There are concerns that the Parents and girls who were brought to Abuja to meet with Pakistani Child Rights activist, Yousafzai Malala who was in Abuja may not be the actual parents of girls who were kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State in April this year.
Security analysts who spoke on the chain of events culminating in the aborted meeting of the parents and girls with President Goodluck Jonathan last Tuesday are unanimous on the fact that the continuous avoidance of meetings with Government officials by parents of kidnapped girls as well as those girls who purportedly escaped from captivity of Boko Haram raises questions which must be addressed.
They also queried the motives of leading members of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign who were allegedly fingered in the abortion of the meeting which could have furthered the cause of rehabilitating some of the girls who were kidnapped from their school but had since been re-united with their families.
It will be recalled that after a meeting with Pakistani child-right activist Malala Yousafzai at the Presidential Villa, it was agreed that the President was going to meet with parents of the abducted girls and some of the girls who allegedly escaped from the captivity of the insurgents.
The meeting could however not hold as neither the parents nor the escapee girls honored the invitation forcing a cancellation by the Presidency; a situation that was said to have raised suspicions that the parents and girls being paraded by the campaigners may not actually be the actual ones affected.
It was gathered that Malala was so heart broken when she learnt that the meeting was aborted by the group. According to our sources, shortly before Malala departed she met with Ezekwesili for close to 40 minutes, tried to convince her about the need for the girls and the parents to meet Jonathan.
Said our source “ For about 40 minutes Malala argued with Ezekwesili. Ezekwesili insisted there was no need for the meeting. Malala nearly missed her flight on Air France. The flight had to be delayed. When she could not convince her she asked her Director of Administration of her Foundation, Eason Jordan to wait behind in Abuja, but it did not work.”
This is further strengthened by the fact that those who have the actual custody of the girls who had so far escaped from captivity denied knowledge of the movement of any girls or their parents to Abuja.
These incidents have raised suspicion about the real motives of the campaigners especially in view of a recent declaration by a United Kingdom Public Relations consultant Burson Marsteller that it was contacted by some leaders of the opposition All Progressive Congress to facilitate a visit by the Bring Back Our Girls movement to the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
According to the sources, the Borno State Government and the leadership of the Bring Back Our Girls movement have persistently prevailed on the parents of the Chibok girls as well as those who escaped from captivity from honoring several invitations in the last couple of weeks.
The sources claimed that efforts of the Borno State Commissioner of Police, the Chief of Defence Staff, as well as the Presidential Fact Finding Committee to have a one-on-one meeting with the parents of 219 girls who are still missing have been rebuffed at various times in the recent past.
Reports of the Gen Sabo- led fact finding committee recently submitted to the President expressed its frustrations at the fact that parents of missing girls refused to meet with the committee after several efforts including a guarantee of privacy and adequate security.
According to a member of the committee “the excuse given by the parents for refusing to honor our invitation for a meeting was fear of reprisal by the insurgents. We chose a very private location and shut out the Media, yet they wouldn’t show up. How then do you put faces to the names of affected parents and work out plans for assuaging their emotional trauma”
On the aborted meeting with the President, a security source wondered why parents who would not honor the invitation of Government agencies and the Presidency found time to meet with Malala and grant interviews with the foreign Media without fear of reprisals from the Boko Haram.
.