The parents of the abducted and still missing 219 Chibok schoolgirls have expressed disappointment and sadness after selling off their assets, expecting to hear reassuring words from President Muhammadu Buhari, only to be told that there was no intelligence after seven months of Buhari’s tenure.
Speaking after meeting with the President, the Chairman of the abducted children’s parents Yakubu Nkeki said there was no point in coming if the President was going to treat the issue with less importance.
According to him, the reaction of the President clearly shows that all promises made and expectations were not worth the while as he failed to convince them that there was any iota of hope in the search of the Chibok girls.
During the march, he had said that the parents heard about the march organised by the BBOG and had to sell some of their goods and assets to be able to travel to Abuja to join in the march.
Nkeki, whose daughter Maimuna is one of the girls abducted by the sect, stated that 18 parents have died after the abduction and wondered how many of them will die before the girls will be rescued.
“We have buried 18 parents of the abducted girls. Some due to high blood pressure and other issues. Are we going to continue like this until the parents are all dead? We sold our groundnut and beans so that we will be able to be here. Everyone here contributed more than N40,000.
“Today is the 640 days the girls were abducted and we’re missing our girls. We sold our properties in order to be here to ask the President what is happening about the rescue of our girls. If he is the father of the nation, we know he can do something. Some are saying that the abduction was a lie. We came to prove that we are the biological parents of the girls.
“We know that more than 5,000 people have been rescued by the military. Why are our daughters not among them? Where are they? Who is hiding them? We want the President to put more effort in rescuing the girls. We were not invited by the President. We came on our own,” he said.
However, the leader of the #BringBackOurGirls Group (BBOG) and former minister of Education Oby Ezekwesili has expressed her thoughts on the group’s meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, noting that the President, despite all expectations, failed to connect with the parents of the abducted Chibok girls.
Ezekwesili, who was obviously diplomatic with the situation in the Villa, said Buhari was not able to emotionally connect with those crying mothers and all that was expected was for him to walk up to these wailing mothers and try talking to them just like the National Security Adviser and Minister of Defence did.
According to Ezekwesili, “You heard all the parents said at the meeting, is it because we are poor? Is it because we live in the forest? Is it because we live in the village? But that has no meaning in any society, there is no basis for discrimination on the basis of social status, political view, religious belief and other primordial device against any citizen. In the feedback from the President, you can see clearly that the President feels that he has given his best in the efforts to rescue our Chibok girls; our President, however, was not able to emotionally connect to those crying mothers.”
-Leadership