Ezekwesili: We thought Chibok girls would be freed within 30 days

Oby Ezekwesili, leader of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement, says it is a “monumental failure” that the federal government has not rescued the remaining 195 Chibok girls after 1,000 days in the hands of the Boko Haram insurgents.

The girls were abducted in April 2014 from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state.

Addressing members of the BBOG movement, Ezekwesili described the inability of the federal government to rescue the rest of the girls as the “saddest occurrence in the history of our country”.

“We never imagined that it will last more than 30 days, then 60 days came, then two years,” she said.

“We have had two governments and yet we have girls who want to be educated still in the grip of terrorists and on Day 500 we had our on our global week of action and we did say that 500 days was too long for citizens to wait, for parents to wait for their daughters to be rescued.

“Today, it is 500 times two. You can imagine how much of a monumental failure it is that 195 of our Chibok girls are still in terrorist captivity.”

Reading a statement on behalf of the group, Aisha Yesufu, another leader, said the federal government contradicted itself by “the recent declaration and celebration of the capture of Sambisa forest as the end of the war”.

“This action is contrary to the pledge that Mr President and the military have made repeatedly that they would not declare victory without the rescue of our Chibok Girls and all other abducted victims of terrorist abduction,” she said.

“Sambisa’s ‘Camp Zero’ is the same stronghold in which the Federal Government stated that the girls were being held and the 21 released were from there. Should parents, communities, Nigerians and the world assume that the Federal Government has given up on the Chibok Girls and other abductees?

“As with the Jonathan administration, the Buhari administration’s response to issues about the Chibok girls is representative of its handling of other issues – insecurity, welfare of internally displaced persons, military welfare, corruption and poor governance.

“Painfully, #Day1000 of their tragic abduction is here and there has been no status report provided by the federal government.”

While on a march to the presidential villa on Sunday, the police made an attempt to stop BBOG movement’s procession but they eventually got to the entrance of the three arms zone.