#BBOG: Chibok Girls can Be Rescued Before May 29

We won’t think possibility of death, says Ezekwesili

Adebiyi Adedapo Leader of the BringBackOurGirls group (#BBOG), Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, has said the over 200 Chibok girls in the captivity of the Boko Haram insurgents can be rescued during the life of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

This is just as the Chairman of the Chibok community in Abuja, Hosea Abana, said Chibok parents were still not satisfied with the level of search being carried out to rescue the girls.

Ezekwesili led the group in a walkout tour, as part of activities to commemorate the one year remembrance of the kidnapped girls.

The former Minister of Education explained that a nation with military, intelligence agencies and international collaboration should have rescued its citizens from captivity, noting that the girls can still be rescued before May 29 when the new government will takeover power.

“We believe that the girls can be rescued, we believe that even before May 29, they can be rescued. We have military, we have intelligence, we have collaboration and cooperation with other nations of the world we must find our Chibok girls,” Ezekwesili said.

Reacting to speculations that the girls might have been killed by the sect members, Ezekwesili said the group was not ready to consider the possibility of death, as she said the Chibok parents were expecting their children with a figment of hope.

“We are tying red ribbons this in commemoration of the one year remembrance of the kidnapped girls, on the 14th of April, sadly, it will be exactly one year since the girls were taken. We refused to speculate as to whether they are alive or dead we don’t even want to think about the possibility of death, we know that they must bring back the girls, their parents are still waiting for them, they are holding on to a slim hope that the girls will be rescued.”

She insisted that the country could not move on with about 219 girls in captivity.

“How can our country move on without 219 citizens that can still be rescued, it just doesn’t make sense, no society grows by abandoning its citizens,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Abana, while responding to THISDAY enquiries, expressed doubt that the Nigerian troops and the allied forces operating in North-east Nigeria did not carryout thorough search for the girls.

“I believe the girls are still alive, I am not sure that they have combed Sambisa as they may want us to believe, Sambisa is very large, maybe they dropped explosives in some parts of the forest and claimed to have combed the place. I don’t know where the girls are but I refuse to share the view that they have been killed,” Abana said.

“The girls that we called for their return 360 days ago are still not back with their parents.

“People want to move on, but we can’t afford to move on, we must find our girls and bring them back.

“Our girls are somewhere, for as long as we are a country, we are a nation.” The Lagos State Government yesterday lamented acute voter’s apathy experienced in all parts of the state in the just concluded presidential and National Assembly elections, which it said, culminated in the loss of over two million votes statewide.

The state government, thus, urged all the eligible voters in the state irrespective of their political affiliation, ethnic background and religious sentiment to turn out in good number to exercise their franchise on Saturday.

The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Gbolahan Lawal, made the call at the state’s agricultural value chains and empowerment programme held at the Johnson Agiri Agricultural Centre, Agege yesterday.

Lawal, who addressed a good number of farmers alongside the Special Adviser on Commerce and Industry, Hon. Oluseye