- By Safiu Kehinde
The activists, under the aegis of #BringBackOurGirls Movement led by Aisha Yesufu, will commence the commemoration today in Abuja in an effort to press home their demand for the release of the remaining girls still held in captivity.
In remembrance of the 2014 abduction of 276 Chibok girls by Boko Haram insurgency group, activists are set to mark ninth year anniversary of the abduction.
The activists, under the aegis of #BringBackOurGirls Movement led by Aisha Yesufu, will commence the commemoration today in Abuja in an effort to press home their demand for the release of the remaining girls still held in captivity.
While revealing that 180 girls, as contained in an October 2022 report, have regained their freedom from their captors, the group, in a statement issued yesterday, decried the non-release of other 97 girls declared as still missing.
As contained in the statement, the group expressed their dissatisfaction over the inability of President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years administration to see to the total release of the girls as promised, stressing that the freed ones amongst them are even yet to be properly reunited with their families-in what they described as still being held in “different form of captivity”.
The statement read in part; “As we approach the tragic ninth anniversary of the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State – April 14, 2014 – our hearts remain broken at the failure to close this shameful chapter in our country’s history as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari in his address to the nation in 2015 and various times subsequently.
“We are equally distressed to learn that after a successful campaign by our gallant military in the last two years when they liberated thousands of people including over 12 girls – now women – and handed them over to the Borno State Government, our daughters and sisters remain in the custody of the State and have not been properly reunited with their families or back in control of their lives now that they are out of the hands of the terrorists.
“Have our girls escaped one form of captivity only to spend 6 months to one and a half years in a different form of captivity? What crime have they committed? Why are survivors of unimaginable trauma being treated this way?”
Meanwhile, the group made nine demands from President Muhammadu Buhari among which include the release of the remaining girls, before the end of his tenure in May 29th, 2023.