Nigerians urge release of Chibok girls

Nigerians have staged a sit-in to renew calls for the release of more than 200 girls kidnapped from their boarding school in April.

The sit-in, organized by the Bring Back Our Girls advocacy group, was held in the Nigerian capital, Abuja on Friday.

The families of the abducted girls were also among the demonstrators, who called for the government to secure the release of the 219 girls.

Nigeria’s former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili said there is still hope that efforts for the freedom of the girls will work out.

“I just look at it and I say that only God knows what these girls are going through,” Ezekwesili said, adding, “That is why they need a voice, whether the people speaking out for them are ten or one million; the more the better for them. We must stand and insist that these girls are brought back, safe and alive.”

“We do not know who these girls are going to be. They could be the ones that would solve our problems as a nation. So why should we give up on them?”

Boko Haram Takfiri militants took the students from a secondary school in the Chibok village near the Cameroon border in April.

The abduction of the schoolgirls prompted international condemnation.

Difficult though a campaign for the freedom of the girls might be, the former Nigerian minister stated, adding that authorities should not abandon hope.

“It comes at a price. I have been pelted with insults, I’ve been maligned, but it doesn’t matter, because nothing any of us is going through can be compared to the plight of those girls,” Ezekwesili said.
 
IA/HSN/KA