Members
of the Bring Back Our Girls group campaigning for the release of the
Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists march to meet with
the Nigerian president in Abuja, on July 8, 2015. Members of the
BringBackOurGirls campaign group marched on July 8 to meet President
Mohammadu Buhari to pressure him to end the deadly Boko Haram insurgency
and free 219 schoolgirls held by the group since April 2014.
The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement says the President Muhammadu
Buhari administration has not met any of its demands, one year after
the parley between both parties.
This was contained in a statement issued on Friday during a special sit-out in Abuja.
The statement signed by Dr Oby Ezekwesili and Aisha Yesufu, it
recalled that “On 8th July 2015, the#BringBackOurGirls movement, parents
of our abducted #ChibokGirls and representatives of the Chibok
community had an engagement with the new President, Muhammadu Buhari.
“This was necessitated by the need to establish fact, the urgency of
our cause and dispel misconceptions about our movement, especially
considering the treatment we had received from the preceding
administration. At the time of that engagement, our 219 girls had been
in captivity for 450 days and the President acknowledged government
failure with regards to the rights of our girls and victims of the
insurgency.
“As part of our submissions to the President, we presented Our
crowd-sourced Citizens’ Solution to End Terrorism, Verification,
Authentication and Reunification System (VARS), and a List of Demands.
“We proposed that a team be tasked with the credible implementation
of VARS. The primary task of the team was to work with every abducted
victim’s family and community to accurately ascertain the true identity
of such individuals.
“Following their accurate identification, the comprehensive program
for Recovery, Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Reintegration was to be
made available to them. It was also supposed to entail the setting up of
a Missing Persons’ Register.
“We requested that the President direct relevant Government
representatives to work with the BBOG Family to commence work
immediately on an Accountability Matrix, which will define the protocol
for obtaining and sharing information with citizens.
“We also suggested a monthly meeting between security operatives and
community stakeholders in communities most affected by these acts of
violence e.g. Chibok, Gwoza and Bama. We believed at that time that it
would encourage much needed collaboration and information sharing to
bridge the identified communication gap.
“We requested that the President direct the establishment of a
Commission charged with the task of transparently investigating and
reporting on the security lapses that caused their successful abduction
and the operational leadership failures that led to their long captivity
in terrorist enclave.
“This Commission was also to review the allegations of corruption
within our security services that has hindered its capacity to perform
effectively. We requested that the President direct that the Report of
the Presidential Fact Finding Committee of the Chibok Girls and the
Presidential Committee on Security Challenges in the North East be made
public immediately.
“We suggested that the Government begin, in earnest, a holistic
process of proper sensitization and enlightenment to curb this trend of
youth radicalization and extremism. The BBOG Family indicated
willingness to work with the Government to design the programme.
“We departed with the hope of re-engaging the administration towards
setting clear timelines and deliverables for the five requests. “A year
later, it is extremely disappointing that none of the five demands has
been completed. Specifically, a failure to implement VARS means we still
do not have a cohesive system of identifying liberated citizens or even
a database of those affected.
“Thanks to an initial partnership between the#BringBackOurGirls
movement and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a coalition of
Government Agencies led by the NHRC has begun the initial processes
towards the establishment of a National Missing Persons’ Register. We
acknowledge this, but ask that the work is fast-tracked and completed
for the benefit of displaced Nigerians.
“A year after our engagement and close to six months since the
President directed the setting up of a committee to carry out
investigation into the abduction of our girls, we read of an approval of
the members of the committee. Again the lack of urgency in the dispatch
of responsibilities towards the rescue of our girls is alarming.
“At this rate, it begs the questions – when will the committee be
constituted? When will they be mobilized to start work? What time line
will they work with and the reports submitted? Under what timeline will
the government study and act on the report? What does this mean for our
Chibok Girls who do not have the luxury of time and whose plight worsens
with every passing hour, minute and second?
“The non-release of the Report of the Presidential Fact Finding
Committee of the Chibok Girls and the Presidential Committee on Security
Challenges in the North East is also unacceptable. We demand an
immediate release of these reports as their importance for lessons
learned about the abductions and insurgency in general cannot be
overemphasized.
“We reiterate our position that sensitive areas with implications for
national security as repeatedly mentioned can be blotted out of the
public document. Global best practice supports this. These lessons
learned while providing information to the public will justify the need
for expenditure of public resources, provide metrics for scrutiny and
acceptance of the new report and factual evidence for the prosecution of
all benefactors of the diversion of funds for arms procurement”.
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