12th June, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Concerned Parents of Chibok Girls have written to President Bola Tinubu to help facilitated the release of 92 abducted girls still in Boko Haram’s captivity.
The parents congratulated Tinubu and Kashim Shettima on their assumption of office as president and vice president of Nigeria respectively.
The letter was issued on behalf of Concerned Parents of Chibok Girls by Yana Galang (mother to Rifkatu Galang still in captivity) and Zanna Lawan (father to Aisha Lawan still in captivity).
In the letter, the parents begged Tinubu to help them in releasing the remaining girls still in captivity, saying that “Mr. President, as you are well aware, our predicament started in 2014 when 276 of our daughters from Chibok Government Secondary School were abducted.”
“It has been years of pain and agony for us and we are disheartened that nine years later and a few months before the end of the immediate past administration, 92 of these girls remain in Boko Haram captivity, subjected to unimaginable ordeal and abuse at the hands of their captors.”
They said in Tinubu’s inaugural speech, despite not making a direct pledge particularly regarding their plight in Chibok, the president pledged to make security a top priority.
“It is on this premise therefore, we the concerned parents of Chibok humbly seek Your Excellency’s attention to once again beam a searchlight to the recovery of the remaining 92 of our kidnapped daughters,” the parents said.
The parents noted that former President, Muhammadu Buhari in his own inaugural speech on May 29, 2015, said his administration could not claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing Chibok girls.
The parents added that on April 14, 2021, a statement titled “Chibok Girls Still on Our Minds” was also released and further reminded them of the former President’s promise and reassured them that all their girls would be rescued and reintegrated back into their communities.
“With the baton changing under the same political party now in 2023, history will no doubt be kind to you, your family, your government and your party if these statements from your predecessor are achieved under you, more so, with our son, Vice President Shettima.
“Mr. President, we seek you to be the light that will illuminate our darkness, end our writhing pains, dry our tears, and free us from the shackles of sadness, sorrow, and anguish this trajectory has brought into our existence.
“When we marked the ninth year’s remembrance of the abduction this year, we didn’t think we would hold any more commemoration, and the truth is that we don’t want to, but, regrettably, so it seems, except you come to our rescue and give us succour, another sober commemoration knocks. We wait patiently for this succour as our acceptable alternative,” the parents stated.