>
The Bringbackourgirls movement said on Monday that it will march to the presidential villa next Thursday to engage President Muhammadu Buhari on why the kidnapped Chibok girls have remained in captivity despite his promise to rescue them.
In a statement signed by its coordinators – Aisha Yesufu, Hadiza Bala Usman and Oby Ezekwesili, the group flayed the president for declaring that Boko Haram had been technically defeated without the rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls.
“It was utterly shocking when the president declared in a BBC interview on 24 December that the terrorists had been ‘technically defeated’ without referencing the rescue of our Chibok girls whom he had set as the benchmark for measuring such success.
“We are extremely disappointed that seven months after his strong promise at inauguration and six months after his pledge to the parents, Chibok community and our movement that he would rescue the 219 daughters of Nigeria, his statement was lacking in urgency and assurance of strategy for result.
“Further, that the president gave the impression of a reactive approach of ‘waiting for credible Boko Haram leadership’ to tell us whether our girls are alive or not, falls disappointingly short of the proactive feedback we expected. “Our movement therefore refuses to accept that lack of ‘credible intelligence on our girls’ whereabouts” as a tenable reason for the evident lack of progress in rescuing our ChibokGirls.”
“The federal government should investigate all statements preciously made by state actors and/or high-ranking military officers that ‘we know where the Chibok girls are’, with the view to getting at the bottom of the matter on our girls’ whereabouts.
“The federal government should immediately set up a search and rescue team to find our Chibok girls. “KADA (the Chibok community) strongly demands that President Muhammadu Buhari gives the rescue of our abducted Chibok girls the priority attention it deserves, as Boko Haram cannot be said to have been defeated – technically or otherwise – without the safe return of our abducted daughters.”
In October last year, President Buhari issued a December 31 deadline for the final crushing of the terrorists, one month after he told the BBC that security agents could spot the girls’ location in Sambisa forest.