Chibok to FG: Find Our Girls Before Rebuilding School

Regional troops retake Borno town, kill 200 insurgents US trains Chadian soldiers to fight Boko Haram

Indigenes of Chibok community yesterday rejected the gesture by the federal government to reconstruct Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, where over 200 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents in April last year, insisting that the offer cannot take priority over their daughters who have still not been liberated.

The federal government, last week, had sent a delegation led by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to lay the foundation for the reconstruction of the destroyed Chibok school.

But at a press conference in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, that was attended by over 1,000 residents of Chibok, the community said: “It is disheartening to state that since the abduction of these girls, the federal government has not bothered to send a delegation to Chibok to sympathise with the parents.

“Instead, the parents were invited to Abuja and conveyed in a cargo military plane with no comfort whatsoever.

“We still observed that recently, President Goodluck Jonathan visited Mubi and Baga, but failed to visit Chibok to sympathise with our people.”

The indigenes, who were led by the Caretaker Chairman of Chibok Council Area, Mallam Ba'ana Lawan, accused the federal government of several broken promises to rescue the abducted schoolgirls.

Lawan said the government’s priority should be to get the schoolgirls returned, not the rebuilding of the destroyed school, expressing dismay at the federal government’s attempt to rebuild the school which was destroyed during the girls’ abduction.

He said the traumatised parents and the entire people of Chibok community only want their children back home.

“We also observed that the president and Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, had several times promised that these girls will soon be released, but it is now more than 300 days, and nothing of such has happened.

“We thank God and appreciate Governor Kashim Shettima and his wife, Nana Kashim Shettima, who did not only visit Chibok when the incident took place, but also secured admission for the 57 girls of the school who escaped from Boko Haram captivity to study in various schools in the country and for all the other assistance the couple has rendered to the parents,” he said.

He added that it was unfortunate that the Chibok Local Government Area has witnessed six different attacks by the insurgents with about 300 people losing their lives and property worth millions of naira.

“The most recent attacks were that of Gatamwarwa, Kautikari and other surrounding villages where several lives were lost. Yet, there was no response from the federal government,” he said.

Lawan, on behalf of the Chibok community, stated that it condemns in its entirety the federal government’s decision to reconstruct the school from where the girls were abducted instead of keeping to its numerous promises of returning the girls.

He extended the community’s appreciation to the #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS group in Abuja which has been unyielding in its demands that the federal government must intensify efforts to rescue the girls, adding that the media has also been helpful with its consistency.

In another incident, troops from Chad and Niger have retaken the Borno town of Damasak as part of regional efforts to combat Boko Haram, which at the weekend pledged allegiance to Islamic State militants.

Boko Haram had held the town near the Niger border since November.

“The offensive has allowed for control to be taken of Damasak,” a Chadian security source told AFP yesterday.

According to the source, some 200 Boko Haram fighters were left dead in the offensive that began Sunday, while 10 Chadian soldiers were killed and 20 wounded.

There was however no independent verification of the casualty figures. A hospital source in Niger’s Diffa, across the border from Damasak, spoke of 33 soldiers wounded, without providing their nationalities.

A Niger official in Diffa also said Damasak had been retaken after heavy fighting.

The offensive, which followed a sustained build-up of troops in southern Niger, opened up a new front in regional efforts to wipe out the Islamist group, whose six-year insurgency has spread across borders.

It also came after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria in an audio message released at the weekend.

More than 200 vehicles, some of them with machine guns, as well as tanks, ambulances, water tankers and transport trucks, were seen moving towards the border on Sunday, Diffa-based radio station Anfani reported.

Aircraft targeted Boko Haram positions on Saturday and early Sunday, it added, while a Diffa resident and aid worker said Sunday that troops were seen heading to the border and heavy gunfire was heard.

On Friday, the African Union (AU) endorsed the creation of an additional regional force of up to 10,000 men to join the fight against Boko Haram.

Owing to the onslaught by the regional forces, thousands of northeast Nigerian residents took refuge in Cameroun’s Far North region to flee the gun battle at the weekend, a Camerounian military source said yesterday.

The source told the Xinhua news agency that more than 100 families, including a large number of children, fled to Cameroun after fresh fighting broke out on the Nigerian side of the border.

The Far North region of Cameroun already hosts more than 30,000 Nigerian refugees. The new Nigerian refugees are now living in the open air in Makari town.

The source said the refugees’ move coincided with the sending of food and materials by Nigerian authorities to the people in distress. The donations were sent in 12 large trucks and delivered on Sunday in Maroua, capital of the Far North region.

Residents who live in northern Nigeria have been fleeing to Cameroun since the beginning of the insurrection of Boko Haram in 2009, but this is the first time the Nigerian government has offered humanitarian aid to Cameroun, according to the source.

The Chadian government has sent troops to Cameroun and Nigeria under a Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) to help the countries fight Boko Haram since mid-January this year.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Chadian troops assisting in the fight against Boko Haram are being trained by the United States of America to fight terror in an exercise deep in the desert.

According to a BBC report, the session is taking place in western Chad, in a section of the Sahel region that skirts the southern edges of the Sahara desert.

It is part of Operation Flintlock, an annual counter-terrorism exercise led by the United States and held with their NATO allies in West Africa.

This 10th edition is particularly timely, as the drills are taking place against the backdrop of a region that has launched an onslaught against Boko Haram.

In fact, these Chadian troops may be going straight back into battle as soon as their training is over.