Body starts 90-day global campaign for missing Chibok girls

Seeks end to abductions, insecurity
The #BringBackOurGirls Movement yesterday commenced three-month Global Campaign to commemorate five years abduction of 276 girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

According to the group, it would use the period to put pressure on the Federal Government to free the remaining 112 Chibok girls, Leah Sharibu, Alice Ngaddah and countless other abductees.

This, it, intends to achieve before the fifth anniversary of the abduction, which comes up on April 14, 2019.

In a statement to The Guardian yesterday, the group acknowledged efforts made so far, and commended government for the recovery of 107 Chibok girls, and 106 Dapchi girls.

But, it demanded the rescue of the other school children from captivity and justice for the slain.

“As concerned citizens of this country, the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) advocacy group has highlighted the plight of these innocent girls and other victims of the insurgency.

“It has done this both at global level, and at home through protest and constructive engagement with the government and other agencies, to secure the rescue of the abducted girls,” it said.

The group cited its effort to include, the nearly five years of its daily sit-out in Abuja, weekly sit-outs in Lagos, Oshogbo, and Ibadan, visits to key local and international stakeholders.

Others are the development of strategies and tools as ‘Citizens Solutions to End Terrorism’ and the ‘Verification, Authentication and Reunification System (VARS)’ for missing persons.”

The group further implored government to equip and address the welfare of the police and troops, including giving Nigerian children safe and secure schools.

It called for the proper rehabilitation of those who have been victims of conflicts, and to respond quickly whenever citizens face any security threat.

They further called on local, national, regional and global influencers and authorities to support and pressurise the
government to bring the nightmare of school abductions, violent extremism and insecurity to an end.

The group disclosed that outside the kidnapped Chibok and Dapchi girls, three international aid workers, Alice Loksha Nggadah of UNICEF, Hauwa Muhammad Liman and Saifura Hussani Ahmed of the Red Cross were kidnapped, while providing humanitarian aid at an Internally-Displaced Person’s camp in Rann, Borno State, in March 2018.

Hauwa and Saifura had since been brutally executed, while Alice Ngaddah remains in captivity.