2-IN-1 STORY: President Buhari Meets #BringBackOurGirls Parents

BBC

President Muhammadu Buhari arrived to meet parents of the kidnapped Chibok girls after the parents and the activist insisted. They had been waiting for an audience with him as they mark the 600th day since their daughters were taken by Boko Haram militants.

BBOG, Chibok Girls’ Parents March On Aso Villa

The Nation reports that Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaign leader Dr. Oby Ezekwesili yesterday led members of the group and parents of the abducted Chibok Secondary School girls on a protest to the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

BBC

Over 200 girls were abducted in their school in Borno State on April 14, 2014.

The group was received by Minister of Women Affairs Hajia Aisha Alhassan, Minister of Defence Brig. Gen. Dan Ali, National Security Adviser Babangana Monguno and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Gabriel Olonishakin, at the old Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja.

But the group decried the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to receive them at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Buhari, at the time of the protest, was receiving the visiting Benin Republic President Boni Yayi in his office.

After addressing the group, Alhassan asked Ezekwesili to brief the gathering on their mission to the Presidential Villa, but she politely declined.

The ex-minister, who insisted on meeting with the President, explained that Buhari in July promised to rescue the girls and they were in the Villa to hear from him on what he had done so far.

According to her, members of the movement had nothing to say until they hear from the President.

After explanations from each member of the government’s delegation, the National Security Adviser announced that he would try to get the President to come and address the group.

Ezekwesili also decried Alhassan’s remark that the group did not give enough notice before coming.

The former minister told Alhassan: “You have been unfair to the movement and Nigerians. When the minister, NSA, Chief of Defence Staff spoke, their tones connected with the parents.”

After about three hours of waiting, the President arrived around 1:45 p.m. after ending his meeting with Yayi.

He held a closed meeting with the parents and others.

Reporters were asked to leave the venue of the meeting when Buhari entered the hall.

A copy of the speech presented by Ezekwesili to the President during the closed meeting showed that the President was told that the Federal Government could not claim victory over Boko Haram without rescuing the girls.

The document reads: “It is, therefore, with the deepest pain and disappointment that the parents, Chibok community and our movement are here again six months after our July 8 meeting to register our absolute dissatisfaction on the lack of progress.

“Our Chibok girls have neither been rescued nor have the measures the Federal Government pledged being instituted. Our disappointment was worse recently when Mr. President shocked the parents into a deeper throe of agony when you publicly gave the excuse ‘that there is no credible information about the girls’ ‘whereabouts’ as the reason our Chibok girls have not been rescued.”

She added that the President’s remark left the parents, the community, the movement and the rest of the world in shock, considering that the Federal  Government that had made the girls’ rescue a key indicator of success and defeat of Boko Haram, later declared victory on December 31.

“How can we declare that our nation has won the war when our 219 daughters and other abducted victims are still not back? The parents of our Chibok girls, whom you successfully persuaded at our July 8 meeting, had, following that meeting, told our movement that they had implicit trust in the words of Mr. President that “everything will be done to rescue our daughters…

“Mr. President, it is extremely sad that those same parents, who had placed their implicit confidence in your July 8 promise to rescue their daughters, are here today terribly traumatised, disconsolate and desperate for your reassurance and outline of convincing decisive action that would bring a positive closure to this historical tragedy.

“There is no better way to convey the depth of the devastation of these parents than the fact that we today have the largest ever contingent of them, who despite their meagre resources, have paid their way to Abuja to register their angst, disappointment and demand for rescue of their daughters by Mr. President and the military.”

Also speaking with reporters at the end of the meeting, Ezekwesili said: “Mr. President subsequently came to join this meeting and what the President said was that his statement during the media chat that they did not have credible intelligence was being truthful in the way that he knows how to be and that he was not prepared to tell any lies.

“That they do not have the kind of reliable intelligence that would enable them rescue the girls as immediately as we are demanding and that, therefore, we would continue to try to bear with him and that based on the fact that the government has recorded considerable success in decimating Boko Haram and its hold over the Northeast and that what remains is rescuing our Chibok girls and other affected citizens that are in abduction.

