only present a duly represented delegation or have no meeting at all.
The President had agreed to meet only 12 parents and five escapees following a request by Pakistani rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai.
The presidency had blamed external influence on the Chibok community for the boycotting of the meeting. But members of the Chibok community had quickly clarified that they boycotted the meeting out of their own volition.
At the meeting
According to a press release issued by the presidency after the meeting , President Goodluck Jonathan reassured the Chibok community delegation that his administration is doing everything humanly possible to rescue the girls and return them safely to their parents.
The president and his delegation noted at the meeting that by Wednesday, it would be 100 days since the girls were shanghaied from their school in Chibok.
Jonathan appealed to the Chibok delegation for patience, understanding and cooperation.
“Anyone who gives you the impression that we are aloof and that we are not doing what we are supposed to do to get the girls out is not being truthful,” Jonathan said at the meeting which was held in the presidential villa.
“Our commitment is not just to get the girls out; it is also to rout Boko Haram completely from Nigeria. But we are very, very mindful of the safety of the girls. We want to return them all alive to their parents. If they are killed in any rescue effort, then we have achieved nothing.”
The president said that although he was yet to visit Chibok in the aftermath of the abductions, his heart was constantly with the traumatized parents and people of Chibok and that his desire was to visit them when their daughters have been freed and they can receive him with smiling faces of joy, rather than with tears of anguish.
“Our duty now is to take all relevant steps to recover our girls alive and our primary interest is getting them out as safely as possible. I will not want to say much, but we are doing everything humanly possible to get the girls out,” he said.
“This not the time for talking much, this is the time for action. We will get to the time that we will tell stories. We will get to the time that we will celebrate and I assure you that, by God’s grace, that time will come soon.”
Responding to appeals from the community leaders for more help in overcoming some of the challenges imposed on Chibok and neighbouring communities by the Boko Haram insurgency, the president said that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and Federal Medical Agencies will intensify their efforts to provide them with additional relief aid and assistance.
He also assured them that Chibok and other communities in the three North-Eastern States most affected by the Boko Haram insurgency will be the first beneficiaries of the Victims’ Support Fund, the Presidential Initiative for the North-East, the Safe Schools Initiative and other developmental programmes which the Federal Government is evolving to address the damage, losses, setbacks, economic and social dislocations occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency.
“We solicit your maximum cooperation. Let us work together. Evil can never overcome good. We will surely overcome Boko Haram,” Jonathan told the delegation.
In his own remarks at the meeting, Shettima called for more sobriety, reflection and unity of purpose in the fight against terrorism in the country.
He pledged that his state will give Jonathan the fullest possible support for his efforts to address the problems caused by terrorism and the Boko Haram insurgency.
Dr. Pogu Bitrus presented the Chibok community’s address to the President.
Other speakers at the meeting included a district head, Mr. Zannamadu Usman, a member of the Borno State House of Assembly, Hon. Aminu Foni Chibok, parents of the abducted girls and three of the girls who escaped from their captors, Godia Simon, Dorcas Musa and Joy Bishara.
National Security Chiefs, Ministers and other senior government officials were also present at the meeting.
Since the abduction, 11 of the girls have been reported dead, while four parents of the abducted girls have died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses associated with the trauma of their wards’ abduction.
The abduction and protests that ensued after it has attracted international giving rise to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, on social media especially twitter.
