FG Reiterates Commitment To Rescuing Chibok Girls

Heavily armed anti-riot policemen Tuesday blocked all the roads leading to Presidential villa in Abuja, yesterday, disrupting the march by the Bring Back Our Girls Group, who were told that the President was busy and therefore could not attend to them and that the government was working hard to rescue the girls.

“He cannot come out, he has meetings and since already you are out that’s why we are asked to come here and meet with you and to apologise for his inability to be here personally. But you can see we are all members of the Federal Executive Council” said Minister of women Affairs, Hajia Zanaib Maina, who was accompanied by Minister of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Ochekpe, Minister of Environment, Mrs Lawrencia Laraba-Mallam and Minister of Land and Housing, Mrs Akon Eyakenyi.

The group had planned the march to again demand for the rescue of the abducted chibok girls, six months after they were taken from their school in Borno State.

According to Zaina, the federal Government was doing everything possible to ensure the safe release of the remaining 219 Government Secondary school, Chibok, Borno State from Boko Haram.

“Even though you wrote a letter to the President, he can ask us to come and address you. That’s why we are here to address all of you here. You want to meet with Mr. President and find out why up till now the girls have not been rescued back to be reunited with their family. We are here to reassure you as a responsible government, there’s no government in the world that will sit back and be comfortable while the citizens of the country are abducted and we don’t know their condition.

“The government is doing all it can to make sure that these girls are rescued and back to their families alive. It is not as if the government is sitting back and watching,” she added.

“Government is trying all it could to make sure that these girls are brought back. They are our daughters. We are all mothers; as much as it hurts you, it hurts us even the fathers. You know as well as we do some of you are very much aware of the efforts that the government has been making to make sure that these girls our daughters are brought back alive.

“There are some technicality issues that border on security, we are all know that our military personnel are out there in the bush doing what they can. It is not that they cannot force themselves in there but they have some technical ways of doing their things which we civilian do not know,” the minister told the protesters.

The group however gave the Minister of women affairs 5 questions to be answered by Mr. President, asking for the whereabouts of the 219 chibok girls that were abducted on the 14th of April 2014.