Members of the #BringBackOurGirls advocacy group have demanded an apology from President Goodluck Jonathan for attacking them and denying the abduction of the Chibok girls.
They said the group and the citizenry would never forgive the President, if he refuses to apologise for the part he played in ensuring the girls remained in captivity for over a year.
A member of the group, Mr. Chude Jideonwo, spoke yesterday in Abuja at a symposium marking the one year anniversary of advocating for the girls’ rescue.
His words: “We demand an apology from President Jonathan for not only denying the disappearance of these girls, but for attacking innocent citizens who stood up to demand that he did his job.
“He owes every single citizen of this country an apology or we will never forgive him.”
Another member of the group and Secretary, Kibaku Area Development Association (KADA), Dr. Allen Mannanseh, said the Chibok community and parents of the girls have demanded for full disclosure on the rescue mission.
He said the “family and friends of the girls want to know what happened to the girls or where they are; so that they can stop mourning”.
The community, Mannanseh added, has demanded for the prosecution of everyone involved in deceiving Nigerians on the ceasefire deal.
He said: “We are demanding that all those people involved in deceiving us and Nigerians on the alleged ceasefire deal be prosecuted in accordance with the law.”
#BBOG, in a statement by former Minister of Education Oby Ezekwesili and Hadiza Bala-Usman, said it considered the rescue of the 293 women and girls by the Nigerian Army from the Sambisa forest a healthy development in the counter-insurgency war.
The group, however, said its members were surprised when the spokesperson of the Nigerian Army, Col. S. K. Usman, said no Chibok girl was among the over women and girls rescued.
It added that its members were still overjoyed to welcome the rescued citizens, who were deprived of their freedom.
#BBOG demanded to know from what part of the country the rescued girls and women came from and why the public was not informed of their abduction.
It stated: “We have in the last one year of our advocacy for our #ChibokGirls, persistently conveyed that we consider our #ChibokGirls the symbol of the suffering, killings, abductions, destabilisation and degradation in the Northeast. Although, like others, we often read news of random abductions before and after the massive scale of the abduction of our 276 school girls of Chibok, we never imagined that a rescue of this magnitude of abducted people is possible without been our #ChibokGirls. The reason for this is simple.
“There was never a time in the last one year that the Federal Government or our military, directly executing the counter-insurgency war, informed the public that large catchments of our citizens other than the Chibok Girls were in terrorist custody.
“So, we join members of the public in asking for an immediate verification and authentication of the 200 girls and the 93 women that were rescued.
“From what part of the country were the rescued 200 girls and 93 women abducted? When were they abducted? Why and who abducted them? How were they abducted? Was the original incident ever reported to or by our security agencies? Why were the public without information of his abduction? Can the public have more disclosure surrounding the events of the rescue mission? Were there casualties during the rescue exercise? Where were the terrorists that held the abductees in captivity? In what state were they found when the rescue took place?”
The group added that it has designed a verification, authentication and reuniting system that are holistic for rehabilitation, reintegration and resettlement of victims of abduction.
It hailed the military and the Multinational Joint Task Force for the positive turn in the counterinsurgency effort since the six weeks operation started on February 14 2015.
It, however, said: “For us in the #BringBackOurGirls movement, there shall be no retreat no surrender of our advocacy until our #ChibokGirls are rescued by the government.”
The Nation
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