Concerned Parents of Chibok Girls have appealed to President Bola Tinubu to help facilitate the release of 92 abducted girls still in Boko Haram’s captivity.
The parents made the appeal in a a letter issued on Monday by Yana Galang (mother to Rifkatu Galang still in captivity) and Zanna Lawan (father to Aisha Lawan still in captivity).
They also congratulated Tinubu and Kashim Shettima on their assumption of office as president and vice president respectively.
They begged the president to use his honourable office to help in releasing the remaining girls still in captivity.
“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,” the parents said.
The parents, in the letter acknowledged that Tinubu in his inaugural speech, despite not making a direct pledge particularly regarding their plight in Chibok, pledged to make security a top priority.
They subsequently sought Tinubu’s attention to beam a searchlight to the recovery of the remaining 92 of the kidnapped girls.
According to the parents, former President, Muhammadu Buhari, in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2015, said his administration could not claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing Chibok girls.
They 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 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 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.