Concerned Parents of Chibok Girls have written to President Bola Tinubu to help facilitate the release of 92 abducted girls still in Boko Haram’s captivity.
This was just as the affected parents congratulated Asiwaju Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettima on their assumption of office as president and vice president of Nigeria respectively.
The appeal was made in a letter issued on behalf of Concerned Parents by Yana Galang (mother to Rifkatu Galang still in captivity) and Zanna Lawan (father to Aisha Lawan still in captivity).
The parents, in the letter, begged President Tinubu to help them in releasing the remaining girls still in captivity, pointing his attention to the predicament they had been in since “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.
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, while making the appeal, 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, recalling that a statement dated April 14, 2021, 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.