Chibok Girls Mark 500 Days In Captivity
Today makes it 500 days that over 200 girls were abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok.
The primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Rev'd Nicholas Okoh, has said that the continued stay of the Chibok girls in captivity has harmed the country.
He said, “The story of the Chibok girls is a bad story, the parents are not happy, the government is not happy and the public is baffled. From what the president is saying, you can sense that he is not happy about the inability of government to bring the girls back.”
“We appeal to government to seek a more advanced way of doing it in terms of technology which can help us locate their whereabouts. As it is now, the soldiers have searched the Sambisa Forest and have not been able to see them. It will continue to be a festering sore in our lives if we are unable to find these girls. We plead with our government, the US, EU, UN and anybody who can help us to come out and help us find the girls.”
In the relative sublime, the chairman, Chibok Community in Abuja, Tsambido Hosea-Abana, said it is sad that abducted girls' whereabouts are still unknown after 500 days.
He said, “We are feeling very bad. It is not only that the girls were abducted; the pitiable thing is that we do not even know their whereabouts. We were accusing the past administration of not doing something visible. We were hoping that by now, we are under three months of the new administration, this administration would have established that these girls are in a particular place and they are working on ways to bring them out.”
Leader of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group, Dr Oby Ezekwesili said the campaign for Chibok girl has been a tough exercise adding that the global week of the action would be a reminder that the group will not give up on the abducted girls.
According to her, “It has been tough on us. If anybody had told us that we would be here beyond day 50, we would not have believed them. But we are now in day 500. We will not cry any more. We have passed the stage of acting like victims. We should act as victors. We need strength to continue. We are going to be strong and we will maintain our point.”