A mother of one of the abducted girls, who gave her name simply as Ajoke , speaking to the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, monitored in Kaduna on Thursday said the parents would soon march naked to the Sambisa forest on a search-and-rescue mission since security agents had failed to return their children.
“We are not comfortable with the government, if not, how can our daughters be locked in the school, then all of a sudden some people would appear with their vehicles and packed our daughters like goats, run away with them without anyone raising the alarm,” she said.
Another woman, Hayija Asmau Joda, told the BBC that the government was not living up to expectations and they were disturbed by what was happening to the girls.
She said, “Two weeks have gone with no trace of the missing girls and the government is not saying anything about it. We’ve not seen the government making any effort because no single girl is returned to her family. Only those that were lucky to escape, those that had the courage to jump and run away from the abductors. Some even had fractures; therefore we know it was not the government of Nigeria that saved those girls.
“We are gathered here to show the government how sad we are, because they are not concerned. We want to beg them to wake up and find our daughters. It is unusual to see women staging a protest, but since men are unable and women have come out to protest from many parts of the country, it is our hope that the government will now take the issue, much more seriously.”
The Defence Headquarters, however, has said that all enquiries on the abducted girls should henceforth be directed to the Borno State Government.
The Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, in an electronic mail on Thursday, enjoined the Commissioner for Education in Borno State, who had been speaking on the incident to continue to give updates.
Olukolade, who promised that the military would continue with the efforts to recover the abducted girls, stressed that the Borno State Government was the appropriate body to continue with the regular briefings on the issue of the abducted girls.
He said that it was in line with standard globalbest practices for the Borno government, in whose facility the abduction took place, to ensure the necessary flow of information on the incident.
Olukolade’s statement read, “While the military efforts at recovering the girls are continuing, the Government of Borno State whose Commissioner for Education has been giving regular updates on the incident at the initial stage is enjoined to continue in order to satisfy the necessity for information flow.
“The Borno State Government in whose facility the incident occurred is appropriately placed to continue with regular briefing as the state Commissioner for Education has been doing. This is in line with best practices in other climes more so as all agencies of every tier of government are expected to continue functioning in the state.
“Accordingly, security agencies on ground in Borno State will continue to interact and support the state government officials in their efforts to inform the public on the Chibok incident and progress in the search without any prejudice.”
He said that the military would ensure regular flow of information in all its internal security operations in the country.
Olukolade said that while the security agencies had received a lot of information in the bid to retrieve the abducted girls, most of the information was given deliberately to cripple the military operations against the insurgency in the North-East.
He said that some of the information had been publicised to inflict more pain on the country in accordance with the expectations of the terrorists.
“A lot of information has been received in the efforts at securing the freedom of the girls. The Armed Forces assure all Nigerians that it will continue to appraise every information received during this operation accordingly,” he said.
source: nigerianeye
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