Almost three weeks has gone by since the girls of Government Secondary School, Chibok were abducted by the Boko Haram sect.
The mother of one of the girls kidnapped in Borno, who gave her name as Ajoke, told the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Thursday, May 2, 2014 that she and some other parents were willing to go to any length to save their children.
She 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.
Ajoke said: “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.”
Another woman, Hayija Asmau Joda, still speaking to BBC said that the government was not living up to expectations and they were disturbed by what was happening to the girls.
“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,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Defence Headquarters has said that all enquiries on the abducted girls should henceforth be directed to the Borno State Government.
This was made known in a statement from the director of defence information, Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, on Thursday. He enjoined the commissioner for education in Borno State, who had been speaking on the incident to continue to give updates.
Olukolade promised that the military would continue with the efforts to recover the abducted girls and also 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: “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.”
“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.”
