Two-hundred and sixty-two days after their
daughters were kidnapped from school, some of
the distraught parents of the students of
Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno
State, on Thursday criticised President Goodluck
Jonathan for not fulfilling his promise to rescue the girls from the custody of Boko Haram. The abduction of the 219 girls from their hostel
at night on April 14, 2014 has attracted global
outrage and the President had promised several
times that the girls would be rescued alive. Nine of the abducted girls’ parents, during their
meeting with the #BringBackOurGirls group on
Thursday in Abuja, carpeted the President for
failing to bring back the schoolgirls. The leader of the parents, Rev. Mark Enoch,
accused the government of having a hand in the
abduction of the girls, noting that the principal of
the school in Chibok had, few hours before the
abduction, locked the girls in their hostel and
warned them not to leave. Enoch explained that the relatives of the
principal and the school matron were able to
rescue their daughters from the sect, leaving
other girls in captivity. “This is intentional, the hand of government is in
the kidnapping; we want the government to
bring back our girls. If they cannot do it alone,
they should seek the assistance of the United
Nations and some advanced countries, the
distressed father said. The cleric, who appreciated the BBOG for not
giving up on the girls, noted that but for the
activities of the coalition, the issue of the girls
would have been forgotten given the remote
location of the Chibok community. Another parent, Mrs. Samuel Abana, asked the
President to fulfil the promise he made in July,
2014, when he met with the parents at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja. The President had told
the parents that the government would secure
the release of the girls. Abana, who broke down in tears while
speaking, recalled that the Federal Government
had initially denied the abduction before
Jonathan met with the parents and pledged to
rescue their daughters. “I want to remind the President of his promise
when he met with us; he promised to rescue
our daughters, he said he would bring the
girls back, but six months later, there is no
result. Mr. President, will you fail to rescue
them, if your daughter is abducted? If you can’t do it alone, invite the United Nations to
come and rescue our daughters,” she said. Another parent, Bulama Jonah, recalled how the
school principal sent his daughter home because
she had not paid N300 for testimonial certificate,
adding that the girls had just two subjects to do
in their examinations before they were taken
away by their abductors. “The saddest thing was that my daughter
was sent home because of N300 just a day
before she was kidnapped; I gave her the
money for her testimonial and she went back
to school only for her to be abducted,” he said. Mrs. Martha Enoch said she was tired of
government’s failed promises, and urged it to
take whatever action was necessary to rescue
the seized girls. “Government kept saying they would bring
back the girls, but if they can’t bring them
alive, they should bring their dead bodies,” she stated. The BBOG lamented the failure of the President to
mention the issue of the Chibok girls in his New
Year broadcast, stressing that it showed that the
government did not care about them. Few days after the girls were abducted, Boko
Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
It released a video of the girls while the sect’s
leader, Abubakar Shekau, boasted that the
young girls, most of who were said to be
Christians, had been converted to Islamic religion and that they would be given out in marriages at
a token. While unconfirmed reports said that some of the
girls had died of snake bite in the forest where
they were kept, a handful had escaped from the
insurgents’ captivity. The United Nations in August had announced
rehabilitation facilities for the escaped Chibok
girls. In a statement on the UN website, the United
Nations Population Fund had said that it was
working in collaboration with the World Health
Organisation and the United Nations Children’s
Fund to set up clinics to provide health screening
for any of the girls coming back, as well as educating those who had escaped. The representative of the UNFPA in Nigeria, Ms.
Rati Ndhlovu, had also been quoted as saying, “The girls are running from home and they
have no menstruation pads and have nothing
to use. They need water. They need the basic
things that keep a woman dignified.”