“And that, therefore, we will have to wait and that they would make the effort. He pleaded with the parents that his government would place as much efforts to rescuing the girls and that was the same message he had given to them before and that he was repeating the same message.

The President stated that he would also have expected us to acknowledge the efforts made, but that he wishes that we would agree that he was committed to the matter of our Chibok girls.

“He used the specific phrase that he sleeps and wakes up thinking about the rescue of our girls.”

BBC

Buhari Orders Fresh Probe Into Chibok Girls’ Abduction

The Punch report that almost two years after their abduction, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday ordered a fresh investigation into the case of the 219 schoolgirls seized from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

This was contained in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.

He quoted the President as announcing this while meeting parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the Bring Back Our Girls movement at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The girls were kidnapped on the night of April 14, 2014 during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Jonathan had in the wake of the abduction set up a 26-member fact-finding committee led by Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Sabo (retd.), to investigate the matter.

Shehu, however, said the Buhari panel that would investigate the incident would soon be named by the National Security Adviser, Babagana Munguno.

“The investigation will seek to, among other things, unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident,” the statement read.

Shehu added that the President assured parents of the Chibok girls that he had been doing his best and would continue to do everything possible to rescue them and re-unite them with their families.

He further quoted Buhari as saying that he remained fully committed to his pledge to do all within his powers to save the girls.

Buhari was quoted as saying, “I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind.

“The unfortunate incident happened before this government came into being.

“What have we done since we assumed office? We re-organised the military, removed all the service chiefs and ordered the succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency.

“In spite of the terrible economic condition we found ourselves in, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganize and equip, retrain, deploy more troops and move more forcefully against Boko Haram.

“And you all know the progress we have made. When we came in Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad.

“Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial strain we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard.

“This is a Nigeria where we were exporting an average of two million barrels per day at over $140 per barrel. Now it is down to about $27 to $30.

“You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited.

“God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best.”

Shehu also quoted the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, as saying that in the last three months, the military had liberated more than 3,000 people kidnapped by Boko Haram in the north-eastern part of the country.

He said that the military had the ability to rescue the Chibok girls, but added that “intelligence is delicate and we don’t want to ​do ​ anything to jeopardise the lives of the girls.”

Earlier, the Leader of the campaigners, Mrs. Oby Ezkwesili, had told reporters that the President told them that he had no credible information on the current location of the abducted girls.

Going forward, the former minister of education said her group would continue to demand for the action that is necessary to rescue the girls.

A drama had played out in the morning when the campaigners arrived the Presidential Villa and realised that Buhari was not scheduled to meet them as expected.

Rather, the President had sent a government delegation led by the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Al-Hassan, to receive the protesters on his behalf at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa because he was hosting the visiting President of Benin Republic, Boni Yayi..

Al-Hassan had set the tone of the meeting when she said the government delegation would first listen to representatives of the BBOG and the girls’ parents before she and other members of her team would respond appropriately.

But the highly infuriated Ezekwesili told the government delegation that comprised the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Alli; National Security Adviser, Babagana Mongunu; and the Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonishakin, that they would not speak to any other person apart from the President.

“We had a meeting with the President on July 8 (2015) and he made some promises. We are here to listen to him. We are going to wait until he is ready to see us,” she said.

The leader of the parents also said the same thing when he was called to address the government officials.

When all efforts made to pacify the delegation did not yield any positive result, the government delegation sent a message to the President.

Immediately Yayi left, the President changed his mind and decided to meet the protesters personally. The message was thereafter passed to the protesters.

On his arrival at about 1.47pm, journalists were asked to leave the venue to allow the President speak and listen to the campaigners.

He left the venue about an hour later.

Meanwhile, before the President resolved to meet the protesters, Ezekwesili had had a confrontation with the minister of women affairs whom she accused of not being fair to the parents of the abducted girls with the way she spoke to them.

She said the minister was busy chiding the already traumatized parents in her choice of words.

This, she observed, was unlike the minister of defence, NSA and the CDS whose tones, she said, connected with the parents.