Chibok community: Presidency gave parents of abducted girls N22m not N100m

By The Rainbow
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Chibok community: Presidency gave parents of abducted girls N22m not N100m

As the controversy very the alleged bribe money offered by the Presidency to the parents of the abducted schoolgirls in Chibok, the Kibaku Area Development Association (KADA) (Chibok community), on Wednesday came out to clear the air.

According to the leadership of the association, the Presidency shared N22.4m to the Chibok parents and the escaped girls that held a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan on July 22.

The media was awash with reports of an alleged N100m bribe given to the parents of the girls.

But KADA in a statement on Wednesday refuted the reports, saying it did not handle or receive any money from the Presidency.

The spokesman of the association, Dauda Ilya, in the statement in Abuja, said that 63 individuals comprising 51 escaped girls were given N100,000 each, 51 parents equally received N100,000 each and another 61 parents got N200,000 each.

He said that 10 parents out of the 122 that took part in the meeting with Jonathan did not receive any money.

“On the night of the July 22, 2014 at about midnight, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties who had been coordinating the visit on the side of the Presidency, visited the hotel and told the 51 escaped girls who came that the Presidency sent them a token of N100,000 each and accordingly gave them the said sum without prior discussion with any KADA official or any other person in the community,” he said..

The statement reads further, “He equally gave N200,000 each of the 61 parents out of the 122 parents that came on the visit. Fifty-one parents were given N100,000 each on the basis that the money given to him was not enough to go round at N200,000. The remaining 10 parents were not given any amount of money.

“As for the money given to some parents back home in Chibok, it was the N1m given to them by the member of the House of Representatives representing Chibok/Damboa/Gwoza Federal Constituency which is the source of the alleged N7,000.00 given to parents in Chibok that were not part of the visit.”

The association said it was disturbed by reports linking it to any form of payouts by the government.

KADA said it made its position clear from the beginning that it would not want tobe involved in any form of financial deals including payment of transportation from Chibok to Yola, flight tickets from Yola to Abuja, hotel accommodation and feeding in Abuja, as well as the intra-city transportation of the parents and girls while in Abuja.

According to the spokesman, the primary objective of the association is the rescue of the abducted girls of their community.

KADA added, “We took the moral high ground as a community association that represents the Chibok people in Abuja to facilitate the recent visit of parents of our abducted daughters and 51 of the 57 that escaped.

“We helped make that visit possible despite our misgivings that it was a poor substitute to our expectation that Mr. President should have visited Chibok even before the visit of our people for a tragedy that is now 107 days old.”

The Chibok community said while it welcomed any well intended support for the suffering population of Chibok town who had lost their means of livelihood since the April 14 abduction of over 200 schoolgirls, “however, the approach the Presidency has adopted has brought reproach and dishonor to our community in the eyes of the public that has supported us since the abduction of our daughters.”

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