…. Drama as protesters insist on seeing President
[P]resident Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday told distraught parents of the missing Chibok school girls and BringBackOurGirls protesters that his administration lacked any credible intelligence that could lead to the rescue of the 219 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists 21 months ago.
The President told the parents and protesters that while he thinks about the fate of the girls every day, the truth is government still can’t locate their whereabouts.
The President however said he won’t stop working to make sure the girls are located, adding that he expected the parents to appreciate his efforts to cleanse the nation of terrorism
The BBOG group had earlier insisted on meeting with the President even though a government delegation led by the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Jummai Al-Hassan, had been mandated to meet them as Buhari was busy playing host to the President of Republic of Benin, Boni Yayi, in his office.
They threatened not to leave the Villa if the President didn’t come out to address them.
There was outrage among them when the minister, in her speech made reference to the fact that the girls were not kidnapped during President Buhari’s tenure.
The President later joined them at the meeting in which journalists were barred from covering.
He was quoted by BBOG leader and former Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, who briefed State House correspondents after the closed-door meeting at the State House Conference Centre.
She said: ” He (the President) stated that he would also have expected us to acknowledge the efforts that they have so far made and that we failed to acknowledge the efforts they have made, but that he wished that we would agree that he is very 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.”
She said “Mr President subsequently came to join this meeting and what the President essentially said is that his statement during the media chat that they do not have credible intelligence that he 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.”
Asked the next line of action, Ezekwesili said “We would keep demanding as a movement for the action that is necessary to rescue our Chibok Girls. The second thing is that the feedback mechanism that we demanded for to enable the government interact frequently with the direct and primary owners of this tragedy, the parents of our Chibok girls and the community which has not been set up.
“We have now been told by the NSA and the minister of Defence that the mechanism would
be set up so that there would be a closer interaction that would enable the parents at all times to know the state and the progress that is being made.
“Number three is that the matter of investigation of exactly what happened that led to the abduction of our Chibok girls is critical. A number of the members of that community are insisting that the investigations that were not concluded by the previous administration in order to unearth some of the things that happened before our Chibok girls were taken captive,” she said.
Ezekwesili added that the group’s demand which the President accepted was for the findings of the General Sabo committee on the Chibok abduction to be made public while a fresh investigation is conducted.
“It is consistent with our movement’s demand that the General Sabo report, that is the Presidential fact finding committee report on our Chibok girls which was conducted and delivered during the previous administration, it needs to be disclosed, it needs to be transparently open so that everyone would read what it was that the committee found during the course of their investigation. So we are demanding that this administration will quickly agree with the demands of these parents that new investigation be made even as General Sabo report is being disclosed,” she added.
