Soldiers of the Nigerian Army, on Tuesday, January 12, 2016, prevented some parents of the abducted Chibok girls from travelling to Abuja to join a protest march to the Presidential Villa.
The soldiers were said to have expressed concern that the trip would be putting the large group of parents at risk.
The Bring Back Our Girls group has however demanded an apology for the incident and urged the army to transport the parents to Abuja.
This was contained in a statement released by the group on Tuesday. It reads:
Towards
our earlier announced march together with the parents of our abducted
Chibok girls and the Chibok community to re-engage with the president on
the matter of their rescue this Thursday 14 January, a delegation of
parents left Chibok this morning Tuesday 12 January for a 2-day journey
to Abuja.
Despite their meagre income, the over
120 parents were determined and paid the bus fare from Chibok to enable
them to partake in the march to re-engage with the president after the
first meeting of 8 July 2015.
At about 8 am, we
received information that they had been barred from proceeding by
soldiers. We wondered if this was perhaps a random solitary act of some
overzealous checkpoint leader or an action directed from the military
high-command.
Not wanting to speculate and
escalate without establishing the facts behind the episode, we reached
out to the administration through Pastor Tunde Bakare — a
well-respected citizen and co-advocate of the cause of our Chibok girls.
We
were subsequently informed the buses carrying our Chibok girls’ parents
had been allowed to proceed on the journey to Abuja. However, only this
evening, we were again informed that the checkpoint officers in Askira
had allowed only 4 of the bus load of parents and held back 3 but we can
factually confirm that 5 buses in all were held back — 2 in Chibok and 3
in Askira.
Tonight, the top echelon of the
military and security team reached out apologising for the uncalled for
and regrettable incident. Reasons adduced were that the fragile security
context could have exposed such a large contingent of the parents to
risks. Whilst we appreciate the legitimate safety concerns, we are
convinced however that it could have been better handled with dignified
treatment of parents who have been heartbroken over the last 638 days of
their daughters’ captivity.
We therefore demand:
I. a public apology to parent for this avoidable and unfortunate episode, and
II.
a public commitment that the military will transport them out to Abuja
tomorrow to enable them lead the march to meet with the president on
Thursday.
The military has accepted and confirmed
to us that it will fully handle the movement of the remaining remaining
parents to Abuja tomorrow Wednesday 13 January. The parents are all set
to re-embark on their botched journey while we await the arrival of the
set that successfully left Chibok earlier today for Abuja.
We now await the public apology to the parents and the Chibok community.