BBOG marks Chibok Girls fifth year anniversary in Lagos

The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement, a loose coalition of individuals and organisations advocating for the rescue and rehabilitation of the Chibok girls, on Sunday, April 14, marked a tragic milestone, as it celebrated the fifth year anniversary of the girls abduction.

In this light, members of the movement in Lagos paid a courtesy visit to the Governor-Elect of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to discuss the plight of the Chibok girls including issue on safe school and displaced people.

At the meeting with Sanwo-Olu, the BBOG movement discussed the plight of the Chibok girls and other related issues of concern, which include migration to Lagos, street children, safe school initiative, Nigerian, legion, National Missing Persons’ Register (MPR).

It is estimated that over one million people migrate to Lagos every year, setting up adhoc slum communities, putting pressure on the state’s infrastructure and causing security challenges from unemployed residents and no accountability framework, while yet camps for internally displaced persons in Lagos are empty.

The group asked the Governor-Elect to undertake an urgent review of the identification system for Lagosians and to more effectively provide support for those who have made Lagos home due to in-security and the destruction of their communities.

They reminded Sanwo-Olu that Lagos has been supportive of the Bring Back our Girls movement since 2014, giving the movement space to meet weekly – first by Marina and now at Falomo Roundabout.

The BBOG movement tasked the Governor-Elect to use his role as a future member of the Governors’ Forum to champion the cause of the missing and displaced, encourage adequate budgetary support for the MPR and offer Lagos as a pilot state

It will be recalled that 276 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State were abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents, and 57 of the girls escaped in the first 24 hours.

In the last five years, 107 of the 219 girls held captive, either escaped, were released after negotiations, or were found after the army liberated the areas where they were being held. To date, 112 Chibok Girls remain captives of the terrorists.

Meanwhile, Leah Sharibu, who was abducted from Government Girls Science & Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State on Monday, February 19, 2018 and Alice Ngaddah, an employee of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have remained in the custody of the insurgents.