Chibok girls: We’re not happy with slow pace to recapture our kids

Chairman of the Chibok abducted girls parents association in Borno State, Yakubu Nkeki has said that his colleagues’ parents are very unhappy with the slow pace in which the rescue of their daughters is being handled by government.

Nkeki who spoke exclusively with the Nigerian Tribune in Maiduguri said that no parent anywhere would want what happened to the Chibok girls to happen to their wards, adding that the parents are really angry that the Federal Government in charge of the negotiations is not reaching out to them on the plight of their daughters.

Speaking further on the restlessness of those who are yet to hear about the status of their daughters, he went on: “We have been trying our best to pacify them not to feel completely neglected even by the state government which used to check on them. We asked them to have faith since the government says the negotiations are still going on.

“We have been advising them not to use violence due to pent-up anger to make their protests because we as parents have agreed to approach the government peacefully on our demands. We will handle our plight peacefully, but we do not want to be left in the cold or be taken for granted. The government must be up and doing and be seen to be interested in bringing back our children for us.”

ALSO READ: NUC accredits 28 programmes for Federal University Gusau

On expected assistance being rendered to them, to ease their trauma, Nkeki recalled that two years ago, the wife of the Borno Governor Nana Shettima actually thought about them and showed them love during the Salah festival, but since then, nobody has remembered them or the kind of trauma they are facing.

“My people have been on their own since then I can assure you. No government has invited us for a long time now and this is the reality. We parents rely on our farm and have been trying to survive with that. Those whose daughters are with the insurgents and are internally displaced people IDPs are purely on their own, at home in Chibok town because some cannot go to their villages. Such people cannot even farm anymore which is why we need the government to come to their aid.”

Lamenting the plight of his colleagues who are IDPs, resident in Chibok town, he said that there are some people that the World Bank come around to help to add that some of them are in Chibok and Mbalala, yet, they bypass his people who are also within the community.

“We are also not happy with such development because the people enjoying the support are the privileged few mostly friends of the serving political clique. Unfortunately, they make it just like a political thing and make it look like it has been put into the hands of the Chibok people yet my people don’t see them.

“The government has been quiet for over two years now and it is really disheartening. All we hear is rumours about our kids being this or that. Quite alright in December, somebody came around, saying that the federal government would call us for talks in January but they never did.”

On the stories circulated by journalist Selkida that some of the girls have been killed, Nkeki said he cannot confirm that at all. All the information they have is the one giving to them by the recaptured kids at home that some of their colleagues indeed died in captivity.

“For those who have been returned to us, we appreciate the move by government by ensuring that they all went back to school but leaving us quietly like this to brood over our woes is not very good, as a matter of fact, it will send many of my people to their untimely death as it has already done. We have lost quite a handful of our parents and relatives who died brooding over when they will see their loved ones and kids not knowing if they are alive or dead.”

276 Chibok school girls were abducted from their dormitories while waiting to take their final examinations conducted by West Africa Examination Council on April 20Bokoy boko Haram insurgents who drove heavy trucks from the Sambisa forest into their school compounds in the guise of coming tk protect them from boko haram.

Several escaped by jumping from the trucks in the darkness on that fateful day regardless of the fact that they may have been shoot by the desperate insurgents who wanted to use them as sex slaves and wives after forcefully converting them.

Using their normal trademark tactics against the men of the Nigerian Army they came in very large numbers all armed with anti aircraft missiles overpowering the troops protecting the school as arranged forcing the soldiers to flee for their safety because they were embarassingly outnumbered.

Over a hundred more former students are believed to be alive in the hands of the insurgents who have turned many of them into hardened radicalized insurgents who have vowed through online videos they post never to return to their grieving parents.